〈 Vampires, fairies, and test subjects (2) 〉
In a battlefield where the atmosphere vibrates and heat swirls.
“Hahaha!”
Quaaaang!
A shock wave erupted again along with Harley’s ferocious roar.
Those who confronted him kept shouting and trying to somehow resolve the situation, but the situation continued to worsen without them having time to do anything.
The only thing they could hope for was that while they held out as long as they could, additional support would come from somewhere else…
Kugugugung—
They had no choice but to give up such expectations due to the continued heavy drinking on the outskirts of the forest from earlier.
No matter how you look at the aftermath of the firefight that took place over a wide area, unlike the fight in the center, it showed that the uninvited party had the upper hand.
And it was a situation that one person had been aiming for from the beginning.
‘It’s going smoothly.’
In fact, it had to be that way.
For that purpose, both Harley and Harris were called here.
Although the opponent’s power was by no means easy, the power mobilized by this side was clearly greater than that.
‘No matter how much transcendence is the same, there are bound to be differences depending on the level.’
And it was the same for the vampire king Heinz II, who longed for the completion of the blood of the last avatar on the scene.
Skaak—Chaang!
A place a little far from the place where the fight between Harley and the Buncheonhoe gang took place.
There was a sharp crash sound and the surrounding vegetation was turned over by the aftermath.
“Ugh! dare…!”
The Duke, who had struggled to block the space-tearing blow with a long bloody spear, gritted his teeth and burst out in rage.
As if the situation that is happening now cannot be tolerated.
However, Heinz, not paying attention to his opponent’s reaction, simply continued his attack in silence and analyzed his opponent step by step.
‘It feels good. After all, attacks using causality do not work well against high-level opponents.’
The first attack that pierced his side was merely an attack that took advantage of surprise.
When the duke began to properly guard, it did not show much benefit and was blocked every time.
‘Well, I didn’t think I could finish it so easily from the beginning.’
Not much time had passed since the one-on-one battle with the duke began again.
Harris and Harley are doing well, so there won’t be any more interruptions.
Of course, it was possible that additional reinforcements might arrive after assessing the situation inside the barrier from the outside, but…
‘That amount of time is enough.’
Heinz, holding the two bloody greatswords that had suddenly appeared in both hands, lowered his body and took a step forward.
Ssush—
His body disappeared for a moment and rapidly accelerated across space.
And he moved behind the opponent and swung the great sword with both hands.
“No way!”
Before he knew it, a new spear appeared in the air behind the duke’s back, blocking the attack, and he immediately counterattacked, swinging a weapon that was thicker than the first.
Just like I felt in the first battle, it contained tremendous destructive power.
Kwaang—!
‘also.’
Heinz narrowed his eyes as he felt the bloody sword he had created scatter into pieces due to the impact.
Even though it was a liquid weapon and lacked durability, it was made using purified blood tablets.
It makes no sense that the opponent’s weapon was intact despite being destroyed in a single collision.
‘It’s the ability to intervene in the blood itself.’
It also seemed to be a unique skill that had been strengthened to a fairly high level.
I still don’t know if it was originally an ability to manipulate blood freely, or if it was a way to use it as a medium to display special abilities, but for a vampire whose power is blood, it could be said to be a deceptive ability.
After all, that was probably the number one contributor to raising the duke to his current position.
Hissing—
At that moment, a bright red dot flew into Heinz’s face.
The cutting edge of Geochang made with blood.
Fired in the blink of an eye, it pierced through space at once, ignoring distance.
Then, it followed Heinz, who was moving quickly and dodging, as if it had an ego, and thrust its head in irregularly like a snake.
Two or three of those things… they continued to increase and were squeezing him from all directions.
‘That won’t work.’
In the end, realizing that dodging was not the answer, he twisted his waist in the air and brought the bloody greatsword to his waist.
The diagonal lines of windows observed as “insight” in accelerating thoughts.
Soon, when all of them come together in one line.
Seaaaaagh——
He used “Surprise Acceleration” to cut a large cut with his sword as if drawing a half moon.
Let’s go! Kwaaaang—!
The weapons on both sides were shattered into pieces due to the collision between the whip-like sword tips and spears that exceeded hypersonic speeds.
Heinz’s expression was calm, since such things were just consumables that could be made at any time, but the duke’s expression was becoming more and more hard as time went by.
“What kind of guy are you….”
An inexplicable sense of discomfort.
From the moment the fight properly began, the strange sensation the duke felt was becoming increasingly stronger.
Along with the ominous intuition that he would not be able to defeat his opponent no matter what he did, the consumption of his power increased more than usual and the effectiveness actually decreased.
Even though he was free in terms of energy thanks to his unique skills, this was never a good situation.
‘What ability is it? Unique skill? Or else…’
It is not simply a reduction in power due to an ability such as a debuff, but the action of a certain concept that occurred at a higher level than that.
It was a phenomenon that even he, who had already dealt with this power for decades, could not understand.
‘Dangerous.’
And that forced the duke to make the extreme choice of not going back anymore.
As his detection range was not normal, he was already fully aware of what was going on.
If I had been a fool who didn’t feel the sight of my allies being decimated one by one by the sudden intruders, I wouldn’t have been alive until now.
But what happens to you after your allies are annihilated by them?
‘Actually, now is your last chance.’
Either get out of here right away or rally the surviving allies again.
Everything depended on how quickly you could take out the enemy in front of you.
In fact, it was right to worry about whether he could really defeat his opponent, but he deliberately did not think of such weak thoughts.
In my long experience, such a way of thinking is not helpful for survival.
Even if it ends up being nothing more than a struggle.
‘Now that it’s like this, I’ll have to give up trying to get back to normal. ‘I accept some loss.’
Acting regardless of means and methods carries a certain amount of risk.
The duke, who had pulled out dozens of bloody spears and bombarded the area, finally took action without hesitation when the right opportunity was found.
Goooooh—
In an instant, the blood flowing through his body surged and an enormous amount of energy came out.
Kwaaaang—!
“Huh?”
Heinz, who was thrown back despite his hasty defense against the sudden explosion of enormous blood magic, frowned as he regained his bearings.
“…This?”
“Wow, this is thrilling!”
Pap-duk-pap-duk!
A phenomenon that occurred with the sound of something being twisted.
The handsome, middle-aged duke’s face turned pale and his skin and bones suddenly became pale, and on the contrary, the suit he was wearing was torn to shreds due to his bulging muscles that threatened to explode.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu of of of all things the biggest change was the number
of
spears made of blood lined up around him.
Dozens of red thorns lined up majestically with their pointed tips pointing towards the sky.
The space around him was distorted by the explosive energy generated by the potential contained in his blood being released all at once, and the barrier surrounding the forest began to shake.
“…It feels somewhat familiar.”
Heinz narrowed his eyes and glared at him, seeing that the situation was not normal at all.
Aside from the phenomenon, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu from the energy radiating from him.
I think I’ve experienced this once before…
“…Ah! Right. “Were you also involved during Alpha as expected?”
And he soon realized the reason and nodded in understanding without realizing it.
The energy felt from him was strangely similar to the one that oozed from the body of Alpha, the leader of the hardliners of the clan who had been rampaging in the middle of Seoul a long time ago.
At the time, all I could understand was that he ended up like that through some kind of research, but if the duke was involved, it would definitely be understandable…
‘Wait a minute.’
Heinz stopped thinking at that moment and frowned unconsciously.
In his mind, the events that had occurred since Alpha’s terror attack in Seoul and the information he had collected so far flashed like a panorama.
‘I see.’
And after a moment passed, he was able to gain some confidence about the current situation.
‘…Doctor Doctor is here.’
There must be a doctor, one of the top executives of the Buncheonhoe, not far from this place.
That strong intuition rang an alarm in his mind.
‘Was it to catch me? Anyway, this is an opportunity.’
Even though the memories of the ruler were obtained, the location of the doctor’s residence was not clearly known.
I basically knew that he would stay in Europe, but even that wasn’t set in stone because he had the ability to build the necessary research lab anywhere.
‘…If only I could capture it.’
Of course, he knows more than the ruler or the duke.
Not only about the organization called Beoncheonhoe… but also about the Beoncheonhoe owner.
“I’ll finish it quickly!”
As I was lost in thought for a moment, dozens of blood-red spears flew in at once, accompanied by a harsh shout.
At a noticeably faster speed than before.
As a result, a torrent of rough energy was generated, and the space was twisted around along the attack trajectory.
“There was a consensus. “I also agree.”
It was an incredibly threatening attack at first glance, but to the current Heinz, it was nothing more than an inconvenient distraction.
‘After killing this guy as quickly as possible…’
A new goal appeared when the purpose of coming to Europe was just around the corner.
But for that to happen, it was necessary to clearly deal with the matter at hand first.
Heinz’s thinking, which had gained momentum, accelerated and he once again looked at the world with “insight.”
‘The scale of energy is certainly unusual. Has the power in the blood been amplified once more? Anyway, it’s only like this… Perhaps the author also gained strength in his own world by preying on his own kind.’
Otherwise, it was an enormous amount of energy that would be difficult to explain.
It was not an impossible hypothesis as it was presumed that his unique skills were related to blood.
Compared to the risk of coming to Earth and preying on a completely different lineage of vampires, overcoming it was often the case when belonging to the same lineage.
‘but.’
In fact, if you were to look at it that way, you could say that you were the best in everything.
No matter what anyone says, hasn’t he inherited all of Outerica’s bloodlines, and even after coming to Earth, hasn’t he stopped collecting various vampire factors and continuing to prey on his own kind?
‘Wow, I’m not used to drawing this much strength. Still, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get used to it.’
We have also completed understanding the variables of the opponent to some extent.
All that remains now is to make a proper decision based on that information.
As time accelerated to its limit at the cost of overflowing energy, Heinz, riding the flow of cause and effect, slowly took a step forward.
The blood
magic that flowed from not only the heart but also the essence of the sacred blood implanted in the body spread out to all limbs.
In a world that seemed to have stopped, Heinz and the Duke’s burning gaze met head-on.
Second step.
He pulled out a bloody greatsword in both hands and struck down the red spear blade that came very close.
Then, when the weapon breaks, it is remade and the work is repeated several times.
In the mist of blood scattering like fragments, I was able to realize that the advantage of ‘time’ was still on this side.
Third step.
It was a waste to just leave the thick blood mist that formed during the process of striking out the spear.
In response, Heinz used the “Mystery of Blood” to create multiple blood swords that moved automatically in the air.
They soon collided with the spears like fighter planes competing for air supremacy, repeating destruction and regeneration again.
The relative exchange cost was not that good, but since it was just a bonus anyway, it wasn’t a bad result just to buy some time.
Fourth step.
I have completely entered the duke’s territory.
At this point, even the “Denial of Existence” that I used from time to time was of no use.
The fluctuating energy gave him the feeling that the entire space was hostile to him, but this was something he had already worked hard to do anyway.
Heinz moved forward without hesitation, weapons drawn in both hands.
Fifth step.
As we entered deeper into the opponent’s territory, the ‘time’ where our side had the upper hand gradually regained its balance.
Naturally, moving forward continued to become difficult, and the scars on my body continued to increase.
Of course, it wasn’t that long ago that it was all replayed, so it didn’t really mean anything.
Jerk—
and finally.
“You bastard…! How…!”
“I waited long.”
Heinz, who took the last step, smiled softly as he faced his skeletal and unsightly distorted face.
As if we were facing our lost half.
‘Well, actually, that’s not wrong.’
Because we were about to become one anyway.
He naturally stretched out his hand and grabbed the other person’s leash.
It was the moment when the hands of Heinz II, who had longed for the completion of blood, finally grabbed the last piece.