Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Chapter 471: What have you dabbled in?

For a while, Revon had tried and failed to find the words needed to console his daughter. For nearly two decades, he had allowed himself to be empty and unfeeling and if there was one blessing to this ordeal of the Mask of Malevolent Aura, it was that he finally got to feel something again.

The Mask was tense and then it breathed a sigh of relief when it sensed that the only emotions Revon was feeling at the moment were pain, sadness, and Regret. The half-breed had failed.

And then, Revon spoke.

”I- I understand...” he said.

”Yes, tell her,” the Mask egged him on.

”... It might take me the rest of my existence and centuries of groveling and overcorrection, but I will make it all right,” Revon continued.

”Good,” The Mask laughed, ”Now, let’s finish what we’ve started.”

”... It will take a while before I no longer feel what I feel at this moment— Really, it might take eternity but I promise you, I’ll find the light again.

And I will gain the right to call myself your father.”

”Haha, Yes—” the Mask began and then stopped short when it only now realized all Revon had said wasn’t in acceptance of the oblivion it had offered.

Yes, Revon was feeling pain, sadness, and regret in the moment but, for the first time today, it wasn’t because the Malevolent Aura was in his body. Everything Revon was feeling in that moment was a retrospective of the decisions he had made for almost two decades. But he didn’t let it consume him. He accepted it and resolved to work his way from that feeling.

It’s possible and natural to feel things. One must simply strive not to let them consume their very being. Especially not emotions that make them prone to self-destruction.

Kaya felt wetness sliding down her cheeks and only now realized she was shedding tears in this mental space where the concept should not even exist. She raised her hands and wiped the tears.

”That’s all I ever wanted,” she said, ”That you try.”

”No,” The Mask voiced, ”Revon, what are you doing?”

The Mask spoke with a tremor that struck Revon’s damaged mental state but even though the cracks hadn’t been mended, it was unshaken further. Held together by Revon’s determination to do better as well as Kaya’s strength that she had offered with her invitation and her words.

”I’m sorry,” Revon said with a shrug and a sad smile, ”But, my daughter needs me.”

”YOU’RE SORRY?!!!” The Mask yelled so loudly that its power spread all over Kaya’s mental space.

Revon stood resolute.

”I’m sorry that you were created from my suffering and have existed for years to carry it on. But I can’t hurt my daughter anymore. For once in my life, I can actually do something for her and I must,” he said.

”You don’t get to call it quits!” The Mask roared, ”WE BELONG TOGETHER!!!”

”I don’t think so,” Revon said, ”You’ve worked so hard to convince me but if we do belong together, you wouldn’t have had to.

When we reunited, I felt whole for the first time in years and thought that was normal. Now I know it’s not. I can and do have emotions separate from you.”

Revon was right. The moment he allowed himself to feel pain, sadness, and regret for his past rather than a reunion with the Malevolent Aura, he truly became complete. Right now, within Revon, the space the Malevolent Aura previously occupied now belonged to his own emotions. Emotions Revon had actual control over and could still ensure didn’t go crazy and take him over.

”I’m sorry, but it’s over,” Revon said and as the words left his lips, he knew them to be complete truths.

”IT’S OVER WHEN I SAY IT IS!!!” The Mask yelled and worked its feelers all over Revon but found no natural access. The path it had taken to combine with Revon had been closed.

So the Mask changed tactics as its Malevolent Aura sought to do to Revon what it had tried to do with Kaya which was to devour his emotions rather than make him a host.

”Oh no, you don’t,” Kaya said and thrust her hands forward, summoning Nature Energy that fired at the Mask like a lance.

Now that it had been separated from her father, Kaya could properly detect the true essence of the Malevolent Aura and she aimed for it.

Her attack hit and destroyed a part of the Malevolent essence but the Mask was already recovering. The lance of Nature Energy came back by Kaya’s command and she transformed it into chains that wrapped around the Mask and its Malevolent Essence, holding it in place.

The Mask resisted, bolstering strength capable of pulling free if given long enough. It even cackled with confidence as it yelled at Kaya,

”You can’t bind me! You can’t hold me! And now that I’m in your mind, it is mine!”

Kaya frowned. The threat didn’t actually bother her but she knew that if she kept attacking like this, things would turn out as they had been looking like before her father joined the fight in the first place; she would run out of Nature Energy before she put an end to the enemy.

Fortunately, she had a trump card. A primary reason she had offered the invitation was to bring the Mask ans its Malevolent Aura into her mind.

Kaya shut her eyes and searched the farthest recesses of her mental space for that one card she had to play. And then her eyelids flew open as she smiled,

”Found it!”

Strange Golden Arcane Scripts appeared and became encased in an Arcane Circle that Revon, with all his magical acumen, could not actually recognize.

The Arcane Circle was the one Caius had put in Kaya’s mind to bolster her Evolutionary charge as well as help her grow the Divine seed within her. The Arcane Circle in its base state—nsfirr Caius even completed it—dealt with emotions as those were the Evolution Triggers for Vampires.

Caius had taken out all symbols representing any other emotions besides Arousal to give himself exclusive access to Kaya’s Evolutionary Charge but the Arcane Circle’s connection to Emotions remained poignant. Kaya had spent a good bit of time studying the Arcane Circle in her dedication to use it to improve the sliver of Divinity within her which in turn boosted the speed of her Magical advancements.

All that studying had given her a lot of insight into the Arcane Circle and gave her the confidence to kickstart it and turn its power onto the Mask of Malevolent Aura.

”What— what’s this?!” The Mask asked with confusion at first and then its eyeholes widened in horror when it felt a suction force pulling at the Pain, Sadness, and Regret within it, i.e. the very emotions that had given rise to its existence in the first place.

”No! YOU CAN’T!!!” The Mask yelled and struggled as it tried to unleash an emotional attack.

Alas, it found that it could not. That power came from the emotions and with the emotions getting pulled away, the power left with it.

At the moment, Kaya was the strongest within her mental space. Outside of here, she lacked the magical and physical strength to battle her enemy, but here, the little sliver of Divinity she possessed could bolster her to incredible heights.

Essentially, she offered the invitation to change the battlefield to somewhere where she could better control the outcome.

The Mask would have been capable of contesting if it were still connected with Revon. It could have drawn on Revon’s mental state, damaged as it was, and at least had a base to retreat to if that failed.

Now though, it was stranded in the Mental Domain of a Nature Mage who still had a good bit of Nature Energy in her reserves and, surprise, surprise, also had a sliver of Divinity.

”Filthy half-breed! What have you dabbled in?!” The Mask asked in fear.

Revon, with his eyes wide as he watched it all, had the same question.

Rather than answer, Kaya completed the process and pulled the emotions out of the Malevolent Aura and added them in the form of Arcane Scripts to the Arcane Circle.

Now, all that was left of the ’Malevolent Aura’ was its essence, i.e. its sentience. And, having wrapped that essence in chains of Nature Energy, Kaya just needs to slam her palms together, interlock her fingers, and clench hard to use the chains to exorcise the last of the Aura’s sentience...

*Spffff*

... into nothingness.