Right now we are in the prisons of the mayfire castle. Of all the places that we can now run to, this is by far the safest. The place was built in such a way that there is only a single corridor connecting it to the keep.

  I am sure that it was meant to protect the inner keep should the prisoners take over this place. That means that we can make use of this single tunnel as a chokepoint to prevent the enemy from attacking us. Not more than three people will be able to fight in that tunnel.

  That means that the tunnel will destroy their number advantage, completely. Still, it doesn't change the fact that the main threat is the snake.

  I can only think of five people with me that would be able to survive a fight against them. That is with me including myself. With the present state of my injuries, it is very unlikely that I will be fighting right now. Well, I will be able to fight, just not the vampire.

  Other than me, Amelia and Alfred will certainly be able to fight them. They might even be able to kill the man if they manage to get him within the first few minutes. The Mayfires do not have a lot of staying power in a fight. A vampire never really runs out of blood mana. (This place is the closest I have seen a vampire come to starving. They always have their blood bags wherever they go.) This is not a good matchup.

  The longer their fight goes on, the worse our position will be.

  Andrew and Jacob can also fight the man, though in their case it is more of a defensive battle. They certainly won't be able to defeat the man, let alone kill him. This is even with the man not having a majority of his blood mana with him right now.

  The snake must have spent a lot of his blood mana to destroy that barrier. Oh right, I had started recording this because the barrier to the fire altar had fallen. It was surprisingly easy to detect the surge of mana caused by the destruction of that barrier.

  Part of the reason for this is that the barrier separating us from the outer keep is still holding. Without the fire altar to power it though the barrier is going to be destroyed in a bit. A poke from somebody would be enough to bring the entire thing down on me.

  Well, I am taking that positively. The necromancer would have destroyed it already if they were escaping. That would mean that the Mayfires are fighting them to such a point, that they can't think of escaping.

  It could also mean that they don't need to destroy the barrier. That the Mayfires are being crushed even as we speak. I don't want to think about that though. I don't know how to survive in that situation.

  Anyway, all of my explanations mean that the snake is now much weaker. The man is still not going to be easy to fight. Well, I will have to leave worrying about that to Alfred Mayfire right now. At the moment Amelia Mayfire is not in the least helpful at this moment. At the moment she has a plan of ambushing the snake and killing him before he can be more of a threat. Leaving the prison right now is stupid.

  At the moment, it is only Alfred that is keeping the lady focused on the mission. Technically speaking an ambush is not a bad idea on the face of it. It would certainly not be something that the enemy would be expecting us to pull off. The only problem is that we have better and less risky options.

  The safest option right now would be to stay put and hold our position. If we were to manage to hold back the snake, we could hold this position for a day quite easily.

  Right now I am sure that the Mayfires are winning in their fight with the necromancers. If that is the case, they would only require a day to destroy the enemy. Then they can come to rescue us. Similarly. If they were to lose, then the necromancers are going to be destroying us within that time anyway.

  In either case, there is not much that we will be able to do away from the prison. Somebody will have to explain that to Amelia though. The lady refuses to understand such a basic thing. Well, I am not going to be doing that work at least.

  Right now I am not in the most pretty position myself. My escape from the fire altar has left me in a bad position. There are the injuries that were given to me by the snake. While they are not healing, these Injuries don't worry me too much as well. The blood mana present in it does prevent me from healing it with my vital mana. These injuries don't stop me from fighting.

  It is burns that are causing me a problem right now. They are pretty serious burns, completely stopping me from fighting properly. My sword is the only reason that I still look like I am fine. Not that it means the injuries are not there. Every drop of my sweat reminds me of my burns. It is literally like my entire body is pulsing like a heart with pain.

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  This place is completely different from the other parts of the castle. The rest of the fort was designed to be as comfortable as possible. This place has been designed to be as uncomfortable as possible. If the rest of the fort is as cool as a cucumber, this place causes me to sweat like I am in a sauna.

  Well, I started this record to speak about my present situation, not complain about it. I seem to be entering into that territory though, so I will be stopping this record for now.

  (After about twenty minutes.)

  I would like to say that I have good news to report. That the Mayfires and the patriarch returned successfully from their part of the keep. That they relieve me from this stupid place.

  Well, I don't have anything positive to report yet. If anything we are still waiting to be attacked here. Even Lady Amelia is listening to me for once. At least, she is trying to listen. That is the reason that I am recording right now. There are the six of us in this room planning for our present course of action. Well. Planning would be a strong word for what we are doing here.

  Well, the room we are in is the largest prison cell in this place. Even then the six of us are barely able to fit in this place. Looks like the Mayfires are not very considerate of their criminals.

  "Well, one of us will have to start this discussion.", Trevor speaks. "It is not like we have a lot of time here."

  Why is the man looking at me when the people calling the meeting were the Mayfires?

  "Well, I don't know what we have to discuss. The plan right now seems pretty simple.", I reply. "We guard the entrance to the prison. If the enemy comes we hold them back."

  "How exactly are we supposed to be doing that.", Alfred speaks up. "The only thing that we could do the last time we faced this snake was to run away from him."

  "Well, as I have explained to you the snake will be significantly weaker than before.", I reply. I am sure that this is the hundredth time explaining this. "He will make use of a lot of his mana to break that barrier. The man does not have any way to replenish his mana here."

  "Yet you do not speak of how you plan to fight the man.", replies Amelia. "You ask us to fight him. Somehow it makes me feel like we are being used as cannon fodder here."

  I will be honest, it is refreshing to deal with Amelia. The lady is direct at least. That is what makes her irritating though.

  "Have you looked at me lady.", I reply. "I am not exactly in a fighting state here. Yet I will be there on the battlefield protecting your people. You cannot expect me to fight a captain in my present state."

  I admit that I have become quite agitated by the end of that little speech.

  "We know, Antonio. We don't expect you to fight.", speaks the man. "Still, I am not sure how we will be holding back against such an enemy. The man is formidable, you have to admit that."

  "Well, the man will be about as strong as the warrior. I am sure that you will be able to fight him if all four of you were to work together.", I reply.

  "You might be confident about your assumption, Captain. You don't inspire the same confidence in these people. Maybe if you could explain your logic to them, they would be more at ease.", Trevor speaks up.

  "Well, I have been explaining that to them since we came here, Trevor.", I reply, snapping at Trevor.

  Looking at the eyes of the two Mayfires, I calm myself down. Now is not the time to piss these two off. They look like they are planning to attack me right now. Just how sensitive are these folks?

  "Vampires create their mana by absorbing the vital mana of their victims.", I speak. "The people from whom they feed have limited vital mana. If the man has that much blood mana, the only way that he will be doing it is by devouring through their reserves. There is no way that he has that many blood bags here."

  "And yet the man has fifty good sources of blood present with him, you claim.", Amelia speaks.

  "Well, would you eat rotten meat before fighting an enemy?", I reply to the lady.

  "Not unless I would be forced to do it.", she replies. "I don't want to become sick if the fight was so important."

  "Well, those soldiers are rotten meat to the Vampires.", I speak. "No, they are even worse than that to vampires. Drinking their blood would be like drinking salt water to the snake. He would end up becoming even weaker if he were to do that. There is a reason that they are so obsessed with virgins. They are supposed to yield the purest blood mana."

  "That is fine, but that still doesn't answer the core of the question. How do we know that the enemy will be as weak as you claim him to be? You say that he is supposed to be weaker. Fine, we will agree to that. What will we do if we can't fight him off? What if he manages to beat us?", Alfred asks.

  Based on the look Amelia gives him, I don't think that she agrees with what the man has spoken.

  "Well, I would like to say that I have a trick left to fight the enemy.", I reply, wondering if I should be honest here. "I don't know what else could we do here. Leaving here would mean certain death. Staying here means that we can delay that by a day at least. In that time, all we can do is hope that your patriarch makes it."

  "There must be something that you can do. You managed to kill that other captain.", Amelia asks.

  "Well, I am a formation mage, lady. What do you expect me to pull off without any formations.", I reply.

  That shuts up the two of them at least.

  "Well, it would be wise that you return to your positions then. The enemy could attack us any second.", I speak, breaking the silence. "Unless you have some information that would be helpful to us."

  I look at the two of them with hope. The two people always clam up whenever I ask them about escape routes from this prison. They think that we are in a shitty situation but it is not risky enough for them to spill their secrets.

  Well, I am pretty hopeful personally. Well, I will be continuing this record when the bastard finally ends up attacking us. It should be any hour now. I wonder what is delaying the man so much.