277 Mutual Destruction?

The vampire stopped caring and lunged at Edward's energy illumination. For creatures like them who spent most of the day under no light, the bright light was too blinding.

"Waah!"Edward squealed, then hurriedly jumped off the ladder. His feet landed squarely on the ground, followed by a side roll to reduce impact. "I think I saw vampires up there!"

Just as Edward finished speaking, wild bats flushed out from the hole above and transformed into pale-skinned humans.

Unbeknownst to everyone, these people were the residents of a slaughtered subdivision from Angono. They mutated into vampires after getting bitten by the origin vampire.

The four of them were instantly outnumbered as more than fifteen bats transformed into vampires.

Jun remained calm and examined the situation. Although they were surrounded, not a single one of them was weak. They could easily fight one on one any of these vampires, and they would still win. However, they don't know what skills it had and whether they would be able to injure them.

"Let's play it safe, but kill them when an opportunity arises. Edward, don't waste energy on defense; focus on killing." Jun saw what Edward could do the last time they went for clearing operations. 

If Edward could learn to be more aggressive and properly utilize his energy use from attack and defense, a day would come that he would become stronger than him.

"Don't waste ammunition. I don't think the military would willingly trade them with me unless they're desperate for something."

Adrian and Sheila don't need any reminder from Jun. The two already have their own fighting style, unlike Edward, who was still undecided about whether to go attack or defense. Maybe he doesn't even need to choose and just go with both.

The fight started, and the vampires lunged at them simultaneously.

As a form of habit, Edward cast a barrier on their blindspot to protect the others. Afterward, the energy ball on his palm elongated and became a spear that skewered a lunging vampire. He also applied the tips that he got from Old John and sharpened his energy before swiping it all over the place. 

It was like a laser show, but flesh and blood were all over the place. Two vampires died while the fast ones turned into wild bats and hovered away where the energy spear could reach them.

At a glance, it could be judged that it was a good attack; however, anyone could see from Edward's rough breathing that he overexerted himself.

He already used a lot of energy while scouting the hollow room, and now he used most of his remaining energy to give burst damage. Fortunately, he still had some energy fruits, and it restored his depleted energy.

Adrian and Sheila were doing a great job fighting multiple vampires at the same time.

Adrian quickly moves around the enemies and could slightly predict their attack patterns. The vampires acted like they were never on the same side and never cooperated. They would attack when they wanted and retreat while watching other vampires fight.

As a scout and a rusher, Adrian still relies on critical hits that kill the enemies in one strike. Every attack would hit a vital area, and when there are times that he couldn't immediately kill the enemy, he would cripple their movements first before dashing to another target.

Sheila remained through to her role in the group, a support spear-wielder. He remained at the center of the formation instead of moving around. Every time a vampire would pounce towards someone, she was ready to send them flying away. A woman with pure power was terrifying foe. The vampires looked like naughty kids that went out to play and got chased back to their rooms by the punishment stick.

While the three were busy fighting, Jun was casually strangling two vampires on his hands. He was observing the flow of the battlefield with conservative eyes.

A strange foreboding feeling drummed his heart as if he was missing something important.

Then all of a sudden, he felt chills coming from above.

Everyone felt the cold aura and prompted them to reset their battle while pushing their enemies back. Half of the vampires died during the fight.

Jun slowly looked up to the ceiling since the chills were being sent from there. Cold sweat formed on his back as his eyes met with two gleaming white eyes. The eyes were the familiar eyes he saw from his mother back at Taytay when another spirit possessed her. 

The old vampire glared at him while standing at the hollow room's entrance. There was anger, annoyance, and disbelief hiding on his glares.

Jun immediately knew that it was the vampire leader from the way it composed itself. He also knows that the spirit inside the vampire's body was someone he was close with.

Ever since entering the wild dungeon, he could feel a familiar aura lingering throughout the cave system. 

He already had an answer in mind, and he just didn't want to accept it.

He glared back at the pair of illuminated eyes and snapped the vampires' necks before tossing them to the side.

At the same time, wild bats respawned near them and hovered around the area. The vampires that acted dumb earlier, retreated, and grouped together while surrounding the four of them.

When the wild bats flew near the vampires, they were seized and bitten to death. Wings flapped together with the wild bats' death wails, and the vampires continued eating their little brothers.

A noticeable increase in vitality could be seen from their bodies after they fully consumed the wild bats. The open wounds the vampires received earlier were slow healed over time.

Instead of worry, a flash of excitement twinkled on Jun's eyes.

"Hey, Yetu. Will you drop good loot after I kill you?"

"Hahaha! A puny human dares to speak nonsense to me! You're not even on the list of my priorities! There are more people much stronger than you out there!" The vampire leader clutched his face in shame, then suddenly waved his hand and struck a pose as if an Emporer giving a decree to his subordinates.

Yetu's voice was filled with annoyance and irritation, together with pride and confidence. "Go! Everyone, kill them all. Live nothing on their corpses. Take from them everything!"

Several wild bats appeared behind the vampire leader and flocked towards Jun's group. All of them transformed into vampires while in mid-air and charged madly with no care. Even the first batch of vampires joined the fray.

"It's useless," Jun muttered then produced Bumuth's Warhammer.

With a single step forward and a powerful swing embedded with Empower, coupled with the weapon's innate skill—Destruction Bash, everything in front of him was cleaved into half. Even the vampires behind the frontline received some impact and were blown away.

Destruction Bash was a skill to destroy and stun anything it hits. The additional power from Jun and the Empower skill dealt tremendous cleaving damage to every vampire in front of him.

Bodies flew in different directions as blood showered over Jun.

"You should have leveled them up if you want to use them as minions. From the way you're doing things, I think you're an old corpse who likes to pretend that he's still relevant. You don't even dare fight me yourself! Be honest with me! You're quite weak, right?" With a smile on his face, Jun mocked Yetu, who was residing inside the vampire leader's body.

The vampire leader's faces turned serious. He glared at Jun while grinding his teeth. "I gave you your strength! I gave you your abilities! You. Are. Weak!"

The vampire leader jumped from the hollow room and descended towards Jun while pointing his palm at him. The flight wasn't fast and even shrouded with the air of mysteriousness.

For some reason, no one was able to react to the situation. The vampire leader landed in front of Jun and bit his neck.

Afterward, Jun blacked out and fell to the ground together with the vampire leader. The two of them were unconscious and showed no signs of waking up anytime soon.

As if Time resumed, everyone was finally able to react.

"Jun!" Sheila, who was closest, shouted while running towards Jun. She immediately used all her healing skills, but nothing happened. Jun remained unconscious on her arms.

Adrian glanced back but didn't dare stop and continued killing the remaining vampires. With Sheila beside his Boss, he was sure that Jun would be safe.

Edward, on the other hand, unleashed energy spikes all over the enemies. This skill costs a lot of energy per spike, and after using it twice, his energy level was already entering the danger zone for energy backlash. The skill costs a lot due to the pushing power needed to send them flying and the forming of sharp energy projectiles