Chapter 147: Joint Attack!
Grace watched the formation below for a few more seconds, her red eyes slowly moving between the barriers, the guards, and the black box protected at the center of the ruins. The group was too large to be treated as a coincidence and too organized to be merely an improvised alliance between Ritual participants.
This was an operation.
She closed her fingers around the short blade in her hand, then spoke without taking her eyes off the clearing.
"I will take the right. You take the left."
Victor glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
"That direct?"
"Yes," Grace replied. "We are going to exterminate Jake’s group in a single attack."
Victor stayed silent for a moment, then looked again at the twenty-five vampires gathered in the ruins. Most of them had not yet realized they were being watched by two people who, for completely different reasons, were very bad for the health of anyone trying to set up an ambush.
He smiled faintly.
"You want to do a joint ice attack?"
Grace finally looked at him.
"I do."
Victor raised an eyebrow.
"You know that sounds almost too cooperative for someone who threatened me a few hours ago, right?"
"I can still threaten you afterward," Grace said naturally. "Right now, we have an opportunity too good to waste."
Victor let out a short nasal laugh.
"Fair."
Grace discreetly pointed toward the formation below. On the right side of the ruins, there was a more open area where five vampires maintained a wide barrier facing the forest. On the left side, another six protected a narrow route between two broken columns. The black box sat in the center, surrounded by four guards and the white-haired young man who seemed to be commanding everything.
"I will make ice stakes erupt from the ground on the right side," Grace explained. "They will react to my attack first. They will jump, retreat, or reinforce the barriers on that side. When they do, you attack from the left."
Victor understood immediately.
"And when they dodge your ice..."
"It will already be too late for them to dodge yours," Grace concluded.
Victor looked at the group with renewed interest. The strategy was simple, cruel, and efficient. It was not about winning a prolonged fight. It was a large-scale execution. One side forced movement, the other punished the response. Against an ordinary group, it would be enough to wipe out half of them in the first second.
Against that group, perhaps it would not kill them all.
But it would open the formation.
And that was what mattered.
Victor crossed his arms.
"That means I get the points for myself."
Grace blinked once, as if that was completely irrelevant.
"You can keep them."
Victor looked at her.
"Seriously?"
"I already have enough points," she replied. "I am in first place."
Victor froze for a second.
Then slowly turned his face toward her.
"...You are in first place?"
Grace seemed slightly annoyed at having to explain something obvious.
"Yes."
Victor remained silent.
Grace calmly held his gaze.
Then Victor took a deep breath and muttered:
"I spent all this time destroying monsters, prodigies, adult assassins, and half the local fauna... and you simply murdered people efficiently."
"Yes."
"That is irritating."
"For you, perhaps."
Victor let out a short laugh.
"I should have done that from the beginning."
"Probably."
He looked at her for a few more seconds, then shook his head.
"You are very cold."
Grace looked back toward the ruins.
"Thank you."
"That was not a compliment."
"I chose to accept it as one."
Victor smiled, but the smile faded when his eyes returned to the group below. The red points in his perception remained perfectly clear. Some were restless. Others seemed alert, but not alarmed. The leader in the center was saying something to the four guards around the black box, and the blood barriers were beginning to shift slightly.
They were expecting Jake.
Not Victor.
That was a useful mistake.
Grace continued, her voice a little lower.
"In any case, the points do not make that much difference to me."
Victor frowned slightly.
"You do not want the reward?"
"Having another drop of blood would be good," she replied. "But I know my limits. The drop I used before did not change my nature. It only gave me more control over my ice."
Victor watched her carefully.
Grace did not seem frustrated as she said that. Nor did she seem resigned. It was simply a fact. Cold, precise, and honest. She knew her own value, but she also knew where it ended. That was rare among noble vampires, especially among participants in a Ritual that existed practically to feed arrogance and delusions of grandeur.
"More control over ice does not sound like a small thing," Victor said.
"It is not a small thing," Grace agreed. "But it also did not turn me into something completely different. Some people use a drop of ancestral blood and awaken new characteristics, new affinities, structural changes in the body. I gained refinement. Efficiency. Precision."
"That suits you."
Grace looked at him briefly.
"I know."
Victor almost laughed again.
She continued before he could comment.
"That is why I will not pretend another drop would change everything. Perhaps it would improve my ice again. Perhaps it would increase my capacity. Perhaps nothing significant would happen. I will not risk a foolish fight against you, Jake, or any other monster for an uncertain possibility."
Victor tilted his head slightly.
"So you admit I am a monster?"
"That is still under analysis."
"How cruel."
"You are covered in blood, smiling after massacring professional assassins, while considering invading a formation of twenty-five people alone. I am being generous by calling it analysis."
Victor smiled wider.
"Fair."
Grace went back to watching the clearing.
"Besides, if this trap is activated against Jake, the points stop mattering. This could become a political incident before the Ritual ends."
Victor followed her gaze to the black box.
"You think that thing can trap Jake?"
"I do not know," Grace replied. "But I think it was brought with that intention."
"Then let us break it."
"Yes."
There was no hesitation in her tone.
Victor liked that.
Grace was different from most of the prodigies he had faced that day. Leon wanted to prove strength. Charlotte wanted pride. Emma wanted control. Others wanted points, reputation, revenge, or survival. Grace wanted results. She did not need to like him. She did not need to trust him. It was enough that she understood that, in that moment, they had the same target.
That was enough.
Victor raised his right hand.
Black Ice began to condense around his fingers, forming a short blade before slowly expanding into a complete sword. The dark surface reflected the faint forest light like dead glass. Small black sparks began running along the weapon, but he contained them before they spread too much.
Grace observed the sword for a moment.
"That lightning is new."
"More or less."
"Can you control it?"
Victor looked at the blade.
"I am controlling it better than I was ten minutes ago."
Grace fell silent.
"Is that supposed to reassure me?"
"No."
"I thought so."
Victor spun the sword once, testing the structure’s response. The Black Ice vibrated, but remained stable. He could still feel the impact recoil in the bones of his arm. If he used too much force, he would pay the price. But against a numerous group, the main function of Black Lightning did not need to be only killing. It only had to accelerate the first strike enough to rupture the formation.
After that, the fight would turn into chaos.
And chaos was a very comfortable environment for him.
Grace placed her free hand on the stone beneath her feet. A thin layer of ice began to spread silently across the surface, descending along the rock like a pale shadow. Unlike Victor’s Black Ice, hers was lighter, colder, and cleaner. It did not carry that predatory sensation. It was elegant. Precise. Almost beautiful.
But Victor felt the danger all the same.
Grace’s ice did not seem made to crush.
It seemed made to appear exactly where it needed to.
"Can you reach the entire right side from here?" he asked.
"I can."
"Without them noticing?"
"Probably until the first one dies."
Victor smiled.
"Excellent."
Grace looked at him.
"When I begin, wait half a second. They will react to my side. If you attack too early, some will still have room to retreat."
"Half a second," Victor repeated.
"No more."
"Are you giving orders now?"
"I am coordinating an execution."
"That sounds better."
Grace ignored him.
Below, one of the vampires closest to the black box turned his face toward the forest. Maybe he had sensed something. Maybe it was only instinct. Either way, he did not have time to confirm it.
Grace breathed once.
The ice vanished from the surface of the rock.
Not because it had retreated.
Because it had already reached its destination.
In the clearing, on the right side of the formation, the ground turned white for a fraction of a second.
Then the world opened.
Hundreds of ice stakes erupted from the ground at impossible angles, piercing earth, stone, boots, legs, abdomens, and blood barriers with brutal precision. It was not a disorderly explosion. It was a forest of spears appearing exactly where the enemies stood. Two vampires died immediately, skewered from groin to skull. Three others jumped by reflex, escaping fatal perforations but losing balance and position.
The barriers on the right moved.
Exactly as Grace had predicted.
Victor was already moving.
Half a second.
No more.
Black Lightning ran through his legs in a short, concentrated flow. He did not let the energy explode wildly. He distributed the impulse through his muscles, guided the movement with Mist Steps, and leaped from the rock in silence.
For an instant, Victor disappeared among the shadows of the trees.
Then he emerged on the left side of the formation.
The Black Ice sword was already in motion.
He struck the ground.
Not to cut.
To plant his own energy.
Black Ice spread through the soil like black roots. Then Victor released the flow.
On the left side of the clearing, dark stakes erupted from the ground like the teeth of a buried creature. They were more brutal than Grace’s. Less elegant. More violent. Each point carried a slight vibration of Black Lightning, making the ice explode upward with additional acceleration.
The vampires who had retreated from Grace’s attack moved left.
And met Victor’s attack.
The first was impaled through the chest before he understood his mistake.
The second tried to cut the stakes, but his blade broke against the Black Ice, and one point pierced his throat.
The third jumped, escaped direct impalement, but Victor appeared above him in the same instant and slashed downward.
The sword passed through his body from shoulder to hip.
The discharge came afterward.
BOOM!
The corpse was hurled against the central barrier in two pieces, spraying blood over the four guards around the black box.
Screams finally exploded through the clearing.
"We are under attack!"
"From the left!"
"No, from the right!"
"Protect the artifact!"
"It is Grace!"
"No, it is Victor!"
Victor landed in the center of the left side of the formation, his sword held at an angle and his gaze far too calm for someone who had just invaded an ambush. Grace descended on the right side almost at the same time, moving between her own stakes as if each one had been placed to open a path for her steps.
Both sides of the formation had been destroyed in a single attack.
The outer circle was broken.
At least seven vampires were dead.
Five others were wounded.
And, more importantly, the black box was now exposed for one precious fraction of time.
Victor looked at Grace across the clearing filled with ice, blood, and chaos.
"Good attack."
Grace dodged a blade, touched the ground with two fingers, and made a stake pierce the attacker’s leg before answering.
"Do not ruin the second part."
Victor smiled.
"I never ruin things."
Grace glanced quickly at the broken bodies around him.
"You ruin many things."
"But with style."
The white-haired young man in the center finally turned toward Victor. His cold expression had cracked a little, replaced by shock and irritation. The four guards around the black box took defensive positions, and red symbols began to glow across the artifact’s surface.
Victor noticed the activation immediately.
His smile disappeared.
"Grace."
"I saw it."
"Box first."
"Agreed."
The white-haired leader raised his hand and shouted:
"Activate it now!"
Victor lowered his body.
Grace did the same from the other side.
For an instant, they moved at the same time.
Clear ice advanced from the right.
Black Ice advanced from the left.
And, at the center of the ruins, the remaining vampires realized too late that the trap made for Jake Valentine had just attracted another kind of disaster.
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