To keep my minion entertained, and because, truthfully, even I wasn't used to lazing around so much, I decided to prepare some magic to kill the incoming invaders.

One of the ingredients I needed was a large amount of animal blood, and since Soea was so bored, even more bored than I was, I decided that she should go and get it.

 

I sat up, starting to rise to my feet. Soea, who happened to be watching me, sat up quickly in response. She probably reacted like this because I hadn't moved much in the last few days, and she moved faster than I expected.

By the time I had made it to my feet, she was already kneeling in front of me and expectantly waiting for orders.

I felt slightly bad, it was obvious now that she had been incredibly bored, she badly needed something to do.

Smiling slightly, I walked over and placed a hand on her head, "Soea, please go and gather some small animals from the surroundings. I will be using their blood. So when killing them, please keep the blood loss to the minimum possible."

I noticed that I had unconsciously touched her, I found her reactions cute and amusing, and maybe slightly addictive.

"Of course, my lord. I will do whatever you wish." She trembled slightly as she looked up at me, I could see the determination in her glowing blue eyes.

It reminded me of back when I was religious, the way she kept saying 'I will do whatever you wish', or 'your wish is my command' or words like that, this was the hallmark of a religious person no matter the world they were on. As long as they worshiped the bad gods, such as gods of light, love, justice, and other concepts.

Soea quickly stroked my arm with her tail, looking like she was ready to go fulfil my request wherever I ordered. However, other than preparing herself, she didn't move. I still had my hand on her head, and she didn't seem willing to break contact with me out of her own free will.

I smiled at her and ruffled her soft hair a bit before releasing her.

She placed a hand on her head, a strange smile on her face. Jumping to her feet, she rushed to fulfil my request, dashing from the room and towing her Thrall along behind her with her tail. She even flapped her wings slightly to increase her speed.

Such an energetic girl.

Watching the two of them leaving, I felt a surge of amusement.

Now, I need to make sure that I remember all of the required Glyphs, Sigils and Runes for the spell that I was preparing to cast.

The spell would surround the Throne Room in an array specifically designed to boost the strength of a preset spell, with Soea as the base. I would use this to extend the range and power of Soea's Thrall spell. Then I would lure the subjugation team into the room and have her change them all at once.

An army of A-Rank Thralls could be useful.

After a few minutes, Soea burst back into the room, her arms were full of dead animals. All of them had been cleanly killed by snapping their necks, making sure that when they died, they hadn't lost any blood. Her Thrall, who was still entangled in her tail, had his arms full of animals as well.

This girl was incredibly efficient.

She had been newly changed, so I had expected that she would have had some trouble with her new and more powerful body.

The ease at which she could adapt pleasantly surprised me.

Though, I disliked animal cruelty, I had no choice, I needed a lot of blood for the Sigils.

"My lord! My lord, I have what you have requested!" Soea exclaimed excitedly as she gave off a 'Praise me' aura. Her tail, which had been released from around her Thrall, was thrashing from side to side in a mixture of happiness and pride.

This girl had an expressive tail.

Signalling her to place the animals on the floor, I walked over to her.

She dropped the animals and stared at me.

Answering her expectation, I stepped over and started stroking her hair.

"Good job!" I spoke, gently running my fingers through her hair, and I played with the tips of her curled horns when I found them. Her hair was warm and soft, I found it strangely comforting to play with.

Her tail wrapped around my arm.

She looked so happy, staring into my face and looked like she would begin to purr, nuzzling against my hand. Her shoulders were trembling, and goosebumps raised on her arms. But, she also squirmed in a slightly disturbing way, but I tried not to mind it.

I felt that I took it a little too far when her knees weakened and she fell backwards onto the bed behind her. But with her tail wrapped around my arm, she slowed down and didn't get hurt.

She lay on her back and stared at me with an oddly slack grin, the tip of her tail stroking my arm.

"Sorry," I muttered to her, as I bent down and picked up one of the animals.

The next step for the creation of the massive spell array was to move the mattresses out of the way, to clear a space in the middle of the floor. Soea got up and walked over to one of the walls, letting me have some room and watching what I was doing.

I still had some problems with the next step, even after being in this world for going on seven years. I could easily kill Monsters, or even people, but slaughtering animals just to drain the blood, I felt a little squeamish for some reason.

It wasn't enough to make me slow down, or even pause though.

I slit the throat of the animal, holding it upside-down and controlling the blood that dripped out, gathering it into a sphere that floated next to me.

While I had used Blood Magic fairly often, I mainly used my own blood or the blood of my enemies, instead of ordinary animals.

Draining the blood from all of the animals that Soea brought in, I began chanting and dripping the blood onto the stones. I used my skills in Blood Control, to arrange intricate Sigils.

Strange and esoteric symbols were constructed, their deep crimson colour and blasphemous shapes both drew and repelled the eyes. The symbols were all arranged into the shape of concentric circles joined by twisting chains, running all over the floor and even up the walls.

The primary Boosting Sigil, the Sigil that I would pour mana into to supply it for Soea's spell, was placed onto the seat of the throne. I would be sitting on the throne, when they entered the room.

I surrounded the throne with the outline of the Boosting Sigil, looping the chains of Sigils around it in a slightly skewed spiral, until it ended on the centre of the throne.

Located in the centre of the room was the main Rune circle that Soea would sit in, as the catalyst of the spell.

It took me twenty minutes to finally complete the blood Sigils and drawing joining Glyphs for the first stage of the spell.

Soea was watching me the entire time, intrigued.

When she saw the magics of different types drawn on the walls and floor, composed from the deep crimson of blood, and the rainbow colours of Non-attributed Arcane magic, it seems like her curiosity had reached the peak.

She had grown up in a church, or at least been in the church since she was young, so it was unsurprising that she had no knowledge of blood magic.

"You will be an antenna and catalyst for this magic-boosting array," I pointed to the primary Runic circle in the middle of the room, "I will sit on the throne and utilize the boosting Sigil, supplying you with all the mana and ability to penetrate magic resistance. This will allow your Thrall spell to work and change a lot of people at once."

Hearing that she would be the primary core and catalyst for the spell, she seemed to be rather happy to be of use. What gave it away the most was how her tail lashed and her wings twitched.

Taking a few seconds to calm down, Soea quickly scampered over to the circle and sat in it with her slim legs crossed. She seemed like she wanted to be ready at a moment's notice, even though I told her that I didn't know when we would use the spell.

She just looked at me with her puppy eyes and said that since I had entrusted her with such an important task there was no way that she would risk failing me, risk letting up her concentration in case the enemies arrived when we didn't expect them.

Seeing someone so happy and enthusiastic to obey me, it seemed so wrong. I preferred to be the one taking orders, I wasn't a good leader. I was also very worried about failing her.

Again I felt slightly bad about changing her, about forcing her to love me, to feel the admiration for me that she had felt for Arre. Though, the spell did seem to remove most of her inhibitions and cured her shyness.

A question was bugging me: if I didn't have need of it, would I change her back?

I was forced to keep her like this because of my plans, I need her absolute loyalty.

She sat perfectly still in the centre of the Runic circle.

Since I had more magic symbols to create, I had only completed the first stage of the design, the next stages were more extensive and would take a lot longer. But I would look up from to time, worried when Soea missed a feeding.

She started to look hungry, to look pale and weak, but she didn't look like she was going to move. I gave her a little more time, but she still stayed in the same position, so I asked her if she was going to feed. To which, she shook her head.

"My lord, I will stay here and carry out the important task that you have given me. You entrusted me with a mission of such importance...I will never betray my lord's trust, even if this body starves and withers away. I shall obey you, even at the cost of my life!" The look in her eyes, it hurt me, to see such trust.

So I said that she could feed there if she wanted, I acted on instinct.

As soon as the words left my mouth, the highly worried Thrall who had been standing by the side and watching his mistress, rushed over. He started stripping as he approached.

Soea dismissed her clothing with a single thought.

I would never abuse a pet, be it by starving or by any other way. Even if the pet asked me to, begged me to abuse her.

Whoops, it seems that I had slipped into delusions.

Well, it had been quite a while since I had seen a naked girl.

Soea had a very nice body, well-shaped with pure white skin. Her clear skin was very soft and supple, it dented in and bounced back as the Thrall's hand touched, stroked her.

It took a lot of effort, but I managed to tear my eyes away from the impromptu floor-show, drawing my mind back to working on the remaining magic that I had to complete.

I had a few more Glyphs to align, to finish linking some of the chains between the Magic Circles and Arrays. The smell of fresh blood had been covering all else, at first, but fortunately another scent began to fill the room. The smell was strangely sweet and made my nose tingle, but I liked it.

It was caused by my Succubus releasing pheromones, which was what Succubi did before they fed and as they fed, to draw in and ensnare prey.

Unfortunately the noises behind me were making it difficult for me to focus. I had to recast the Glyph on one of the doors at least two times. Then I slipped up and accidentally snuck a few peeks at my minion, and saw that she was staring at me, her heart in her eyes.

Her heart and a lot of ardour.

When she saw me looking, she deliberately licked her lips seductively.

Her Thrall was facing away from me with Soea on his lap, she was peering over the shoulder of her Thrall while feeding.

I very quickly looked away, but I am sure that I heard a soft sigh when I did.

Finally managing to finish the last of the Sigils and Glyphs, I decided to do a sweep for presences.

And I sensed them.

There were a few 'powerful' presences approaching.

Since they didn't trigger any of my basic Wards that I had placed outside the castle, it seems that there was someone among the group who could hide them.

It was difficult for me to tell what was powerful for a Human, it like trying to tell the difference between a distance of one or two millimetres when using the map of a continent.

As long as there were no Heroes among Humanity, they were neither strong nor dangerous, some could just hit a tiny bit harder than others, like comparing mosquitoes and sand-flies.

The noises of Soea's feeding finally stopped.

With the cessation of noise, I looked over at Soea and the Thrall, still sitting in the main control circle.

She was still sitting on the Thrall's lap as he faced away from me with his head bowed and his head was pressed against her shoulder. She lifted herself up, causing the Thrall under her to twitch slightly.

The Thrall moved from under her and walked over to his clothing.

Soea's flushed skin was covered with a thin sheen of sweat which glimmered softly under the rainbow and deep crimson lighting from the magic, her breathing was rapid and disordered. Her panting caused her bountiful chest to bounce and sway in a hypnotizing way.

As my eyes met hers, after a lot of effort on my part I managed to look away. Staring at the floor, she muttered at a quiet voice, "Sorry, my lord, that you had to see my disgusting body." As she said this, her bat wings enlarged and curled forwards, covering her body and hiding all but her head from view.

"Why do you say your body is disgusting?" I was curious as to how she could think this.

Well, it seems that somehow Soea had gotten the misconception that I didn't want her to feed in the same room as me because I found her body ugly or disgusting in some way.

But when she had hormones flooding her, in the throes of ecstasy, she saw me looking at her and she didn't seem to be under the mistake like she was now. It must be the sense of inferiority that all girls suffer from, no matter how good looking they were.

I couldn't let her keep that misconception.

"There is nothing wrong with your body, Soea. That's not the reason that I didn't want you to feed in the same room as me." While I was saying that she was incorrect, I couldn't say the real reason, for two reasons.

The first reason was because it would make me seem rather perverted and she would start to doubt me, which would cause problems with my plan.

The other was that... Well, it was embarrassing.

"Really?" The sad look on her face disappeared almost instantly, "Then, would my lord like to see more?"

This girl's mind is a little strange.

As she spoke, she moved her wings out of the way, displaying her full glory, puffing out her chest and rearranging her sitting position, separating her legs a little.

She looked up at me with expectant eyes, her tongue trailing lightly over her blood-red lips.

Well, that was a rather unexpected reaction, and one I am unsure how to respond. Well, of course, I could figure out what response she wished for, but I had no idea how it would affect our interactions if I gave into the lust that I felt.

I couldn't help but mutter a quiet, "Sorry."

She looked disappointed, because she knew that her wishes had been denied, but she also expected me to say that.

"So, what is your wish, my lord?"

"I need to finish the ritual." I felt her mana building, as she was about to re-manifest her clothing, "Don't get dressed just yet."

She tilted her head in confusion, but stopped gathering her mana.

I swear that I saw a tiny glimmer of a smile at the edge of her mouth, though it was probably just an illusion.