"Do not falter!" I yelled before slashing a red armored vampire. She went down in a spray of blood, but her wound quickly regenerated. I wasn't going to give her the chance to recover, though. With a single stroke, I decapitated her with Blood Angel and sent her helmed head flying. The Vampire Valkyrie's headless body toppled over, blood spurting from the stump of her neck. "Aim for their heads! It's the only way to keep them down!"
The orcs had clustered thickly together, forming a dense line of shields. They clubbed away with their blunt weapons – an assortment of maces, clubs and cudgels – smashing vampires' heads and sending them rolling down the blood ramp. Behind the first row of crimson attackers, the rest of their regiment was being bogged down by an increasing number of undead.
I could see Virginia fighting her way through the zombies. She was getting closer to the wall, her lance glowing furiously with demonic red mana. Accepting her challenge, I slowly moved toward her.
And then the golden legion of Archduke Stryker hit the back of the Crimson Tide.
Caught between a hammer and an anvil, the Crimson Tide was almost annihilated within those first few minutes. The dark mages and elves continued to bombard their positions, and stuck between the wall and the enemy, their path of retreat completely cut off, they could only fight to the death.
Then the undead turned their attention to the newcomers, moving away from the beleaguered crimson armored vampire regiment to engage the golden and chrome warriors. Skeletons grabbed at the legs of nightmares, zombies and ghouls bludgeoned and piled atop slashing and stabbing vampire knights in gold, yanking them off their mounts and burying them under their sheer weight of numbers.
I had already anticipated this when I saw the legion under Stryker charging, knowing that he would make use of this opportunity to destroy two of his foes in one stroke. The Berserk King bellowed in the distance, swinging his massive broadsword to cut apart a dozen zombies. Blood stakes burst out from his strike, impaling the poor undead in all directions and obliterating them.
We were now embroiled in a three-way melee. I felt sorry for the undead, but we had little choice. Glancing at the dark mages and elves on the rampart, I gave the signal.
A titanic wave of elemental projectiles arced over the ramparts and crashed down on the struggling forces. Vampires were incinerated, frozen or torn apart, along with the undead unfortunate enough to be caught in the melee. Lindley and his lich subordinates were not going to be happy about this, but I had already informed them of the plan earlier and obtained their permission. In any event, Lindley pointed out that they could simply replenish their numbers after the battle because he made a breakthrough with his homunculus research, and that was enough to silence any objections.
"You…!"
Stryker roared furiously, glaring in my direction. He had survived the bombardment by conjuring a shield of blood. Opposite him, Virginia gathered what remained of her famed Vampire Valkyries and prepared for a final charge.
The both of them had put aside their differences for now, having suffered heavy casualties from that last onslaught. They were coming for me.
"Leave the Blood Queen to me."
Stella jumped from my side, cleaving through a couple of red-armored vampires. The female knights went down, crying, and Stella finished them off by stabbing their heads. Without any hesitation, she continued to move forward to challenge Virginia.
"Are you sure you can handle her?" I asked.
"I will defeat her by using whatever means necessary," Stella replied, her eyes narrowed in determination. I chewed my lip and considered, but my decision was made for me.
"Don't worry." Silvia hopped down beside Stella, followed by Kelvin and his Grey Hunters and a contingent of elves, kobolds and orcs. "We will deal with the Blood Queen."
"Thanks. I will be relying on you guys." If Stella and Silvia worked together, they should have a good chance of defeating Virginia. I raised my head to glare at Stryker. "Then I'll deal with the Berserk King."
We split up, Stella and Silvia's group breaking off to fight their way toward Virginia and her Vampire Valkyries. I froze a path toward Stryker, encasing his knights and their nightmares in ice, before striding toward him. Even with their numbers decimated after that last spell, there remained a lot of them. Thousands more milled about in front of the wall, clashing with the undead warriors, orcs and kobolds who had finally joined the fray, leaping down from the ramparts to engage the vampires.
Elemental spells continued to shriek above us, arcing down and detonating across the vampire lines at the back, cutting off reinforcements and continuing to send the two armies into a disarray. The vampires might be powerful, but they were still vulnerable to magic.
I dodged a swing from a chrome armored vampire, and then responded with a riposte that carved through his breastplate. He grunted and swung his sword down, but I deflected it with Blood Angel before stabbing his throat with Nocturne. He gurgled and went down, blood leaking from his neck. Before I could finish him off, another vampire knight charged at me with a yell.
Spinning around, I avoided getting run through, and slashed his back as he passed by me. He cursed and tried to whirl around, the debilitating injury already beginning to close and mend. I would love to settle things with him once and for all, but a third vampire knight stabbed at me from my side, forcing me to evade.
There were so many of them…!
I was about to cast an ice spell when I heard reinforcements coming. Vampire knights that had flocked to my banner were charging forward, distinguishable by their black and red armor. Claude had standardized the colors of the vampire knights willing to fight under my command, and I chose black and red halves because…well, why the hell not?
Black was my favorite color. I originally wanted pure black armor, but Claude chided me, pointing out that the Dark Knight had already adopted black as the color of their regiment, and we didn't want to end up in confusion if we ever had to fight against them. So I added the red half because of blood magic. So black and red was to represent shadow and blood magic, or so I thought.
"We will follow you, my lord." the black and red armored vampires caught up with me, hacking and repelling the golden warriors.
"Did Claude send you?" I asked. The commander nodded.
"We will defend you with our lives."
"I would rather you not do that. Prioritize your own lives."
"I'm afraid we cannot do that, my lord." the vampire commander looked at me sternly. "If you fall here, it will be our defeat."
I smiled humorlessly. "Then I'll make sure I don't die. Let's go."
Stryker snarled when he saw me, and he began making his way toward my position. His subordinates gathered around him, forming a defensive cordon. He irritably shoved them out of his way to close in on me.
"He's mine!" he snapped, pointing his sword at me. "All of you, get out of the way!"
"But, my lord…" one of his subordinates protested. "It's too dangerous!"
"A little too late to be saying that now, isn't it?" Stryker scoffed. "This is the battlefield! Where exactly would be considered safe here?"
Then he snorted.
"Besides, I've already made my resolve the moment I came here. I have to kill that brat, then I will take over as the new Demonic Emperor!"
"Do you really think you can kill me?" I asked, ducking under the broadsword of a gold and chrome armored vampire knight. Without looking back, I slashed him with Blood Angel. As the guy staggered, I caught his neck with both Blood Angel and Nocturne in a scissors maneuver and snipped them together.
The poor guy's head was sent hurtling away.
Twirling both of my swords about, I spun away from another slash and then stabbed my assailant through the heart. He gurgled and dropped to his knees, clutching at his chest. I then cut his neck with my other sword and he fell. Fatal wounds for a mortal, but the vampire knight didn't die. What a tenacious fellow. Even so, despite his incredible regenerative abilities, he wouldn't be getting up for a while. He would need a few hours to heal from an injury of such degree.
Despite himself, Stryker looked impressed.
"You are actually not bad with your swords," he said. "I didn't think you would be this skilled."
Blood stakes burst out of the ground, forcing my black and red armored troops back. I cleaved them apart with Nocturne and Blood Angel, allowing the hardened blood crystals to fall in fragments around me.
Stryker laughed in delight. "But that only means that you are a worthy foe!"
"I can't say I'm happy about that," I murmured. Spinning around, I cut apart another volley of blood spears with Blood Angel before running through a gold and chrome armored vampire knight in the chest with Nocturne. He convulsed before I kicked him to free my black blade. Glancing up, I conjured a shadow shield to deflect a third onslaught of blood stakes. "I would prefer if you surrender."
"If you have the ability to defeat me, then I will submit to you," Stryker replied with a sneer. His sword glowed crimson before he sent another hail of blood stakes at me.
"Oh? Then I'll hold you to that promise." With a single gesture of my right hand, which was gripping Nocturne, I froze the blood stakes in the air. Ice expanded rapidly across the battlefield and more than a few of Stryker's gold and chrome armored warriors were caught in it, their bodies encased in thick ice.
Behind me, Claude's vampire knights backed off instinctively, only to see a barrier of ice freeze the incoming blood stakes before they could reach them. They responded with their own blood magic, conjuring blood whips and spears.
"I'll take on their king," I told them. "Keep his subordinates off me."
"Understood, my liege!"
The commander nodded and immediately dispatched his vampire knights accordingly. They spread out to engage the other vampires in gold and chrome armor.
"Do not interfere," Stryker commanded his subordinates. "This is a duel between me and the young upstart. No matter what happens, no one is to intervene. Do you understand?"
"But, my lord…" One of the subordinates protested, earning a glare from his master.
"Do you wish to impinge upon my honor, Chrome?"
"No, not at all." The gold and chrome armored knight lowered his head. He turned to bark instructions to his other men, and they continued to engage the vampire knights that Claude had sent to protect me.
Not that I needed their protection.
More blood stakes spiked out from the ground, only to be frozen solid by my ice spells. Stryker looked amused as he watched the red frost shatter into countless fragments around us.
"You are now a vampire like us, yet you continue to use ice magic instead of blood magic?" he cocked his head toward the gleaming red sword in my left hand. "You are really wasting the potential of Blood Angel."
"I am aware of my limits," I replied with a shrug. "I do not have the amount of experience and skill in wielding blood magic as you, Archduke Stryker. You have centuries of practice, whereas I have only been a vampire for less than a year. If I attempt to compete against you on that front, it will only end in my defeat. I would rather rely on skills that I have honed throughout my life."
"Playing to your strengths is indeed a laudable strategy," Stryker conceded with a nod. "But it won't be enough!"
He swung his sword and sent another hail of blood stakes at me, the deadly red projectiles erupting from the ground. With a single stomp, I froze all of them again. Smiling, I swung Nocturne and smashed apart a frozen cluster of stakes.
"Perhaps. But did you forget that I defeated the previous lord of vampire with ice magic?"
Stryker narrowed his eyes. "That was a fluke. Moreover, you only did that because King Vincent Lucard was already weakened by the strongest Hero."
"Ah, you caught me." I shrugged nonchalantly. Then I kicked off the ground and charged at him, knowing that to say anything more would be meaningless.
I had to prove my worth through actions, not words.
Snarling, Stryker raised his sword to parry the strike from my two swords. Around us, the entire clearing exploded as crimson and azure mana collided against each other in a violent burst.