Point-of-View: Vi Loubder

———————————————————————————

​​

Four Vampires left, two were near a pink-haired girl, they must have been moving in to kill her right before I showed up...they're still caught by surprise, and the dust from my kick hadn't fully settled yet...

Before any of them could get over the shock and come to their senses, I bent my knees and leapt towards one of them at full speed, slamming my foot onto her head. Her neck broke, the skin and muscles around it tearing, along with her throat, as my kick ripped her head off and sent it flying away, smashing against a wall as her body went limp and collapsed onto the ground. I need to destroy the core. One of the other Vampires snapped out of it and fired a Blood Magic blast at me, I swiftly stomped my foot down on the side of a loose chunk of the ground, kicking it up to absorb the impact of the blast.

I then jumped up with my legs bent, and then slammed both feet down onto the decapitated Vampire's midsection with a crushing force, the impact traveling through her body and shattering her core, as she went up in flames and disappeared. The three remaining Vampires sprang away and got some distance with wary expressions. Looks like I've got everything I can out of the element of surprise, but the remaining Vampires were being cautious, so I won't be able to catch them off-guard again.

"Hey, kids, get out of here! I'll handle this," I called out to the boy with tentacles and pink-haired girl.

"Three Vampires headed for the crowd, the civilians are in danger!" Informed the tentacled boy, getting back on his feet as he used a healing spell.

I see, no wonder there was so much panic...a few million citizens being attacked by three Vampires...how in the world were we supposed to find them? Well, I can't worry about that till I take care of the more immediate problem...I need these kids to get away from here, I won't let these Vampires kill any more of them.

"Okay, go help the civilians, you two! I'll kill these three," I replied, my eyes locked on the three Vampires ahead of me.

"R-right, we understand!" He replied, the two of them rushing back after picking up an orange-haired girl...that's good, at least one more survived.

"How foolish, do you truly believe that you can defeat us, human?" Scoffed one of the Vampires.

"Why don't you come over here and find out?" I replied coldly, before swiftly kicking a chunk of earth at him and sprinting off to the left towards one of the others.

I sprang up and forward at him and spun myself forward in mid-air to generate more momentum, as I stretched out my right leg and slammed my foot down towards his head. He brought his arms up, his forearms had a strange plate-like shield shape...but they tore right off as my foot slammed onto them, my heel continuing down and caving his ribcage in as he sprang back, coughing out blood.

The other two then sprang up behind me, Blood Magic blasts in their hands. I quickly leapt straight up as one of them fired, evading it effortlessly. Oh, no, only one of them fired...and I can't dodge in mid-air! I swiftly took out my healing spell and clutched it in my hand as I braced for impact with my arms crossed defensively. The blasts burst onto my forearms, sending an excruciating pain through my body as I let out a gasp of pain. I-I think that scorched off my flesh almost down to my bones...I ran my Mana into the spell as fast as I could, healing my arms.

I felt a bit dizzy, looks like that had taken a lot of my stamina to heal...crap, they're flying up towards me! Two of them were on either side of me while the third had flown above me and was zipping straight down towards me. The two to my sides fired their blasts at me, while the other one swung his tail towards my throat as he closed in.

I got my left hand in the way, wincing at the tip of his tail burst through my palm, but I gritted my teeth and grabbed hold of his tail, before planting my feet on his torso with my knees bent and springing straight off of it, making myself fall faster and narrowly avoid getting struck by the Blood Magic blasts, which burst onto the Vampire who had swooped down at me, as he was unable to get away with my grip on his tail...that, and the fact that his midsection was crushed from my springing off it just now.

As I rapidly approached the ground, I tightened my grip on his tail and swung him across down towards the ground, using him to break my fall. He was completely crushed, but still alive. Not for long- damn it, the other two are already on my tail! I sprang away before I could kill him, the other two chasing after me.

I raised my right foot as high as I could as I backed away, before slamming my heel down onto the ground with all my strength, sending a shockwave blasting towards the Vampires approaching me. But they evaded it with ease, simply flying up. Some of the flying rubble struck them, but didn't do any real damage. They then fired a barrage of Blood Magic blasts at me, which I evaded as best I could, but several grazed me and left painful scorch marks on my skin.

Whenever they fired Blood Magic blasts after charging them up, they were really destructive and could incinerate a person, but when they fired those blasts without charging them up, they weren't that powerful, they left shallow skin wounds at best...but they were still extremely painful.

I let out a gasp of pain as some of the blasts struck me clean on my midsection and shoulders, a searing pain going through my body. I stumbled back and collapsed onto one knee with a groan. Both Vampires were zipping towards me with their claws extended, closing in rapidly. Not good...but it was better than if they had chosen to finish me with Blood Magic blasts. I forced myself to stand up, letting out a groan. As they neared me, I stomped on the ground, sending a mild shockwave towards one of them. She stopped and flew away to avoid it, but the other one didn't stop, the one with the shield-like forearms.

I planted my hand on the ground, put my weight on it and rapidly lifted myself up, standing on my hand as I swung my foot up at his head as he closed in, breaking his neck and cracking his skull in. I then grabbed both his wrists tightly and jumped up, unleashing a barrage of kicks at his torso, caving his bones in and crushing his organs...there's his core, near his left shoulder! One more kick-...I was forced to let go and spring away as a hail of red blasts came raining towards me. The other two Vampires, looks like the one I slammed down had fully healed already.

Damn it, no! Once the one I just injured recovers, he'll move his core again, and the other two are flying towards me rapidly...I don't have any time to counter-...! Suddenly, a blue flash zipped towards the injured Vampire, with crab or lobster claws from arms...huh, a little girl? She closed in on the Vampire and grabbed the core between one of her pincers, crushing it. Wait, wasn't that Mika, Kuro's apprentice?

What we she doing here? Well, I can't complain since she'd just saved me, both Vampires chasing me had stopped as the red flare went up behind them, turning around with cautious looks of surprise, while I quickly healed myself. She had already reverted her arms back to normal and drawn out a couple of daggers.

"What, a mere child? Go kill her, I will finish this one," Remarked the female Vampire, before shooting towards me with her claws extended and Blood Magic blasts in her palms, as the one with the shield-like forearms shot towards Mika.

"Hey, get out of here-!" I began to exclaim, before cutting off as I had to dodge and evade the Vampire's strikes and blasts.

The other Vampire swung his claws at Mika, she swiftly ducked under it and flicked one of her daggers up and across, slicing off his hand.

"Why, you little- gahh!" He started to curse, before she sprang up and fired a bolt of lightning at his face.

She then swung her dagger down at him, he responded by quickly crossing his forearms above himself defensively, the dagger deflecting upwards as it struck his defense. Then, in a swift, fluid motion, she planted one of her palms onto his defensive arms, swung herself up and kicked the dagger back down, piercing him between the eyes.

She jumped away as he let out a pained and furious growl and swung his tail at her, before firing a couple of Blood Magic blasts at her before she could land. She hurriedly fired a couple of bolts of lightning, but the red blasts canceled them out and blasted onto her arms as she crossed them defensively. The skin on her forearms was scorched off, but as she landed, she looked unfazed by it.

"That stings a bit...is that all you've got?" She taunted, as she ran lightning through her dagger.

...is this girl really just twelve?

"I'll kill you," The Vampire growled threateningly, pulling out the dagger in his head and tossing it away.

"Poison doesn't work, huh," She muttered wistfully, before firing a bolt of lightning at him.

He evaded and flew up, charging a Blood Magic blast in his hands. Meanwhile, I was starting to lose ground against the one I was fighting, she wasn't giving me a chance to counter at all, attacking wildly and relentlessly. I had used up a lot of stamina, especially after healing, and my legs were reaching their limits, I can't leap and kick at full power repeatedly for too long or my muscles start aching like crazy.

Suddenly, a spear went through the Vampire's throat and into the ground, pinning her down, while a hail of arrows and Elemental Magic attacks shot towards the other one, who crossed his forearms together in alarm but couldn't avoid the impact, plummeting to the ground as a chunk of the top of his head got blasted off. Huh...? I turned around, my eyes widening as a sense of relief washed over me...several dozens of Adventurers, led by Siela.

I quickly rushed over to Mika, picked her up and jumped, and as soon as I did, the Adventurers unleashed an absolute barrage of Elemental and long-range weapon attacks at the two Vampires, not stopping until two flashes of red appeared, signifying their deaths.

"Vi, glad you're okay! I came here as soon as-," Began Siela, as she approached me.

"Quick, send some backup, three Vampires flew into the crowd!" I interrupted, nodding at the direction behind me.

Five minutes later, I was resting on one of the rooftops, letting out a sigh of relief. There wasn't really anything worth celebrating, a lot of people had died, but...it could have been so much worse. Mika was here too, Siela and the other Adventurers had gone to look for the three Vampires I mentioned. I had taken a look behind when I climbed up to this rooftop, and it was a pretty horrifying sight...several corpses, in pools of their own blood. I don't know how many I saw, but there had to have been at least a hundred.

And they were all probably killed within a minute or so of the Vampires spotting them...and after killing them, the Vampires might have split up...if that was the case, who knows how many civilians were killed?

"Hey, did you see what happened when those three Vampires entered the evacuation zone?" I asked Mika, "If you did, then tell me everything you saw."

"Yeah, I did...as soon as they appeared, everyone started screaming and panicking, trying to get away...the Vampires then fired a bunch of those red blasts down at them, most of them didn't die immediately, but they were hurt pretty badly. One of the Vampires could make his claws really long, and he sliced a bunch of people up with them while keeping his distance...some of the people tried to pull him down, but he used his tail to cut off his claws before they could...I didn't see any more than that, I was too busy trying to get some distance from the crowd. I hid in the alley between this building and the one next to it, until the screams died down...I looked out to see a lot of people dead, and the Vampires each spreading out in different directions...and then, for the first time, I noticed that there was some noise coming from the other end of the alley as well...and that's when I saw you."

"Right, about that...what were you thinking!? I'll admit that you saved me, and that you're highly skilled, I thought you were already strong the last time I saw you fight during that Quest, but now you're even stronger, even so, you shouldn't have tried to fight those monsters! At the very least, you should have run away after killing the injured one," I scolded her, flicking her forehead with a sigh.

"Um, s-sorry...that was the plan, I was going to run away after I crushed that one's core, but I...I kinda wanted to see how effective my skills would be against a Vampire, and I wanted to fight all out, so when the other one came charging at me...I couldn't resist," She apologized sheepishly.

Seriously...what kind of a twelve year old thinks like that?

"Unbelievable...," I muttered to myself with a sigh.

"So, um...you won't tell Bro about this, will you?"

"...I just might."

"N-no, please don't!"

Okay, now that's more like a twelve year old. Someone's head then popped up the side of the rooftop, by the railing around it. It was Siela.

"Hey, are you doing alright?" She inquired, as she hopped onto the rooftop and walked over.

"A little tired but otherwise okay," I replied affirmatively, "So, what's going on with, you know, everything?"

"Well..."

She began explaining everything she knew. After we split up, she put Misen and that girl away in a safe place before teleporting to the castle. When she got there, plenty of other Adventurers were already there...along with plenty of Vampires. And unfortunately, the Vampires had reached the castle grounds first.

Most of the Rustlands' royal family, several advisors and guards were killed, along with some of the Bronztan royals as well. Those that survived included Prince Ocroed Rustlands, Misen's dad, the Bronztan queen, Headmaster Raedal Yiserir, Aurich Goldway and Princess Agatha Silvland. Besides a few guards, servants and a handful of others, everyone else in the castle was killed.

Several Adventurers were killed, but they eventually managed to exterminate the Vampires infesting the castle, after which Siela got a bad feeling and asked some of the Adventurers to come with her to the evacuation zone, in case any Vampires had already made it there. Of course, she didn't know about the fact that the Vampires had threatened and forced some Adventurers to teleport them to this spot, but if she hadn't acted, I'd probably be dead...no, I'd almost definitely be dead.

A lot of questions still remained though, how many Vampires were left...for that matter, how many Adventurers were left? And what was happening outside the north gate?

As I would later find out, of the eight to nine hundred Adventurers, a total of over five hundred were killed...the survivors mostly consisted of B-Ranked and above Adventurers, the lower ranked ones had almost been completely wiped out, and plenty of A and B-Ranks, along with a few S-Ranks, had also been killed.

Last night, I overheard Kuro talking to Fuo's Vampire, I had been asleep nearby on the top of the wall while they were talking...Kuro mentioned that despite our advantage in numbers, the Adventurers of this era had never experienced real war or fighting in an army, while the Vampires had plenty of experience in those regards...I thought he was just being pessimistic or cautious, but I see what he meant now.

In addition to the Vampires who teleported and fought me, a number of the other Vampires had also found out about the teleportation booths and done the same thing, forcing terrified and weak-willed Adventurers to teleport them...but unlike the dozen or so that teleported directly south, these ones teleported around to the east and west edges of the evacuation zone...all told, over twenty-five thousand civilians were killed before the Adventurers managed to eliminate the Vampire stragglers.

And the three that flew into the crowd from where I was...they killed over two thousand civilians between them before they were finally found and killed. All those people dead...while the Adventurers had collectively, and just barely, killed a little over ten dozen Vampires...we had barely defeated less than a quarter of the total Vampire population, while losing well over half our Adventurers and thousands of our civilians...could we really call this a win?

_____________________________________________

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism!

Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.