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Chapter 233:

Little Ashina, who had already left the Crimson Citadel with Lumina and was heading towards the Baroness of Shadows’ territory in the approaching dawn, said:

“Hog clearly has his own strategy, although it’s still quite crude and easily seen through, but this guy is really quite smart.”

“He’s learning,” Lumina said. “Learning from you, from everyone he’s seen. He’s been through the process of Lord Murphy recruiting him, so he naturally knows how to recruit his own subordinates.

If I had to guess, Hog probably won’t recruit those elite gladiators until he has his own base. He’s likely to start with the Black Iron gnolls, then recruit elite kobolds, hunting ghouls in the sewers while reorganizing his new clan.

No matter how useless this guy is, he was once a clan leader before.

He’s not as stupid as you think.

And when we left, Hog already had the eagle claw knife with the Blood Rat Gang’s mark, he must have reached some agreement with the cunning Dorothy.

Ah, Lady Aqua was right.

This quest doesn’t seem to require our full participation, we just need to help him at certain key moments. The ghouls on the third level of the sewers are not easy to deal with, there are many elite monsters there. I guess Hog will request our help during the final stages.

Come to think of it, why do I feel like we’re raising a BOSS?

Do you think Hog might become a BOSS for a 5-man dungeon or a raid in the future?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Little Ashina tossed a piece of candy into her mouth, chewing noisily as she said:

“Just look at his name and you’ll know. With such an imposing name, it would be a waste of the developers’ specially planted easter egg if he doesn’t become a mini-boss killer. Come on, I’ll fly you over, Lady Aqua and the others are waiting for us.

Meow King’s ‘Big Bird Spin Spin Spin Team’ is rushing so fiercely, their team score is almost surpassing the student party’s ‘Beast Team’.

We need to step up our game too.

We definitely can’t match Meow King’s team score, but we can’t fall out of the top three either, that would be too embarrassing.”

“I’m not letting you fly me!” Lumina shouted. “Last time you nearly dropped me to my death!”

“Oh come on, last time was just an accident. I have a flying license now, I’m an old pro, very stable. Don’t be afraid, come on, be good, I’ll carry you while flying. Don’t move around in the sky, it wouldn’t be good if you fall off.”

“Whoosh”

Huge blood-colored bat wings rose in the pre-dawn night sky, swaying as they took off with the screaming Lumina, then spun a few circles in the air before speeding towards the Baroness of Shadows’ territory.

——

At the same time, in the far north of Transia, at the edge of the Count of Seicob’s territory, almost at the border between Transia and the Ice Bay region, in the forest.

Young Lady Femis walked out from behind the half-collapsed watchtower, massaging her neck, while her other hand held something as transparent as a blood stone.

A vampire heart, freshly extracted.

Tris had been collecting these things, which were very cruel to vampires, but not to absorb the power within them.

According to the Grand Duchess, when the Blood Vulture Clan obtains a new Sacred Blood Pool in the future, the blood essence contained in these traitors’ hearts can make the Sacred Blood Pool enter its prime at a faster rate. Only when the Sacred Blood Pool is sufficiently abundant can the Blood Vulture Clan transform more and more elite clansmen without going through the Embrace.

Of course, this method of using blood essence in reverse is considered “dark magic” even by vampire standards, but given the Blood Vulture Clan’s current declining state, although Femis was repulsed by this method, she didn’t resist the orders from Tris.

After all, traitors must be severely punished!

Rather than leaving their hearts to rot in the sunlight, it’s better to let their deaths add fuel to the clan’s rebirth.

But at this moment, there was no joy of victory after battle on Femis’s face. On the contrary, that chubby face was filled with dissatisfaction, helplessness, and anger.

It was evident that she wasn’t in a good mood tonight.

“Whoosh”

In the faint sound of wind, E-Sister Adele folded her wings and landed beside the Young Lady.

She clasped her hands over her flat abdomen in a classic pose and said softly:

“Young Lady, all the traitors around have been cleared out. No one escaped our ambush. These are pretty much the last group of entrenched traitors hiding in the Count of Seicob’s territory. The rest have fled at the news, not worth our attention anymore.”

“Hmm, Grand Duchess Tris’s authority has been proclaimed, and the traitors have received their due punishment, but we still arrived a step too late,” Femis said with some regret. “I just ‘questioned’ their leader a bit, and according to her, most of the Blood Vulture traitors have already crossed the border into the Saxony region. Obviously, someone there is receiving them. It seems it’s not just the Thorn Clan wanting to take a bite out of us while we’re weak, the Wolfsbane Clan is also not content to remain quiet.

Those left behind here are all the old, weak, sick, and disabled, not much to gain from them.

Let’s gather up their personal belongings and prepare to return.”

“You’ve really changed,” Adele said softly. “You wouldn’t have bothered to collect these things before. You used to think obtaining resources from the dead was undignified and shameful.”

“I used to think I was really daddy’s little princess too,” Femis rolled her eyes and said. “But reality has proved that this world is far less gentle than I imagined, so let’s not talk about the past anymore. Not only Murphy collects these items, but the Blood Pact Knights team also has similar principles.

I’ve been on a few missions with them in the Dark Mountain range, and those elite knights never miss any opportunity to replenish themselves. Lord Payne even specially opened a training course for the squire knights on how to loot spoils of war for their own use.

Compared to my pragmatic kinsmen, I was really too naive and stupid before.”

“You will become an excellent leader, I’m certain of this,” Adele offered a small consolation, then asked, “So, about Lady Cecilia—”

“No news, no news at all. It’s as if she never appeared, never even existed,” Femis said with furrowed brows. “If it weren’t for Mary swearing to the Night Mother that she really saw those traitors with her own eyes, I would even think this was intelligence fabricated by Murphy. That mother of mine doesn’t seem to be an ordinary person.

Perhaps there are people specifically erasing the traces she left behind.

I know she was born in Seicob City, but that city has now become a plague-ridden land of death.

Compared to here, even the sewers of Crimson Citadel could be considered a cozy nest.

We simply can’t enter the city ruins to search for useful information, and those supposedly existing Seicob Winged Cavalry, we’ve been here for almost a week, but there’s absolutely no news of them.

The locals are helping them hide their tracks.

It will be very difficult for Murphy to occupy and rule this place.”

“He will do it. Master Murphy has always been very capable in this regard,” Adele said. “So, are we returning now? According to the messages sent back by the Computation Bead, Master Murphy is conducting a large-scale purge against the gnolls. He will need our strength.”

“Yes, we can’t find those legendary winged cavalry anyway, staying here is a complete waste of time,” Femis nodded and said. “I’ve checked before, the residual spirit plague in the Seicob City ruins will take some time to decrease to a level that allows large-scale entry. We can come back again when that happens. Send messages to Mary and other vampires of the Midnight faction.

We’ll leave before dawn.

Oh, by the way, Adele.

Is that Andrei and his servants still behaving? Have they shown any transgressive behavior?”

“No, they’ve been carrying out their assigned tasks, very obedient. I’ve been monitoring them personally, but that Count of White Mountain seems to have truly accepted his current situation of being managed by Master Murphy,” Adele said with a frown. “He even takes the initiative to stop conflicts between his subordinates and Mary’s group, but this guy is a gloomy vampire. I feel he must be planning something in private. After all, as long as Lord Murphy can’t fulfill his agreement with the Wolf Queen, Andrei can take the position of Transia governor.

With such huge interests at stake, he won’t remain indifferent.”

Femis nodded, twirling a lock of her hair. After a few seconds, she said:

“What do you think, Adele, should we proactively create an ‘opportunity’?”

“Bang”

Before she could finish speaking, a bright spirit firework exploded in the night sky behind them.

It wasn’t the signal firework used by the Blood Vulture Clan, but the symbol of the Thorn Clan.

However, this location was still some distance from the border of the Nordtov Kingdom, so this firework must have been set off by Andrei’s group.

They’ve encountered trouble!

They’re calling for help.

“This is an opportunity!” Adele said. “Perhaps we could turn a blind eye?”

“But what in the Count of Seicob’s territory could threaten him and his few servants? They’re all Black Iron rank vampires. Even if they can’t win, can’t they run?”

Femis spread her Blood Wings behind her back, narrowing her eyes as she said:

“Maybe they’ve stumbled upon the people we’ve been searching for all along. Isn’t this forest also the former territory of those elusive winged cavalry? They’ve appeared! It’s perfect timing!

Gather the troops, Adele.

Let’s go take a look!”

Then, the Young Lady flew alone towards the location where the distress firework had risen.

She flew rapidly through the air, having entered the White Silver rank allowed her racial potential to be further developed.

Unlike the Black Iron rank which focused on building a foundation, the White Silver rank enhancement was about exploring the power deep within one’s physique. To be precise, supernatural beings like vampires at this rank need to excavate power from their bloodline source!

Commonly known as “atavism”.

For example, the special biological weapon – Night Claws possessed by Murphy and Maxim is a manifestation of atavism reaching an extremely deep level.

Of course, under normal circumstances, this atavism is just a symbolic description, referring to enhancing racial advantages while compensating for racial defects, rather than actually reverting vampires back to their ferocious night bat original form.

For the Blood Vulture Clan, their biggest feature at this stage is that their wings will continuously grow larger, until they form huge wings almost like dragon wings, like those of Tris and Salrokdar.

That represents the vampire’s racial potential being fully explored, and the benefits of larger wings are not just for looks, of course.

While increasing flight speed, it also allows the children of the blood vultures to enter a new stage in their mastery of the sky, even enough to change their previous combat methods.

Like now.

It took the Young Lady less than a minute to fly over a large area of forest to reach the airspace above the battlefield.

She reached back into her spirit bag and took out a blood clan battle staff interwoven with silver and red, with a unique gargoyle carving at the top and a spiked spearhead adorning the bottom. This was a gift personally bestowed to her by Lord Payne during the previous interrogation.

Named “Night Howl”, it was a masterwork Sovereign-grade weapon, a divine weapon gifted to the lord by elf craftsmen when he was “young”.

In terms of craftsmanship and grade alone, it was no different from the Nocturne Scepter in Tris’s hands. This was perhaps some kind of “compensation” from the lord to Femis.

After all, according to vampire tradition, the position of Blood Vulture Grand Duchess should have been hers.

As soon as this thing was taken out, a swirling Blood Spirit aura spread from the top of the staff, dyeing half the night sky with a crimson light screen, as if setting a crimson coordinate in the sky. With the Young Lady’s elegant wave, a super large-scale spirit binding was thrown towards the forest below.

In the dark forest below, Count Andrei and his loyal servant Vesta were trapped in a forest clearing, while other Thorn servants were enduring repeated charges from a squad of winged cavalry on the outskirts.

These legendary Seicob guardians rode armored tall horses, launching fierce and sharp charges through the forest at an almost impossible swiftness, in areas where cavalry normally couldn’t maneuver.

The surrounding forest couldn’t hinder their high-speed unusual movements at all, as if the forest itself was protecting them.

This was no illusion!

This forest was one of the sacred places of the mountain people and the Ice Bay barbarians, and the Seicob Winged Cavalry were descendants of both. Each of these plate-armored knights was over 2 meters tall, and their most distinctive feature was the peculiar “wings” adorning the back of their heavy armor, like some kind of armor decoration.

However, in this world where spirit energy exists, the wings of the winged cavalry were certainly not just for show.

During their lowered charging posture, the “wings” on the back of their armor would spread out flat, bringing whistling wind sounds while helping them stabilize their charging posture and enhance the force of impact. When necessary, they could even deploy spirit shields to protect the knights.

In other words, the essence of the Seicob Winged Cavalry was a group of spirit-enhanced shock heavy cavalry. They were the highest-grade military force that could be born on this land of Transia.

The battle formation composed of the Blood Vulture Clan’s armed blood servants was only fit to be scattered like smoke and clouds under the charge of the winged cavalry. Even General Loren, who used troops like a god, was at his wits’ end with this group of winged cavalry. In the battle two years ago, he had to resort to plague weapons, which were very undignified even for dwarves, to destroy Seicob City.

Do dwarves who care so much about honor really want to poison their enemies with plagues?

No!

If he had a choice, he wouldn’t use such a vicious and dishonorable method.

But what choice did he have?

After all, even the wall spell jointly cast by the proud Spirit Mages of the Circle Tower plus the continuous bombardment of cannons couldn’t stop the winged cavalry of Seicob from dominating the battlefield with their heavy armored charges. What else could a half-dwarf like him do?

Back to the present, the Young Lady’s spirit binding came at just the right moment.

The crimson flowing light scattered onto the ground as if shaping a quagmire, causing the momentum of the heavy cavalry squad’s unstoppable charge to suddenly sink into a mire. Their speed continuously decreased, allowing the already precarious defense line of the Thorn Clan to stabilize again.

Seeing more Blood Vulture vampires gathering in the night, the commander of this winged cavalry squad decisively blew his whistle. The 12 cavalrymen also quickly turned around with artistic horse control skills and darted into the forest, almost disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

Though they were heavy cavalry, they possessed the agility of light cavalry, truly breathtaking.

However, the Young Lady had already placed a spirit mark on one of the cavalrymen. She ignored the Count of White Mountain thanking her below, flapped her wings like the wind and rushed into the forest. Quickly hunting and seeking the enemy, she soon cornered that knight in a mountain hollow.

The latter raised his lance without a word, ready to launch an attack on the Young Lady.

But she could fly, and no matter how formidable your cavalry is, can you defy the laws of physics and charge into the sky?

This was obviously impossible.

“Don’t fight like a cornered beast, I’m not here to take your life!”

The Young Lady flapped her huge wings, hovering above the mountainous terrain. She said coldly:

“I bring goodwill from the Count of Kadman. I want to talk to your leader. For the sake of your little life, dismount now! I promise to give you treatment befitting your status.”

“For the sake of your little life, put down your weapon now, female vampire! We promise to give you treatment befitting your status.”

Another deep voice sounded from the forest, carrying a chill and killing intent.

The Young Lady suddenly turned her head, and saw over 30 winged cavalrymen slowly walking out of the surrounding forest without a sound, under the command of a particularly tall figure. Among them were two spirit knights holding steel staves shaped like battle spears.

They cast spells simultaneously, calling forth the spirit energy in the forest to converge, just like the scene in Smuggler’s Woods replayed, sealing off the sky and trapping the Young Lady in the forest.

So this was a trap?

Was her confident self actually the prey?

“I hate forests!”

She muttered quietly.

The Night Howl Staff in her hand twirled once before being gripped with both hands. The Blood Spirit aura continuously spread, putting the Young Lady into a true battle state.

She was no longer that little girl who would cry when scared by an old knight. When fighting alongside the Blood Pact Knights, she had already learned how to deal with situations like this.

Moreover, Lord Payne had also taught her how to use another kind of power within her body.

“Crack crack crack”

Amidst the strange sounds, blood-colored vines extended like giant snakes from the shadows of the surrounding forest, making even the moonlight of dawn take on a lingering crimson hue. Everything became shadowy and indistinct. This strange phenomenon made the warhorses of the winged cavalry neigh uneasily.

“I’ll say it one last time!”

Femis’s eyes blazed with blood light. As her long hair fluttered, she said:

“Surrender! Knights, your lord, Lord Murphy, wants to talk to you! I am his messenger, coming with goodwill, and of course, I also have a portion of the power of midnight in my hands.

I have opened my arms.

Do you want to continue the war that has already harmed us all? Or win for yourselves a peace that you don’t want but desperately need?

Now, make your choice!”