"Do you want to go for round two or what?"
"Of course." The vampire grinned, revealing his fangs before throwing a punch that got blocked.
The two were matched in strength, with the younger-looking vampire being stronger, but Luciel compensated for his lack of power as a vampire with techniques he learned while serving as a hunter.
No matter how Luciel looked at it, this was more like a friendly spar than an actual fight for one's life.
The vampire in front of him never targeted Luciel's head or the heart and always went for nonvital areas, which was basically his whole body.
The only thing that a vampire can't survive is getting its head cut off, being stabbed through a heart, cutting their body in half, or stabbing through with special weapons that would turn them into ash.
Seeing the nature of this combat, Luciel didn't mind it. It was fun, he had a chance to test out and adapt to his new strength.
At one point during the fight, Luciel managed to see an opening and grabbed the vampire's hand, throwing him over his back.
Before the vampire could have gotten up, Luciel already turned and pressed the vampire's chest with his foot. "I win."
Luciel removed his foot and gave the vampire a hand to help him get up.
While they were fighting and even now, something in his mind was telling him to kill the vampire in front of him, but at the same time, his vampire instincts were urging him not to, creating an internal conflict, but once again, Luciel's vampire side took over and he perceived a vampire in as a friend.
Luciel was in no way weak-minded, he was aware of everything that he was doing and the consequences of his actions, with every second he was fighting, he was giving his all to keep that little humanity he had left.
All it took was a small moment of relaxation or loss of concentration for his vampire side to take over. It felt like a long battle of going back and forth, torn between trying to stay human and accepting his new self.
The vampire was about to accept Luciel's hand, but before he could, Luciel got blasted away by an invisible force that sounded like a loud screech, throwing him into a nearby tree and making his ears bleed.
Luciel groaned, baring his fangs as his vision got disoriented before falling to the ground, feeling a strong headache as the screech continued to go on and on until he went completely deaf.
Once the pressure had finally stopped, Luciel opened his eyes which were till now tightly closed.
Opening them, he shook his head as the headache started to disappear and his eyesight started to return to normal while an annoying static in his ears started to disappear due to his healing capabilities.
Looking towards the vampire he fought, he saw a female vampire that had arrived and helped the vampire on the ground to get up.
"What were you thinking!" The female vampire went to slap the male vampire in front of her, "I told you not to attack strangers! And this time you went and did it! Attacking the Shadow! He could have killed you!"
"Hey, relax sister, it was just a friendly spar." The vampire rubbed his face where he got slapped.
"A friendly spar? You call a fight to the death with a vampire hunter a friendly spar!"
"No, sister, look!" The male vampire walked towards Luciel, putting a hand over his shoulder to help him get up. "Look at his eyes, he's one of us."
Luciel gazed at the young lady in front of him. She had long curly hair, with the same shade of ginger just like the other vampire, but there was something odd that struck Luciel, the female vampire didn't recognize that they were of the same race even if he could recognize a vampire's unique smell coming off her.
"Don't be ridiculous, there's no-" She walked forward and stopped walking as her wine-red eyes met with Luciel's crimson red. "The rumors were true…"
She grabbed Luciel's face, rotating his head a little bit to the right, and even lifted his lip.
"Who would have thought that you would become one of us." She poked Luciel's face, "And be such a fine specimen."
Luciel removed his hand that was around the male vampire's shoulder and went to grab the woman's hand, he already had the love of his life and this stranger was overstaying her welcome.
The vampire pulled her hand away and grabbed Luciel's arm, pulling it towards her nose to sniff it. "You even smell like us. There's not even a trace that you used to be human, fascinating!"
"So what's the deal with you guys? Do you want to fight or what?" Luciel pulled away his hand, sending death glares towards the two.
"Oh, how rude of us." The female covered her mouth and gave a small bow, placing her hand at the back of her brother's head and making him do the same.
"I'm Melisa, and this is my brother, Kai." She slowly lifted her head, "We are from the Serene clan, nice to meet you."
Luciel looked at the hand she extended, going for a handshake.
At first, he felt hesitant, having conflicting feelings about getting friendly with the creatures that had been trying to kill him all his life, but he also saw this as an opportunity to find out more about them.
No vampire hunter or scientist managed to get on friendly terms with them and had very little knowledge about their hierarchy.
Besides, maybe he can find out more about how to fight with this new body and learn some tips and tricks.
Luciel knew that there was more to vampires than just their natural strength, the vampire king and Melisa already demonstrated that.
Each vampire would have at least one talent that was unique to them, some even had more than one.
It was something similar to a divine art, except that the talent as well was a vampire's own power.
"Luciel Ashford, glad to meet you." Luciel retracted his claws and shook her hand.
"Also, I apologize about Kai, he's something of a battle fanatic." Kai laughed once he heard what his sister had said and rubbed the back of his head.
"No, it's fine, I enjoyed the fight," Luciel admitted and as he was about to continue, but there was a strange sound coming from not too far away.
The three vampires turned towards the noise that was approaching them, trying to figure out what it was at first until Luciel heard his name being called.
"Alex!" Luciel climbed up the tree and started to head towards his friend, with the two following behind him.