421 Chapter 421: Blood and Ice

\"Stupid question.\" I snorted derisively. \"What's with you guys always demanding that I surrender? If you want your victory, you have to earn it. Don't expect it to be handed over to you on a silver platter.\"

\"I see.\" Kufa Van Peer nodded thoughtfully. \"Fair enough. I never did expect you to meekly surrender just because I'm stronger. I did hear about how teancious and determined you were, and considering how you've personally fought alongside our captain…against an actual rank A Dragon, no less, I would say I expected nothing less. You truly are impressive.\"

Ranks meant nothing to me. Sure, Dragons were extremely powerful and magnificent creatures, but whether you got devoured by a Dragon or maimed by a Ravager, it made no difference. Death was the same no matter how you died or what killed you. The stupid obsession with ranks often caused people to underestimate how dangerous even the smallest monsters could be. A kid with a gun could just as easily kill you as a so-called 10-Dan Black Belt karate master.

Not that this was the moment to be spouting my sentiments. Seeing that I refused to give up, Kufa lunged at me with a thrust of his katana. Gritting my teeth, I yanked my two swords up and parried his curved blade, but the strength behind his blow was so powerful that I was sent hurtling across the stage again. Flipping myself up, I landed on my feet somewhat clumsily, stumbling as I frantically tried to regain my balance.

Kufa mercilessly bored down on me. His speed was as incredible as ever, but ever since he transformed into his long-haired vampire mode, his strength had grown explosively. Each of his strikes felt like the force of a thirty-eight ton armored personnel carrier smashing into me. Metal shrieked as my swords struggled to weather the blow of his attacks, and my arms quivered from the immense pressure of enduring his onslaught. I swear, the bones in both of my arms were starting to break from the relentless attacks.

The vampire Samurai did not care, and he relentlessly swung his katana again and again at a speed I almost couldn't follow. Each blow a sure-kill if I didn't block, his relatively thin weapon being used as a hammer to blungeon me to death rather than cut me apart. Staggering backward, almost on the brink of crumbling under Kufa's punishing assault, I tried my best to retreat, to no avail.

\"What else can you summon now? Do you have enough mana to summon that black dragon of yours that you used to nuke the entire northern mountain range? Even though you've absorbed a lot of Miura's mana, you've been using so many spells and summoning so much that I doubt you have enough left for such a mana-consuming summon.\"

I hated to admit it, but he was right. I didn't have enough mana left to summon Draco…or even if I did have the mana left to summon Draco, I wouldn't have sufficient energy remaining to power his spells and abilities, so I might as well not summon him in the first place. Of course, there was the option of just relying on his sheer bulk and raw physical prowess to crush my opponent, but maintaining his existence in the material realm was an exhausting task.

Not only that, I had literally witnessed Kufa literally single-handedly slice Green Dragon apart with just one arm. I had no doubt he could repeat the amazing feat against Draco, now that he had reattached his other arm.

His long, silver hair flying behind him – more from the tremendous amount of mana emanating from his enhanced body than the wind generated by his incredible speed – the vampire charged at me, his katana carving through the air to slash me in half. I crossed my swords and blocked it, only for my knees to buckle and I fell into a kneeling position even as my surrpundings crumbled. Grunting, I kicked up at Kufa, but he spun away before kicking me in return. Despite blocking his foot with my forearm, I was sent hurtling to the side.

\"Ugh!\"

The bone in my forearm felt as if it had shattered to pieces. My limb going numb, I tried to shake some feeling into it while hitting the ground in a roll. Already Kufa was waiting there, having gotten to my landing position before I reached it, and he slashed at me. I barely brought both of my swords up in time, and wheezed as I struggled to keep all three blades away from my face.

Icicles erupted from the ground and impaled Kufa, who didn't even bother to dodge despite clearly possessing the speed and ability to do so. He shrugged off the injuries with a sneer, but the attack had managed to drive him back by several meters. While he staggered, I quickly rolled away and widened the distance between us.

\"Hmph.\"

Kufa turned to face me, but I was retreating as quickly as I could, calling forth Monoceros. The unicorn charged forward, but Kufa merely cut him apart before the Constellation spirit could impale him with his horn.

Fortunately, my sacrificial Constelaltion spirit bought me more than enough time to escape. Catching my breath, I watched Kufa while doing several analyses in my mind. Right now Kufa was too strong for me to deal with, especially when I was exhausted. Not only that, I was running out of mana, and fast.

My tank was near empty, so to speak. I had to be very careful regarding my next move, or the match would end. Bu Fan would take over (damn, I almost called him Mo Fan by mistake), but I was sure he would have difficulties facing an opponent as formidable as Kufa, especially now that he was in his vampire state and Bu Fan wouldn't have the time to draw his star circles or whatever it was that he needed to cast his advanced magic.

Apparently my tactic proved to be pointless. Kufa merely smirked and in a single bound he crossed the vast distance of the arena in a second. I almost missed him, and it was only through my instinctive strikes with both my swords that I managed to deflect his deadly katana to the side. Kufa whirled about and kicked me, and even though I bocked his foot with the back of my hand, I was still sent tumbling to the side.

\"Ugh…!\"

Rolling on the ground, I tried to evade Kufa's next relentless barrage. When we sprang apart after a particularly violent exchange, sparks flying between us, he then launched his Scattered War Blade, raining a deadly hail of silver blades on me.

\"Scutum Sobiescianum!\"

I quickly conjured a shield to deflect the hail of energy blades, and it buckled uner the onslaught, cracks appearing across its resilient surface. Shuddering under the bombardment, the Constellation shield slowly crumbled. Shrapnel flew about as the energy blades continued to chip away at it, sending tiny fragments of metal plummeting to the ground before those little debris vanished away in wisps of mana. Despite the punishing salvo that would have sliced an armored tank into pieces, Scutum Sobiescianum silently withsthood the barrage of lethal energy blades…until Kufa descended and cleaved it in half with his sword.

Bursting through the two halves of my disappearing Constellation shield, Kufa descended upon me to deliver a single vicious strike. I met him resolutely, bringing both of my swords up. The blades collided violently and our mana detonated upon contact, hurling the both of us away to the side. Of course, Kufa wasn't affected much by the shockwaves that buffeted him, his vampire physique impervious to all but the most powerful attacks.

As for me, I was sent stumbling to the side, blood spurting from my mouth and numerous wounds.

\"It's over,\" Kufa declared as he sprang at me, intending to deliver the finishing blow. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to bring both my swords up in time, and Kufa's blade swung toward my exposed, vulnerable neck.

\"!!!\"

Again, his blade never reached me.

The entire space around me was frozen in an instant, and Kufa found himself trapped by huge blocks of ice. His katana was locked inside ice, which was rapidly spreading across his body and holding him in place. For a moment, he paused, unable to move as the ice completely covered him, but then he unleashed a huge blast of blue-black mana to shatter the ice. White mist mixed with noxious fumes of vampire mana, and Kufa surged out of the falling frost fragments to take my head off.

Fortunately, my tactic had bought me enough time to recover and right myself. Rising to my feet, I deflected his katana and kicked him away. Kufa was superior in hand-to-hand combat, however, and he countered almost immediately, his blade cutting a few strands of my hair while his foot rammed into my side and sent me cartwheeling away.

Coughing out blood, I crawled to my feet, and then whirled about to parry Kufa's next strike. His limbs and sword were locked in ice once more, and he expended more of his mana to shatter them before unleashing a blue-black blast of energy at pointblank range. Despite my best attempts to freeze them, they hit me and caused blood to flow freely from my arms and chest.

Staggering back, I sent a freezing blast of energy to entomb Kufa in ice, but he broke free almost instantly and retaliated with a blue-black blast of mana. This time, I successfully froze it in place before it could reach me, and then I dove at him. Kufa stabbed at me, but I ducked underneath his blade and cut off his arm.

\"!!\"

Kufa was stunned that he actually fell for my feint – all this time he had been the superior swordsman and had been one-sidedly pressuring me. Yet, despite my mounting injuries and fading strength, I was still somehow able to catch him off guard with a decisive strike and deal him a debilitating injury that would have laid low any other opponent.

No…it was precisely because Kufa could afford to receive such injuries that he allowed me to sever his arm. I was the one who was mistaken. I had thought I caught Kufa off guard with a feint, but in reality I was the one who fell for his feint.

Having gotten impatient because I had been obstinately resisting his attacks and enduring whatever he threw at me for so long, Kufa had resorted to allowing me to take his arm, just so he could forcibly create an opening and strike a decisive blow just when I thought I had a chance at winning. Ignoring his disembodied arm, which was spinning away elsewhere, he slashed at me with his katana. I almost couldn't block it in time, but therein lay the strength of wielding dual swords.

With Hei Yue occupied with chopping off Kufa's arm, I still had Bai Ri free. Raising my white sword, I parried Kufa's strike. However, given his vampire strength, one arm wasn't enough to fully guard against his strike. Blood burst from my left arm and I recoiled in pain before Kufa kicked me in the solar plexus to send me crumpling against the opposite wall.

\"Ah…ugh…!\"

Vomiting out a gout of blood, I slumped down, no longer able to stand. Kufa stepped forward, his disembodied arm actually floating across the air and returning to him, reattaching as threads of blood connected along with blue-black strips of mana. But the vampire Samurai reached out and drew out a substantial amount of blood for his use.

\"!!!\"

I watched as Kufa turned his blood into blood blades, each of them a long, crimson sword that hovered in the air. With a flick of his newly reattached left arm, Kufa sent the blood blades streaking toward me. I barely conjured a shield to stop them in time, but his blood projectiles smashed Scutum Sobiescianum into smithereens before continuing toward me in a ferocious manner.

Lowering my head, I exhaled heavily and unleashed my last trump card.

Crack!

\"!!!\"

Kufa narrowed his eyes when he saw my surroundings freeze. All of his blood blades had turned into red ice, held firmly in place by my spell. I slowly staggered to my feet, raising my two swords for one final time. Clicking his tongue, Kufa generated more blood blades while charging forward. His blood weapons lanced through my ice, shattering them into crystalline fragments, and he gathered a whirling maelstrom of blood-red mana around his sword.

I could tell that this single strike of his was incomparable to everything I had faced so far. Instinctively I understood that if I tried to parry this attack, even by crossing both of my swords, I would die from the effort. No questions asked.

It was that powerful.

Even without that single ultimate strike, I still had to deal with the numerous blood lances that were smashing their way through my fortress of frost, breaking the ice effortlessly as they homed in on my battered figure. I was aware that even if I somehow defended against Kufa's ultimate sword strike, I would find myself impaled and punctured by those countless blood lances that were zipping and zigzagging through my ice labyrinth.

There was no escape.

\"Divine Blood Strike!\"

Kufa was upon me now, swinging his katana. Crimson blood mana exploded around his blade, disintegrating everything between us, whether it was ice, debris or metal. His technique was so potent that my skin was actually flayed off just from being in such close proximity to the sword. To my horror, I could see my blood leaking out of my arms and body and flowing toward Kufa.

This was one of the strongest vampire techniques in existence – controlling your opponent's blood and sucking it to empower your own moves. Being the victim firsthand really opened my eyes to the terrifying nature of the incredible vampire technique, and reaffirmed the reason why vampires were feared so much throughout the Global Federation.

In the face of such a horrifying and overwhelming power, I did not falter. Instead, I gritted my teeth and gathered what was left of my mana before I unleashed it in a single burst.

\"Absolute Zero.\"

The entire space around us turned white, everything freezing in an instant, whether it was blood, debris, swords, or even mana. Nothing was spared, especialy since this wasn't just an ordinary technique that entombed its targets in ice.

No, dropping the temperature to Absolute Zero was literally forcing the temperature down to zero Kelvin and stopping all molecular movement. Even mana was not exempt from this particular law of physics, their movements at the subatomic level shuddering to a jerking halt.

Kufa's eyes widened, and then he froze as well, trapped inside an arcane block of ice that even his vampire powers couldn't break free.

Panting, my breath leaving in thick dense fogs before solidifying into ice, I thrust Hei Yue at his frozen form and managed a weary grin.

\"Looks like I don't need holy magic to defeat a vampire, after all.\"