Chapter 596: You wretched creature!

"Lirae!" one of the aunts gasped, clutching her chest. "What is this? What have you done?!" Even the royal elders, who had centuries of cultivation behind them, felt their vitality ebbing with every pulse of her aura.

Another staggered back. "She’s... draining us. Just by standing there!"

The patriarch snarled, "You dare threaten your elders? You dare use corruption-born power against the blood that raised you?"

Damon’s poison was already seeping into the air, invisible, silent, numbing. Combined with Lirae’s aura, the royal family found themselves trapped in a suffocating pressure that they had never imagined could come from the girl they once dismissed as fragile and useless.

The patriarch’s composure finally cracked. "Impossible... The Legacy should not have allowed this! That... thing... should belong to the heir of the family, not-"

"If you step forward again," Lirae spoke, her entire body trembling. "I will defend my choice. Even if it means spilling blood kin." Her gaze darkened. "Don’t... Don’t make me test my new strength on you."

The grandmother, still holding her wrist but now visibly shaking, whispered hoarsely, "Child... put... it... down. You don’t know what you’re doing."

Lirae’s voice dropped to a whisper drenched in heartbreak. "I know exactly what I am doing. I’m choosing the only person who ever chose me."

Damon stepped closer. He knew it was time for him to take it from here. Lirae was very kind and generous by nature. He did not want to put her in the uncomfortable position of fighting against her own family, even if they were a shitty lot.

"We’re leaving," he murmured, and blood tendrils shot forward, wrapping her.

They curled around Lirae’s waist, back, and arms in a protective embrace, not restricting her but pulling her closer to him in a clear claim. The tendrils flared once, like crimson serpents baring their fangs at the elves, before settling into a protective shell around her.

The elves panicked instantly.

"STOP HIM!"

"Get her away from him!"

"He’s taking her-"

Everyone prepared to stop and assault Damon, but they could make a move, a sea of rich, toxic blood, deadly enough to instantly kill a few elves, flooded the chamber.

"You wretched creature!" the patriarch hissed.

While the normal elven soldiers couldn’t handle Damon’s poison, the high elves immediately emitted a green aura, green mana flooding through their bodies, fighting to flush out the intense poison in the air.

Even then, they couldn’t completely get rid of it, and their movements and their mana usage became slow and sluggish. Only the grandfather and grandmother seemed to be untouched by the poison.

However, the two of them had odd looks in their eyes. Clearly, they were not doing as much as they should be doing.

The patriarch wheezed under the poison, glaring daggers at the old couple.

"WHY ARE THE TWO OF YOU JUST STANDING THERE?!" he roared. "BREAK HIS POISON! RESTRAIN THEM! DO SOMETHING!"

The grandmother’s eyes slid toward Damon and Lirae again. They lingered just a little too long on the way Lirae leaned into him, trusting and unafraid.

Unexpectedly, the old woman exhaled. "...No."

The patriarch jerked as if stabbed. "What do you mean, no?!"

"No," she repeated, softer this time. "I will not raise my hand against her. Not when the ancestor himself has given her his blessing."

Gasps erupted through the room. The uncles stared at her like she’d gone mad. The aunts nearly fainted. Erelion’s brothers looked betrayed. The three young women looked like someone had just told them their inheritance was gone.

Even Lirae, trembling in Damon’s arms, blinked up in surprise. No one had expected the stern old grand matriarch to react this way.

The old elf grinned. "I knew you would do this eventually, you old hag! Always calling me the bleeding heart when you are the real softie!"

The grandmother’s spine stiffened in outrage, but the damage was already done. The patriarch looked like someone had yanked the entire kingdom out from under his feet. "You... you dare defy the bloodline order? You dare defy me?!"

Her gaze didn’t leave Lirae for a heartbeat. "If the ancestor allowed her transformation," she said slowly, "then who are we to reject it? He never once made a mistake in choosing our future. If he made her a blood elf... then it is not corruption. It is ascension."

The room erupted in chaos again.

"Impossible! She’s been compromised! That thing she’s holding-"

"She’s bewitched! We must restrain her!"

The grandfather snorted loudly. "Bewitched? She’s the rightful heir now. Stronger than the lot of you combined."

A collective intake of breath rippled through the gathered elves.

"Rightful... heir? You can’t be serious! She abandoned the family!"

"She bonded with a vampire! She spat on elven purity!"

Ignoring everyone, the grandmother pressed her hand to her heart. "Lirae... I failed you. We all did. We left you in a foreign land, without support, without guidance... without love." She swallowed. "If you found someone who gives you all of that and more, someone willing to tear through kingdoms for you, then I will not stand in your way."

The patriarch’s aura flared in outrage. "You senile old bat!"

"Oh, shut up," the grandmother snapped, slapping him across the back of the head. "If she leaves, at least I know she is leaving with someone who will protect her better than we ever did."

Damon gave her a nod. The old elf nodded in return. There was no need to say anything else. Without wasting another second, he hurriedly dashed out of the chamber with Lirae bundled up in blood tendrils.

All around him, elves scrambled, some collapsing under the poison, others stumbling as their mana spiraled chaotically, a few trying desperately to intercept him but only failing miserably. The chamber devolved into panicked chaos, shouts echoing off the ancient stone walls.

"STOP HIM!"

"BLOCK THE EXIT!"

"He’s escaping with the heir!"

"Don’t let the bloodsucker escape! Kill him! Save the princess!

***

Chapter 6 Mass Release sponsored by Teoswig