Chapter 72: A Fun Battle!
The Demon and the Vampire came at him from opposite sides, one a streak of living fire, the other a blur of bloody shadow. But Albedo didn’t move, not needing to at all.
However, he was one step ahead of them. He had already used ’Mirage Body’, multiple versions of himself appearing and going in different directions.
The Vampire was tricked by one of the Mirages, and that gave the opportunity for Albedo to cast another spell, his mana flaring violently.
[ Arcane Sigil: Mirrorweave Pulse ]
In a split second, six mana runes burst from the earth beneath him, spiraling in a hex pattern. A surge of distorted force exploded outward.
~CRACK!~
The Demoness was hit mid-dash, the force slamming into her like a sledgehammer. She staggered, body twisting from the sheer kinetic disruption.
The Vampire took it to the shoulder, her form warping as she was forced to blink away prematurely.
"Are you kidding me?" she hissed, reforming with a slash of her hand, red mist sizzling off her robes.
Albedo quickly moved like a blur, dashing towards the Demoness who was still shaking off the shockwave.
He clicked Havoc into Graviton Mode mid-sprint, its barrel pulsing as he shot.
~BANG!~
The gravity slug slammed into the ground just behind her. A localized singularity erupted, dragging her body back mid-dodge, warping space itself.
She screamed, not in pain, but rage, as her legs were caught in the pull. Albedo blinked above her head, flipped midair, and jammed Ruin into her back.
[ Mana-Drain Mode: Chain Tap Execution ]
He pulled the trigger three times, each shot siphoned a wave of mana from her body, sending veins of cold light crawling across her skin.
"GAAAAHHH!!" she roared as the pulses knocked her forward, sending her skidding across the battlefield.
The Vampire landed in front of her friend just in time to catch her in her arms. Now, her expression was much more serious, she snarled as she stared at Albedo, "Who the hell are you?"
Albedo landed, calm and silent, the barrels of Havoc and Ruin glowing in the fading dusk.
"...Sixteen," he replied evenly, knowing what she meant by the question.
Both girls froze as they heard him reply.
The Vampire’s mouth fell open. "You’re joking."
The Demoness growled, standing slowly, her pride visibly cracking, "You’re a year younger than us?"
Albedo rolled his shoulders, letting ambient flame spiral from his skin, "You started it. Don’t cry about the result."
The Demon’s eyes blazed with fury now, "I’m done playing."
"Same," the Vampire whispered, "Let’s show him why we’re feared back home."
They merged into motion, no more teasing, no more games.
The Demoness conjured a sigil of smoke and obsidian, casting:
[ Demonic Brand: Horned Judgment ]
Flaming spears erupted from the sky, tipped in molten bone.
The Vampire created a blood sigil in the air, chanting something ancient.
[ Rite of a Thousand Teeth ]
Red wolves made of blood and shadow burst into existence, each one bearing fangs of silver and hunger as they lunged towards Albedo, eager to rip him to shreds.
He charged forward, straight into the storm. Havoc in Infernal Mode now burned with intensity, crimson arcs of flame dancing down the barrel.
[ Fire Technique: Spiral Arc Drive ]
He skated across the battlefield like a comet, spiraling around each spear as he shot flaming vortexes into the wolves, blasting them to pieces mid-leap.
He blinked through one of the wolves’ mouths, reappearing behind the Vampire with a savage roundhouse that caught her mid-spell. She stumbled as Havoc pressed against her jaw.
~BOOM!~
The shot launched her into a tree, the explosion setting the bark ablaze with a phantom blaze that would not die.
"Cough—You...better watch out..." she hissed from where she lay, flames licking her robe.
The Demoness launched herself at him from above, her horns flaring with demonic lightning. She slammed her fists together,
[ Demon Style: Cataclysm Breaker! ]
Albedo smirked, letting her think she had him.
[ Firepath: Flash Lotus Dive ]
He vanished beneath her falling form, a lotus-shaped flame detonating below her as she landed.
~KA-BOOOOM!~
She was thrown high into the sky from her own impact, screaming, and Albedo was already above her mid-fall, flipping upside-down and aiming Ruin straight at her exposed chest.
~BANG!~
A Graviton round slammed into her solar plexus, reversing her descent and pinning her to the air for a split second.
Then,
[ Firestorm Phoenix ]
He pointed both pistols skyward and fired twin Infernal rounds into the heavens. A massive flaming phoenix erupted and came crashing down upon her from behind.
~SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!~
The firebird’s screech echoed through the fractured landscape as the phoenix made of pure infernal mana slammed into the Demoness, devouring her in an explosion of white-hot flame and collapsing air.
The surrounding terrain trembled beneath the onslaught, trees cracked, boulders turned molten, and ash painted the sky.
And yet, she did not fall.
With a howl of defiance, the Demoness burst from the flames, her body scorched, but still alight with raw power. Her tribal tattoos now shimmered with molten gold, glowing brighter as she activated her bloodline.
[ Demon Lineage Art: Sovereign Wrath - Second Gate! ]
Twin horns grew larger and jagged. Her eyes shifted into vertical slits. A demonic third eye opened upon her forehead, and with a roar, she flew forward, each step bending the air like glass.
The Vampire appeared beside her mid-dash, her eyes now entirely blood-red, her robes flowing with corrupted mana. She extended her hand toward the sky.
[ Noble Art: Blood-Haven Ascension ]
A massive red sigil bloomed above the forest, and blood rained like a storm from a false, conjured moon.
Wherever it fell, it amplified her strength, healed her wounds, and weakened all others, a Noble Vampire Domain.
"You’re not getting out of this one, pretty boy," she hissed as she vanished into mist, attacking Albedo from six directions at once.
But he didn’t panic. Instead, he pressed his foot gently into Ember’s stirrup and muttered something under his breath.
"Let’s finish this."
Ember reared up, her hooves ablaze with starfire.
[ Celestial Bond Art: Flame Veil Gallop ]
The battlefield erupted as Ember’s body pulsed with radiant celestial energy, a veil of white-blue fire forming around her as she took off like a comet.
Albedo was already in the saddle, using the momentum to leap into the air and dodge the incoming sixfold strike.
~BANG~BANG~BANG!~
Three perfectly timed shots. One bullet caught the Demoness mid-charge, sending her careening sideways into a tree trunk hard enough to splinter it.
The second clipped the Vampire’s ankle, shattering her form mid-phase and forcing her to reform abruptly, and off-balance.
The third shot struck the falling blood rain itself, disrupting the domain’s matrix with gravitational backlash.
"You’re not the only ones with cool techniques," Albedo muttered, flipping through the air as his mind burned through the calculations.
[ Arcane Art: Starburst Bloom ]
He fired six shots at once, two from each pistol, and two conjured bullets created midair from his own condensed mana.
Each exploded in a different elemental burst: flame, gravity, lightning, kinetic, rupture, and spectral fire.
The Vampire snarled and summoned a mirror of blood to absorb the incoming spells, but the spectral fire passed through, curling around her body like snakes and locking her joints with chilling agony.
The Demoness raised an obsidian shield, but the rupture round shattered it and flung her across the battlefield again.
~BOOM!~
Albedo landed in the crater Ember had carved moments ago, crouched, breathing evenly, Havoc and Ruin reloaded with precision.
"You started this for fun. Now you’re losing. Cry about it later." He said to them, which only furthered their anger.
The Demoness snarled as she floated back into the air, crackling with hellfire.
[ Demonic Brand: Calamity Pulse ]
From her chest, a black brand ignited and detonated, sending out a shockwave of soul-crushing mana.
Trees vaporized. Air warped. The ground cracked and screamed.
Ember neighed sharply, teleporting them backward as Albedo raised both pistols and fired into the wave, the gravitational rounds disrupting the blast while infernal rounds ignited its edges.
But still, the pressure surged forward. Albedo gritted his teeth, planted his heels into the soil, and channeled everything into a new spell.
[ Flame Convergence: Crimson Bloom - Zero Compression ]
He formed a singularity of heat in front of him. A sphere no larger than a coin. But it pulsed with power enough to burn through realms. He shot it directly into the shockwave.
~WHOOOOOOM!~
Silence, then detonation. The sky above cracked. The moon flickered. Mana was sucked in from the surroundings in a mile-wide radius as the compression imploded, taking the Calamity Pulse with it.
The Demoness screamed, thrown back with her horns cracked and bleeding, smoke rising from her skin.
And the Vampire?
She blinked behind Albedo, attempting a sneak attack. But Ember reared and bucked, slamming her flaming hooves into her midsection.
"ACK!"
The Vampire was sent flying, skidding across the dirt until she slammed into a boulder and finally stopped moving, groaning in pain.
Breathing heavy, Albedo walked forward slowly, both pistols lowered now.
The Demoness pushed herself up, only to feel Ruin’s barrel against her jaw.
"You fought hard," Albedo admitted.
"Go to hell," she spat.
"I’ve already been. This isn’t even the tour guide part."
He fired once, a precise mana-drain round into her forehead. The energy didn’t kill, but it knocked her out cold, siphoning her strength as her body collapsed in a smoking heap.
He turned back to the Vampire. She tried to stand again. Albedo didn’t let her, shooting another shot to her chest that knocked her out too.
She collapsed next to the Demoness, both noble girls beaten, twitching faintly, their pride shattered.
Albedo stood between them, spinning his pistols lazily before holstering them.
He then approached, pulling two sets of enchanted binding spells he had learned. They shimmered with suppression runes, the kind that nullified magic and other channels of power they may have,
One by one, he tied them up.
Ember stepped beside him, shaking out her mane with a snort, her ethereal flames dying down now that the danger had passed.
Albedo crouched next to the two bound nobles, shaking his head slowly.
"Vampire Heiress and Demon Princess. What kind of idiot luck do I have to run into both of you?"