Second World

Seeing their opponent had now solidified, the three melee combatants sent their attacks. Jonathan swung his halberd fiercely. Each swing was accompanied by a torrent of earth pellets. Harker stayed behind his partner and sent stabs using his long pike whenever possible. Ephiltes thrust his longsword, a mesh met out of light appeared in front of his sword. Anything that came upon this light was cleanly cut.

Aubelard chuckled as he swung both his arms to two sides. His Demon Claw easily swatted Jonathan and Harker's attack. While his other claw grabbed Ephiltes' mesh of light. He clenched and the mesh of light broke apart as if it was a physical thing. Each movement of the demon claws generated a repulsive shockwave. The three melee fighters were pushed back by this wave.

When Aubelard was about to go on the offense, cold energy swept down at him. The energy solidified into a large block of an ice mountain. Aubelard was locked inside this frozen slab. The spell had been cast by Sidney.

Arlcard didn't let go of this chance. He rushed ahead and stabbed his rapier into the ice slab. A drilling force shot out from the tip of his rapier and drilled into the ice and stabbed Aubelard's motionless body.

Jonathan and Ephiltes weren't to be left behind. They stabbed their weapons into the ice as well. A single but larger earth spear pierced through the ice and stabbed Aubelard, while Ephiltes longsword turned into dazzling light and similarly penetrated Aubelard's body deep inside the ice block.

Only Harker couldn't join because he didn't have a skill strong enough to reach Aubelard inside the ice.

Sidney was readying another spell while her comrades were stabbing the trapped Aubelard. The ice didn't hold the old vampire for long, though. The ice block shook heavily as cracks spread rapidly all over the ice. It then shattered into pieces as Aubelard's laughter again filled the hall.

'The guy is still enjoying this?' Jack thought with alarm. That did not bode well, it meant the old vampire still had something up his sleeve.

Aubelard's eyes started to shine an eerie red glow.

"Don't look into his eyes!" Arlcard shouted.

But too late, Jonathan had been mesmerized by the stare. His body refused to move. Aubelard dashed at him. Dark fog swirled around his left claw which was heading at Jonathan.

"Oh no!" Peniel, who recognized the move, exclaimed in alarm.

Jonathan could feel extreme danger from the incoming attack. He struggled for his body to move, but it refused to budge. When the claw almost hit, Harker suddenly came and put himself in front of Jonathan.

The claw hit Harker's body. The dark fog seeped into the sergeant's body. A sound of glass breaking was heard from inside Harker. Jonathan saw in horror as his partner's HP zeroed in an instant.

"Tsk, this skill was wasted on the second weakest person," Aubelard uttered.

Arlcard and Ephiltes sneaked to Aubelard's back attempted a back attack, but Aubelard's one swing with his demon claw repelled the two's attack. The swing was accompanied by an explosive shockwave that pushed them back a great distance.

Jonathan roared as Harper's body fell in front of him. He finally managed to force his body to move again. Earth element wrapped around his halberd, turning it into a giant hammer. He smashed the hammer down at Aubelard's head. The heavy force caused Aubelard to stumble.

Jonathan did not let up. In his rage, he continued to smash his earth hammer against Aubelard's body repeatedly. Aubelard didn't let Jonathan do as he pleased. He clawed in return, causing chaos damage to Jonathan. Jonathan didn't care about his wounds, all he wanted was to destroy this fiend before him. He refused to retreat.

"You lesser vermin, begone!" Aubelard was getting fed up by Jonathan's reckless perseverance. A quick spell was cast and a veil of shadow enveloped Jonathan. The veil then forcefully pulled Jonathan away and up into the air.

"I will send you to the afterlife following your friend!" Aubelard exclaimed. Another spell was cast as a long black spear hovered before the vampire.

But at this time, Sidney who had been focusing herself on casting had finally completed her spell. It was a spell formation consisting of seven runes! This was her strongest spell, but she had not mastered it completely hence it took a long time to cast.

The area around her solidified into three frozen sculptures of giant wyrms. The wyrms came into life with roars as they abruptly shot at Aubelard. The three wyrms slammed into the vampire's body, each bit Aubelard's different body parts.

Aubelard was getting dragged by the wyrms in a circle around the hall before they lifted him high and then slammed him hard into the ground. Ice energy exploded upon the impact.

When the dust settled, they saw Aubelard's aristocratic coat was in tatters. Many ice javelins were protruding from his body. These javelins were embedded deep into Aubelard's body as a remnant of the ice wyrm spell. The expression on the vampire count was no longer at ease, but he was strangely, still half smiling.

Sidney started casting another spell. Aubelard's black spear was still hovering beside him, he had not yet unleashed that spell. Seeing the woman mage as the most dangerous, Aubelard's spear shot forward with a sonic boom.

Sidney, who saw the assault, didn't dare to be careless. She canceled her spell as a large magic shield came up before her for protection. The black spear shattered the shield as if there was nothing there and pierced Sidney's shoulder. The woman mage screamed in pain. The point of impact on her shoulder had tendrils of dark energy creep out and envelop her entire body.

"That was Spear of Corruption. She won't be able to cast any spell if she didn't expel that corrupting force," Peniel informed.

"Can you heal her? Go and aid them! I'm fine here," Jack uttered. He was actually having trouble just to keep from getting hit by the draugr, even with his rock golem's interference. But he knew that the fight with Aubelard would be the deciding factor. If they failed to take down that old vampire, he would also perish.

Peniel nodded her understanding and flew over to Sidney.

In the meantime, Arlcard and Ephiles had arrived at where Aubelard was. The two slashed their swords with extremely fast speed. Aubelard's body was still locked by the countless ice javelins, causing him difficulty in moving. He failed to block all the two swordsmen's assaults, damages continued to pile up. Aubelard had lost almost half of his HP.

Arlcard disengaged and readied a spell. Seeing his partner disengaged, Ephiles doubled his effort to keep the Count occupied. His sword danced as a web of light reappeared. This time the number of light rays were doubled from the previous. The light ray cut through Aubelard's body in succession.

Aubelard roared as his eyes glowed red again. Ephiltes had seen the effect of the stare so he quickly looked away, but it caused his attack to pause. Aubelard made a stomp as he gathered his energy. The ice javelins around his body were finally destroyed. He could move freely again.

But when he wanted to attack Ephiltes, he found his body turned rigid. He looked down and saw a curtain of shadow was holding his body. It was Arlcard's spell. Arlcard must have predicted the ice javelins won't last any longer, so he prepared another restraining spell.

Ephiltes didn't let the chance go to waste. His sword slashed swiftly again. Jonathan had also come back. The shadow veil spell was only a restraining spell, it didn't cause any damage to Jonathan. Once the spell expired, he immediately went for offense again. He was determined to avenge Harker.

Sidney had also been cured after Peniel cast Fast Heal on her. The woman mage cast a quick spell and several ice spears shot out and stabbed at Aubelard.

When it appeared that they were in advantage and Aubelard was losing, the Count gave them a wide grin. The two fangs on him made his grin appear extremely sinister.

"Well, playtime is over," he uttered.

Jack, who was still fighting the draugr wasn't aware of the development. The fight with Aubelard had moved to rather far away from him. He was still focusing on using his Eight Diagram Illusory Steps to expertly dodge all the draugr's attacks while his Rock Golem forcefully interrupted the draugr from time to time. His golem's HP currently had only around 30% left. Jack was not sure how much longer he could keep this up.

Suddenly, the draugr stopped moving. Jack was puzzled. He didn't approach the draugr though. He was worried this was just a ruse to draw him close. While he waited in alert, the draugr fell to the ground and started melting. Just like how the fake Aubelard melted.

Jack was astounded. He sensed the entire mana contained within the draugr moved to where the others were fighting. He looked over and sensed the draugr mana merged with Aubelard. The count's aura suddenly rose exponentially.

Jack used Inspect on Aubelard and was dismayed to find his grade had risen to Rare Elite.