Undying Warlord

"Kids, aren't you forgetting that I'm not the only one here?"

The voice of the adult Vampire they had charged at a while ago, reached Dilan's and Victoria's ears. Of course, they knew that the noble Vampire was not alone but that didn't mean either Dilan or Victoria would pay any attention to them.

Victoria moved instinctively to respond to the noble Vampire's threat. After advancing to Tier-2, her Vampire Power had grown exponentially.

This made it easier for her to release a huge wall of spike and unrefined Blood-Ice in all directions except the front.

The Blood-Ice walls were more than ten meters high and even broader than that. They covered the most crowded area of the battlefield in an instant, imprisoning several Vampires in the Blood-Ice.

Through the Blood-Ice walls, the Vampires all around the noble Vampire, who had attempted to attack both Victoria and Dilan, were severely restricted, even if they were not completely incapacitated.

The noble Vampire, whose Origin ability had fused with his Vampire Power could only smile at this. He controlled the winds around the battlefield with ease, and they gushed together. The moment the winds collided, a spark was created as if charged clouds would create lightning the noble Vampire activated his Origin ability.

The winds he controlled were set ablaze, and the blazing flames were released in an instant. A terrific, twenty-meter-tall Inferno was created and it pushed forward, melting Victoria's Blood-Ice walls rapidly.

Victoria's work would be destroyed in the next dozens of seconds, which formed a grim expression on her beautiful, fair and flawless face.

After advancing to Tier-2, not only were more impurities released from her body that elevated her beauty but she had changed a bit as well. When releasing certain occupational abilities as the Demonic Ice Princess, ear-like black horns would protrude out of her head.

Under normal circumstances, this would have looked cute and adorable, but right now it intensified the tension in the surrounding because Victoria's strength seemed to have increased drastically.

She was not as fast as Dilan, and her Health stat was also lower than his. However, that was of no concern to her because Dilan was her ally and not someone she would ever have to fight against and defeat.

While Victoria tried to hold back the Vampires from attacking herself and Dilan by using her Blood-Ice to achieve this, Dilan didn't hesitate a single second as he charged through the Inferno of blazing flames.

Usually, Dilan wouldn't have to fear getting injured by the Inferno because it was only slightly more powerful than the Thunderbolt Eagle's bolts of lightning. Unfortunately, his skin burst open and the open wounds were an easy target for the vampires to worsen his injuries.

But instead of being worried about the pain, or that he might get burned, Dilan accepted everything nonetheless. The pain would increase his strength, which would result in his Health stat is increased.

Dilan would heal the burns he sustained moments earlier before he would receive new burns. This would turn into a cycle of pain and recuperation, which was perfectly fine with Dilan as long as he was able to gain an advantage over his opponents.

Vampires naturally feared fire but the noble Vampire, who could control it, had gotten accustomed to it over a long period. His Mana stat was extremely high because his Origin ability had already advanced to Tier-1, and it amplified his Mana drastically.

Nonetheless, he was not immune to the fire he could control easily. His Vampire Power and his Origin affinity had merged with the Ancient Vampire Power [Blazing Winds of Evernight], further increasing his strength.

If he had only been one of the four noble Vampires of the Melza family before, the awakening of his Ancient Vampire Power elevated his status to the patriarch of the Melza family.

However, that was not enough to satisfy him anymore. He wanted more and the appearance of the Blood Monarch's Sanctum was more than enough to give him the push he needed to gather all the powerful Warriors of his family to move out and storm the Sanctum.

But because the five Sanctum keys were required to open the old sanctum, the annoying pest of a human being had to be defeated first.

With that thought in mind, the blazing flames flared up and they burned down the Blood-Ice much faster than before. Victoria had stopped fighting against the Inferno. She retreated, and pulled out a few potions, including the mana replenishment potion before she disappeared in the morning sun.

Her mission had changed and even if Victoria wanted to join Dilan's fight, she could tell that her presence slowed him.

After all, he would have to be careful of not accidentally burning her in the Inferno that spread out and burst open whenever Dilan issued a slash with Balzaki.

The huge greatsword created air fissures that were terrifying enough to blast the surrounding winds in a radius of ten meters in the direction Dilan slashes.

This would be quite useless if they were in a normal fight but Dilan made use of this to slash in the direction of the Patriarch of the Melza family.

The moment he swung Balzaki, the flames gushed forward. They blasted toward the Melza family's patriarch, who had to activate his Ancient Vampire Power to split the flames to thwart them from spreading further and regain control of his flames.

However, the moment he split open the flames that had gushed in his direction, Dilan's wide grimace emerged out of the flames.

His eyes shone bright and he appeared right in front of the patriarch a moment later.

Both [Thunder Step] and [Second Acceleration] were activated. And a moment later, Dilan activated [Switch] as well.

He reallocated close to 50 Units of Health, 30 Units of his Mana, and 20 Units of his Stamina to his Strength, that increased by 100 Units.

But that was not all!

Because Dilan's health decreased by 50 Units, and he had already sacrificed Lifeforce worth 100 Health units, Dilan's remaining health was only a shred of what it used to be.

[Bracing Pain] was triggered, it deemed Dilan's condition as severely injured and thus it increased Dilan's stats by 50%.

His joints began to creak because his Strength crossed 300 Units, while his Agility crossed 250 Units easily as well, but it was not as problematic as before.

Dilan could control his body precisely, moving carefully enough to restrain his body from bursting up like a squeezed tomato. He closed in to the Melza family's patriarch and smiled brightly.

"How about one for two?" Dilan asked with a cocky grin and there was maniacal greed on his face; the greed for death of his opponent.

It looked like his eyes turned red as the blazing flame of the inferno around him were reflected in his eyes. Yet, he only looked at the patriarch of the Melza family, while he ignored the presence of all the Vampires around him.

They tried to attack him but Dilan just smiled as he slashed Balzaki upward to the left.

He barely moved yet, just a quarter of a second after Dilan executed his attack, the patriarch's upper body slid down from the rest of his body. A red line passed through the patriarch's left side and across his heart, just to end up at the noble Vampire's neck.

The Vampire's head was pricked by the razor-sharp blade of Balzaki, and his heart was pierced through.

"One strike, two targets down, heart and head…" Dilan mumbled as the blood splattered in his face. The muscles in his arms and calves were begging for rest but Dilan just smiled like a maniac.

He had to stop using [Switch] for a moment but that was perfectly fine. This decreased the ability's cooldown time drastically and it allowed Dilan to use [Switch] again in less than two minutes.

His stats returned to their norm and Dilan was just about to turn around to finish off the other Vampires when he realized two things.

'The patriarch's Inferno is still there…and Victoria's Prison of ice is nothing more than decoration anymore. Everyone who was imprisoned escaped…' Dilan thought disgruntled and it was not even a second later that the lifeless body of the Melza family's patriarch dissolved in blazing flames.

The head that was stuck on Balzaki's edge also erupted into flames that spread out over more than a hundred meters away from Dilan.

"You are quite interesting. Lucky for me that I possess a few interesting abilities, don't you think so?" The patriarch asked with a wry smile on his face as he touched his body as if he wanted to make sure that he was unscathed.

"Do you think you're fortunate for being alive a bit longer?" Dilan countered without a change in his expression. He was still smiling in a crazed manner as he looked at the twitching body of the patriarch.

"Consider yourself unlucky because you will realize that being alive for a few more minutes will be worse than being thrown into the deepest pits of hell!"