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Azadine opened his eyes at the sound of screams coming from far away.
“What is this now?”
Only quiet breathing filled the surroundings. Niselda, who was on night watch, kept her place, and the others in the group were asleep.
“What is it?”
“I thought I heard screams. Even now….”
Azadine looked toward the northeastern sky. The sky burned red, and whirlwinds rose from the ground and surged up into the sky.
Every time an ominous and horrific power shot into the sky, miserable screams rang out.
The sound was loud enough that it should have been impossible to sleep, but the others around him were sleeping just fine.
Azadine realized that this sound was audible only to him and clicked his tongue.
“You are sensing something, Azadine.”
“Yes. Elemental Wailing is occurring over there.”
When Azadine asserted that, Niselda looked at him with interest.
“Elemental Wailing? Can you see it?”
“Yes. It is the same color as when Elemental Wailing exploded earlier.”
But then, Niselda suddenly drew her sword. She pulled out the side sword at her waist and swung it, striking something away.
-Flutter!
A bat split in two fell to the ground, gushing blood as it writhed.
“…….”
Niselda’s expression darkened when she saw it. Her veil covered her face, so it was hard to see clearly, but he could feel that it had grown even darker.
“We need to wake everyone. It is a vampire bat.”
Azadine and Niselda looked at each other, then woke the sleeping group.
“Uah. Just when I thought I could finally get some sleep….”
“Everyone, pack your belongings and get ready to move.”
“Where are we going?”
“We retreat.”
“Pardon?”
“Hurry.”
Azadine urged them to hurry. Even while he did, bats could be seen landing here and there. Bats came down and perched on the trees, on the eaves of the buildings, and on the signposts by the road.
“These are bloodsucking bats.”
“They are the familiars of a vampire! Captain! This is bad!”
Zebec and Scott also realized that these bats were not ordinary.
“Mm.”
Bernard and Niselda groaned.
“It seems the board of directors of Banreung Academy has stepped forward.”
“The board of directors of Banreung Academy?”
“Yes. Banreung Academy’s inner circle, the board of directors, are all vampires. Among them is my biological mother as well.”
Niselda said that and gripped her side sword tightly. As if she could not endure the filthy blood flowing within her body, she was burning with anger and fury.
But then, behind Azadine’s group, in other words, in front of the road leading to the Chadra Plateau, dwarves appeared.
The dwarf blunderbuss soldiers and Chashan had appeared.
“Hahaha. So you came to this inn, Azadine. Yes. How was my handi—”
However, Chashan could not finish those words. Azadine was already standing behind his back.
“W-What is this bastard—?”
The moment Chashan turned his body, both of his wrists fell off.
Azadine had made the handle of the Blue Executioner into the size of a hand axe and was holding it in his hand. With the Blue Executioner, he had cut off both of Chashan’s wrists in a flash.
“Eugh?!”
Chashan clutched his severed hands and retreated. He seemed unable to gather his senses from the intense pain, but even without staunching the bleeding, not much blood came from the wounds.
Blood Binding, the vampire ability that greedily fixed the blood inside the body, was activating.
“You became a vampire. Then that means I do not have to worry about killing you clumsily, does it?”
“Kuh, kuhuhuhuhu. You foolish bastard. A lowly thing like you dares….”
This time too, Chashan could not finish speaking. Azadine’s front kick stretched out like a spear and pierced Chashan’s face.
His cheekbone shattered and sank in, causing his face to shrivel like a deflated ball.
“Kkeok?!”
“It was my mistake to keep you alive. Even if you were trash who sold drugs and brought only pain to others, I tried to somehow make use of your insight and talents, but it seems my greed went too far! Besides, you were more of a small fry than I thought.”
Azadine had realized that although Chashan had been called by grand names like the founder of Dwarven Arrow, he was ultimately nothing more than a lackey.
If they had turned him into a vampire spawn who could not properly move around under sunlight, then that was all the value he had.
Chashan and all the Dwarven Arrow bastards were nothing more than puppets of Banreung Academy and the Banreung royal family.
“Kill him!”
Chashan’s brothers, the dwarf sorcerers, all tried to cast spells at once, but Zebec cast a spell before they could.
Zebec chanted the spell and threw a rusty hammer at the same time. When this hammer fell among them, it caused an explosion of sacred power and tore their bodies to pieces.
“Kkeok?!”
“Aaaaaah!”
The sacred white magical power displayed even more horrific power against the vampires.
Azadine held the shortened Blue Executioner and Aurelia Dawn, swung them, and cut down the vampires charging at him.
However, the body of the vampire struck by Aurelia Dawn burst into flames. The startled vampire jumped and tried to put out the fire, but this flame stuck to its body like sticky glue, would not go out, and tormented the vampire.
“Kkiaaaak!”
The vampire spawn leapt about and writhed in pain, then, as if it could no longer endure it, stood its blunderbuss on the ground, placed its chin over the muzzle, and pulled the trigger.
-Bang!
A blunderbuss was a firearm that used a large amount of gunpowder, so its power was tremendous.
Its power dropped sharply the farther away the target was, but even at fifty yards, it had enough force to drop heavily armored cavalry. Since he fired it against his chin, his entire head was blown off.
“…….”
The vampire’s extreme choice shocked everyone.
The ceramite longsword had an absolutely terrible compatibility against vampires. Everyone realized that fact.
“Good, in that case.”
Azadine raised the ceramite longsword and struck Chashan’s crotch with the flat of the blade, the side of the sword. He did not cut; he merely touched the crotch.
“Kkiaaaaak!”
Fire spread onto Chashan’s body.
“You ruined many others. I had been wondering whether it was fair to grant someone like you a single death, but you became a vampire yourself and charged at me, so this worked out very well. I will give you pain equivalent to a hundred deaths.”
“Kkiaaa. You crazy bastard!”
Chashan spat curses at Azadine, but pain that could not be handled with curses surged over him. In pain that seemed to drive him mad, Chashan writhed and crawled on the ground.
However, the flames of this ceramite did not disappear.
“…….”
“D-Do not run! Fight back!”
The vampire who seemed to be the commander ordered his subordinates that way, then fled himself. But Azadine approached the fleeing vampire captain.
-Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon, Twilight Step!
Azadine closed the distance in an instant and cut off that vampire’s leg with Aurelia Dawn. As the severed surface burned, the vampire screamed.
“Kkiaaaaak!”
As flames blazed from his leg, the vampire commander fell backward on his rear and crawled away, trying to put out the fire with both hands. It was impossible. No matter what method he used, he could not extinguish this fire.
“U-Uh?!”
In the end, this vampire commander also took out a hand pistol and shot his own head. He blew off his own head to cut off the pain of burning alive.
‘Damn it. Damn Prince Kalzmati. Like this, there is no way we can fight, is there? Vampires are this weak to the sacred sword of the Rescue Knights Order?’
Everyone was horrified by that miserable sight.
‘It is much better to just stay living than become a vampire. Rather than die that horrifically.’
Vampire spawn were clearly stronger than ordinary humans and dwarves.
After becoming vampire spawn, they had been able to use their terrifying mobility to detour around the road and cut off Azadine’s retreat.
That was something impossible for bare-bodied dwarves, since dwarves were slower walkers than humans. But in exchange, they had gained a weakness to the ceramite longsword.
That weakness was so horrific that anger toward Prince Kalzmati, who had turned them into vampire spawn, burned within them.
When they thought about it, what was royal authority worth, that it could force such a horrific death upon them? They absolutely did not want to die like that.
It was a horrifying sight that completely cooled the confidence and excitement they had gained from becoming vampire spawn.
“Augh….”
And Chashan, whose crotch was on fire, drove the nail into the vampires’ resolve.
To extinguish the fire on his body, Chashan picked up a stone and struck his own crotch with it.
His genitals were crushed, along with his testicles, vas deferens, urethra, blood vessels, muscles, and so on. Something like red clots of blood and chunks of flesh stretched out, but he paid no attention.
Even as bits of flesh and blood sprayed, he kept hitting himself, hitting and hitting again as though addicted.
That bizarre and horrific sight vividly conveyed the pain Chashan was experiencing to everyone around him.
“K-Kill me! Hurry!”
After smashing his own crotch like that, Chashan suddenly discovered a blunderbuss lying on the ground. Like a drowning person desperately swimming toward the surface, he flailed and crawled toward the blunderbuss.
Chashan had crushed his own crotch and pubic bone, leaving him unable to walk properly, and the sight of him crawling while staggering was too horrific.
‘I did think he was a bastard who deserved to die a hundred times, but this….’
Azadine was also flustered by the horror of it. He keenly realized how terrifying a weapon the ceramite longsword was against beings of evil.
At that moment, Chashan finally reached the blunderbuss. Chashan grabbed the blunderbuss with his forearm and lifted his foot.
His shoe tore, revealing his toes.
Chashan placed the muzzle of the blunderbuss against his chin and tried to fire the gun with his toes.
-Click.
But the gun misfired. It was not loaded.
“Huh?! Uaaak!”
When the blunderbuss misfired, Chashan screamed in grief like someone witnessing the end of the world.
Azadine, unable to keep watching, picked up another blunderbuss from the ground and blew off Chashan’s head.
“Ah. Damn it.”
Everyone stared at Azadine in confusion.
Azadine had been the one who declared that since Chashan had tortured and killed innocent merchants out of revenge against him, he would kill the bastard more than a hundred times.
Yet that very Azadine had been unable to endure it and had ended Chashan’s life.
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