Chapter 481: Skirmish (6)

[Blood, blood, blood!]

They were excited to suck the blood of the Gurkhas and the mansion’s occupants.

Han-Yeol looked down at the vampires and thought of something suspicious.

‘But did vampires always have such a mindless craving for blood?’

Vampire guilds, including the vampire lord, didn’t broadcast at all like Han-Yeol, so there was very little information about them. So he couldn't be sure of anything since there was such a limited amount of information.

However, according to the information he had gotten from the Hunter’s Association, even though they had turned into vampires, they didn’t need to consume human blood since animal blood was enough for them to survive. If they had to consume human blood, they wouldn’t be able to coexist with humans. They wouldn't have been the subject of conquest and attention or be celebrated as British heroes.

‘Ugh, whatever. Let’s just deal with them first.’

Han-Yeol scratched his head. His thoughts only went this far. Anything more complicated was beyond his knowledge.

Snap!

Han-Yeol snapped his fingers. The sound was amplified by mana and spread in all directions.

Thump, thump, thump!

“Kheeee!”

At the same time, secret weapons in the mansion started to move.

[Huh?]

[W-What is that?]

As the vampires raced toward the mansion with high spirits, they were slightly startled by the earthquake and the pressure in the air.

Chuck, chuck, chuck!

“Khuaaa!”

“Advance!”

“The great being has given their command. Destroy those who dirty the land of the great being!”

“Khaa!”

To their surprise, an army of Black Orcs who were supposed to be in the Atarinia Archipelago started to pour out from inside the mansion, fully armed, as if they had been there all along.

[W-What the—?]

[O-Orcs?]

[Khaha! You’re going to try and fight us with mere Orcs?]

[What are you waiting for? Kill them all!]

Tak!

However, the vampires fighting spirits weren’t affected at all by the sight of the Black Orc Horde. As a somewhat noble race, they had no reason to be intimidated by the lowly Black Orcs. Instead, they became even more energized and charged at the Black Orcs, baring their sharp fangs and releasing even more mana.

“Khaaa! Kill all those filthy vampires!”

Thump, thump, thump!

The Black Orcs weren’t afraid of the vampires and charged at them with their glaives and spears.

The two forces clashed fiercely.

However, the important clash at this point was the fight between Tia and Count Dracula. Their victory or defeat would determine the fates of the two forces.

Clank!

Tia’s hand and Count Dracula’s hand clashed with each other. Coincidentally, they both had similar styles of attacking with their nails.

[Hahaha, not bad for a monster.]

“Haha, what are you yapping about?”

Unlike Han-Yeol, Tia could understand English without a translator. She was good at grasping languages quickly, so with some self-teaching, this came naturally to her.

[Now, let’s get started for real. Blood Crust!]

Boom!

The vampire lord unleashed his basic blood-based attack skill, Blood Crust.

“Hmph!”

Tia quickly darted out of the way and dodged Blood Crust.

The vampire lord’s attack wasn’t over yet.

[Stone Eye!]

He emitted a light from his eyes that would turn his opponent to stone upon contact. Stone Eye was proof that he wasn’t just a blood attribute user but a Hunter of the vampire race.

‘Tsk, how annoying!’

Tia clicked her tongue at Count Dracula’s abilities and once again launched herself to dodge the attack.

The skill that turned one's body into stone upon eye contact was invisible, and the mana wavelength was so fast that ordinary Hunters couldn’t even react properly and were turned into stone on the spot. Due to this, this skill was often misunderstood as an instant activation skill, but it wasn’t. It was just very fast and invisible, but it actually had a mana wavelength and was a normal(?) skill.

Tak!

Tia swiftly dodged the mana waves, a necessary feat to evade such a skill.

[Hmm…]

Seeing Tia’s swift movements, Count Dracula’s expression turned stiff for the first time.

He wasn't in his right mind since he was under the influence, but his innate instincts as a powerful being urged him to be cautious of his opponent despite the effects of the drug. However, the problem was that he wasn’t sober enough to listen to those warnings and make good decisions.

The HUN and the hyenas were on friendly terms, at least on Earth, so the hyenas snuck up on the unsuspecting Count Dracula with the secret of becoming powerful and performed a short-term enhancement spell on him, a technique reserved for tainted beings. Thus, Count Dracula grew stronger from a Master-Rank Hunter to a Transcendent Master-Rank Hunter, but the drugs used in the process made him drunk and awakened his vampiric instincts, causing him to thirst for blood. And when the hyenas hypnotized him to attack Han-Yeol in the middle of it, he flew himself and his servants to Korea on a private plane from China, where they had been originally sent to deal with the Qin Emperor.

[Khaaaa…!]

Count Dracula’s brief moment of caution was soon overtaken by the drug's effects and his instincts for blood.

[Khaaaa!]

Step, step, step!

There was no longer a war of nerves. Count Dracula didn’t possess pure red mana like Han-Yeol. He emitted a brown aura that was a mix of his murky blue mana covered in blood red, and he quickly lunged at Tia. His fangs and nails had grown four times the normal size, and so he no longer looked human.

“Haha, I feel like I’m fighting in the demon world.”

Even though she was by no means in a relaxed situation, she smiled. Her eyes and mouth curved in an arc.

Count Dracula was a rare being on Earth, but he was a common being in the demon world, enough to be one of the vampire clans under the Great Demon Lucifer who had a contract with Han-Yeol.

Coming from the demon world, there was no way Tia hadn’t fought vampires before. In the demon world, everything was a winner-takes-all system, and one had to fight in order to get what one wanted.

“But you wouldn’t have fought me before, haha.”

An experienced opponent was battling against an unfamiliar enemy, but they were equally as strong. It was as if the outcome had been decided before the fight had even begun.

Tia couldn’t remember it exactly, but she thought,

‘In human military tactics, a victorious army seeks victory first and then fights, if I recall correctly.’

In fact, she had never been much of a reader, but after spending a lot of time around Han-Yeol, who enjoyed reading, she became influenced and found herself reading whenever she had time. That was how she remembered the phrase as well.

[Death Blood Tornado!]

Swoosh!

Count Dracula had already lost more than half of his sanity and used up an enormous amount of mana to cast a powerful blood skill. He was one of the top ten strongest Hunters in the world, and he was a Hunter who was not affected by the number of skills.

Of course, he also had three skills: [Vampirism], [Dominion], and [Blocking Sunlight].

The rest, like Stone Eye and other blood skills, were unique to vampires and their race, so he could use a wide variety of skills while most Hunters could only use three. He was one of the strongest Hunters in the world, even though he lacked the total amount of mana and combat proficiency compared to other Master-Rank Hunters.

‘Haha, your skills are just like the other vampires I know.’

Tia felt that the situation was in her favor.

‘Poison web!’

Swoosh, swoosh!

A sticky, poisonous web shot out of her hands and collided with the Blood Tornado.

Boom!

The two auras collided in the air, rose into the sky, and disappeared.

In fact, Tia was a bit cautious, wondering if there was a difference between the vampires in the demon world and Count Dracula. But no matter how much she looked at it, nothing differed between the two.

Slurp.

Tia wet the corner of her mouth with her tongue.

‘Haha, if that’s the case, there’s no reason for me to hesitate.’

Her laughter deepened.

Kehehe.

As an Arachnid, she always moved as a single entity in the demon world. In fact, it was questionable whether there were even of the same race, as Arachnids were rare monsters even in the demon world, which was home to the rarest races.

Since Tia’s territory was near the vampire territory, the two races clashed frequently. Therefore, she was more familiar with their abilities than anyone else.

Whoosh!

Tia was now starting to take action on a large scale.

[Hmph!]

Count Dracula slightly panicked at Tia’s movements as she quickly closed in.

[Khaaa!]

He bit his finger to draw blood and started fighting back.

[Blood Teeth!]

Shaaa!

Dozens of coagulated harp blood arrowheads shot out from the tips of his ten fingers.

However, Tia snorted with an absurd look and raised her hand.

‘Ha!’

Thud!

The dozens of coagulated blood arrowheads were blocked by an intangible aura and fell to ground. Count Dracula was stunned to see that his attack didn’t work at all.

Tia punched Count Dracula right in the chin.

Swoosh! Pow!

[Aghhh!]

Boom!

Tia’s powerful punch sent Count Dracula flying backward for about twenty meters, and he could only stop himself by slamming his feet on the ground as if all his muscles were about to explode.

[Khaaa! I will kill you!]

Shak!

Count Dracula, already intoxicated on drugs and blood, had only a little bit of rationality left, but Tia's attack stripped him of even that.

Enormous bat wings sprouted from his back.

‘Oh wow, you’ve awakened as a vampire from being a mere human. Then that means you’re not a hundred percent human anymore. Wait, but is that possible?’

A human couldn't become a demon.

Tia was curious. She then looked at Han-Yeol and suddenly understood.

‘Well, I guess there are humans like my master, so it wouldn't be strange if there was a human who turned into a demon…’

Han-Yeol was a human who had made a contract with two of the most powerful demon kings and helped her evolve into the Arachnid Queen, a position that previously didn’t even exist. There was a human who created something out of nothing, so what was the big deal about a human who turned into something else?

‘I just have to kill him and eat him. Then that’ll be the end of that!’