Chapter 98 Vampires

I was awoken in the middle of the night by the alert of one of my Minions.

Both Chloe and I quickly got up and opened the door of the hut.

"This is new, I haven't been alerted by one of my Minions in weeks."

"Is there a big issue?"

"I'm not sure yet..."

As I looked out into the settlement, I noticed that there was something attacking my Minions. It had managed to make its way past the walls and was attacking my internal forces. I had already lost quite a few archers and other combat Minions.

I drew [Mayuri-Luc-Ei] as I approached this mysterious enemy.

Its movements looked humanoid, however, it seemed much too strong to be a human and most importantly, it seemed too 'wild'. It was nimble and strong, tearing my Minions apart without much trouble.

Suddenly, I received some sort of notification.

[The Shadow Realiser is your weapon against the vampires.]

My weapon... against the vampires...?

Suddenly, the thing noticed my presence and began charging at me. It was incredibly dark, so I could only see a dark figure in the distance.

As fast as I could, I called my Elite Minions to my side as I prepared to engage in combat. As the creature got closer, I managed to get a good view of it. From a brief glance, it seemed to look like a normal human boy, however, it had abnormally long fingernails and long canines which stuck out outside of its mouth.

Not only that, it was wearing a long white cape and it had a sword attached to its hip.

I see now, this must be a vampire.

Rook and Bishop were the first to engage it, but the vampire swiped at them with his hands, causing them to crash into the ground. My Minions fell to the ground, after suffering a powerful blow from the vampire.

It was incredibly strong.

I called more Minions over but I had my doubts about their effectiveness. My Minions weren't very good at fighting a singular strong enemy. It seemed to have been able to break through my lines without too much issue in the first place. Its movements were very animal-like—erratic and unpredictable.

The vampire looked up at me, however, it had a very distressed expression, different from what I expected. Its face showed agony, pain, and suffering.

"Blood! I need fucking blood..."

Suddenly, it lashed out at me, diving straight at my body.

As fast as I could, I swung [Mayuri-Luc-Ei], cutting off both of his arms. Blood was spread across the dirt as his arms fell to the ground. However, a few moments later, a string of blood pulled his arms off of the ground and rejoined them to his body.

They had strong regenerative powers...?

I noticed that it had stopped and wasn't attacking me. In the opening I raised [Mayuri-Luc-Ei] and tensed my body, concentrating on the movement of the blade.

Cut him down, Mayuri.

A dense purple aura gathered around [Mayuri-Luc-Ei] before a powerful shockwave of air was sent smashing into the vampire. The impact sent the vampire crashing into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

However, he got back up and drew the deep red sword which was in a sheath on his hip.

"Sword... drink my blood."

Small streams of blood began feeding into the sword from the vampire's arm.

Crap, what was this?

All of a sudden, he rushed at me again, this time, he was holding the sword in his hand.

Shit, it was way too fast.

There was no way I could fight him.

I called Bishop and Rook back to me, positioning them just a bit in front.

For some reason, the vampire didn't show any hesitation, charging directly at my Minions. More Minions were arriving to help out by I was still in quite a bit of trouble. Chloe took out her [Butterfly Bow] and fired a volley of arrows toward the vampire.

Quite a few arrows managed to dig themselves into the flesh of the vampire, however, the wounds quickly healed several seconds later.

How are we meant to kill this thing?

With no other choice, I decided to back up, sending many of my combat Minions forward to buy time. Despite taking lots of damage, the vampire showed no loss of strength, continuously cutting down my Minions, one by one.

I drew [Tengen-Ko-Rin].

Chain him down, Tengen.

? Hard, almost-unbreakable chains were conjured, holding the vampire in place. He struggled violently, jerking at the steel chains, however, it appeared that the chains were just strong enough to keep him immobilised for a little while.

All of my Minions began attacking the vampire at the same time. Slicing at its body and piercing him with an endless number of arrows. Eventually, he managed to break out of my chains, but at this point, it was obvious that he had begun to lose strength.

I guess he wasn't invincible.

"Sword... drink m-more... drink more blood...."

More blood began leaking out of his arm, feeding into the dark, crimson sword.

In one big swing, he managed to push back my entire force of Minions. The shockwave brought about a large cyclone-like wind. All of my Minions were sent crashing into the ground, giving him precious time and space.

"Blood... I need... give me your blood, worthless human!"

It began charging toward me once again.

This time, I used [Tengen-Ko-Rin] in an attempt to keep the vampire at a distance. Chloe was shooting volley after volley of arrows, significantly slowing him down. He frantically swung his sword, trying to knock away the arrows, but he wasn't able to block all of them.

Despite all of that, the vampire persisted. He dashed straight at me, holding his sword out in front of him. Without no other options, I had to block his attack with [Tengen-Ko-Rin]. As soon as the two blades made contact, a dark red aura began seeping onto my blade.

Shit.

I jumped back as fast as I could and tried to create some space between the two of us.

My Minions had gotten back up and were engaging him once again. He fought hard, cutting down my combat Minions as they pushed towards him.