Chapter 537: Tricky Enemies
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Drake had send Skadi, Uller, Tisha, Huginn, Muninn, Yukihime, Vasilisius, Mikoto, and Rose to deal with the Vampires in the skies, he knew that they were the most fitting for the job due to their ability to innately fly! Of course, Tisha didn't had such an ability, but felt like it was her duty to command her Ice Golem and Snow Beast people, who were once her beloved ice elves.
She was a woman with a great heart, and completely understood why they would had wanted to become like this, she herself felt many times that the vulnerable body of a woman was often a disadvantage, due to this, she didn't stopped seeing them as her family, and they were all accepted into the ice elven family.
However, she also saw how they were willing to sacrifice themselves to make a difference, many of them ended rushing in the frontlines, protecting her from the bigger attacks unleashed by the two powerful Rank 4 Peak-Stage Vampires. But due to doing such a thing, they ended being destroyed… she knew that Drake could revive them by grabbing their souls back alongside their mana cores, so even their cultivation could be kept, but it hurt her a bit to see them so willing to sacrifice themselves… perhaps it was easier for them as their new bodies couldn't feel any pain, but she felt frustrated.
Tisha unleashed a barrage of attacks using her large blade made of ice through Drake's Icesmith. He had mass produced various weapons back then, and he had distributed them around the people he began to slowly recruit into his Sect. Now, the blade itself had been recently upgraded by Drake and it had grown so strong it gained an aura and presence of its own, encompassing her entire body with an aura of ice, and helping her at unleashing her techniques.
Her devastating attacks clashed against the many groups of Blood Shadow Beasts, freezing them and breaking them into shards at the same time, sometimes her attacks would finally almost reach the two Vampires, but their incredibly fast flying mounts would easily help them dodge in midair, making of the entire ordeal even more annoying for her to deal with.
However, Huginn and Muninn, the powerful pair of crows, helped her, as they tried to corner the Vampires with their long-ranged attacks, they were able to merge their newly acquired Dark and Light Magic with their own body, unleashing tracking feather missiles infused with magic that could even explode. Although many times they pressured the Vampires and almost cornered them, at the end the Vampires still had a great advantage, and were capable of evading in time, making of the entire battle an intense game of chasing down the other…
The Vampires were strong by themselves as well, Lily was a powerful original Poison Attribute Magician. Elves are already very rare in this continent, and she seemed to be able to naturally wield the poison element fused with blood element, the same thing was for Austr, capable of fusing blood and ice magic together to create frozen blood projectiles with the ability to drain energy from the targets they hit, even if they don't manage to pierce through flesh.
Within Vampires, it was possible for those who had very strong elemental mana cores to remain with their element while they transform into Vampires, turning their mana cores not completely into blood-attribute, but dual attribute, or sometimes, weird mixes of the two where their original magic is lost, but within the blood magic they have, they're capable of drawing the element they previously had.
Of course, this also depended in the talent of each Vampire, Lily and Austr were exceptionally talented Vampires at that, way more talented than even Rose, their powerful weapon attacks were also charged with large quantities of mana, and they created devastating shockwaves.
As long as they maintained themselves well fed with blood, Vampires had insane physical regeneration of wounds and were even able to regrow limbs, in some cases, stronger Vampires can even regenerate entire bodies out of their heads even if they're beheaded, so it is often encouraged by Righteous Magus to always destroy the entire head of a Vampire instead of just beheading them. After all, there had been many registered cases where Vampires remained alive while beheaded, pretending to be dead only to come back later on for revenge…
Alongside that, they also had incredible mana pools and regeneration, thanks to their ability named "Blood Bank" they were able to store blood within their bodies and slowly consume it, making it possible for them to go in long periods without actually drinking blood, as they had drank a lot beforehand.
Due to this and more, Vampires were rather formidable foes, Austr and Lily, although the last of the four, were putting a lot of effort into not letting themselves get killed so easily like their previous comrades, and also, they were filled with the intention of avenging them.
But as Tisha fought against them, she realized that there was something very big that Vampires had… Weaknesses. It was often considered that their very powers and what made them what they were was also a curse, often called the Blood Curse.
Only very powerful Vampires with powerful royal-bloodlines, often born as Pure-blood Vampires, such as Ruby, were able to sustain less damage from Sunlight, Fire-Attribute Magic, and Light-Attribute Magic, but that shouldn't be the case for Austr and Lily, who were converted Vampires, and therefore not Pure-blooded, but belonged to the Subordinate Vampire category instead.
Due to this, it was extremely mysterious how were they able to resist the strong sunlight atop the skies, perhaps the clouds were able to make it less, but the sunlight was still hitting them… although Tisha did notice their full-body armors being imbued with a lot of magic.
Perhaps this had something to do with their game-breaking ability to ignore their own weaknesses… Although the Vampires believed they had an advantage, they quickly realized Tisha had some backup.
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