Edmund snorted. “Christina, we invited you here because we respected you. You think thirty of us can’t beat two Mages? It doesn’t matter whether you are here or not.”
“Then good luck.”
Christina transformed into a group of tiny bats and flew away from the woods.
Edmund snorted. “What a coward.”
Then, he turned back into bats and flew to the branches, hanging himself there again.
Back in Liguburg City, Yelia and Roland roamed outside of the city with a black gem, but they did not spot any dark creatures after a long walk.
In other words, the gem did not show any reaction at all.
They returned to the city in the afternoon. The moment they passed the gate, a soldier ran to them and said, “Esteemed Mages, the mayor invites you to meet him.”
Yelia and Roland looked at each other and moved on quickly.
They saw a tied man on his knees on the lawn next to a few soldiers the moment they entered the mayor’s castle.
Seeing Yelia, one of the soldiers greeted them and said, “Mr. Yelia, according to our investigation, this man took the dead girl out of the city last night. There are several eyewitnesses.”
“The city gate is closed at night. How did he take the girl out?”
“He’s the gate officer’s’ son.”
That explained a lot!
“The earl must be busy arresting the rogues, yes?”
None of the soldiers said anything.
It was no small thing that someone opened the city gate without orders. Punishment and purging were due.
Yelia walked to the man on his knees and asked him, “Why did you take the girl out of the city?”
“I don’t know.” The kneeling man sweated hard. “There was a voice in my head that kept telling me to take the girl out. I couldn’t control my body and did its bidding.”
“Then why did you come back alive? Or rather, what did you see?”
“Bats! There were countless bats in the chestnut woods west of the city,” the man said fearfully. “Some of the bats manifested into a young man. He said that he would spare me if I took another girl out of the city tonight, or my head would explode! Mr. Mage, can you help me? I don’t want my head to explode!”
“That’s just the vampires’ deception.” Yelia shook his head and said to Roland, “The vampires are best at enchanting human beings. They may not be as good as the Succubi, but very close.”
“Do you want to go and take a look?” Roland looked at the sky and said, “It’s still early. I think we can fight them.”
“Okay.” Yelia scoffed. “Liguburg City is my territory. Vampires or any other creatures cannot stir trouble here without my permission.”
They borrowed two horses from the castle. Actually, Roland would’ve been faster if he used Spatial Bubble Squirt, but he dropped the idea because he would have to wait for Yelia.
When the sun was setting, they rode to the chestnut woods.
Yelia took out the black gem and filled it with magic power. Very soon, vague purple light emitted from the gem toward the wood.
“They’re indeed here. The reaction is very strong.” Yelia’s delight was replaced by graveness. “There are at least twenty dark creatures.”
“That’s a lot.” Roland was slightly surprised too.
Yelia said solemnly, “I think we should retreat for now and come back after we’re more prepared.”
Roland nodded and said, “Agreed.”
They were about to turn around, when the night suddenly fell, and nothing could be seen after only two seconds.
Roland instantly cast five luminous spheres into the air, but they barely had any effect when they used to be able to illuminate a football field. He was still enshrouded in darkness. Most rays from the light spheres seemed to have been absorbed and could only reach five meters away.
“Dome of Darkness? Such a huge one?” Yelia exclaimed. While appeasing the shocked horse, he cried, “Mr. Roland, we have to run!”
“There’s no time!” Roland said determinedly and quickly, “Mr. Yelia, please resist all attacks for me in the next five seconds.”
At this point, bats were flapping their wings from all directions.
The rustling sounds were as though a swarm of worms were gnawing leaves.
We’re tricked… The enemy has lured us here on purpose.
The same thought flashed in their hearts.
Gritting his teeth, Yelia roared, “Five seconds? Okay. It’s up to you whether or not we can make it back alive!”
Roland nodded, and a blue fireball took shape in his palm.
Yelia took a glass cube that contained a blue fluorescent fluid out of his magic robe. He drank most of the fluid without hesitation and shouted, “Massive Magic Shield!”
A magic shield that looked like a round glass cover sheltered them.
In the first second, bats flew out of the darkness and transformed into thirty pale vampires that surrounded Roland and Yelia.
In the next second, the vampires, seeing that the fireball in Roland’s hand was expanding, launched their spells at the enemy without a word.
In the third second, a myriad of spells of different colors barraged the magic shield simultaneously.
Dense, overlapping ripples spiraled across the transparent shield at first, before cracks began to spread.
In the fourth second, the fireball in Roland’s hand had been expanded to one meter and a half in diameter.
More spells were volleyed. Unleashing black lightning, Edmund roared hideously, “Try harder! Kill them!”
Yelia vomited blood and fell on one of his knees. Then, he drank the remaining blue fluid in the container.
Though a lot of cracks were appearing on the magic shield, it did not fall apart.
In the fifth second, Yelia lost all strength and nearly fell over.
His Massive Magic Shield was finally broken.
Edmund was delighted.
But at this point, Roland threw the blue fireball in his hand, which was almost two meters in diameter, before he quickly created a rock tent with Mud to Stone, protecting himself and Yelia.
All the vampires were fixated on the fireball.
Edmund was the first to come back to himself. He shouted, “Run!”
But there was no time.
In the darkness, the fireball emanated brilliant light like a rising sun, burning a lot of the weaker vampires into ashes.
Then followed an intense explosion. Even the air warped. Some of the vampires fell from the sky with bleeding faces.
Eventually, the red “tsunami” caused by the explosion consumed everything.
The Dome of Darkness, like a round bubble, was blown apart by the airwaves until it cracked.
All the vampires were consumed by the blast.
The weaker of them fell from the sky as ashes, and the stronger of them had been completely blackened even though they survived.
Edmund crashed to the ground and tried to turn into bats, but he failed.
He had been too badly wounded. Besides, with fire elements all over the place, it was hard for him to communicate with dark elements.
The Dome of Darkness was broken, and the afterglow reached everybody.
Many vampires smoked and screamed when they were illuminated, but none of them died.
Different sunlight had different intensity. The afterglow could only injure the vampires’ skin and was not fatal.
The rock tent was canceled, and Yelia and Roland walked out.
Yelia fell on his knees again after a couple of steps. Due to the severe mental recoil, he was too exhausted to do anything now.
Roland looked around and burned the struggling vampires into ashes with fireballs, before he collected their bone powder in his system Backpack.
Then, he walked to Edmund and kicked him into the shade of a tree.
Edmund felt much better without the afterglow and stopped screaming.
Standing before him, Roland looked down at him and demanded, “I remember that you were crippled by me before.”
“Even the Dome of Darkness was broken by you. So, we didn’t surround you; you surrounded us…” Edmund burst into crazy laughter. “But that’s fine. Lord Bruce will be exasperated that you killed thirty of my people. Later, fifty or even a hundred of my people will come back for you.”
“Bruce?” Roland was rather curious.
“Lord Bruce is a second-generation vampire and the first vampire who was transformed by the True Ancestor. You’re dead for sure now that you’ve pissed off the Bruce family.” Edmund laughed so hard that he was spasming.
Roland was stunned.
He was reading the system notifications.
Personal main quest received: Destroy Bruce’s nest and find the information on the True Master of the vampires! (Epic and nightmarish; it’s recommended to recruit as many mercenaries for the quest as possible.)
“Huh?”
“You have no idea how many people the Bruce family has and how united we are. Lord Bruce will avenge us…” Edmund was still shouting crazily.
Roland shook his head. “But you won’t get to see it.”
He burnt Edmund into bone powder with a blue firepower and then packed it up.
“Besides, you think you’re large in number?”
Roland immediately took a photo of his personal epic quest with the system camera and then uploaded it on the forum in a thread.
My personal epic quest. I wonder if you can trigger a chain of quests after you read this.
Roland generally described what happened in the thread.
Very soon, someone replied. After all, Roland was a celebrity, and his posts were always popular.
“Shoot. I’ve really triggered a quest. I’m being asked to kill vampires. For each vampire I kill, I will have two credit points. If I kill Bruce, I get fifty. If I offer Roland leads on the True Ancestor, I will have a hundred. What can credit points do?”
“Me too.”
“Me too.”
The thread soon became heated. Before long, most players would read it.
Roland smiled and clicked off the forum.
As he expected, certain special quests could be shared with other players in posts, like the main quest he had last time.
But on the other hand, what was the usage of credit points?
There was no place to exchange them in the game, and the authorities did not release any announcements, either.
That was rather mysterious.
