Sudden Betrayal

Yang Mu slammed his staff heavily against the deck. The blood flowing across it rose into the air, rapidly forming threads that encircled the entire deck.

Count Rist was surrounded by dense crimson threads.

"Since this is our first meeting, shouldn't we chat first?"

"Impressive Witchcraft. But if I don't move, none of you can attack me either."

As he spoke, the elegant Vampire count extended a sharp nail and drew it across one of the crimson threads. A section of his nail fell off.

"Not necessarily, my dear Count."

Felice, who had barely made her presence known until then, spoke up. She moved to the side of the ship, and her normally sized mouth suddenly opened wide into a huge rectangle. Terrifying sound waves burst from her mouth.

Count Rist was driven back two steps by the sound waves, his face twitching. Several crimson threads had already cut into his back, even reaching his bones. The threads were unexpectedly sharp and tough.

Rist sliced open his palm and flung out several drops of blood, which swiftly transformed into crimson arrows and shot toward Felice.

Felice hurriedly stopped screaming and tried to dodge aside, but a tall figure stepped in front of her. His knight's sword flashed, knocking the blood arrows away.

The two Wizards joined forces as well, raising flames across the deck to burn Count Rist.

There was no spell model and no incantation. Yang Mu did not need to chant to cast spells because he was a Sixth Level Archmage. Apprentice Rank magic like this required no incantation with his casting skill.

But these two Wizards were clearly not powerful Mages, yet they did not need incantations either.

Yang Mu found this kind of spell very interesting, but he needed to deal with this Vampire count first. Although Rist was certainly not as strong as an Official Mage, he was still stronger than a High-Level Apprentice.

Sure enough, faced with the blazing flames, Count Rist no longer maintained his elegant bearing. His body rapidly grew larger and began transforming into the shape of a bat, wings sprouting from his back.

His clawed hands seized the crimson threads. Threads that could easily slice through his body before could now only sink into his palms, unable to advance any farther once they met bone.

Ignoring the agonizing pain in his palms, a level of pain he had long since grown accustomed to, he forcibly tore apart the net of blood threads trapping him and walked out.

His wings rose before him just as a cross made of white light slammed into them, leaving a cross-shaped wound behind.

In the distance, Ina held a cross and a Bible. The cross of white light had been fired from the cross in her hand.

His wings parted, revealing a pair of bloodthirsty eyes. His figure flashed as he charged toward Felice.

Crack, crack... The clawed hand stopped before Felice's face, only five centimeters away. It was too fast—Count Rist was simply too fast.

Her head had almost been pierced by Count Rist's fingers. Felice's legs gave out, and she dropped to her knees on the deck.

Yet Count Rist, standing before her, was bound by countless crimson threads. The continuous cracking sounds came from the blood threads tightening around him.

"Hmph! Blood Flame."

Count Rist snorted coldly as blood-colored flames erupted from his body, burning away the crimson threads and freeing him once more.

He swiped at Owen, who was charging at him with his sword. Claw and blade collided, blood-colored flames crashing against the light clinging to the sword and erupting in a blinding white flash.

Count Rist grabbed the sword, then his bat wing swept across Owen's chest, leaving a slashing wound.

Blood quickly soaked through Owen's thin clothes. He was not wearing armor, because the Hiliya Federation prohibited people from wearing armor freely.

Just as Count Rist seized Owen by the throat, his fingers digging into his skin, ready to snap his neck the next instant, two impacts struck him and sent him flying. Owen slipped from his grasp as well.

Count Rist's wings carved two grooves into the deck before he came to a stop at the edge of the corpse pile.

"Holy Seal Descent!"

At that moment, Ina shouted. A gap split open in the thick fog covering the ship, and a pure white seal descended from the sky, landing above Count Rist's head and trapping him.

"Hurry, I can't hold him for long!"

Ina shouted again. She had called out Holy Seal Descent to alert the others, so they would not fail to react after she restrained him and waste precious time.

The others did not disappoint her. Though a massive wound gaped across his chest, Owen rose to his feet the instant Rist was trapped.

His palm swept over his knight's sword, making it emit an even more dazzling golden light, like burning golden flames.

The two Wizards closed their eyes as well, gathering their strength to unleash a fatal strike. Felice adjusted herself, opened her mouth again, and let out a piercing shriek.

Her sound waves arrived first, making blood flow from Rist's ears. Owen followed closely behind, and just as his sword was about to pierce Rist's heart—

The seal above Rist's head shattered. It had not faded because it lacked strength; an external force had broken it.

Rist narrowly avoided Owen's fatal strike, though the sword still stabbed into his chest. Rist let out a pained roar.

He bit down on Owen's neck and, in an instant, drained more than half the blood from Owen's body.

The golden flames on the sword went out as well.

"Sabo, you..."

Vanessa, who had been preparing to attack, stared at Sabo beside her in disbelief. But the next moment, a dagger pierced her throat. Sabo was the one who struck.

Wizards needed to gather power before using Witchcraft. The more powerful the Witchcraft, the more so.

At close range, they were no different from ordinary people. Sabo had clearly trained in hand-to-hand combat, so how could Vanessa, an ordinary person, possibly be his match?

With that, two of their strongest members were dead, one had betrayed them, and all that remained were Ina, who had lost her ability to fight, and Felice, the weakest Hybrid Succubus.

As for Yang Mu, he had only acted twice from beginning to end: creating the blood net and helping Felice once.

"Corpse Explosion!"

Rather than panicking at the sight of the two deaths, Yang Mu smiled.

He had noticed long ago that something was wrong with Sabo. He simply did not care, nor did he want to know why Sabo was helping Count Rist.

Boom! At Yang Mu's whisper, Vanessa's and Owen's corpses exploded. The bones within their bodies turned into shrapnel, not only blasting a large hole in the deck but also killing Sabo outright.

Rist was also pierced by a large number of bone fragments, his body blasted into the corpse pile that had long been gathered there.

Previously, Count Rist would not have cared about these corpses at all. At most, he would have been angered that Yang Mu had killed all his food.

Now, however, this pile of corpses was a heap of explosives. His hearing had been damaged, so he had not heard Yang Mu's whisper, but that did not stop him from realizing it.