Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Chapter 538: Noble Emissary

“Tell me where she is, and your fruitless attempts at survival will no longer be necessary,” The Robed Vampire said, and there was a sudden flare-up in his Magical energy.

It remained at the Eighth Circle and yet felt more dangerous than it already was.

*WHUM!*

The Robed Vampire landed gently, and magical energy surged from where his feet touched in a wave that smacked into everyone in the room, enemy and ally alike, and sent them flying.

Meline had just managed to stab her dagger into an enemy’s back when it happened. She was closest to the hole and went through it. Or she would have been if she didn’t cast a spell that wrapped her arms in one end of a chain while the other end wrapped around the neck of one of the minions who was trying to keep his footing with his sword stabbed into the ground.

The minion stretched a hand to his neck, trying to loosen the grip of the chain, but he couldn’t dedicate enough attention and strength to the task for fear of being blown away.

Eventually, though, the Minion seemed to decide that getting blown out of the hole in the wall was better than being strangled to death, and he released his sword. Alas, just as he was about to stretch both hands to the chain around his neck, he was buffeted and flew out the hole.

Meline had already used the minion to pull herself back into the room and sunk her claws into the ground, so she no longer had use for the Minion who had lost his anchor and went flying. Still, Meline kept hold of the chain and soon heard a crack that, along with the feeling of a dangling weight at the end of the chain, told her the minion’s neck had been broken, and he now swung dead just outside of the hole.

Meline was the only one who used the wave of magical energy surge to make another kill, as everyone else just slammed against the wall, where they groaned.

Hugo locked in his knees, his red eyes flaring and his claws especially glinting as he refused to let himself get blown away by the Robed Vampire. The moment the wave passed, Hugo jumped at the enemy with a loud growl that caused many to wince.

The Robed Vampire didn’t move away.

“You will never get me running again,” he said and then held up two fingers.

A spell circle appeared and morphed into a crackling fence of lightning. Hugo collided with it and tried to pull away, only to discover that there was an attractive pulling at his very skin and keeping him against the fence.

So then, he fought against it.

The lightning was ravaging his clothes and singeing them, but besides the signs of soot on his skin, Hugo seemed injured as he tried to overpower the fence and go after the Robed Vampire still.

“Your resistance has been amusing,” the Robed Vampire said, “Now Begone!”

The Robed Vampire flicked his wrist and conjured a second lightning spell that morphed into an eagle whose screech was the crackle of lightning and struck Hugo’s chest.

*KRAKA BANG!!!*

Hugo went flying, and as flecks of blood dropped to the floor, it appeared his resistance had finally been overcome. He struck the wall and slid to the ground, limp and unmoving.

“No!” Nadine snarled and turned away from the minion she was battling to go after the Robed Vampire. The minion’s sword flashed as he made to take advantage of her lapse, but then a *clink* sound of metal against metal rang as Meline tossed her dagger and it hit the sword to knock it aside.

Nadine was already swinging her sword at the Robed Vampire, but he smacked her away with a force of wind that sent her slamming into the wall. She wasn’t knocked out and was already stirring, but her eyes were wide at the disparity in strength that made no sense.

She was at the Eighth Circle just like her enemy and seemed somehow two circles weaker with how his spells affected him— it made no fucking sense!

Kyre just decapitated a minion, and Meline had brought up her kill count by another two, but as the Robed Vampire turned his sights on Caius, nothing else seemed more important to any of them besides aiding their Lord.

“Wait,” Caius said in a low voice that caused them to stop in the midst of movement.

The Robed Vampire seemed to think Caius was talking to him for a second, and then he realized it was an order to the other Gold-black Vampires.

“They take orders from you?” The Robed Vampire said with a slight smirk, “Amusing.”

The Robed Vampire seemed to have realized Caius was at the Fifth Circle. Caius assumed the realization came a short while ago when he had let his Magical energy flare up as a reaction to danger.

“Are you ready to talk?” The Robed Vampire asked.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Caius said and clenched his fist harder before he opened it and a vial dropped out of it onto the ground to Roxanne’s confusion.

Despite being beside him, Roxanne had been so focused on plans of her own that she hadn’t seen Caius retrieve or grab the vial from wherever. Still, since he was ordering them to wait, she hoped he had a plan because the eyes of the Robed Vampire were glowing with malice.

“You will talk,” the Robed Vampire said, “You’ll tell me what you know.”

Caius let his Noble Authority exude from him and exerted it on the Robed vampire, who twitched and then relaxed so that he and Caius spoke at the same time.

“A Count,” The Robed Vampire sneered.

“I knew it,” Caius said with a sigh.

“You can’t command me,” the Robed Vampire sneered with disdain.

“I know I can’t,” Caius said.

He had been wondering what it was about the enemy that made him so capable. What was it about him that, despite being at the same Magic Circle as the Five Leopolds Caius had brought with him, the Robed Vampire could quell them with ease?

“You know very little,” the Robed Vampire sneered.

“I know more than a little, actually,” Caius said lightly, “Noble Emissary.”

The eyes of the Robed Vampire widened as he heard those last two words, and then they narrowed.

Caius’s expression didn’t change.

‘Noble Emissary’ was a designation that could only be granted by a very powerful and high-ranking Vampire who imbued their Emissary with a portion of their strength.

The strength that an Emissary is imbued with isn’t actually Magical Energy.

No, the strength an Emissary is imbued with is a lot more like concepts such as;

The ability to overwhelm all enemies in your path.

Or

The ability to see untruth.

Or

The ability to detect the unseen.

Those three are just some of the concepts that can be imbued in an emissary. There are limits to what can be achieved with these concepts, of course, and while magical energy is not what is being imbued in the Emissary, the strength of the concepts often still depends on the actual Magical strength of the Noble doing the impacting.

As for how the concepts work;

Well, take the first of the examples—which was incidentally what the Robed Vampire was using—for instance; It makes it so that despite being at the same or lower Magic Circle compared to your opponent, you will always have the strength to overcome as you have been imbued with your Lord’s superior might.

In other words, there really wasn’t anything any of them could do to defeat the Robed Vampire. Even if they tried to run as they were, they would get caught quickly.

They needed a plan.

“Since we now know your power is not entirely yours, I feel much more relieved to do a little cheating myself,” Caius said and then let the energy he had been keeping tame rouse within him.

His Magical energy remained at the Fifth Circle, but something else created a blanket over that and was swelling with the strength of the Seventh Circle.

That blanket magical energy that didn’t belong to Caius, but was his to wield at the moment, created wings that sprouted from his back while a shadow of a magical beast appeared superimposed on him. A beast’s front limbs were superimposed on his arms, ending in curved talons. A tail swung powerfully behind him, and when he raised his head, the superimposed head of the beast unhinged its jaw and let out a roar.

Having advanced to the Fourth Circle and further improved his skills at Blood Alchemy, Caius could now draw out the power within Wyvern blood to such a bolstering extent. But it wasn’t going to last long.

“Ridiculous,” the Robed Vampire sneered.

“We’ll see,” Caius smiled.

And then, his voice sounded in the head of the Leopolds. His usually subpar ability in doing this seemed better in response to the urgency of the situation.

-“Kyre and Nadine, help Hugo to the Carriage and start it up. Meline, help them leave undetected, but stay behind and engage as many of the minions as you can.

Roxanne, keep doing what you’re doing, and no one interfere with what I’m about to do.”-

And with that, Caius flapped the wings on his back and went flying at the enemy.