Chapter 50 – Vampire Hunting Plan (3)
Explosions rang out continuously in the plaza.
Bright red flames and scorching heat waves rose into the air, transforming into a gigantic red lotus that engulfed half of the plaza. The flame lotus also illuminated the night sky.
The cause of this destruction wasn’t just a simple Exploding Fire Arrow but its advanced version, the first-circle spell Flaming Star Formation.
Although the spell’s name sounded a little vague, it was one of the best suppressive-type spells available in the first circle!
While Flaming Star Formation didn’t possess as great of a firing rate as Stardust Resurgence (the advanced version of True Fireball), another suppressive-type, first-circle fire spell, its power far exceeded that of Stardust Resurgence.
Obviously, when going up against vampires, who possessed Rapid Regeneration and astonishing defensive capabilities, a spell that launched slow but powerful attacks was much better than a spell that dealt rapid but weaker attacks.
Furthermore, as Zwei’s Exploding Flame Arrow was already at complete mastery, he only had to spend two Lesser Skill Crystals to learn and fully master Flaming Star Formation. In contrast, if he wished to learn Stardust Resurgence, he would first have to learn True Fireball. In total, he would have to invest four Lesser Skill Crystals to acquire and fully master Stardust Resurgence. The investment cost clearly outweighed the potential profits.
Regardless, thanks to Flaming Star Formation, Zwei managed to push back Holman.
However, his opponent’s patience should be reaching its limits soon.
Zwei narrowed his eyes, and nine fist-sized orange fireballs appeared above his head once more.
Flaming Star Formation · Nine Consecutive Stars.
Thus far, the highest number of consecutive stars Zwei had summoned with the Flaming Star Formation was 36. In reality, though, as he had already fully mastered the spell, so long as he focused, he could summon as many as 99 stars consecutively!
However, doing so would drastically increase the spell’s complexity, casting time, and mana consumption. For instantaneous casting, launching nine stars at a time was his best option.
The next moment, a figure dashed out of the smoke-shrouded bombardment area. Like an arrow, this figure charged straight towards Zwei.
Nonetheless, Zwei remained unperturbed by this sudden attack. With a casual snap of his fingers, he launched all nine fireballs at Holman!
If it were before, Holman would’ve dodged these fireballs by relying on his superior reactions and speed. However, he chose not to evade them.
Ever since he became a vampire, never once had he been suppressed by a seemingly weak human for so long. Given this situation, combined with the terrible temper he brought back from the army and his worry that more town guards would arrive as the fight dragged on, his patience finally snapped.
In any case, with his regenerative abilities as a vampire, he could recover quickly from any injury short of fatal damage.
With this mentality, Holman withstood three of the flaming stars. He then broke through the blockade of flames and smoke and rushed at Zwei with a sinister grin.
With the exception of combat magicians, any other magician would become a punching bag if they allowed a vampire to get within melee range of them. Even escaping would become impossible.
In Holman’s eyes, all Zwei could do in this situation was erect a flimsy Mana Barrier, at most.
However, after Holman sliced apart the Mana Barrier hindering his advance, as if an invisible rope dragged Zwei’s body, the magician flew to the edge of the plaza and stopped dozens of centimeters above the ground. The magician then jumped lightly to the ground.
Naturally, Zwei wouldn’t have come challenging a vampire baron without any preparations.
After experiencing defeat in the Night Forest’s Heart, Zwei had spent his two remaining raid opportunities on the Noisy Beach. However, raiding the dungeon was only his secondary goal. His main goal in entering the dungeon was to practice a technique he came up with—utilizing Traction Anchor to pull himself to a specific location at a very fast speed, then switching out Traction Anchor with Mage Hand before he reached his destination, to prevent himself from hitting the wall or falling to the ground.
Truthfully, although Zwei’s previous performance had looked elegant and natural, even feeling quite heroic, it was actually a very difficult feat to pull off. At the very least, the number of times he had hit a cliff because he had mistimed his spell-switching while practicing the technique was significant. Occasionally, he even got shot down by the sickle crabs’ bubble attacks because he injected too little mana into Traction Anchor, which resulted in his flight speed being too slow.
In order to master this technique, Zwei had wasted so much time in the dungeon that his first raid received only a C-rank evaluation—an extremely poor result.
Of course, Holman wouldn’t know these things. However, the expression of ridicule on the young magician’s face nearly made the vampire spit out a mouthful of blood in anger.
Not only was he suppressed and beaten one-sidedly for so long, but his attempt at trading injury for injury had even failed miserably. He felt like a clown in this situation.
Anger rushed to his head, and he finally decided to make use of his trump card.
“Damned magician!” The veins on Holman’s forehead bulged, and his expression became even more ferocious. The iconic vampire fangs finally revealed themselves as they stretched out from under his upper lip. “You’ve successfully angered me! I’ll let you know what it means to provoke a noble of the dark!”
“What? Will I grow out dog teeth like you~?” Zwei said with a terrified expression. However, no matter how one looked at his expression, it was clearly faked. “How scary~! Even the pariga gnomes have better teeth!”
“Hmph! You’ll only get to flap your lips now!” Holman didn’t bother arguing with Zwei. Or to put it in another way, he felt that doing so would only lead to his bursting a vein.
The next moment, Holman floated into the air by relying on the blood tribe’s magic. Immediately afterward, countless crimson ribbons appeared in the air around him.
If one looked down at Byk Town from the sky right now, one would see a barrier, like a crimson eggshell covered in runes, enveloping the town. Moreover, dots of red light also started emerging from the town’s buildings and floating towards the gigantic barrier.
The Blood Palace’s true appearance had finally revealed itself!
At this time, a crimson mist also enveloped Holman, obscuring his figure.
By connecting himself with the Blood Palace, he could drastically increase his strength temporarily. However, in exchange for this strength, his body would suffer some damage, and he would have more difficulty in future promotions. Moreover, activating the Blood Palace on a large scale would attract the Church’s attention. Hence, he would have to adjust his plan to develop himself steadily and sacrifice some advantages to ensure his safety.
However, such a loss in exchange for disposing of this despicable magician was still tolerable!
Sensing the power surging in his body and the endless supply of blood mana coming from the Blood Palace, Holman felt as powerful as a god. He could easily crush the pesky magician with just a finger now!
However, to Holman’s confusion, not only did Zwei not panic upon seeing this abnormal situation, but he even revealed a smile of relief. This smile made it seem as if…Zwei had been expecting him to activate the Blood Palace!
Before Holman could launch an attack, Zwei started speaking out loud. “Blood Palace… This is a very special magic barrier. It can devour the blood of those enshrouded by it. Not only that, but it can even replenish itself using blood if damaged. So long as the people inside the barrier are still alive, the Blood Palace is basically an impenetrable fortress…which is why it gained the name of ‘Blood Palace.’ However, as it isn’t a high-ranking barrier, it still has a weakness.”
“How can a human know this?!” Holman’s eyes widened as he stared at Zwei in shock.
“Make a guess~.” Zwei revealed a confident smile on his face, as if everything was under his control.
Panicking, Holman extended a pair of crimson bat wings from his back and flew straight to his home. Unfortunately for him, Zwei then pinned him down with a full-powered Traction Anchor, and Holman was actually having difficulty breaking free of the spell!
As a result, Holman could only look helplessly at the hole in his house. To be precise, he was staring at the crimson tablet that had, at some point, appeared inside his room. This slowly rotating tablet was none other than the Blood Palace’s core—as well as its weakness!
Meanwhile, standing beside the crimson tablet was Alyssa, and in her hands was the Seablue Shortsword. After getting injected with the girl’s mana, the magic weapon was now emitting a light-blue glow.
The next moment, the girl ruthlessly swung the short sword at the tablet!
“No——!!!” Holman broke free from Zwei’s Traction Anchor with all his strength and flew straight for his house.
However, he was already too late. Although the Blood Palace’s core wouldn’t sustain any damage from an ordinary person’s attack, it was utterly helpless against magic weapons. Not to mention, the Seablue Shortsword was a product of the Magic Academy System, and Alyssa had even injected all her mana into the weapon.
As a result, the Blood Palace’s core shattered just like that. And following the tablet’s destruction, the crimson barrier and Holman’s mana also started collapsing.
“How dare you?! How dare you do this?!” Holman let loose a frenzied roar when he saw all his efforts go down the drain.
Perhaps due to his overly strong anger, Holman’s collapsing mana pool actually recovered temporarily. At that brief moment, a red glow shot out of his hand.
Vampiric Touch, a first-circle blood magic. In terms of power, it was weaker than even Zwei’s standard Magic Bullet. However, for ordinary people, this spell was no different from an invitation from death. This was because, aside from being capable of doing damage, the spell could also absorb the blood of the target and convert it into mana for the spell’s caster.
Zwei could’ve easily blocked this attack with a Mana Barrier if the attack was directed at him. However, the problem lay in the fact that Holman had launched his Vampiric Touch at Alyssa!
Zwei hadn’t expected Holman to be able to launch a spell even after his mana pool had collapsed, so the crimson light actually caught him flat-footed!
To make matters worse, Alyssa had just used up all her mana, so she couldn’t react to the attack, either!
However, just as the crimson light was about to reach Alyssa, a silver figure pushed her out of the crimson light’s path in the nick of time. The two then fell and tumbled on the floor a few times.
While Alyssa might not know who her savior was due to her dizziness, it was a different story for Zwei. With his excellent eyesight, he naturally could tell that the person who had pushed Alyssa to the ground was Tio, the girl who stayed glued to him.
According to Zwei’s plan, Tio should’ve remained in Old Vita’s house. However, she had most likely shadowed Alyssa. It was also fortunate that she had, as Zwei wasn’t exactly confident he could have saved Alyssa from Holman’s Vampiric Touch.
After relief washed over Zwei’s heart, a wave of burning anger quickly followed. The target of this anger was obviously the hapless vampire Holman.
At this time, Holman had also calmed down a little.
He knew that in his present state, it would be impossible for him to turn the tables on Zwei. Hence, running away was his best option!
However, before Holman could act on his decision to escape, he sensed a distinct wave of mana shooting toward him.
It’s just a Mage Hand? It doesn’t matter even if I endure it… After determining the identity of the spell used against him, Holman felt a little relieved. In his opinion, Zwei must’ve lost his mind to anger to use Mage Hand, a spell with almost no offensive power, against a vampire.
However, just as Holman made to block the Mage Hand with his own hand, he was fooled once more.
The thing that came flying at him wasn’t just a Mage Hand. Instead, the Mage Hand carried a tiny glass bottle. And upon colliding with Holman’s hand, the glass bottle shattered and spilled its crystal clear contents all over his body. An unbearable, searing pain came from the parts splashed by the liquid. He felt as if numerous hot iron rods had just stabbed him!
“This…is…holy water?!” As a vampire, Holman naturally knew of holy water.
“It’s ten times more concentrated than the normal one,” Zwei said calmly. He then drank a Mana Potion and injected mana into the Dark Celestial Sphere. “Now, do you have any last words?”
“Wait—”
As soon as Holman uttered a word, Zwei activated Turbid Impact and shattered his head.
Even vampires would lose their lives if their brain or heart was destroyed.
“Ah, sorry. I don’t care what your last words are.”