Chapter 63 Away From Home

It's already been over an hour since everyone left the castle to start their journey. Reign and the others were walking through the west side of the deep forest without the stress and tension from earlier. The forest was pretty much the same on this side, the flora and fauna differentiated incredibly slightly, even the monsters were no different, the party only encountering 1 new monster type on their way.

[ Lizardman ]

The lizardmen were incredibly similar to the kobolds the party encountered before, the biggest difference being the green skin color and a longer tail. Compared to the kobolds they were a bit weaker physically, after all the kobolds had dragon blood while the lizardmen simply evolved from lizards. Their fighting capabilities were lower as well, the deep weapon proficiencies that the kobolds had were nowhere to be found, the lizardmen fought crudely, using their claws and tail, only some had a big bone that they would use as a club.

Killing them was a simple thing for the party, shortly after the fight started it ended, the lizardmen were crushed without being able to inflict any wounds on them.

Getting to the edge of the deep forest was a new sight, the black forest they visited before was not there, in its stead a new one was presented to them.

[ BloodHill Forest ]

The forest was shrouded in red, the trees had red leaves growing out of them while the grass had a tinge of red in it, everything in it was red actually, with the color a slight smell of blood could be felt in the air, making anyone who enters slightly uncomfortable.

"Damn it, what kind of a forest is this, all red, smell of freaking blood in the air, just what kind of place did we get into?" Shadow asks with an irritated voice, the forest was weird, even more than the black forest.

"Since it has something to do with blood I guess we might run into some vampires here, they are the most famous monsters that use blood anyway," Reign says from behind, his eyes darting from place to place, trying to find any monsters that try to ambush them.

"I don't like this place," Beast says with a frown on his face, the smell of blood was getting on his nerves, as a tamer he had a big affinity towards nature and animals, a place like this one is too unnatural though, making him feel a bit angry at its existence.

Ding!

[ + 5% regenerative power, +5% attack power bonus from the present location. ]

Looking at the bonus given to him by his necklace he frowns, even more, getting such a bonus wouldn't mean that the monsters here had strong attacks and regeneration right?

He immediately shares it with the others who stop for a second, pondering upon it.

"I think it's highly likely, after all, weren't vampires and similar monsters hard to kill because of their regeneration?" Wolf asks the others after a while, everyone recollects what they knew about vampires and nods in confirmation.

"So strong attacks and regeneration, that should mean that their defense is weak right?" Tank asks after a bit, everyone nods to him as that was the only thing that made sense, after all the monsters here be a lot stronger compared to the dark forest if there was no balance to their stats.

Continuing their journey they finally encounter their first enemies, kneeling next to a tree 5 humanoid monsters were biting on a deer carcass, blood was flowing everywhere and the disgusting sloppy sound of them sucking on it echoed in the surroundings.

[ Lvl 14 Vamp ]

[ Lvl 16 Vamp ]

[ Lvl 15 Vamp ]

[ Lvl 14 Vamp ]

[ Lvl 13 Vamp ]

Description: Vamp are the servants of vampires, mindless monsters that only exist to obey their master and feast upon the corpses of their enemies. The vamps are a difficult opponent for most because of their inability to feel anything except hunger, making their fighting style extremely unorthodox and annoying.

"Inspect."

Vamp

Level: 15 ( 150 / 6000 )

Race : Vamp

Strength : 26

Agility :3?

Endurance : 15

Vitality : 15

Willpower : 8

Spirit : 7

"Alright, so they are fast and have a decent amount of strength." Reign shows the others the stats and they nod, the stats of a vamp was nothing special, it was merely average compared to other monsters of the same level, everyone here had higher stats except for the 2 wind wolves who were still only level 10.

Looking at their opponents they could see their nails were quite long and had a slight shine whenever they came in touch with light.

Swish

Beasts arrow comes and rudely interrupts their feast, the arrow plunges deep inside the shoulder of one of the vamps as it tries to dodge, the other vamps immediately get up to fight but their reaction was still a bit too slow compared to Reign and the others.

Greenie and Blackie attack one of the Vamps, knocking him down on the ground with ease before they ruthlessly continue their attacks on him.

The two wind wolves jump at the injured Vamp that turned out to be the lowest leveled one, with his injury limiting his mobility they quickly manage to gain the upper hand in the fight.

Reign and Wolf each take on one Vamp, immediately overwhelming them with their attacks, the Vamps whoever shows no panic, only anger at them for disturbing their meal, they didn't bother dodging or blocking any attacks, their only focus was on attacking them.

Tank and Shadow take on the level 16 Vamp together, Shadow immediately used his powers to lock its legs in place as Tank charges at him fiercely, trying to kill him as quickly as possible.

The battle lasted for a short time, the monsters were no match for the party even under normal circumstances, not to mention under an ambush.

[Battle has been concluded, distributing experience...]

- Lvl 14 Vamp killed, 350 exp points gained

- Lvl 15 Vamp killed, 400 exp points gained

- Lvl 16 Vamp killed, 450 exp points gained,

[The players have earner 1 200exp and 15S coins, distributing …]

[The player has earned 240 exp and 3S coins.]

[Battle has been concluded, distributing subordinates experience...]

- Lvl 14 Vamp killed, 175 exp points gained

[Your subordinate has killed 1 monster, 175 exp points earned.]

[Battle has been concluded, distributing pets experience...]

- Lvl 14 Vamp killed, 175 exp points gained

- Lvl 13 Vamp killed, 300 exp points gained

[Your pets have killed 3 monsters, 475 exp points earned.]

Killing off the Vamps Reign and the others leave the scene, as they don't want to encounter any monsters that might have been drawn over by the sound of battle and thicker smell of blood.

"Looking at the description we can be almost certain that vampires can be found here, they're probably mini-bosses, the same as the Treant was in the black forest," Reign tells everyone while they were on the move, their eyes darken a bit when the Treant was mentioned, it was the first monster that managed to injure them so gravely after all, if not for the remaining wood folk fleeing back then some of them might have died after all.

"A monster like a treant, but much faster, that would be a difficult opponent to deal with, after all the only reason we managed to defeat the Treant back then was because of how slow it was, if we convert its defense to speed, the vampire would be many times more dangerous compared to it," Wolf says with some worry in his eyes, after all, if they really do encounter a vampire then some of them might even die in the fight, all of them if they make any mistakes.

"That's why we will not ask for trouble and simply go around the area it is in, it should be easy to notice it, after all, the wood folks tribe was very different than the rest of the forest," Reign says while he looks at the side, everyone notices his gaze and stops, looking at the Vamps that pass by them, running towards the area they were previously in.

"They probably smelled the blood." Tank says with his face scrunched up, the amount of Vamp passing through was not low, there had to be at least 40 of them.

"Seems like this forest follows the same rules as the black forest did, the enemies are nothing special when confronted individually, but there are huge groups of them everywhere," Shadow observes the vamps as they pass, his eyes darting from one figure to another one.

"They're only one type, there are probably more different monsters here, we need to be careful, we don't want to repeat what happened on our first day at the black forest ok?" Wolf glances over to Shadow and says, everyone nods in confirmation and slowly go away after the vamps were out of their sight.