Trying to rise to my feet, I caught sight of my friends. Kufa lay slumped against a broken wall while Rossetti was sprawled on the ground, semiconscious. My Celestial Guardians were lying motionless after having been beaten into submission by the d.a.m.ned vampire.

"Ugh…"

The blow had literally knocked the breath out of my lungs and now I struggled to recover, gasping desperately as I leaned against the creater I had made against the wall. My mana was flowing ruggedly throughout my battered body, offering some relief, but I knew that wouldn't last long if I couldn't escape the next blow.

My eyes darted toward Miura's corpse and rage flared in my chest.

"Guahahahaha!"

The enormous vampire was laughing as he stepped toward me.

"How pathetic! Are all Global Federation mages so pitifully weak?"

I looked up at the vampire, gritting my teeth. Dude, you were an adult bullying a kid like me and my friends, and you were mocking us for our lack of strength? Who were you kidding?

The grinning vampire approached me, cracking his knuckles. I heaved as I tried to regulate my mana circulation and regain control of my body. That one blow had clogged up the flow of my mana and made it difficult for me to recover, but given a few minutes of rest, I should be able to return to normal. He hadn't broken anything or done much internal damage.

Or so I hoped.

Unfortunately, I doubted that my opponent would be generous enough to grant me those few minutes. Not only was he huge, he resembled a ruffian, with a s.h.a.ggy beard and puffed-up hair. He was brus.h.i.+ng a hand across his hooligan-styled hair now, mocking me.

s.h.i.+t… I thought, wheezing as blood dripped from my mouth. This is impossible. He's too powerful! I can't do anything!

"Are you afraid of my power?"

The adult snorted derisively and he strolled toward me. All around him, the blood of fallen students flowed toward him and he drank in their power, adding their mana to his. I pushed my gla.s.ses up my nose and sighed.

"You do realize you're basically bullying a kid even though you're an adult, right?"

"What nonsense. The moment you enrolled in this academy, you could no longer hide behind pretensions of being a kid."

Wow. How astute. I had no counter to that.

The giant vampire had stopped a few paces from me, all the more to drink the blood of the deceased, including Miura's. I held my breath, hoping that this was the break I needed to quickly recover my strength and summon another of my Celestial Guardians or one of my most powerful Constellation spirits to crush him.

I was too naïve.

The gigantic vampire coalesced all the mana he had collected into a single enormous blood arrow and hurled it at me. Still winded from the punch from earlier, I could only slump helplessly against the wall and watch the deadly projectile sail toward me.

It never reached me.

With her bare hand, Teresa Taylor grabbed the arrow and flung it aside. She had somehow appeared between me and my opponent all of a sudden, taking me by surprise. The blood arrow detonated against the concrete pavement of the courtyard, sending rubble and dust flying into the air, but Teresa Taylor merely stood calmly amidst the death and destruction that flooded the school she was in charge of, a solitary figure of fury.

The vampire froze, recognition dawning on his face. As for me, I stared at my savior, totally bewildered.

"Headmistress Teresa Taylor!"

With her hand still smoking from catching the arrow, Teresa Taylor stood before me, shrouded in smoke, her steely stature an imposing sight. She narrowed her eyes at the vampire, but held her piece. Instead, she allowed her holy aura to speak for itself.

However, far from being intimidated, the vampire burst out laughing.

"Buhahahahahaha!"

Looming before the relatively diminutive Teresa Taylor, the giant spread his hands in glee. Despite the headmistress's imposing figure, the colossal vampire stood half again as tall as the elderly lady.

"Well, this is lucky! This has to be fate! Teresa Taylor, the legendary White Witch! The former Paladin who struck fear into the hearts of the monsters of Caliban! I've come here to meet you!"

Really? Somehow I found that hard to believe.

"I'll kill you…with the mighty vampire magic of the Crimson Blood Demonic Night Clan!"

All the blood in the courtyard flowed toward the vampire, coagulating into crimson spears of death that rose and pointed toward Teresa Taylor, their tips reinforced by sharp mana. The vampire adopted an offensive stance, moving one arm out in front of the other.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha! You Federation mages and Hunters have persecuted us vampires for far too long! Tried to hunt us into extinction because you fear our power! I'll display the strength that all of you feared so much! We'll prove that we vampires possess the methods that will bring us to the pinnacle of magic!"

"What are you, Lancer of Black?" I demanded and sighed. "Well, I mean, technically you are a vampire, but…"

The vampire ignored me and continued to grow his armory of blood spears, all of which elongated and twisted into monstrous shapes. The very air was saturated with murderous mana, causing me to suffocate. I could feel my consciousness slowly fade away.

What oppressive mana…

I breathed slowly, forcing myself to stay conscious. Keeping my eyes on the killing field, I was overawed by the sheer number of blood spears. To create that many weapons over such a large area, this was the first time I had seen such a technique.

The vampire swung his hand down.

As one, the blood spears leaped out of the ground, sailing high into the air before arcing down cruelly upon Teresa Taylor's position. In a second, the legendary White Witch was buried beneath a heap of stabbing, piercing lances of blood.

"H…Headmistress!" I shouted, buffeted by the tremendous shockwaves that blasted across the courtyard from the ma.s.sive impact. I could barely see Teresa Taylor's figure, so submerged was she under the sea of blood that she had almost disappeared.

Boom!

The blood spears continued to explode furiously against Teresa Taylor's stationary form, and it was all I could do to stand against such violent forces.

"Headmistress!"

"Come on! What's wrong, old hag?" the vampire taunted as he continued to bombard his target with his countless blood spears.

I realized then that he had been playing around with me and my friends all this time. If he had been serious, there was no way any of us could have stood a chance. Well, I would be able to defend against all those blood spears with Snow Aegis or Scutum Sobiescianum or Black Tortoise's water sphere…only if I had the time to summon them. Already I was summoning Snow Aegis to protect me from a few stray blood spears that inadvertently flew toward my path. I wanted to summon Scutum Sobiescianum to s.h.i.+eld Teresa Taylor, but she was out of range of my magic. d.a.m.n it!

However, the vampire paid no attention to me whatsoever.

"You don't even have the strength to defend yourself from our venerable blood magic? The legendary White Witch, completely helpless against the might of the forbidden spells wielded by our blood clan? Hah!"

He continued pummeling the silent Teresa Taylor with his blood spears, blasting craters into the concrete. Even then, there was no response from the elderly lady at all.

The vampire was beginning to feel infuriated, noticing that something was amiss despite his relentless bombardment.

"Hey! Say something!"

"..."

I watched the spectacle while using Snow Aegis to defend myself from another few stray blood spears. Drawing Hei Yue and Bai Ri, I moved under the cover of my snowflake-shaped s.h.i.+eld and slashed away another couple of spears while sidestepping others. My two Celestial Guardians moved to guard my friends, Vermillion Phoenix s.h.i.+elding Rossetti with his flaming wings while Golden Kirin conjured a wall of earth to protect the stunned Kufa.

In the distance, Teresa Taylor remained unmoved, refusing to budge even a millimeter from her spot.

"This is bad…" I murmured. "The headmistress…did she lose consciousness?"

There was no flunctuation in Teresa Taylor's mana whatsoever. It was serene, almost like an immovable rock in the middle of a raging river, just standing there and weathering the elements. In one sense, it was a relief that Teresa Taylor was still alive, but it was also foreboding that there was no change in her mana at all. One possibility was that she had lost consciousness.

That didn't bode well. Steeling my resolve, I gripped Hei Yue and Bai Ri tightly and prepared to lunge forward.

"I'm coming to a.s.sist, Headmistress! I apologize!"

"Stand your ground!"

Teresa Taylor's yelled order stunned me so much that I skidded to a stop, almost allowing a blood spear to hit me. Taken aback, I stared at her, still trying to discern if there were any slight alterations to her mana. There was none, yet she was still conscious?

"Huh?"

The vampire was just as surprised as I was. He loomed before Teresa Taylor, having finally halted his bombardment of blood spears.

"What? So you were still able to speak, hag? Stop rambling and just die already."

With a swing of his arm, he conjured a gigantic blood spear and impaled Teresa Taylor with it, burying her body under the congealed red substance.

"Hah!" the vampire crowed. "You really don't want to die…"

"Is this it?"

"Huh?"

The vampire froze at Teresa Taylor's words. As the smoke and debris cleared, I saw that I was mistaken. The White Witch had not been pierced by the blood spear at all. She was standing amidst the fumes, still unscathed despite having endured such a merciless bombardment.

"The blood magic that your vampire clan is so proud of…is it only of this level?"

The vampire's eyes narrowed at Teresa Taylor's comment, stunned that she could still speak. I gasped when I saw the furious features of the headmistress's face as she glowered at the vampire, and even her larger foe faltered for just a moment.

"With such pathetically weak spells, you came to a.s.sault Saint Teresa Academy?!"

Shrieking furiously, Teresa Taylor drew her holy sword and obliterated the vampire in a single slash, engulfing the bellowing monster with white light.

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