Seeing that Kulkiri was still waiting, and that he had likely just saved her life, Endyr sighed. After organizing her thoughts, she deciding to settle on a partial truth. "I was attempting to Scry into the location of several things, but encounter a powerful deterrent."
Upon hearing her excuse, Johan laughed in the back. "You really attempted that from inside the Vampire's base? I can't tell if you are stupid or brave" he spoke condescendingly towards her. Erich said nothing, but Endyr had a feeling he agreed.
Kulkiri raised his hand and hushed Johan softly. "Now now, we all make mistakes. Rashness is only expected in youth, and I'm sure she has learned her lesson. Now, would you like to join us young Miss?"
Endyr hesitated slightly, taking in the eerily empty corridor before making up her mind. "Sure, safety in numbers and all that" she agreed breezily. Johana and Erich seemed to snicker at her words, but Endyr ignored them. 'Bastards weren't so talkative before...I guess they figured no point in holding themselves back now' she thought.
With light steps, Kulkiri lead the silent group down the corridor, running his bandaged hands against the wall as he walked. Every now and again, he would tap it gently and cock his head, listening for something only he could hear. After the sixth or seventh time, Endyr spoke up. "What are you doing?"
Kulkiri looked back at her and flashed a smile, or at least Endyr felt it was one. Kulkiri had yet to remove his mask.
"I'm sending minute amounts of Mana into these walls to detect any weak points or anything to take notice off. In case you haven't noticed, the Vampires have cast a large scale Spatial Distortion over this place, making it far larger on the inside than the outside. However, Spells like these are often finicky and have hidden, but major weak points. Of course, I doubt we will find it inside a random wall, but I might be able to trace the irregular flow of Spatial Mana back to the source."
Endyr frowned to herself as she tried to remember what she had seen when activating her Skill. The world has transformed into one stacked with layers of different colours and shapes, some rarer or more present than others. One of the colours that was omnipresent was a bluish-grey one, which lay underneath every other colour.
'Was that Space Mana? It could have been Time or Gravity, or something like Air too...'
Realising her knowledge of certain aspects was still lacking, Endyr resolved to study more after the mission. Her curiosity sated, Endyr walked in silence as Kulkiri continued his sporadic tapping. After slightly less than ten minutes, he abruptly stopped and put his full hand on the wall. "Find something" he whispered gently.
Erich and Johan tensed slightly, and Endyr also focused on that piece of wall. After a split moment of hesitation, she activated her Skill once again, only with much more care. The grey and unassuming wall in front of her blurred and transformed, turning into a mesh of bluish-black, leaning more towards the former. It was like a semi-illusionary vortex, pulsing in and out irregularly. Endyr had enough of an education to guess what it was. "A portal?"
Kulkiri turned back to her and nodded. "It's a miniature opening. These things are usually spread out across large-scale Spatial Spells and allows one to enter and leave different areas. Without these, you would be stuck in the isolated space after all."
Endyr pondered over his explanation, catching the unspoken implications. "There are more areas like this in the complex?" she asked with a frown. This time, Erich spoke up "The building has been layered with multiple different Spatial Fields. Once we break through this one, we will likely have to go through another three to reach the centre. Oh, I based that number on the amount of Mana an Epic Vampire like Kismet would have, but I may be wrong."
'Strange. When I looked though my Skill, the building seemed whole and unseparated. Did I bypass the Spatial disruptions and see the "whole" building?'
Kulkiri pressed his palm against the vortex, or rather the wall, and began to emit small strands of grey-white Mana. Endyr and the two brothers were taken aback by this, since Kulkiri claimed to have a Darkness Affinity and the colour didn't match. Sensing their scathing looks, Kulkiri chuckled and spoke over his shoulder. "I have a Dual Affinity."
Endyr focused her Mana on her eyes and activated her Skill for the third time, shaking slightly at the sharp pain. The Mana that was being released by Kulkiri was sinking into the vortex, gradually changing the colour to match its own. Focusing on Kulkiri himself, Endyr noticed two blobs of different colour within his body.
One was a thick and viscous black that seemed like a ball of tar or oil. The second ball was a sterile grey with shades of white mixed through. It was a bizarre colour, one that didn't match any Affinity that Endyr knew of.
'It's not Metal, nor is it Light. Greyish-white...Sky? No I can tell the Mana purity isn't high enough for that. It doesn't give the feeling of Ruby's Soul Affinity either. So what the hell is his second Affinity?' Endyr tried in vain to grasp the answer but failed to do so before the vortex was completely taken over.
The wall crumbled beneath Kulkiri's palm, revealing a blank space of swirling white. "Lets head on to the next area" Kulkiri said breezily as he stepped through. Erich and Johan followed after him casually, but the latter stopped just before entering and turned to Endyr. "Prepare yourself" he warned. "This first layer was just to buy some time. The Vampires will be waiting on the other side. The battle starts here."
Without giving her the chance to respond, Johan followed his brother through the portal. Endyr stared at it in silence, hesitating. She felt no fear, but a strange urge was building up in her stomach. Her body was protesting against going further, though Endyr did not know why. Gritting her teeth, she pushed the feeling aside and stepped through the portal.
Endyr felt a slight resistance pressing up against her body before it gave way. The white fog enveloped Endyr, and she felt like she was floating. Time and space bent and warped as turbulence shook her, causing Endyr to feel slight nausea. It was over in a near instant however, as she soon felt ground beneath her feet.
Rapidly regaining her bearings, Endyr looked up and couldn't help but widen her eyes.
She was in a large room that looked like some sort of lobby, with a multitude of chairs, sofas and tables. She even spotted a bar, several chess boards and pool table, a lone piano also present. Yet the room was also half destroyed, as Kulkiri and the brothers were engaged in lethal combat with half a dozen hooded figures.
The Vampires wore robes of black and red, various weapons held within their hands. They dashed at speeds so fast, they bordered on teleportation. Most of the six Vampires also had claws of darkness, though two, a man and woman, did not. These two stood back from the conflict, though they turned their attention to Endyr upon her arrival.
Exchanging glances, one of the Vampires stepped forward and lunged at Endyr, seeking to kill her immediately. As a claw of darkness sprung into existence, aimed right at her chest, Endyr threw herself to the side and narrowly missed having her heart gouged out. As she scrambled to regain her footing, the Vampire twisted in mid-air and pushed towards her, defying the laws of inertia and carrying the momentum of his previous attack.
Cursing, Endyr splayed her palm at the cultist, generating a revolving blob of water. The blob shot out at the speed of a bullet, smashing the Vampire in the ribs. Yet before it had made contact, the Vampire moved at a speed too fast for her to follow and covered his body with his arms, migrating some of the damage.
His arm cracked and his ribs groaned, but the Vampire ignored the damage and carried on. Endyr could see the bones writhe and twist under his skin, already regenerating the damage she inflicted.
Deciding that being reactive would lead to her defeat, Endyr decided to take the initiative and stepped forward to meet the Vampire. A short blade of water formed in her grasp, colliding with the claws of darkness and locking them in place.
While Endyr didn't have a proper Water Affinity, she had manipulated the pure Mana in the atmosphere to pull the water molecules to her and let magic do the rest. Of course, the conversion rate was atrocious and Endyr felt quite lethargic after doing it, but she couldn't reveal her true Affinity and Skills just yet.
Endyr and the Vampire only clashed several times in the span of a minute, and Endyr was already losing. Her water sword was simply inferior compared to the claws of darkness, and the Vampire had higher base Stats too. Her enemy knew this too, as he became more and more ferocious with each blow.
The Vampire's partner had long since looked away, not bothered to watch a random human get slaughtered. In her mind, Endyr was mere moments from being disposed by her colleague. Instead, the female Vampire intently watched Kulkiri and the brothers. The former took on two Vampires by himself, while the shifty duo took on a foe each. Shadows surged to meet a deeper pitch of black, as Kulkiri turned pieces of his body into a strange white mist to dodge attacks. Furthermore, he could cause blades to appear from the mist at any time, causing both Vampires to always be on guard.
Despite being outnumbered, the masked stranger seemed positively relaxed with his current situation, flamboyantly supressing a yawn as he kicked a Vampire away. Furious at being ignored by a member of an inferior Race, the Vampires rushed at Kulkiri with reckless abandon.
The two brothers fared slightly worse, but were still holding their own. The two never strayed far from each other, even as their foes tried to split them. Every time one of the cultists would sneak an attack in, the other brother would interfere and block it. Their teamwork, forged through years of battle and experience, allowed them to almost fight as one.
Endyr deflected another swipe of the claws but stumbled against a piece of broken floor. While only a slight misstep, the Vampire seized the chance and plunged his claws into her abdomen with sadistic glee. Yet instead of the tearing and spurting sound he expected, his claws hit something...rubbery? The Vampire looked down in confusion as he watched his claws being blocked by a gelatinous substance that coated Endyr's skin.
Before he could react, the gel squirmed and shot forward, enveloping the Vampire's wrist and causing it to burn. The Vampire let out a short scream of pain and surprise at the sensation before pulling his hand back. He angrily glared at the goo before a reddish-black aura sprung up and consumed the gel in an instant.
Nether.
Seeing the Vampire taking her more seriously, Endyr cursed to herself and decided she too had to reveal more cards. The former Denizen had underestimated the opponents of this base, blinded by her recent status of a Grandmaster and her past experiences. But the Vampires were an ancient Race themselves, dating all the way back to the 2nd Era. While Volanna had been the first God to perish in that period, that didn't mean "She" or the Vampires were weak by any means.
The overall quality of the Vampire Race might have also dropped since their heyday, but they still possessed the blessings of Navruavati and partially that of Aenrys. Plus, certain qualities had improved when others receded, so you cant say the Vampires have only decreased in power since the 2nd Era. And Endyr was now the victim of one such Vampire: a Blessed of Navruavati, even if it was only a minor acknowledgment from the God of Blood, at the upper end of the Master Tier.
Thankfully Vampires couldn't use Nether and other Mana at the same time, otherwise the two types would conflict and cancel each other. At the same time however, her water blade would drastically drop in efficiency as would her Spells. Now, Endyr would likely have to bludgeon the Vampire to death or slowly bleed him dry.
As an angry and hungry predator glared at her with scarlet red eyes, Endyr shifted on the balls of her feet, silently drawing in as much ambient Mana as she could without alerting the others in the room. When the cultist pounced at her with a wave of bloodlust, Endyr only sneered as she used up all the Mana she had accumulated in that short window at once.
Faster than even the Vampire's bestial sense of danger or reflexes could act, a semi-translucent tentacle burst out from behind Endyr's back and collided with the Vampire mid-lunge. With a *snap* that broke the sound barrier, the Vampire was flung backwards, travelling across the entire room and smashing into the wall. His landing was almost as devastating as the tentacle, the Vampire almost bursting g like a meat balloon on impact.
As the grievously wounded Vampire slowly slid down the wall, everyone in the room stopped and looked at Endyr. Silence prevailed for ten seconds before the female Vampire snapped to her senses and generated an orb of darkness the size of Endyr's head. She quickly lobbed it at the former Denizen, who tried to dodge. Yet when the orb covered a certain distance, it shimmered and pulsed.
And then Endyr's world went white.