Blue-Robed Mage

The moment he saw the enemy, the Blue-Robed Mage's extensive knowledge let him recognize that the foe fighting the caravan was a vampire.

Perhaps because they lacked experience, most of the caravan members failed to recognize the vampire for what it was. They simply treated it like an ordinary melee fighter.

Several guards were holding off the vampire's assault at the front. Nearby, a few veteran rogues had apparently realized what the vampire was, but hesitated when they should have attacked. They relied entirely on the warriors holding the line.

Since the caravan had been resting beforehand, its members had grabbed their weapons and engaged the vampire, but few had taken the time to put on all their armor. They were relying on their numerical advantage to overwhelm it.

Amid the chaos, the vampire relied on its powerful senses to keep dodging attacks from the stronger enemies, while focusing all its efforts on the weaker ones.

During the brief time the Blue-Robed Mage had spent observing the situation, two ordinary guards responsible for transporting goods had already fallen.

Nearby, a rogue tried to sneak up on the vampire. Though the attack landed, the rogue's low rank kept him from retreating at once. The vampire reacted in an instant. Ignoring the wound across its body, it slashed the rogue's throat with a backward swipe.

From the Blue-Robed Mage's vantage point, the vampire was quickly picking off the caravan's weaker members.

Though he had yet to spot the caravan leader, the Blue-Robed Mage clearly wasn't going to let the vampire attack the caravan members unchecked. He hurried to the edge of the battlefield, preparing to cast a spell.

With plenty of mana to spare, the Blue-Robed Mage first cast [Great Slowing Spell] and [Weakness] on the vampire, weakening it. Then he began gathering magical energy in his hands, preparing another attack spell.

The vampire, which had been moving swiftly, slowed down, and its attacks lost their sharpness. Seeing the caravan's mage make his move, the guards who had been waiting for an opening charged the vampire and swung their weapons at it.

Even with its basic attributes weakened by magic, the vampire relied on its nature to trade wounds with the guards around it, making them wary and keeping them from attacking carelessly.

The guards quickly changed tactics. Rather than trying to kill the vampire quickly, they sought to pin it down, using their numerical advantage to attack again and again and leave wound after wound on its body.

Seeing that the melee fighters had the vampire under control, the Blue-Robed Mage formed an Ice Arrow in his hands, radiating a chill, and sent it streaking toward the vampire.

Perhaps because of its earlier clash with Rhode, the vampire understood how much damage spells could inflict. Even while being overwhelmed, it kept an eye on the Blue-Robed Mage nearby.

The fighting vampire sensed danger and looked straight toward the Blue-Robed Mage, spotting the spell hurtling toward it.

Just as the Ice Arrow was about to hit, a cloud of Black Mist burst from the vampire's body.

The Ice Arrow pierced the Black Mist and emerged from the other side, striking the ground nearby. It blasted a small crater into the earth, its surface covered in ice shards.

A swarm of bats flew out of the Black Mist that the vampire had become. They swept past the melee fighters around them and all converged on the Blue-Robed Mage at the edge of the battlefield.

The vampire knew that the spellcaster behind the front line posed the greatest threat. It intended to use Bat Form to try to kill him.

"Scatter!"

The Blue-Robed Mage saw what the vampire was planning and shouted at the others beside him. Without hesitation, they all ran away from him.

The bats drew closer and closer. Just as the first one was about to pounce on the Blue-Robed Mage, he raised his hand. A surge of powerful magical energy gathered around him, then burst outward.

A loud boom rang through the air as an icy-blue ripple spread rapidly outward. A massive Ice Ring erupted with the Blue-Robed Mage at its center. The spell's immense damage instantly killed most of the bats around him; only a few survived because they were farther away.

Several caravan members who hadn't gotten far were also caught by the spell. Since they were away from the center of the blast, they were only grazed and escaped serious injury.

With just one spell, the Blue-Robed Mage had killed a large number of bats. Too few remained to sustain the vampire's Bat Form, and they gathered together.

In the Blue-Robed Mage's view, the remaining bats converged in one direction and turned into Black Mist. A large cloud of mist appeared, obscuring whatever was inside.

Having spent many years near Dya, the Blue-Robed Mage clearly knew this vampire skill especially well. He raised his hand and formed an Ice Arrow, ready to fire at the vampire the moment it emerged from the Black Mist.

To the Blue-Robed Mage's surprise, the vampire didn't reform inside the mist. Instead, a fresh swarm of bats flew out.

The Blue-Robed Mage quickly dispelled the spell forming in his hand and prepared to cast the Ice Magic Ring he had used earlier. But the vampire clearly understood what he intended. Having seen the spell once, the bats scattered in every direction.

This time, not a single bat pounced on the Blue-Robed Mage. Instead, they went after the caravan members around them. Most of the bats attacked nearby enemies, while a few went straight for the low-ranking fighters the vampire had killed earlier.

The Blue-Robed Mage had no choice. With caravan members all around the bats, he couldn't use an area-of-effect spell. A single-target spell would only waste his mana, so he could only watch from afar as the caravan's veteran rogues swiftly wielded their daggers, turning the bats in the air into clouds of Black Mist.

The caravan's low-ranking fighters now faced a swarm of bats. To protect themselves, they had no choice but to huddle beside the veteran fighters and try to fight the bats together. But the lack of room to move only left them more vulnerable to bites.

The Blue-Robed Mage also noticed the bats feeding on the corpses. He shouted a few times, but could only helplessly watch as everyone else, unfamiliar with this vampire skill, stayed focused on fighting the bats in the air.

Clearly unwilling to use another spell, the Blue-Robed Mage instead pulled a specially made dagger from his robe and walked toward the corpses where the bats had gathered.

If the vampire in its true form could suppress its instinct to devour Flesh and Blood through sheer will, bats in Bat Form were wholly unable to resist that instinct. While they fed on the corpses, even a low-ranking fighter could safely stab them to death one by one.

As he stabbed the bats with his dagger, the Blue-Robed Mage took the opportunity to survey the battlefield. He still couldn't find the caravan leader, Yusuf. He had probably gone to deal with the other necromancer, which meant the Blue-Robed Mage only needed to lead the other caravan members against the vampire before them.

This actually put the Blue-Robed Mage at ease. With the caravan leader personally involved, there was little doubt about the outcome. As the caravan's second-in-command, the Blue-Robed Mage clearly knew more than the others about just how formidable the leader was.