Duke Brad hovered in midair once more, the blood mist coalescing into a crimson cloak that cast a shadow over the stone dais.
"Struggle! Tremble!"
"In the end, you cannot escape your destined fate!"
Driven by the duke's will, Alger launched a tempestuous assault against Mezrolash.
Countless rats and bats tirelessly swarmed from the darkness. Shadow tendrils reached up from the ground, while a frantic crimson mist permeated the air.
"Damned vampire..."
Mezrolash scooped up a longsword from the ground, driving back the encroaching bats and rats with flashes of bloody blade-light. The Aura of Protection flickering around him held back the tendrils and blood mist.
Under Duke Brad's control, he had no way of approaching the spawn, forced back toward the passage as he watched helplessly while the vampire prepared for the next ascension absorption.
Yet while Mezrolash was struggling to cope, someone was sneaking along the edge of the battlefield.
—It was Mantou.
Mantou was curled up in a corner behind a stone pillar, slathered in scent-masking potion, peeking at the fierce clash on the dais.
"This insane boss is way too busted. Even Sing-dog and Zhankuang got one-shot."
"Looks like I'm the only one left now."
"Still, from what Mezrolash said earlier, it seems we have to get rid of those spawn, or this mob will just keep getting stronger?"
Mantou scanned the vampire spawn chained to the pillars. Catching sight of the naked countess, he awkwardly averted his eyes, finally fixing his gaze on Langlibaitiao, who had likewise been stripped bare.
"Guess I'll haul Lang-beast out, then."
Mantou crept forward, eyeing the blood-soaked chains. Gritting his teeth, he brought his handaxe down in a vicious chop.
*Clang.*
The chains snapped.
Langlibaitiao slumped down from the stone pillar.
Tightly bound as he had been, his body looked like a puddle of minced flesh, seemingly on the brink of death.
However, now possessing the physiology of a full vampire, Langlibaitiao's bones began creaking, his flesh regenerating at a pace visible to the naked eye. In mere moments, he recovered from his state of shattered bones and mangled flesh.
Witnessing this absurd regenerative capability, Mantou gasped, "Holy crap, what the hell are you?"
"How is your auto-heal so busted?"
Langlibaitiao puffed up with pride. "The immortal essence of the vampire template! As long as they don't hit my weak spot, I can auto-regenerate. Even if my head gets chopped off, I can grow it back!"
Mantou gasped again, "That ridiculous?"
Suddenly remembering something, he patted Langlibaitiao's shoulder with deep meaning. "Take care of yourself, Brother Lang. All the gifts of fate come with a hidden price tag. Since you chose to sell your body..."
"Y-You... how do you know..."
Hearing Mantou's words, Langlibaitiao's voice trembled, his expression instantly twisting in horror.
It was over. His lifelong reputation...
While the two were bantering away, Duke Brad high in the air had already sensed an anomaly—one of the vampire spawn, the symbol of "Envy," was gone!
With the duke's fury, the entire subterranean world seemed to tremble, echoing with mournful wails.
"Mortal, you court death!"
"How dare you obstruct the grand Ascension!"
In an instant, countless shadow tendrils surged from the earth, and the dense crimson fog boiled like a raging tide. Tens of thousands of bats and rats swarmed toward them.
Looking at the overwhelming onslaught, Mantou said with a shudder, "Brother Lang, I feel like we... we're about to be wiped."
"Brother Lang?"
He turned his head, only to find that Langlibaitiao had already turned into a wisp of mist and slipped away.
This was the vampire's Gaseous Form ability. Unlike the overwhelming blood mist Duke Brad had accumulated over centuries, the weak Langlibaitiao could only use it to flee.
"Lang-beast, you fucking—"
Submerged by the attacks of the duke's roaring wrath, Mantou wanted to cry but had no tears, forced to watch helplessly as his screen went black.
He had risked his life to rescue Langlibaitiao, yet the moment danger struck, the guy ran off without hesitation. He truly lived up to his reputation as the scum of virtual gaming.
Sensing fresh blood, the duke's scarlet eyes fixed intently on the distant wisp of mist.
"I will catch you, rebel."
"This game of cat and mouse ends now."
Duke Brad raised his right hand. A continuous deluge of blood surged across the dais, ultimately forming a churning sea of blood that overflowed outward—a blood sea capable of draining the life of anyone who touched it.
The surging sea of blood swept toward Mezrolash. With nowhere left to dodge, he had no choice but to retreat toward the entrance passage, the foothold around him shrinking steadily.
"Rebel, return to me!"
"You are part of the grand Ascension!"
Duke Brad himself rode a hurricane of blood mist, summoning countless more bats and rats as he gave chase to the wisp of mist that was Langlibaitiao.
Once, the duke could control Langlibaitiao with ease, but now Langlibaitiao had fully digested the vampire template's abilities. Freed from the suppression of the magical chains and severed from the connection between the primary vampire and spawn, he had assumed misty form, making him exceedingly difficult to catch again.
Though Langlibaitiao was weak as a vampire, his escapology was second to none. Every trait of the vampire template perfectly matched Langlibaitiao's bottom-feeder rat tendencies.
The wisp of mist darted and weaved throughout the bunker, dodging, hiding, and juking. Had the duke been a living mortal with a beating heart, his blood pressure would have hit the roof.
*Boom—*
Yet right then, space within the bunker rippled, twisting and fracturing until a fiery portal manifested out of thin air.
A draconic bloodline sorcerer with black hair and golden eyes stepped out of the portal.
This time, he had no need to conceal his identity. Crimson scales surfaced upon his cheeks, osseous dragon horns protruded from his head, and his golden pupils radiated majesty.
With his arrival, the underground air seemed to grow scorchingly restless.
"Looks like I'm a bit late?"
Cassius immediately noticed the vampire duke swathed in blood mist in the distance.
[Based on your capabilities, you observe the following information:]
Bloody Duke - Brad Lakeman
Basic Abilities: ???
Challenge Rating: 15 (13,000 XP)
Evaluation: Brad Lakeman. He did not originally bear this name; perhaps it was Trier, or perhaps Knox, but that secret has long vanished into the dark.
Two hundred years ago, returning from the battlefield to witness his wife's death, he realized the fragility of mortal life and began his pursuit of immortality. Two hundred years later, awakened from the endless dark night, the vampire hungers for the life he lost, slaking his thirst with the blood of the living.
"Challenge Rating 15, huh..."
"In this form, I probably can't beat him."
Cassius frowned slightly. His humanoid form roughly equated to an eleventh-level draconic bloodline sorcerer, far below the old vampire's power.
"Then I'll just change back to my true form."
Chapter 138