Ch.4646. Vampire (2)

The vampire noble, Jose de Vlad, looked down at those druid nobodies with a confident smile.

A noble vampire classified as a direct descendant of the Vlad bloodline, an ancient vampire clan.

Before becoming a vampire, he had been a prodigy and genius of the magic tower, and now living in his mansion near the southern swamplands, situations like this were familiar occurrences he had experienced many times.

In his research to overcome various weaknesses inherent to vampires as a race, such as vulnerability to sunlight or silver, through his own magic, he needed test subjects. For this reason, Jose had been using his mansion as a trap to turn passing travelers into experimental subjects.

These people were captured by the vampire Jose de Vlad, forcibly turned into undead, and subjected to all manner of horrific experiments. Once the experiments were completed, their souls were made into wraiths while their bodies were modified to serve as guard dogs protecting his mansion.

He had even captured two wandering knights and turned them into slaves—vampire knights—who followed his commands, and his research, which literally ground up humans, was making decent progress.

Thanks to this somewhat justified confidence, Jose expressed his anger toward the barbaric druids who “dared” not to die obediently for him.

Not only had they forced his noble self to personally intervene, but they had used primitive and backward magic to collapse his entire mansion and… swept away the slaves he had personally created!

…Perhaps influenced by the mental illness that inevitably afflicts vampires who have lived for ages, Jose genuinely harbored such foolish thoughts.

Ah, of course, separate from that, Jose’s survival instinct was making a cold assessment.

Judging by how they had collapsed his mansion down to its foundation and swept away all his subordinates, these two druids must be extremely powerful enemies….

But they couldn’t possibly exert that combat power right now.

Mid-level or higher magicians were like those with high maximum potential but low minimum output.

Given their characteristic of relying heavily on magic for combat power, they inevitably depended greatly on mana as a resource.

Therefore, as these beast and human nobodies attempted to oppose him, Jose de Vlad raised the corners of his mouth wickedly and shot forth the vampire’s mysterious blood magic from his fingertips.

-KWAAAANG!!!

This technique of blood magic, combining compressed blood and blood explosion, carried sufficient power despite not requiring any incantation.

In an instant, explosions and smoke erupting from the blood that touched the ground engulfed them.

The blood magic wielded by vampires inherently possessed the power to gnaw away at the target’s life force and mental energy, transferring it to the caster—an energy drain ability.

Because of this, Jose tried to smile with ecstasy as he anticipated the victims’ life force being transferred to him… but nothing actually came to him.

‘……….?’

Jose’s emotions expressed bewilderment, having been certain that his attack would claim the lives of those primitive-magicians and the beast.

Meanwhile, his reason, which was coldly analyzing the situation, reached a conclusion.

They too were mid-level magic users. Judging that they would have plenty of methods to defend against magical attacks, he immediately launched his next assault.

[My subordinates, go and take the heads of those barbarians!]

First, he sent out his subordinates, vampire knights whose bodies were those of lower vampires but who could use aura, making them recognized as mid-level warriors.

[[………..!]]

Floating with the magical power imbued in their spiky black armor, they descended to the ground upon receiving the order through their hazy consciousness. Soon, they skillfully raised their arming swords and kite shields before charging forward with all their might.

But separately from this, the wicked Jose did not want his slaves to feel the joy of slaughtering enemies, so he uttered evil words and wove magic.

[■■■! ■■ ■■■■ ■■ ■■■ ■ ■■■■!!!]

The effect of this spell, a type of necromancy used by those who deal with the undead, was to drain the target’s life force.

By its nature, it was inevitably super effective against druid magic, which is centered around life force.

Because of this, separate from Jose’s reason that still maintained a cold self, his instinct was looking at them with an expression that could only be described as wicked…

[──■■ ■■■ ■ ■■……..What?!!]

At the unbelievable sight that entered his eyes, he stuttered and stopped his incantation mid-spell.

That druid wearing the wolf skin cloak, without a single word of incantation, spontaneously drew forth tremendous mystical power and formed several giant snake heads made of mana.

Judging by the unique pattern of mana movement, he was undoubtedly the one responsible for causing the earthquake that buried his mansion…

And yet after causing such a great magic, he was casting another spell that could be considered great magic again!

His past self as a magic tower mage… himself, he…

As he tried to recall his hazy past memories, which appeared as if covered in fog, he momentarily froze in his actions, which was nothing short of a fatal mistake.

Stuttering while in the middle of casting a spell was enough to distort the mana wavelength.

But… what would happen if one suddenly stopped all actions in the middle of casting?

-Wooooong!!

With a strange sound, the mana that escaped control burst out in all directions, tearing apart Jose de Vlad’s insides.

If he were an ordinary human mage, he would have died right there… but he was a vampire noble.

His shredded nervous system, blood vessels, and ruptured internal organs slowly began to recover.

However, no matter how excellent his regenerative abilities or how robust his life force, there were limits to his power.

Therefore, while the vampire noble Jose was temporarily incapacitated for recovery…

-Whoosh───KWAJIK!!!

The male druid riding the giant magical wolf skillfully manipulated the snake heads extending from around his waist, holding his own against the two vampire knights.

Although the vampire knights were based on lower vampires, they were former wandering knights who had awakened their aura.

Therefore, their close combat abilities based on the skills engraved in their bodies and souls remained largely intact except for some degradation, and in terms of physical abilities, they might even be slightly stronger than when they were human, but…

-KWAJIK! KWAJIJIK!

That was not enough reason for the knights to defeat the druid.

-KWOONG!! TEUDEUDEUGEUK!!

The translucent snake head summoned by the druid instantly stretched out to bite a knight and pin him to the ground, followed by a barrage of slashes created by the druid raining down on the immobilized knight.

Cutting, slashing, severing. The slashes formed, persistently targeting the same spot.

At first, the knight tried to endure by thickly wrapping himself in aura, but once the speed at which the slashes regenerated became faster than the speed at which he could draw aura, the story changed.

No matter how much these beings had transcended humanity to become undead, their physical structure ultimately followed that of humans.

Therefore, the knight whose body began to be dismembered piece by piece, starting with vital points, would likely not last long.

Meanwhile, the other knight was managing to hold on by skillfully wielding his arming sword (one-handed sword), but… it didn’t seem like he would last much longer.

[──GRRRR!!]

The cause was the gray-furred wolf the druid was riding.

To put it in terms modern people would understand, the wolf with a body about the size of a one-ton truck was displaying the power of a mid-level magical beast without reservation, coordinating with the druid.

While the druid attacked by extending snake heads that had relatively lower killing power but could be destroyed without major issues, the mid-level wolf magical beast would find openings in the knight’s movements to pounce and deliver “fatal” surprise attacks.

For the knight, who maintained his decaying body with the small amount of parent vampire blood remaining inside, this was a combination of enemies he simply could not properly face.

And… around the time when the two knights finally couldn’t hold on any longer and their decaying bodies were being destroyed…

[……..Those things!]

Jose, who had been forced to withdraw from battle momentarily due to his chronic mental illness, had completed his recovery in that short time and was about to step forward in anger at the sight of his best slaves being one-sidedly slaughtered when…

‘……..Huh?’

Suddenly noticing the suspicious currents beginning to swirl within this barrier, this wicked soul looked up at the sky, detecting the location from which the essence of this power originated, and couldn’t help but be startled.

-KUGUGUGUGUGUGUGU!!!

A gap opened in the high heavens, and from between it, a streak of meteor made of starlight began to fall with a thunderous roar.