Chapter 288: The Blood Maiden
Inside the building, Joan used up a large portion of her strength to control as many people as possible while glaring at the door in front of her. Joan was not very good at drawing magic circles; it was Gilles who knew a lot about it. But since Gilles was dead now, Joan had to do the best she could to finish the ritual as quickly as possible.
Five tall men under Joan's control were drawing on the wall of the building very quickly. Joan was splitting her consciousness between the five of them and making them draw the magic circles on the wall.
Controlling these many people at the same time was making her grow extremely weak, but Joan tried her best to power through the process because she knew that if she did not do something now, she was going to die here.
The ritual that Gilles had been preparing was something that would give Joan more power. It would allow Joan to act outside of the game's control. Giles would have needed another day or two to complete it, but Joan knew that she did not have that sort of time. There was a literal monster at her door, so she had to hurry up and finish the ritual as quickly as possible before Mark could get in.
It didn't matter if she did everything perfectly or not. As long as she was able to move about well again, that was all that mattered to her. She was not going to die a second time without getting her revenge!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The sound of the entrance being slammed into made the entire building shake, and Joan urged her minions to hurry up! Joan groaned as she felt a massive amount of her strength leaving her and waited with bated breath as her minions finally finished off the last of the magic circles!
Immediately they were done, she shouted at the top of her lungs, "Ténèbres et vilenie, conformez-vous à mes ordres et accordez-moi le pouvoir de résister aux dieux!"
(A/N: Roughtly translates to; Blood and Darkness, answer my command!)
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Her words were said in French with a deep, rumbling undertone that made everything in the room shake!
[Sonic Impact]!
Boom!
The minions that were drawing on the wall were immediately thrown back by a massive explosion that blew up the entrance of the museum. Mark waved his hand to get rid of the dust as he walked into the room. He looked around him curiously until his eyes finally landed on Joan in the middle of the room. Her head was bowed, and he raised his brow in surprise as he saw her tied to the post.
Mark was about to take a step toward her, but he had to stop as he felt a massive amount of mana filling the entire room. Joan raised her head with a wide smile on her face, and Mark cursed and jumped back as the mana in the room spiked!
KA-BOOM!
The entire museum exploded in a massive fireball, and Mark jumped out from the smoke with his hand up to his face. Mark waved his hand to the side to get rid of the smoke once he was out of the fire, and he glared around him to see what was happening.
The entire building was destroyed, and all the bodies inside were scattered around the museum grounds.
'That's a lot of bodies. She wouldn't just blow herself up after all that talk. What the hell is she up to?'
Does it have something to do with how she was tied to that post before? Maybe she was summoned with a disadvantage and she was trying to get rid of it by using all these people. Then what is with the explosion?
Mark was actually right. The king was summoned as a silent observer. The king is not meant to be in the middle of the battle, and the game was designed so that the king would have a lot of minions and send them out to do the fighting so that the king itself would always be safe. That is why Joan was summoned without any power of her own.
But even though she was summoned without any power, she was summoned with more than enough mana to be able to control all of the minions that she had. Her entire fighting style was supposed to be focused on sending out her minions and having them fight for her, but Joan did not want that. She did not want to be a part of the game, and she did not care about sending her minions out.
Mark looked up into the sky as a massive amount of blood started to rise from the ground all around him. All of the blood that had been in the museum was being dragged off the ground, and they were all flying into the air.
The long exposure to air would have made the blood coagulate already, but the presence of mana in the blood as well as the fact that Gilles used that magic ritual to preserve the blood in its optimal state prevented it from coagulating.
Boom!
A massive explosion went off, and Mark looked up to Joan fly out from the rubble and float into the air. The blood followed after her as she raised her hand calmly and gathered around her body like a wave of red armor.
Joan smiled. This is what she had been looking for all this time - the feeling of freedom.
Joan's body was no longer burnt, and the pole that she had been tied to was completely destroyed. Her clothes were still shredded, but there were no scars or injuries on her as far as Mark could see.
'She did something to heal herself? And she can control blood as well. This is going to be a messy fight.'
Mark's mind was already racing as he tried to find a way to win this fight. The only thing that Mark knew about blood was that it coagulates if it leaves the body for a long time and it clots when it leaves the body for a long time. But that wouldn't be possible now since Mark knew that Joan had done something to preserve the blood and prevent it from clotting.
Another possibility was freezing it. Would blood even freeze?
Mark's lips started to stretch into a grin as he pieced together the various possibilities and tried to come up with a solution. But as time went on, his smile slowly started to die out and turn stale as if something didn't sit well with him.
He frowned at Joan.
'What is this feeling?'
Mark asked himself this question, but there was no immediate answer to it. He had to push the feeling aside as he saw Joan getting ready for another attack.
"You have refused my offer of partnership, and now you will be nothing but a footnote in my memoir after I have fought my way through the gods and won. It is too bad that you will not be here to see it."
SLOSH!!
Mark immediately jumped back as he saw even more blood being dragged into the air! The blood was swirling and spinning around itself, and Mark could feel his stomach churn in discomfort as he watched it.
"That's a fucking disgusting way to gain power."
Joan raised her hand and the blood stopped spinning before most of it broke off and started to form giant spikes in the air that were all pointed straight at Mark. Mark dashed to the side as Joan released the spikes and they all flew straight for him!
Woosh!