546 Chapter 546: The Spy

Gasping, I tried to right myself despite being on the verge of blacking out from the pain. But the vampire on my right kicked me, sending me tumbling over.

The other vampire tried to slash me, but Scutum Sobiescianum rose to block his attack while I rolled on the floor. Fortunately, I had my two swords to parry his other blood claws, my black and white blades whirling around almost on automatic response to block and defend myself. I was moving more from conditioned reflexes than conscious thought now.

And then the other vampires descended upon me. Already, the ground beneath my back was starting to explode with blood spears. I could literally sense the mana bursting out from under my body and was forced to quickly roll away before I got impaled by them.

When I sprang to my feet, the new group of vampires landed, surrounding me in a ring. They raised their mana-infused claws and got ready to slash me to death.

I grinned, despite the blood trickling from my mouth.

At that moment, a bright flash of light illuminated the shadowy interior of the warehouse, taking my assailants back. The next thing they knew, my massive Celestial Guardian had appeared. The first vampire gaped up hollowly before he was incinerated by Vermillion Phoenix, his body cremated into ash as the inferno roared over him. Another vampire screamed when she was caught in the flames, her body immolated and charred. Despite her blood magic that allowed her to regenerate quickly, her shrieks abruptly stopped when she combusted into ashes.

"…!"

The surviving vampires retreated, slicing and cutting through the sea of flames with their blood claws and blades. Thankfully, their rapid regeneration and vicious blood spells allowed them to break out of the blockade of fire, but my Vermillion Phoenix left quite the heated impression on them.

"Huff…"

"What the hell is this?!"

"Was he hiding a trick all along?"

"Where did that monster come from?!"

"This guy…he's a summoner!"

What, you attacked me without knowing about that? I might be a mediocre combat mage, but I was an excellent summoner. Even if I couldn't win against the vampires in terms of combat skills, I had alternative methods of fighting.

Such as unleashing my Celestial Guardian on them.

I was waiting for this, you know?

I smirked inwardly as I pushed my glasses up. It had taken me incredible mental restraint to stop myself from summoning Vermillion Phoenix to come to my aid while I was being overwhelmed by the first trio of vampires. Sure, he would help turn the tide, but the other survivors would become wary of my summoning magic and retreat. I would rather lure them into a sense of false security before springing my trap. And now all of them were surrounded by an impenetrable ring of fire, with no avenue of escape.

Well, it wasn't as if I was having a contest with Ling Xue Xiao, and admittedly she was the superior mage. I didn't care if she killed more vampires than me.

"Where is Xuan Chi?! What did you do to him?!"

As if realizing that we were now at an advantage, Ling Xue Xiao shouted at the vampires after stabbing her eighth victim. He gurgled before slipping off his killer's blades, and the rest spread out warily, trying to avoid Ling Xue Xiao's flashing swords.

"We should leave at least one alive to question them," I suggested. Ling Xue Xiao nodded and smiled ominously, sending chills down the vampires' spines.

"Good idea. But we don't need more than one. So let's kill the rest."

Wow…she was brutal. But I had no objections.

With my Vermillion Phoenix swinging the tide of battle to my favor, I commanded him to incinerate the whole mob of vampires.

"!!!"

The vampires, despite their relative youth, were fairly skilled. After the surprise attack, the other vampires spread out and danced around my massive Vermillion Phoenix, forcing him to spread his attention across multiple targets. Even though he successfully incinerated three more vampires in quick succession, the blood mages were still very agile. They darted about and evaded the torrents of flames nimbly, slashing and cutting apart embers and smaller tongues of flames with their blood claws. They weren't able to hurt my great Celestial Guardian, their blood spears burning away or vaporized by the fiery halo that wreathed him.

No matter how many bloody projectiles they hurled at him, they weren't going to pierce his flaming defenses.

Trying not to be too impatient, Vermillion Phoenix soared higher into the space within the enclosed warehouse and unleashed a rain of fiery feathers.

"What the?!"

"Whoa!"

While they were busily trying to avoid the hellish inferno that now swept across the confines of the warehouse, a sea of fire that incinerated their comrades into ashes, they were almost taken by surprise when Vermillion Phoenix switched to smaller projectiles. The feathers pierced through the bodies of stunned vampires, speeding through the air faster than the larger torrents of purifying fire, and combusted spontaneously from the inside. Many a vampire died howling as their innards caught fire and their bodies were consumed by flames.

And then, I summoned Taurus.

"Taurus, Aldebaran attack!"

The gigantic bull trampled through a tightly knotted crowd of vampires, crushing them under his hooves. Those out of reach, he incinerated with a breath of fire. The beleaguered vampires tried to scatter, but it was too little, too late.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of gloating. The center vampire of the trio that originally attacked me broke away from my Soul Beasts, leaving them to his comrades so that he could fight me. He knew the best strategy for defeating a summoner was to take out the person who summoned the soul beasts. As long as he killed me, my soul beasts would naturally disappear.

He was naïve.

"Whoa!"

Even so, I refused to underestimate my opponent. I ducked under his vicious kick and slashed with Hei Yue, but he blocked it with his left claws before stabbing my arm with his right claws. Or tried to, but I succeeded in parrying his right claws with Bai Ri. Gritting my teeth, I unleashed an ice spell at pointblank range, a cool blast of azure mana washing over the vampire. But my opponent merely sliced through it and emerged unscathed.

Then he renewed his attack.

"…!"

I backed off, trying to keep my eyes on his figure, but the vampire was disappearing into a blur, whirling around and delivering kicks and slashes in strokes too fast for my eyes to follow. This was even though the sensors in my glasses were doing their utmost to track his movements. Following the calculated trajectories that my glasses displayed in holographic lines and digital images, I did my best to anticipate his attacks and preemptive moved out of the way before they came, while parrying those strikes I couldn't evade with my black and white swords.

"Not bad."

The vampire smirked as he kicked me again. I managed to withstand the blow, having blocked it with Bai Ri, but he slashed at me with his claws, which I managed to parry with Hei Yue. With a yell, I blasted him with an icy spell, coating his claws in frost, but he shattered them with a surge of demonic mana.

"I see. So your battling style is that of attrition, huh?"

The vampire looked amused as he slashed at me again. He was so wrong…my battling style was obviously summoning, but I decided not to tell him that. Instead, I dodged his kick before trying to counterattack, but he easily deflected my blades away with a claw before returning a riposte with the other one. If I hadn't twisted my torso out of the way, those claws would have plunged themselves deep inside my chest.

"If that's the case, I'll have to finish this match as quickly as possible!"

"…really?"

I tried not to roll my eyes at his complete misunderstanding of how I usually fought. The vampire sped up his attacks, almost taking me by surprise. Almost. Thankfully, I had already anticipated that because the sensors in my glasses were picking up spikes in his mana and displayed the direction they were flowing toward, so I kept my distance and blocked them one by one. The vampire continued his assault, undaunted, and responded by merely accelerating his attacks.

"Kuh…!"

At this rate, I wouldn't be able to stop them all. A slash opened up a laceration in my arm while a claw scraped a thin line of blood on my cheek. Despite my best efforts to evade and block, several of the vampire's attacks were getting through. I would have to summon Black Tortoise or Hydra to freeze this fucker…

"Gaaaah!"

Right before my surprised eyes, my opponent suddenly jerked up and shuddered, a blade piercing his chest. I blinked, still not knowing what had just happened, until the vampire fell and slid off the sword, revealing an annoyed Ling Xue Xiao.

"What's taking you so long to clean up the opponents?"

"I was trying to take that idiot alive!" I stormed at her. I was so close to freezing the guy. Just a few more seconds and I would have summoned Black Tortoise or Hydra and froze him solid. She had to poke her nose in and ruin everything. "Aren't we supposed to capture one alive for interrogation?!"

As if to emphasize my point, the final vampire screamed while Vermillion Phoenix burned him alive. They stood no chance against my Celestial Guardian – hemmed in by the ring of fire, they were all incinerated to ashes.

"…did you leave any alive?" I asked Ling Xue Xiao pointedly. Her guilty expression told me everything I needed to know.

"Well…! It was killed or be killed! It's not like I had a choice! You too! Why didn't you leave any alive?"

"Because you killed the guy I was trying to capture alive," I snapped. "Why did you think I tried so hard to challenge him to single combat and draw him away from the others? I was doing my best not to burn him to ashes!"

"Why him? Couldn't you have captured some other vampire? Why did you have to burn all of them?"

"You were the one who told me to kill the rest."

"That's…guh!"

Unable to counter my statement, Ling Xue Xiao cast her gaze downward, feeling ashamed.

"Well, in any case, we should look for Xuan Chi Senpai?"

"…ah! That's right!" Ling Xue Xiao immediately returned to life and began striding toward the open entrance of the warehouse. She flipped her smartphone out and tried calling him again, but as before, Lin Xuan Chi didn't pick up the phone. The guy probably received a hundred missed calls from Ling Xue Xiao by now. Furious at the lack of response, she kicked a few of the vampires' corpses on her way out. "I'm sure Xuan Chi is still alive! There's no way he would have been killed by these losers!"

"No, he wouldn't," I replied. "After all, I'm pretty sure he's in league with these vampires."

"Huh? Stop your nonsense!" Ling Xue Xiao hollered at me. "There's no way he will ally with such evil monsters! I'll kill you the next time you make such accusations!"

She glared at me, growing increasingly infuriated when she saw that I hadn't moved from my spot in the warehouse.

"Hurry up! Let's look for Xuan Chi!"

"There's no need for that."

The two of us froze when we saw Lin Xuan Chi's blue-haired, bishounen figure appear right outside the entrance of the warehouse. Ling Xue Xiao brightened up and ran toward him.

"Xuan Chi! You're all right!"

"Of course I am!"

"I almost thought you fell into a trap! These vampires, they showed up all of a sudden and attacked us! We were worried that you ran into them on your way here…"

While I listened to Ling Xue Xiao blabbering to Lin Xuan Chi, I realized that something was amiss. My suspicions were confirmed when I studied the blue-haired bishounen. The guy was totally unscathed. Not only that, he didn't seem shocked by the grisly sight of vampire corpses nor by Ling Xue Xiao's revelation. It was as if he already knew or expected an ambush.

I fucking knew it. Yeah, these stupid shoujo vampire manhua was so predictable.

"Xue Xiao Senpai! Get away from there! It's a trap! Lin Xuan Chi is the spy!"

"Huh? What nonsense are you talking about?! I told you, if you continue with that nonsense, I'll kill you!"

Ling Xue Xiao put her hands on her hips as she turned to glare at me. She took a step forward, as if she was about to smack me, only to suddenly jerk when a spear pierced her heart from behind. Staring dumbly at the tip of the spear that protruded from her chest, she gurgled incoherently as blood spilled from her lips. Slowly turning her head, she stared at Lin Xuan Chi with wide eyes.

"Xuan Chi…you…"

"~Ah~. The cat is out of the bag."

Lin Xuan Chi sounded disappointed as he yanked his spear out of Ling Xue Xiao's chest, dropping her onto the ground. Ling Xue Xiao clutched at her ruined chest, coughing out more blood while her body went into its death throes. Lin Xuan Chi coldly kicked her aside, lowering his spear and aiming it at me. Sighing, he shook his head.

"I did expect you to figure it out eventually, though. You always seemed suspicious of me for some reason. I'm curious to know…how did you see through my acting? At this rate, you would have derailed my plans before I got close to Yue Jian."

"Is that why you got me and Xue Xiao Senpai to meet you in such a suspicious place? So that you can silence us?"

"That was the original intention, but…as you can see, the plan failed terribly."

Lin Xuan Chi cast a disgusted look at the vampires' corpses that lay strewn about the abandoned facility. Shaking his head, he turned back toward me before thrusting his spear forward.

"Whoa!"

I threw myself to the side, just barely managing to dodge his spear. Despite evading it with seconds to spare, the sheer amount of mana emanating from his weapon actually cut my left arm, sending a trickle of blood down my hand.

"Fucker," I spat as I drew Hei Yue and Bai Ri. Behind me, Vermillion Phoenix and Taurus emerged, ready to back me up.

Lin Xuan Chi mercilessly took another step, not at all intimidated by my soul beasts.

"Don't worry about Yue Jian. Once I get close enough to her and gain her complete trust, I'll bring her to Fan Le Lao."

Then he thrust his spear toward my chest.