Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Chapter 199: Fragment of the Abyss [Part 1]

"What in the world are you doing?" One of the men following Lucius shouted. "That mage was our ally!"

Lucius chose to ignore the man's outrage and focused purely on the vampire in front of him. Its injuries from the Thunder Magic spell were already healing at a rapid pace, making many of the char marks vanish quickly. The creature twitched its wrist, sending a wave of dirt and debris directly at Lucius.

Instinctively, Lucius drew his sword and slashed into the center of the debris, forcing the blood whip to fall back to the ground. It attempted to hide its attack using the dirt, but he was able to see right through its attempt.

The creature bared its extended fangs and angrily hissed at Lucius. It jumped towards him with one hand extended forward with fingernails as sharp as daggers. The other hand was held back, but still maintained its grip on the whip. Lucius sent mana into his legs and dove to the left, leaving behind a trail of electricity.

Instead of striking him, the vampire collided into the wall with a loud crack. The beast roared in defiance and pain. While watching this happen, the other men finally descended into the ravine to join the fray.

Both warriors rushed to surround the vampire while the archer maintained a healthy distance to fire their arrows. "[Bow Arts: Piercing Shot]"

"[Sword Arts: Double Strike]"

"[Shield Arts: Double Bash]"

As the mana infused arrow shot towards the target, a mana blade and mana shield slammed into the back of the vampire who somehow maintained its concentration on Lucius. Immediately after the impact of the mana attacks, the actual sword and shields hit the monster.

Once the warriors made physical contact with it, the creature wheeled around and flicked the whip at them. The man with the shield and mace was able to block the attack, but the tail of the weapon continued past him and struck the swordsman in the neck. The tail-end of the whip had a sharp hook that dug into the man's neck.

Having caught one of its prey, the vampire smiled and pulled the whip back. The swordsman screamed in terror and pain as the vampire picked him up by the neck. The hook dug deeper into his flesh and pierced his spinal cord. His arms went limp as he lost the ability to control everything below the injury and he began to gurgle and choke on his own blood.

Once the man was in its clutches, the monster sunk its fangs into the now limp body and drained it completely of the remaining red liquid and turned the corpse into a dried husk. The other two men watched in wide-eyed horror while Lucius simply stood in fascinated awe. He had never seen something like that before.

"Fascinating." He muttered, eliciting a disgusted look from the archer who was closest to him.

While the three warriors attempted to attack it alone, Lucius simply stood back to observe and see if there were any patterns to the creature's attacks or behaviors that he could exploit. However, he started to notice that the deceased swordsman's body began to twitch and move, so he decided to prevent adding an additional adversary to the battlefield.

Red and blue lightning swirled around his wrist and into the shaft of his custom-made weapon. As he drew the weapon from his back, the blade elongated to a nearly sixty-five inches from its original twenty-eight. Now that the blade was fully extended, he needed to wield it with both hands.

The electricity continued to dance along the blade as he imbued a [[Thunderclap]] spell into it. Lucius raised the weapon up and slammed the blade onto the ground. A massive wave of concussive force slammed into both the twitching corpse and the vampire. Even the mace-wielder was struck and thrown backwards.

What used to be the swordsman was shredded into pieces of flesh and bone. The vampire's hand that was holding the corpse in place was destroyed along with the rest of its arm up to the shoulder.

"Gods dammit all, you struck one of ours again you rotten…" The archer started to shout, but his anger turned into confusion when his world turned upside down.

Lucius stood still as the archer's head tumbled from his body. After losing its arm, the vampire immediately counterattacked. He was able to use his mana enhanced body to quickly duck beneath the whip's strike and close the gap. However, since the archer chose to talk instead of fight, he was struck down by the weapon, forfeiting his life.

"No! You damnable…"

The mace wielder charged towards the monster at the same time as Lucius, his movements became filled with openings and mistakes caused by his blind rage. He failed to notice the shadows that had entrapped the mage earlier had begun to wrap around the man's legs and yanked him to the ground. Losing his balance made him panic more as he struggled to break free.

Luckily for him, the vampire was not interested in him as prey. A far more delectable meal stood before it and was putting up more of a fight than the creature expected. It found itself smiling, which made Lucius wonder if beasts could enjoy things…

More red energy flooded into his blade, creating jagged red teeth along the length of the cutting edge. He activated his [Savage Strike Art] to enhance the attack power of his next swing.

Lucius lunged forward while the mace wielder continued to shout and flail. He was forced to dodge stone, dirt, and the flailing blood whip that seemed to have a mind of its own now, no longer requiring being flicked about by any movements from the beast.

Just as Lucius was going to swing his weapon, he found his wrists bound by some unknown force. He looked down and saw a shadow tendril wrapped around his wrist. The shadow continued to wrap around his arms until they were pinned together up to his elbows.

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"Very interesting… this isn't Dark Magic…" Lucius mumbled. "Where is this power coming from…"