The Vampire, Rei, and Set glared at each other.
Tension filled the air... and it was Set who moved first, shattering it.
"Grrrrrrrrrrr!"
Set's roar echoed across the clearing.
It was Set's skill, King's Intimidation. If the target failed to resist, it could halt their movements entirely. Even if they resisted successfully, it would still slow them down.
"You think that kind of attack works on me?"
The Vampire heard Set's roar, but it had absolutely no effect. He showed no sign of concern whatsoever, lightly flicking his Blood Rapier as if to prove it was meaningless to him.
(Why? ...No, does he have some kind of skill?)
The Vampire had demonstrated a wide variety of skills throughout the battle so far. Naturally, it wouldn't be strange for him to still have skills Rei didn't know about.
(Or magic, perhaps?)
Among the vampires Rei knew of, many were skilled in magic. Of course, that was knowledge he had gained from manga, anime, and games back in Japan, so whether it applied to the Vampire before him was an entirely different matter. But considering the sheer number of abilities the Vampire had displayed in the short time they'd been fighting, it wouldn't be surprising if he could use magic.
"What's the matter? Have you given up and accepted that you cannot defeat me? Though I must say, it's already too late."
After a brief pause, perhaps having regained some composure, the Vampire's tone shifted closer to how it had been when they first met. Still, having judged from the battle so far that Rei and Set were not mere prey but opponents of considerable strength, there was no longer any trace of carelessness in his eyes.
"Defeat me? Me, lose to you? You'd better keep your jokes within reason. We need you to become food for me and Set, so honestly, our concern is whether you'll try to run away."
Rei forced the words out, enduring the pain in his back.
Even through the Dragon Robe, he had taken a direct thrust from the Vampire's Blood Rapier, and his back throbbed with considerable pain. Thanks to the Dragon Robe, the blade hadn't pierced through, but it still hurt like hell. He had been able to push through it during the heat of combat, but now that the fierce fighting had temporarily halted, Rei could no longer ignore the pain.
"Food? You call me food?"
Hearing Rei's words, the Vampire glared at him with naked irritation. From the Vampire's perspective, "food" referred to Rei and his companions—those whose blood he would drain. For such food to call him food was something the Vampire could never tolerate.
The only reason he didn't immediately charge at Rei in a fit of rage was that he clearly understood the strength of both Rei and Set. He knew that if he recklessly attacked, he would undoubtedly suffer significant damage before he could kill them. This kind of calculated judgment was characteristic of a Vampire with high intelligence. Honestly, Rei would have preferred for a formidable enemy like the Vampire to lose himself in anger and lash out recklessly.
"Whatever you may be thinking... it doesn't change what Set and I need to do!"
With that, Rei threw the Twilight Spear and swung Death Scythe.
"Flying Slash!"
"Grrrrrrrr!"
As if coordinating with Rei, Set activated Ice Arrow, unleashing fifty Ice Arrows. Because the act of creating and firing the arrows took time, they were launched slightly later than Rei's attacks. But the result was a three-stage consecutive assault—the Twilight Spear, Flying Slash, and Ice Arrow hitting in perfectly timed succession.
"Do you think I would be hit by such attacks?"
Even as a three-stage combination, each was undeniably a single-strike attack. For the Vampire, evading them was not difficult—and indeed, true to his words, he dodged Rei and Set's attacks with ease.
...But for Rei, that much was entirely within his expectations.
Closing the distance, Rei confirmed that the thrown Twilight Spear had flown off somewhere, piercing through the trees surrounding the clearing, and chose not to recall it to his hand. Instead, he attacked the Vampire using his old combat style from before he had obtained the spear.
"Haaah!"
The strike of Death Scythe, swung with a spirited shout, carried enough force to make the Vampire hesitate to block it. The Vampire actually tried to intercept Death Scythe with his Blood Rapier, but quickly sensed the danger and focused entirely on evasion.
Seizing the moment, Set—who had closed the distance in one burst after firing all his Ice Arrows—delivered a foreleg strike. The Vampire had grabbed that same strike and thrown Set last time, but Set had deliberately delivered it again. It was as if he were saying, If you can throw me again, go ahead and try.
The Vampire seemed slightly puzzled by Set's demeanor, but whether from his belief that he held the overwhelming advantage or from thinking it would be shameful to flee a challenge, he caught Set's strike just as before and hurled him toward Rei.
Is that all? The Vampire floated a smile that seemed to say exactly that.
While watching the incoming Set, Rei caught sight of the Vampire's mocking grin in his peripheral vision. How could the Vampire remain so composed when Set—three meters long—was flying straight at him?
The answer was simple: the thrown Set had flapped his wings midair and righted himself.
Set was a Gryphon... his lower body was that of a lion, a feline creature. And cats, even when falling from great heights, could twist their bodies midair and land gracefully on their feet. Of course, kittens couldn't always manage it, and even among adults, there were individual differences, with some being poor at landing. Last time, Set had crashed into Rei before he could twist his body, leaving no room for such a recovery.
But this time was different.
Set had attacked fully expecting to be thrown, and Rei had sensed this through Set's demeanor. So when the Vampire hurled Set, Rei simply stepped aside from his trajectory. That was why he could see the Vampire's face the instant after the throw.
"You're naïve!"
"Hoh. So you won't fall for the same trick twice."
As if exploiting the opening from the throw, Rei slashed out with Death Scythe. The Vampire muttered in admiration and tried to evade—
"Blizzard Slash!"
Judging that the Vampire's movement was an attempt to read his strike to the utmost limit, Rei immediately activated the skill Blizzard Slash. The Vampire, confident he could read Rei's attack to an extreme degree, had tried to evade by a margin of mere millimeters—and that backfired spectacularly.
"Wha—!?"
Trying to dodge by millimeters, the Vampire was slashed across the body by the Ice Blade coating Death Scythe's edge. The wound was shallow only because he had half-reflexively jumped back the moment Blizzard Slash activated, and more importantly, because Rei's Blizzard Slash was still Level 3—not yet at Level 5, where the skill would be fully strengthened.
"You wretch!"
For the Vampire, being wounded by Rei's attack was absolutely intolerable. Closing the distance with barely contained fury, he slashed at Rei's face with sharply extended claws.
This was an unexpected strike for Rei. Given the Vampire's personality, Rei had expected him to prioritize his own safety and pull back. Rei had planned to attack that kind of cautious opponent, but even so, he twisted his wrist and deflected the Vampire's arm with Death Scythe's handle—
A burning sensation across his cheek.
"Ow!"
The word slipped from Rei's mouth reflexively. In reality, it wasn't pain but heat that he felt, but the reflexive response produced that word anyway.
By deflecting the Vampire's arm with Death Scythe's handle, he had prevented a direct hit from the claws. He had blocked it—but only the direct hit. He hadn't completely evaded the claw attack itself.
If he had been wearing the Dragon Robe's hood, he probably could have blocked that strike entirely. But when fighting a formidable enemy like the Vampire, the wider the field of vision, the better. The Dragon Robe's hood, while not as restrictive as a helmet, did partially obstruct vision. That was why he had left it down—and that decision had backfired.
Still, while it was a relatively deep wound, it wasn't a direct hit from the claws.
"Set!"
"Grrrrrr!"
At point-blank range—a density that could rightly be called zero distance—Rei couldn't afford careless movements. If the opponent had been anything other than a Vampire, he would have had several other options. But in this situation, Rei called out to Set, who had been thrown by the Vampire but had already righted himself. Set instantly obeyed, delivering a foreleg strike.
"Gubooh!"
Letting out an uncharacteristic scream, the Vampire was sent flying sideways. Seeing the opening, Rei swung Death Scythe in a scooping motion.
"Gah!"
It wasn't a calculated action—Rei had unleashed the attack on pure instinct. The blow connected, Death Scythe's handle slamming into the Vampire and launching him into the air.
(Not enough?)
Regretting that the strike had dealt less damage than expected, Rei watched the Vampire soar upward, blood still streaming from his cheek. Then, at the edge of his vision, the Vampire sprouted giant bat wings from his back and took flight. Even so, the previous blow must have hurt—the Vampire was clutching his struck side.
"Y-you...!"
The Vampire started to speak, but Rei judged that now was his chance. He recalled the Twilight Spear that had flown off earlier, piercing and destroying several trees around the clearing, and hurled it before the Vampire could react.
That throw was probably among the fastest Rei had ever achieved with the Twilight Spear. Tearing through the air, the spear closed the distance—and the Vampire must have sensed the danger. He scrambled to evade, but the damage from Set and Rei's earlier strikes had not yet healed, delaying his movement.
As a result, the Twilight Spear pierced through the Vampire's right shoulder and shattered the right bat wing sprouting from his back. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been unusual for a Vampire to fly even without bat wings, but perhaps due to the sudden damage, he lost his balance and plummeted toward the ground.
Rei closed in on the spot where the Vampire was falling...
"Pain Burst!"
With those words, he activated the skill and slashed Death Scythe in a single stroke.
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"
The moment the blade struck and bisected him into upper and lower halves, an inhuman scream tore from the Vampire's mouth, echoing across the entire area.
It was only natural. Pain Burst was a skill that left the actual damage unchanged but amplified the pain inflicted. Rei, who was using it, didn't fully understand exactly how much the pain increased, but Level 4 Pain Burst multiplied pain sixteen-fold. And that pain was the sensation of being severed in half—undoubtedly hellish agony.
That was precisely why the Vampire, with his pretentious personality, let out a raw, unfiltered scream of genuine agony.
And then—whether to escape the pain or for some other purpose—Rei couldn't tell. But the bisected Vampire converted both halves into mist...
"O flames, obey my will and burn my enemy."
With that incantation, a fireball roughly thirty centimeters in diameter materialized.
"Fireball."
The magic activated. The fireball struck the spot where the mist had gathered.
That the mist didn't immediately regenerate into the Vampire's body—Rei could only imagine that the pain amplified by Pain Burst was still taking its toll.
The fireball hit the mist head-on... and burned it away completely.