Chapter 670: True Form.
"Put more energy into the shield quickly!"
"I'm doing it! And don't order me around! I'm in the same position as you!"
"Really? Is this the time for that!?"
"It's always time for that. Only my king rules over me!"
"Guys." The third general's voice spoke in a heavy tone, "Concentrate!"
The fight grew more intense, and the two kings showed no signs of slowing down.
With every encounter, an explosion happened.
With each exchange of blows, the pace of battle increased even more.
The First Progenitor, Vlad Dracul Tepes, fought in an orthodox way.
His posture was not visible, and even his own 'humanoid' body was not visible.
But to the more experienced, it was obvious that even in this messy form of a black and crimson type of liquid, Vlad still demonstrated refined martial arts.
"Tsk, this is how a Progenitor fights!? In such a cowardly way!?"
The fight was making Yama impatient because just when he thought he was going to land a blow on Vlad, the man dissolved into some kind of dark liquid.
The moment Yama spoke his words, the liquid that looked like living blood exploded everywhere, occupying all visible space.
"I am Blood."
Vlad's voice echoed everywhere.
"And the blood is me."
"The Progenitor of vampires is the one who negotiates between life and death using blood as a bargaining chip to obtain the soul." Eyes began to appear all over the living liquid.
"That is the essence of the Progenitor."
ROOOOOAR
The living blood went towards Yama, and as it traveled, several human hands and the heads of monsters appeared.
Yama opened his eyes wide, "That's..." He quickly backed away from where he was.
"Souls… Living souls."
"Hundreds of thousands of souls."
Blood began to spread around even more as red clouds started to form in the sky, and soon, the sky began to rain blood as well.
"Why the surprise?"
Yama looked up and saw a giant blood-red eye and several more slightly smaller red eyes.
"You know about me, right?"
"You must know how I fight."
"Ugh." Yama looked at his arm and saw several small monsters made of blood biting his skin like a leech.
Yama's body was surrounded by a black miasma, thus preventing the bloody rain from falling on his body.
Yama felt something holding his leg and saw a hand of blood trying to pull him into the 'sea' of blood.
The hand tried to pierce his legs with spikes of blood, but Yama quickly incinerated the blood with the flames of hell and ascended to the heavens.
'This is dangerous... All this blood, this whole place is Vlad's weapon. He's a damn monster.'
"Blood is my power. Blood is my authority. A means to reach the soul."
A swirl of blood began to stir in the 'sea' of bodies, and soon a man emerged. Wrong, a creature emerged.
Large wings made of blood, slightly gray skin, eyes with black sclera with irises glowing crimson, slightly pointed ears, and a mouth entirely made of sharp teeth with no hint of lips. The creature's hands were made of sharp claws, as were its feet which were long blade-like talons.
Black spikes with crimson tips could be seen protruding from the elbows.
The creature's entire body had patterns of black tattoos wandering across the body as if they were alive.
Yama, as well as the demons who were watching the fight, opened their eyes wide at Vlad's change.
Alexios, who was watching from a distance, solemnly looked at Vlad's current form.
'I thought I would never see your real appearance in my lifetime, My King...'
"Vampire Count Form?" Yama spoke dismissively, "Do you think that's enough to defeat me, Vlad?"
'Wrong.' Alexios thought at the same time that Vlad spoke the same words as him:
"Wrong."
"Let me clear something up for the ignorant and incompetent." Vlad raised his hand, and thousands of blood spikes began to appear around him.
"The Vampire Count form is nothing more than the most talented vampires recovering the ancient form that was used thousands of years ago in a time when even the current gods did not live."
"What you are looking at now is my true form."
"The form of ancient vampires."
"Our true form."
The blood spikes began to rotate horizontally at high speed.
"The Vampire Count transformation is not the power boost everyone believes it to be."
"When a vampire achieves full Vampire Count Form, he is only one step closer to returning to the origins of the past."
"Our original power... A power that even the strongest monsters of the past feared, and because of that fear, they joined with the other strongest monsters of the time and crippled our race." Vlad's eyes narrowed, and only one thorn flew toward Yama.
That thorn caused several sonic booms, and it grazed Yama's cheek, as he barely managed to dodge.
"…That's impossible… You're saying your race is that old!? Older than the gods!?"
"It's impossible! If that kind of race existed, the self-centered gods would not allow their existence!"
"You think rather small for a King."
"There are thousands of worlds out there, child. Do you think Earth is such a special place?"
"..." Yama tried to say something, but he just closed his mouth because he realized that Vlad was correct.
"Look at Samar and Nightingale. They are completely different planets with their own gods and natives. These beings have their own culture, rules, and past."
"Is it so hard to believe that vampires weren't originally from this planet?"
"For a demon, you carry the same mentality as humans who think they are so important that they think this tiny planet is the only planet with life in the universe," Vlad spoke in disdain.
"... You dare compare me to such inferior creatures...?" Yama's eyes gleamed.
Yama pointed his hand upwards, and a gigantic wave of flames was thrown into the sky, burning everything in the skies.
Even the clouds of blood in the sky burned until they disappeared.
"Yama's Judgment." A mighty surge of power rose to the heavens, and soon an immense rift in the red space was opened.
Soon four gigantic hands grabbed the 'space' of the crack.
Outside the field of magic, the three generals were suffering a lot to keep everything stable.
"King Yama is overreacting; this was just supposed to be a test. Why is he doing this!?" A general shouted.
"Tsk, Tsk, it's because he's a brat, even though he's a king of hell. Why does he get so emotional with Vlad? Does he want to date the man or something?"
The demons looked at the voice that said that and opened their eyes when they saw a familiar demon wearing full armor.
"Merlin!"
"Yo, disciples, I see you are in trouble." He raised his hand in casual greeting.
Merlin looked into the magic with interest.
'Vlad in his Vampire Count form... Or, as he said, his true form. And the brat using his trump card...' Merlin felt like wanting to slap Yama. That wasn't the deal.
'Well, at least he took my advice and did it within the field magic, or it would get complicated to hide everything that's going on here.'
Merlin raised his hand, and soon several magic circles appeared around the field, reinforcing the magic even more.
The three demon generals breathed a sigh of relief. Now that their teacher was here, things would be easier.
"Hmm? Oya? Where are the captured vampires?"
"… Eh?" The three demon generals looked around angrily for the vampires and saw that they had disappeared.
"You guys!! Have you lost sight of the vampires!?" He roared at the lesser demons.
"W- We were too focused on the battle!" It wasn't every day you saw two Kings fighting.
"Mah, Mah. No need to get irritated. They weren't that important after all, and we had already accomplished our goals when we saw Vlad using his true form."
'The Vampire King is as strong and healthy as ever. It seems that the poison has already been used up in his body.'
"... Huh? Did we have a goal?" A taller, more muscular looking demon general asked.
Merlin rolled his eyes. That was what he didn't like about demons; most of them were very stupid.
"Of course you did. Didn't you read the report?"
"I usually don't read the reports."
"..."
"Ima- Ku -Roi."
Hearing the strange pronunciation of a language he had never heard before, Merlin and the generals looked back at the fight and opened their eyes wide as the strongest vampire controlled the 'river' of blood and corpses.
The corpses began to move as if coming to life, and among these corpses, thousands of different monstrous creatures were seen.
A hand that was in the rift of space suddenly rushed towards the blood, and as it flew, the hand was completely covered in fire; soon, the punch connected, evaporating everything.
The fight was reaching ridiculous proportions. If the fight had taken place outside the magic field, all of South Africa would have already disappeared. The level of destruction happening in that place was apocalyptic.
'My energy is burning insanely fast, this fight needs to end, or all our plans will go to shit.' Merlin thought in frustration at Yama's attitude. The point of everything here was just to test Vlad to see if he had weakened or not and to stroke Yama's ego by fighting the strongest vampire that was respected even by the former Yama.
'Tsk, he promised he would not overdo it, fucking brat. He even looks like Arthur with that reckless way of his.'
ROOOOOOOOOAR.
A dragon corpse's head came out of the blood and roared toward Yama, spitting fire.
Merlin raised an eyebrow when he saw Yama standing still.
'Is this fool going to take the attack head-on? Doesn't he know about the properties of the dragon's breath? ...Yes, of course, he doesn't know.'
"Keep the magic as stable as possible. I'll be right back." Merlin spoke as he disappeared.
...
Vlad was in a hurry, he didn't know about the technique Yama spoke of, but those hands behind the gap in space weren't a good sign. His instincts said so, and because of that, he went on the offensive.
And imagine his surprise when, with the first punch the giant threw, all the souls contained in that river of blood it punched disappeared.
'... What is that? Is it something created by the Ruler's authority?' Vlad questioned, but he didn't stop moving.
Disappearing in the blood, he focused his attention on an ancient dragon he had fought in the past and absorbed. Soon the dragon's head appeared, and the dragon released its breath toward Yama.
Seeing that Yama had no intention of leaving his spot, Vlad smiled inwardly. The fool was overconfident.
Unfortunately, the fire could not reach Yama because a magic circle appeared in front of the fire, deflecting the fire in another direction.
"Merlin?"
'Merlin? Vlad narrowed his eyes as he appeared on top of the dragon's head.
"King Vlad, it is a pleasure to see that you are as healthy as ever," Merlin spoke while bowing.
"Merlin, you have become a demon."
"Ironic, isn't it? I, who was once called a demon, ended up actually becoming one... But that's how life is, very unpredictable."
The next moment, thousands of magic circles appeared in the sky.
"Diabolic Zone." Merlin chanted the name of the spell.
The entire space around them was shrouded with a thick layer of demonic magic.
Vlad raised an eyebrow and threw a blood spike into the dense layer of magic.
A total of 12 times, the sound of something breaking was heard until it was stopped by a strong ward, and the thorn disappeared, soon after another 12 wards were re-erected.
The look of shock on Vlad's face was visible as he understood what had just happened.
"A variation of Evie's Mana Zone …" Vlad muttered in surprise.
"It's not that hard. No need to be shocked." Merlin commented in a humble tone, but by the satisfied smile on his face, it was obvious that he liked Vlad's reaction.
"Lord Yama, don't you know about the properties of dragon fire?"
"… Hmm."
"Yes, you didn't know."
"Ugh."
"Listen well, depending on the dragon's age, a dragon's breath can be extremely deadly to a being's body, be it divine or mortal."
"Dragon's breath is the only known power that can inflict a cursed type of damage on a being's body that is extremely troublesome to heal."
"...Which means..." Yama swallowed hard.
"If you had received the fire without protection, even if your power and clothing protected most of your body, the other burnt parts would be rendered useless. Therefore, you would have to amputate the aforementioned parts or seek out a mythical creature known as a Phoenix for its power of rebirth to heal your body, the option of asking a negative world tree for help is also viable."
"And as you know, both are extremely impossible to find."
"Fuck."
"Well, now that you understand, can you pull back?" Merlin pointed upwards, and in the next moment, he added,
"We've already completed our objective, and Vlad's most faithful servant retrieved the hostage vampires."
"What!?" Disbelief was seen on Yama's face, followed by anger, "Those fools! I told you to keep an eye out for the vampires."
Yama grumbled several times about the incompetence of his generals, and he pointed his hand toward the sky, and with a gesture, the six giant hands began to return to their invisible realm as the rift in space was closed.
"Anyway, Vampire King."
"I will see you around, seeya." Merlin made a hand gesture, and several magic circles began to be created under the demons.
"W- Wait."
And in the next second, they disappeared from the place where Vlad was fighting.
"..." Looking around, Vlad raises his eyebrow, "Did they run away?"
Soon he started reverting back to his blond-haired human form.
...
Appearing in the distance, Merlin placed his hand on his chest and took a deep breath.
'That was close.' It might seem like everything was in control, but Merlin was too scared of things going wrong.
If it was in a normal situation where he could plan and lure Vlad into a trap in his territory, he would be confident of winning, just as he set several traps when Scathach, Agnes, and Natashia appeared in the Amazon realm.
But what he did to Vlad was, in a nutshell, reckless.
'Damned monster destroyed all 12 protection with just one blood spike, I barely managed to defend before the 13th broke, and he did it casually.' Merlin was sweating profusely now.
"Merlin! Why did you leave like that! It even felt like we were running away!"
'It's because we were running away, fool.' Merlin responded internally.
"Continuing the fight would just be reckless. Fortunately, Vlad only saw the beginning of your trump card, not the full technique."
"Well, the technique takes time to get ready."
"Haah, why did you use the technique anyway?" Merlin did not fall for Yama's 'rage' act.
"I was excited." He spoke with an innocent smile.
Merlin wanted to facepalm now. 'He really is a lot like Arthur before he was king.'
"Look around, My Lord."
"...." Yama looked around and saw the three generals lying on the ground breathing heavily with their whole bodies sweating like pigs.
"If the fight continued, we would run out of energy, and his strength would be revealed. We don't want Diablo to know that just yet."
"We must keep the profile that you only have the power of a high-level God like Thor, and Aries, with the potential to be stronger thanks to the boost of being a Ruler.""
"Compliment Vlad by saying he was stronger than you expected, but don't say too much."
"Ugh, I know… Haah, I'm sorry. I got a little carried away."
"It's okay... I was able to find out a little more about vampire history, which is a welcome thing."
"Speaking of which, do you think it's true?"
"Most likely so. After all, vampires and werewolves are much more powerful than the legends make them out to be."
"Wait, do you think that werewolves are also from another planet?" Yama asked.
"The Probability is high. I've never seen a race as in tune with nature as werewolves. For some points in history, they even sound like elves who live in the Norse pantheon."
"Hmm, in tune with nature, huh … Are you talking about the werewolf transformation?"
"Yes, the one that Volk's ancestor used in hell once."
"... Come to think of it, they weren't like the legends said. He didn't turn into a bipedal wolf, but an evolution of the hybrid form..." Yama spoke aloud as he thought about the records he read when he was younger.
"Werewolves and vampires are strangely alike; the two are like opposites of the same coin. While vampires are focused on the quality of individuals. The werewolves have the numbers."
"While vampires can't walk in sunlight. Younger, less experienced werewolves can't walk in the moonlight, or they'd go mad."
"There are several factors, but that's a story for another time. For now, let's go back to hell. I got a message that the god of destruction, Shiva, has started to move; he will no longer allow Indra's incompetence."
"Shit, we need to shut down hell and make sure everything works fine. Should I act like my grandfather?"
"Actually, just say Diablo's demons killed your grandfather. You know how to act."
"Very Well."
.....
Edited By: DaV0 2138, IsUnavailable
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