The hot sting of pain, and the wet redness of his own blood, filled Alec’s senses as cuts were opened along his neck and chest. His teeth clenched and his eyes wide with startled alarm as he did his best to dodge both of the attacks at once.

  Not once did he ever expect for something like this to happen, even after the sheer animosity that Crowell had shown him on that journey to Zenik seemingly so long ago. Though, thinking back on the kind of temperament that the vampire heir had displayed it probably shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was.

  Of course, he would be the kind of person to send assassins, really shitty ones if their willingness to show themselves was evident, to deal with his problems.

  Though that may just be a noble thing instead of a vampire thing, he’d heard plenty of stories about things like that after all.

  Another slash at his head had him ducked down and an attempted thrust of a swords blade had him tumbling to the side just in time for one of the vampires to flail a leg out and strike him, throwing him across their campsite and into a tree.

  The pillar of wood and leaves shook and groaned ominously as the crack of its bark subsided. The leader of the group already halfway across the distance between them to finish the blue-haired teen off once and for all by the time that both of his teammates began their own dash forward.

  The vampire leader ground himself to a halt in front of the crumpled form of their target and raised his blade high in the air for an easily choreographed execution. A demented grin spread across his lips and a dim glow to his red eyes.

  The clash of metal-on-metal rung throughout the campsite.

  Both of the vampire lackeys faltered mid-dash with wide-eyed, surprised looks as they struggled to comprehend reality.

  ‘There’s no way!’

  ‘When did he have the time to-?’

  From beneath the shadow of the tree’s canopy and the assassin standing over him, a vindictive grin graced Alec’s features. His eyes blazed with a refusal that had the leader snarling as he tried to press down harder with his blade, forcing the teen to push back more with the two hands bracing his own blade above him.

  ‘He managed to grab his blade while tumbling across their gear? What kind of human has reflexes like that?’ The assassin shifted his stance to try to stab the tip of his blade into Alec’s head instead, only to suddenly snap it up at his side.

  The pinpoint thrust of Olivia’s own weapon slammed into the flat of the assassin’s blade and sent him flying back. The vampire landing on his feet easily but now no longer able to keep the pressure on their target, allowing him to get back to his feet.

  For a moment the two sides were still as they kept their eyes on each other, the two teens taking only fractions of a second to take wary glances at each other. Their argument may have been the furthest possible thing from a pressing concern at this exact moment in time but it had still happened and neither of the teens could exactly act like it didn’t.

  However, neither of them would get the time to come to terms with this new, high-octane arrangement, because the vampire trio began their assault.

  Sparks filled the air and grunts of pain and exertion filled the forest as the five of them fought, sharpened edges slicing through air and skin alike in whistled songs of violence and death.

  The three vampires had the upper hand but even the slightest gap in their defences was punished with great efficiency, their regeneration dealing with the wounds easily enough but sapping at their stamina and making them falter each time.

  Without a word, both Alec and Olivia suddenly dashed in opposite directions, passing each other and swapping the vampires they were dealing with in an instant. Both of the weaker assassins startled at the sudden inclusion of their primary target, one of their blades deflected harmlessly and the other leaving a thin slice along his bicep. The leader of the group ducked low to avoid Olivia’s decapitating strike, sprung into the air with a push off the ground with his arm, and spun slightly to avoid her follow-up.

  The sudden switch in opponents and their respective fighting styles gave the two teens just enough time in charge of the fights to press their own rhythm into the combat instead of letting the assassins take charge.

  The opponents they were dealing with were still stronger and harder to take out than the teens themselves, but now with the benefit of them controlling the pace of the battle and not the vampires, they had slightly more breathing room than before.

  Thin slices opened up along Olivia’s arms and legs as she squeezed her way through a particularly brutal thrusting combo from the leader and struck out with her own piercing thrust. Her tongue clicked and her body already leaned back and curled to launch herself away from the leader as he deftly dodged to the side and readied himself for another thrust.

  At the same time, Alec cursed as he fought off the two other assassins. His blade and body in near-constant movement to avoid taking an attack that was too damaging. His mind was running at a million miles per hour and he could feel the ache in his muscles from the constant effort it was taking to deal with them.

  Reflexively he blinked as he brought his blade up to deflect a swipe for his head and had sparks shower over him; the force of an impact digging into his stomach and flinging him back once more. The strike to the stomach, from what he could recognize as the leg of the vampire he had deflected the strike of now that he had his eyes open, enough to make space between them but not enough to fling him off his feet.

  Small miracles.

  Once more he leveled his blade at the two vampires as they closed in on him and dashed forward himself, intent on not letting them grasp the flow of the fight from him so easily.

  He had been training in a primarily defensive sword style for the last month and thus was far better these days at defending himself but the constant attacks from the two of them weren’t giving him time to do anything except defend himself. He needed to change things up, to make some kind of wild play to tip the scales and put him firmly above the two of them so that he could take them out and go help Olivia with the leader.

  He just had to figure out-

  !!!

  The earth and trees rippled and tore like paper as a slash of mana hurled itself through the forest. In a spray of blood, one of the vampire’s hands fell from their wrist, an echoing scream unheard under the roar of the technique as it continued for another five meters before it spluttered out of reality entirely.

  From his position, now a good three meters back from where he had been, Alec panted slightly while knelt on the ground. However, his gaze wasn’t on the two vampires that had been closing in on him, but rather on the originator of the technique that had cut their ‘battlefield’ in half, Olivia.

  That technique wasn’t one of the ones of the Dragon-Scale sword style, which meant it was a personal one since he had never even seen it before. It had only been the briefest influx of mana that had even tipped him off that something was happening, which he was glad for. If he had kept moving forward, he likely would have ended up with a lot worse than a severed hand.

  However, the potential danger that he had just barely managed to avoid didn’t even register in his mind. No, all he could think of were the opportunities that her ‘new’ technique had added to the battle.

  With a wide-reaching, ranged attack at her disposal, their original battle partners had been far more apt than either of them could have ever realized. Which meant that the opponents he should be facing weren’t the two extras, but rather the big bad leader himself.

  He couldn’t take out the leader himself, he doubted he’d even be able to do something even vaguely debilitating, but he didn’t need to. So long as he could deal with the leader long enough for Olivia to take out the other two, as he knew she could, they would win.

  Meanwhile, across the battlefield, Olivia clicked her tongue as she saw the unharmed form of her current opponent grinning cockily at her. The smug asshole undoubtedly assured of his victory now that he had seen and so easily avoided her ‘ace’.

  It burned to admit that such a thought was correct.

  She didn’t have the necessary specs to deal with this guy, not even the required fluidity or eye for sword techniques, she was a terrible opponent for him. The element of surprise and the advantage that it had given her had crumbled to dust by now and it was showing. The opponents she’d be better at dealing with would be the duo over by Alec, not this smug ass.

  An influx of mana picked up the battle tempo once more. Everyone’s attention turned to Alec as he pushed down with a kick-off far too powerful for the speed that he had showcased beforehand and rocketed across the battlefield. The two lackeys that he had been facing before chased after him with everything they had.

  Olivia’s eyes gleamed and she took off in a charge directly at the blue-haired teen. A whisper danced on the edge of her thoughts as her heart pounded in her ears and her gaze swiveled between the two lackeys constantly.

  The speed that Alec had taken off with had surprised them, scared them, reduced them to acting on nothing but instinct and reflex to have a hope of keeping up with him. There was none of the grace and finesse that she had seen and experienced out of the two of them beforehand, only raw emotion and nature laid bare.

  It lasted for only a second, but that second was all that she needed to get her heart going yet again.

  It felt different from when she had been watching the water spirit, fuzzier, but she felt that same focus return back to her as she swerved around Alec with only the barest of gaps between them. People were difficult, tricky, and manipulative with their blades, she had learned that lesson far more than once.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Beasts, however, were far easier to read. And right now, their panic and frantic actions to catch back up to Alec and kill him made the two of these Vampires nothing higher than that.

  “Your opponent is me.” Her voice came out in a whisper as the both of them dug their feet into the earth to slow their velocity and allow them to react properly to her rapid approach.

  ‘How predictable. Come at me, minions.’ Her arms twitched and her blade flashed upwards, missing the left minion by only a hair's breadth as he instinctually jerked his torso back, a few hairs sliced off without a shred of resistance.

  ‘Right now, I feel incredible, and I don’t know how long this will last.’

  XXXxxxXXX

  The tip of Alec’s blade blew past the leader of the vampire trio in a crack of air and a buffet of wind. The man’s eyes wide and teeth clenched as he followed the blade with his gaze and slid to the side.

  “That’s General Tyrian’s-“

  Whatever the man was about to say, Alec could pretty accurately guess, was cut off by the man himself as he brought his blade down and met the flat of Alec’s own blade. In a screech of metal and a brief glint of sparks the vampire's blade slid down his own until it met the handguard of his blade and stopped with a jerk of both of their arms.

  In a lightning-fast manoeuvre, the man pulled back, expecting to unbalance Alec from the sudden lack of force. But instead, the teen only used the chance to place his blade in front of him in preparation for the strike that he knew was coming.

  One strike. Two. Three. Five. Seven. Ten.

  Sparks and metal clashing against metal filled their part of the battlefield in an all-encompassing cacophony of visual and auditory static as the two fought.

  Alec hissed as cuts opened along both of his forearms and only spurred himself to move faster, deflect better, and parry more smoothly. His body, even with the mana he was pumping through it, had already reached its physical limits as far as pure mechanical speed was concerned but yet he tried.

  This vampire had more stamina and far, far better technique than him. He couldn’t ever hope to somehow win out in a contest of either of those. Yet if he didn’t find some way to end this onslaught or weather his way through it properly, then he was as good as done.

  ‘Gah! His movements are so precise, its like the tip of his blade never wavers a centimetre! He just keeps going and going without an end in sight, how the hell is he keeping his movements so fluid at this speed!? It’s ridiculous!’

  A deeper cut opened along the side of his abdomen and a cut bled from his cheek. He was losing, his only job was to hold out until Olivia could finish her own fight and he was being overwhelmed this quickly. How was he ever meant to- Wait.

  ‘Fluidity?’

  For a moment the image of the water spirits deflection of the four-eyed frog's tongue appeared in his mind's eye; the sound of their screeching blades shifted. The vampire leader’s eyes widened as he leant too far forward from the sudden deflection that the teen had done, meeting his blade with his own and leading it back smoothly.

  Their target hadn’t moved like this beforehand, what had happened? What had changed?

  Completing the Glancing Scale, Alec brought his blade back forward in a wide sweeping arc directly at the vampire leader’s head. The sharpened point of the sword missing only by a centimetre as the assassin suddenly buckled his legs and dodged beneath it entirely.

  At least, that had been the plan. As he felt the thin slab of skin and muscle slap against his head and blood filled his vision, he realized that his dodge hadn’t quite been as smooth as he had thought beforehand. Despite his best efforts, the teen had still been able to nearly slice the entirety of the vampire’s forehead off, failing only by the barest piece of flesh that was already starting to knit itself back to the rest of his head.

  Alec couldn’t afford to let this opportunity slip past him; he couldn’t afford to let anything slip past him right now.

  It was only the whistle of the air around his blade that tipped the vampire leader into the approaching attack. The vampire launching himself into the air with a small ‘hyup’ and tried to wipe the blood out of his eyes while he had a bit more time before being attacked.

  The first thing to touch the ground wasn’t his legs, no, it was instead his blade. Balancing on top of his blade with a single eye open, the leader avoided the swipe at his legs and kept Alec from moving too much all at the same time. It was a simple matter to flip himself forward and bring his leg down on Alec’s head, given his position.

  At least it was meant to be.

  With a flowing movement to the side, the teen avoided the leader’s leg and brought his blade up, blocking the surprise attack from the man and smoothly sliding it to the side once more.

  Again, and again he deflected and redirected the man's strikes as the two were locked in a second battle of rapid strikes and flying sparks. Yet again Alec found himself unable to do anything else but desperately defend but now he found himself gaining far fewer injuries.

  The key had been in those movements he had seen from the water spirit, the flowing, continuous nature of them. Two blended actions naturally occur faster than two joined actions, and faster yet again than two disjointed ones. The focus it was taking to actively keep himself in a constant ‘flowing’ state was slowing him down, leading to more injuries, but it was still faring far better than before.

  Lead each action in the next, not just in terms of the movement of his sword but with his entire body as well. Leave himself flexible and fluid in everything he did. Those were the tenants he repeated to himself as sparks showered over him, his blade wearing down further and further under the relentless assault of the increasingly aggravated vampire.

  “JUST DIE ALREADY!”

  The leader’s scream seemed to echo through the forest as he thrust his blade forward with his mana surging around him. A surge of mana from behind the blue-haired teen seemed to drown even that out.

  Olivia was close to finishing her own battle off, he could tell. Just the barest glances he had been able to give in her direction over the course of his own fight had been enough for him to keep a basic track of her fight, and the two minions were on their last legs.

  The surge of Olivia’s mana, as it washed over Alec’s senses, seemed to shatter something delicate inside him. The razor-sharp calm and focus that had been enveloping him crumbled like broken glass around him and his body almost vibrated with pent-up energy.

  It was like he had just had his head dunked underwater without warning, dulling his senses and disorienting him in a second. Leaving him utterly incapable of responding properly to the mana-surging attack heading directly toward him.

  Without the time or focus to properly create a Power Stance, he was left with no choice but to desperately gamble on a flat defence with Iron Scales and his own power. It would shatter his blade without a doubt and leave him defenceless but at least this way he wouldn’t be-

  “ALEC!”

  The teen startled and faltered amidst bringing his blade up to block the strike and turned his head just enough to look back at the furious shout from his ally.

  Olivia was mid-sprint towards him already but too far to make a difference in the fate that was about to befall him. The cut-down forms of the two minions still in free fall from where the young woman had undoubtedly severed their top halves from their bottom. Her eyes ablaze with a focus and intensity that he had never seen out of a single person in his entire life, a focus and intensity that seemed to make something stir inside him.

  Fear, determination, anger, indignation; he didn’t know.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? KILL HIM ALREADY!”

  ‘You think I haven’t been trying!? That I’ve just been waiting for some kind of stylish ending or something!?’ He could feel his rage mounting inside him, his teeth grit and his grip on his blade tightened. ‘You think I’m some kind of genius but I’m not! A genius could deal with this! A genius is actually skilled! I’m a godsdamned nobody!’

  His gaze turned back to the vampire leader and soul-crushing despair flooded him instantaneously. It was too late for him to use Iron Scales; it was too late for him to use any Power Stance in his arsenal. He had lost his edge and gotten distracted to boot, he had no way of making it out of this any longer. This attack was going to hit him head on and it was going to kill him.

  He was about to die.

  Fear overloaded his every neuron, and his heart hammered in his chest like it was trying to physically break out. His muscles tightened and constricted with as much force as they could physically manifest, and his mana surged around him with all the might that his body could produce.

  “ALEC!”

  Tension, fear, pain, worry, exhaustion, mana; they all turned to nothing.

  In the face of his imminent death, Alec found himself unable to do anything but lock up and fear. In the face of his certain death, Alec found himself devoid of all else but his instincts. Instincts he had not experienced before, instincts that he was not aware that he held, instincts that only a handful of individuals in the entirety of history could claim to have also held.

  The tip of his blade scratched along the tip of the vampire leader's own blade and his movement began. Blankly, smoothly, the flat of their blades sparked against each other, the surging mana around the vampire’s blade eating away at the metal of his own and invading its chemical bonds. Calmly, rapidly, his own mana instinctively rushed into the hilt and blade of his own sword to fight back the encroaching threat.

  As he had done before, he curled and twisted his blade to redirect the strike to his side and behind him. His reflection glinted off the flat of his enemy’s blade as it shot past him, he never noticed a thing.

  The assassin already began to pull his blade back, having expected to be met with the same move as before and preparing his defence. His defence was focused on his blade, his ego assured him that it would be enough for him to block any kind of strike that Alec could throw at him, as it had in the past.

  “I’m bleeding, Mr Dius.”

  “Your blade cut me. Your unenchanted, unmoving, regular blade managed to do this to me.”

  “I didn’t allow the blade to cut me like this, Mr Dius. –.. I must put active effort into protecting myself from such things, Mr Dius. Your blade can hurt me just as much as that beast lying over there could, it is not special.”

  The last of the vampire’s mana burned out of the blade of Alec’s sword, leaving it pooled in thick, swirling vortexes of energy all throughout his blade. Again and again, they clashed, strengthening each other, speeding each other up, pulling more and more mana in with as much force as they could muster.

  The leader of these assassins was undoubtedly a [Silver-rank] opponent. But his ego had led to him being struck before and it would lead to him being struck yet again.

  He was faster than Alec, stronger than Alec, and tougher than Alec. All of that was true.

  He was not, however, invincible.

  The barest whisp of his mana left the weakened and scarred metal of his blade and he let it fly.

  The edge of his blade met the flat of the vampire’s and cut clean through it like wet paper. The vampire’s eyes widened, and he tried to jerk his body out of the path of the teen’s sword. Despite his efforts, the edge of the teen’s blade bit into him all the same and continued its path unabated. A spray of blood trailed his blade as it left the torso of the assassin and a drop from the man's now-healed head injury dripped onto Alec’s brow.

  And a moment later, the two halves of the vampire flung themselves into the trees behind them so hard they painted the forest red, and the winds howled with enough force to throw both teens clear off their feet and into some nearby bushes.