Unbeknownst to me at the time there were three faces in the crowd that knew me. First was Alice, who sat high in the nosebleeds of the arena seating. The other two were my mother and father, Mary and John. This was Mary's first time laying eyes on her son. I would soon find out that John, my father, wished for nothing more than these bandits to rip me to shreds. I was now standing on my side of the arena facing down the ten highway bandits on the other side. The Barnabas' dead body didn't have much of an effect on the strongest of them, but the weakest one was quite the opposite. The crotch of his sack cloth grew a darker shade as he stood stone like staring at the shriveled corpse. A grin sprung out on my face, as my true appearance began to take from. My veins once again bursting forth, my fangs growing out to full length, however my cuffed wrists kept my wings from opening. Once more the voice of the prince rang out, "combatants begin!".
Once more the voices of the crowd rung out through the entire city. I locked eyes with the low level bandit, my eye lit up with a crimson red magic circle in each eye. "Slit your own throat.", I whispered to where nobody else could hear. Just as the words left my mouth the level fifteen bandit raised his blade up to the opposite side of his throat, pressed the blade in and deeply slashed through the entirety of his neck. Blood showered out almost as if he was watering a garden. His body went limp as he fell to his knees, then face first into the sand. A crimson lake pooled around his body. "Coward! Coward!", the crowd screamed out. From their view it was as if the bandit killed himself to take the easy way out. "Aaaahhhhhhhh", the level twenty one yelled as he rushed toward me, violently slashing his sword around. It was quite easy to dodge his attacks. It was like a child's tactic. Then again he was a bandit and probably never had proper training with the sword. I reared up my right leg and threw a kick straight for his torso, but he pulled up his shield just in time. My foot planted into the wooden shield with powerful force. The shield explode splintering across the arena. The bandit flew backwards landing on his back. While the strongest one rushed me the remaining eight had surrounded me, each keeping a careful distance after seeing the higher level get kicked off of his feet. The level seventeen bandit directly to my posterior tried to sneak up behind me for an easy stab. However my ears heard him coming from a mile away. As he crept into range I leapt up into the air, twisted my body, and with full force kicked his head clean off of his shoulders. Before his body had time to fall I sunk my fangs into his headless neck and drained his body in seconds. The crowds roars of excitement quickly faded away as they watched the mans body shrivel away into basically nothing. Then out from the silence the voice of a young girl rose up, "Yeah Drac kill them all!". The crowd once more joined the girl. "Kill them all! Kill them all!". The roar of the crowd muffled my hearing for a moment, which gave a bandit time to reach me and impale my lower left side, as I was looking upward to Alice in the stands. As soon as I felt the blade rush through me I spun around to face the one responsible. He had dawned a smile saying, "got you". I let out a grin myself and replied, "did you?". The bandits smile faded away as he notice that my health was shooting back up to full. The face that just a moment ago though he had won, was now a face that knew he was a dead man. My next victim. He stood before me completely dumbfounded, as I sank my fangs into his veins and bled him dry. This is quite a rush I thought to myself, as I released my fangs from the bandit and pulled out the sword with my cuffed hands. The rest of the bandits were now huddled together in a tight circle, with the exception of the strongest which was just standing back up from getting kick across the arena. I kept my attention on the now cowering group of six bandits. I opened my jaws in their direction, and the crimson circle formed again. The sphere of blood whirled around until the beam shot out at the speed of light. I waved my head back and forth fully encompassing the tight group until each one had been ripped apart. Organs, entrails, and blood poured out where there were once six living men. Pieces of each bandit fell mixed in with the others. The mess it left behind was like a jigsaw puzzle freshly unboxed. I had once again lost about one quarter of my health firing off the blood beam, and just as it began to regenerate I lost another quarter. The level twenty one had retrieved his sword and made a dash for my throat as I decimated his companions. The blade met my neck just as the blood magic was finished. Using spacial movement I rose up into the air as soon as the blow was delivered. "Now who is the coward!", the bandit yelled up to me. My health began to fill again, and I noticed that his health wasn't moving at all. It was just sitting at three quarters full. I figured this would be an opportune time to test some of the skills I hadn't used yet. I then finally replied to the bandit, "please don't die too fast on me". I tried to use rain of blood but I felt the magic flowing toward my hands. This was not ideal as they were still cuffed behind my back, leaving me no good way to aim the ability. I could have easily moved my hands to the front of my body, but I remembered telling Torg that I wouldn't need my hands. I may be a bloodthirsty killer, but I'm not a liar. So instead of taking the easy way out and using blood magic I decided it would be best to kill the man with my feet and fangs. I lowered myself back to ground level and faced the final bandit. I dodged his violent out of control slashes and hacks over and over. It didn't take long for him to realize that he had lost. After tiring his body out he fell to his knees saying, "just kill me. I'm done for". The crowd went silent again, and the voice of the prince raised up as he stood from his prime seating. "What say you good people of Falmon?". The crowd were all in agreement. "Kill! Kill! Kill!". The prince looked down to me and gestured to kill the man by running his thumb across his throat. I had to made this a spectacle. I couldn't just drain the bandit dry that would have been too dull. Instead I thrusted my right knee upwards toward his lower jaw. Once my knee connected it raised the bandit up off the ground, bringing his head just higher than my own. I jump and laid my body horizontal to the ground, spinning my entire body to kick the man across his face. Upon connection with his right cheek his head twisted around and around until it ripped itself off and dangled down to his chest by no more than a small twisted bit of skin from the front of his neck.
Finally the fight was over, and I had gained another level. My first real battle, I wasn't sure how I would stack up but it was quite clear to me that the vampire race was far more powerful than the humans, it would be very hard for a level twenty one human to have survived a fight against ten men even if they weren't skilled fighters. I turned to face the western gate that I had entered from and began to walk back towards my prison cell.