Chapter 53: The Hunt Begins! - Part 4(Finale)

"Nobody's here..." Looking around the sacrilegious place, Aria as well as the rest of the party was left dumbfounded.

There was no vampire lord hiding in the depths, instead in his place was a human hanging from the ceiling. After trying to calm him down, Raven tried to ask him a few questions, but the horrified man rushed out screaming through the cramped hallway.

"You sure we shouldn't follow him?" Asked Mel, her eyes focused on Raven.

"I doubt an insane person would give a confession, but you're free to chase after him if you want," rising from the ground, Raven turned to face her, but as expected, quickly looking away Mel showed no intention to chase after the man.

"So what the hell are we even doing here if the vampire lord isn't here?" A bit irked by all the waiting, especially with that cold metal chastity around his dick, Amedith wanted this thing to be over with so he could try and free himself from it.

"We have running blood in these engravings, that's proof enough that someone's hiding," her eyes still focused on the blood sigil on the ground, Erika tried to decipher their meaning, but just couldn't get it even though it felt like she was at the cusp of finding its nature. "Regardless, he could be trying to revive a general to the demon lord for all we know, the least we can do is destroy thi–"

The sudden dropping of a stack of books behind the encasing bookshelves forced Erika to abruptly end her sentence. Turning their gaze to the sound, everyone took out their weapons and slowly began encircling around the shelf. However, even as they stood right before the books that had been dropped, they didn't find anyone, at least not until Mino's nose caught a hint of monstrous bloodlust.

Smelling a hunger the same as hers, her eyes widened with horror. Frantically looking around she tried to spy the vampire lord, but failing still, she decided to scream out in warning instead.

"He's invisib–AGH!" Cutting her words short, a sharp dagger stabbed her belly from the side.

"Mino!" Being the first one to notice the wound, Raven jumped forward. Wrapping his hands around her falling body, he leaped back with hastened reflexes. "Amedith! Forward!"

The next thing he knew, a trail of sizzling green clouds roused from under Mel's shut eyelids. Walking forward, she stretched her arm forward and was instantly stabbed in the arm by a thrown dagger. However, keeping still, she took a deep breath before opening her eyes.

"Cage of thorn!" The moment she yelled out the spell, a collection of luminous magic circles surrounded the empty space before her. What came next were iron-like thorns inching closer and closer toward each other until they conformed into a cage.

"GRHH!" Hearing the invisible vampire squealing as one of the thorns stabbed into his body, Mel quickly jumped behind Amedith to let him take care of the rest.

"He's bleeding, get him before the magi–" Just as she'd expected, the spell's power didn't last long once she'd broken her concentration. Turning into sparkling dust, the thorn disappeared completely. Though the bleeding wound from the vampire lord now easily gave away his position.

'Only a matter of time now...' Letting Amedith take the lead, Raven moved up behind him to support through attacks while the hero stayed on defense.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL! YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!" Being wounded for the very first time in a decade, the invisible vampire lord had gone mad. Throwing all caution to the wind, he assaulted the group from all possible directions, but as long as Amedith's shield stood, nothing could hit them no matter where the attack came from.

Deflected by the mystic forces of the shield despite being far away from it, he grew tired as time went on, and finally, he stood bleeding in a corner and panting.

"Cage!" Conjuring a cage made of pure dark, Raven imprisoned the vampire lord in a more solid prison than Mel's thorns.

Had he not tired himself from the rampant assaults, he might've been strong enough to break through, but with a deep wound in his belly, and all his energy knocked out, he couldn't even hold onto his invisibility.

Moving up close to the shambling vampire lord, Raven looked him in the eye and whispered.

"You're gonna answer some questions," taking out the golden blade, Raven stabbed him through the chest to pin him to the wall. "And then you're gonna die."