A Serpent's Tale
Chapter 326: Leaving a Mark

Chapter 326: Leaving a Mark

The Duchess’ pupils shrunk and her teeth clattered together as she tried to lift herself upright, but the pressure from both of my [Bloodline Aura] forced her and nearly everyone else around me to the ground.

I watched as she and everyone else surrounding me either fell unconscious or struggled to even stay awake.

The demon was also barely managing to stay conscious as it glared up at me with a seething animosity, its mouth foaming up with blood as it pressed its teeth and fangs to the point of breaking them.

Now that I can get a good look at his face now, I can see some features of someone really familiar. Just who was this poor sod?

...

’Oh my Goddess... It’s the Duchess’ nephew! Why is he possessed by a demon?’

The more I looked at him, the more I saw his face, but twisted and warped into that of a hideous demonic creature.

It seems like he made a pact with a demon from the Wrath Ring if I had to guess, and that pact included... Whatever the fuck is going on with what’s before me.

His eyes were still clear and full of hate, but the more I pressed down upon the little shit with my [Bloodline Aura], the more of a demonic presence was exuded off of his body.

It even started to bulge and expand from its already unnaturally large form into something even more monstrous than it already was.

I watched as several horns sprouted from its skull, the scales on its tail growing larger, cracking and spreading up its body, soon covering all skin completely.

The eyes, which never left mine, then turned pure red, as if they were bleeding internally. Before long, a pure black pupil was formed, still pointed at me.

And then, it began to laugh.

"Ehehahahhaagghhh..."

It wasn’t a particularly menacing laugh or anything, but it was rather gutturally gruesome and putrid to even hear.

"Gehahahahaaahaaaa..."

It kept on laughing, spitting blood out of its mouth with each expulsion of air from its seemingly smelly innards.

Seriously, with each breath it exhaled, it let out a putrid rotting stench of the damned, a smell I’m familiar with only because my father showed it to me once. And it’s just as horrible as last time, even after well over a century since I last smelled it.

"Ughh..." I almost lost my concentration over what I was doing because of it, it was that bad.

Bahahahahehehehehheegghhh..."

The demon just laughed as I retched at its presence, which was clearly rotting the mortal body that it was inhabiting currently.

Literally, it was physically rotting the body it was possessing from the inside out as it transformed.

Also it finally finished its transformation, and it had become so large that it barely even fit inside of this hallway, with the flesh digging into the bars of the cells behind it and even into the cracks int the ceiling and floor.

I couldn’t actually see how its body was pressed into anything, just that with how big it was, it was obvious that was what’s happening.

It finally stopped laughing though. But it let out a sigh, which in turn caused me to retch once more. It was so foul a stench now that I almost puked. It was that bad.

Smell aside, now that the demon had seemingly finished growing, it began to talk to me.

"Ahh, so we have an earth-born here, interesting..." The voice that came from it was a dreary one, laced with a deadly undertone. And the way his voice came out sounded like it had been grated by a cheese grater.

"And which circle sired you then?" The demon inquired, extending its neck out towards me.

It only managed half a metre before I spewed a swath of [Lust Flames] at it.

It hissed and shrunk back, the head sinking into the body, contorting it further than it already was.

"Servant of Asmodeus, eh? Interesting, interesting..."

’I don’t wanna deal with this... How do I get rid of this thing and also make it so that this bastard can’t get back at me...’

As I contemplated on how to rid myself of this thing forever, it continued rambling on, this time towards the Duchess.

"You... You’re family of this mortal body of mine... Very tasty soul. Mine now, you soon will join him in Hell..."

"Wh-What are you saying?" The Duchess stammered as she recoiled back, refusing to believe what she just heard.

The demon, in response to her reaction, went back to laughing.

"Gehehehahahahaha..."

Meanwhile, I was still trying to figure out the best way to banish this demon.

’Wait... Banish... I can do the non-holy equivelent of exorcism. Banishment from the mortal plane! But I still need to make sure that it can’t come back. Hmm, maybe I could leave a mark on its soul so that when it returns to hell, it’ll be hunted or something. But what should I leave as a mark though?’

"And what’s your purpose here, earth-born? Why do you ruin my plans so?"

I stopped thinking and looked at the demon in confusion. I hadn’t ruined its plans, I didn’t even know what plans it was talking about.

"The fuck are you talking about? What plans? I didn’t even know you existed like five minutes ago."

"Oohhh... I see..." The demon ignored my questions and just begun rambling, "So you’re the one who snuffed Skaelvyrn out before he could properly possess that girl..."

What?

’Wait... Skaelvyrn? Is that the demon that tried to possess Astryza? So that would mean that this thing...’

As I processed this information, my shock was evident by my flames dimming down to the point that they would’ve almost been put out if not for the fact that the demon kept prattling on.

"Ah, she must’ve been someone dear to you. Shame that Skaelvyrn couldn’t fully claim that accursed vessel... Kehehehahahahahhgggg"

’Acursed? Cursed... CURSE! I could leave a curse on it and then banish it to hell!’

The demon didn’t like my sudden change in my mood. Especially because I was now looking at it with a maddened look.

My [Hell Fire] flared up again, completely covering my body as I approached the infested body of the demon, raising my left hand and igniting it with [Lust Flame]’s.

The demon tried to retreat, but couldn’t due to its excessive and oversized body.

Fear grew in its eyes as it tried to beg, sensing that something bad was going to happen to it.

Such instincts were valid, as I planned to leave a cursed mark upon its very soul. What kind of curse mark, I did not yet know, but I would leave one.

One that would forever mark it for eternal damnation.

’Heh, rather ironic that. A demon marked for eternal damnation. Heh heh...’

"Please! I-I-I-I’m sorry for-"

I cut this abominable thing of before it could say anything else, "You don’t deserve mercy."

With that, I finally reached its head, after a very slow crawl over to it, which I did to let the fear sink into it.

And I hadn’t thought of what or how to curse the demon’s soul to be condemned by my people, my people being my father’s subjects, so I just let my gut instincts take over as I ignited my hand in [Soul Flame]’s also, and began to carve a symbol into its forehead, alongside its very soul.

My claws came out naturally as I began to imprint this mark into the demons soul, its screams the same as those of the damned souls of hell, for it would soon be joining them.

The first thing that was written was a cross between the rune for ’Sin’ and ’Cursed’ which was jagged and roughly eched into the demon’s forehead.

But I wasn’t done, no. I’d only just gotten started.

My guts told me to keep going, so I did, and I then basically started to draw. As for what I drew, it was the ancient serpentines form made out of chains, and it looked as if it was eating its own tail.

Surrounding all of that, were flames made from runes of Lust and authority. There was a sensual yet dominant nature of the way that these flame came out.

To finish it off, the whole thing was then encapsulated by the centre of a pentagram, with the symbol of lust visible in the surrounding triangles.

Except for the top most triangle, that had a crown inside of it.

With that last thing, I had finished leaving the mark, infused with my powers into this demon forever.

I pulled away and took a good look at what exactly I had just created.