Free Web NovelChapter 29: Wuna
—woosh
—woosh
—woosh
Without hesitation, Ethan summoned Vlad and placed him between himself and the three standing opposite.
Wuna had two summons.
The first was a compact mass of a body with eight blades in place of hands. Small frame, pure offense, built entirely around destroying whatever was in front of it as fast as possible. It was called Blade Devil.
Yes.
Just as Wuna had investigated him, Ethan had looked into Wuna.
Devil Blade Wuna had gotten his title because of that very beast. The name wasn’t decoration. The creature focused on one thing and one thing only, and it did it with a speed and ferocity that didn’t leave room for a measured response.
The tier 9 armor set from the High Regent wouldn’t last five minutes against it laying in without restraint.
So Ethan didn’t let it.
He activated the only skill he had that could handle this.
Black-Eyed Bat Evasion.
In the second that followed, both he and Vlad dissolved into a cloud of bats and rushed the three head-on.
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"Hm."
On the sideline, the Demi-human Savors nodded slowly, his arms folded across his chest.
"He always has a strategy."
He said it to no one in particular, his gaze tracking the cloud of bats as it moved.
His figure was shadowing another Maqaue member who sat in a chair slightly behind him, still and composed, watching the stage with an expression that carried no particular reaction.
If Ethan had been standing here, he would have recognized this man immediately.
The Demi-god. The one who was constantly present somewhere near the cage, never announcing himself, never making his interest known, just there.
"He smells like serpent blood."
The Demi-god’s eyes didn’t move from the stage.
He had said the same thing to himself the first time he stood close to the cage. The smell was distinct. Not faint. Not something that could be written off as proximity to the wrong beast or a trick of the air.
It was persistent. Specific.
Similar, in a way he didn’t fully trust yet, to the blood of the serpent god clan back in Demi-human territory.
He didn’t know why a common human carried that smell.
He had watched Ethan for days now and nothing visible explained it. No visible marking. No obvious bloodline characteristic. Nothing that announced itself.
But he wasn’t going to release him over that uncertainty.
"Haha."
Beside him, Savors laughed.
It came out slightly awkward. frёewebηovel.cѳm
He was older than this man by a visible margin, but the man sitting in that chair was a Demi-god. The Six-Eared Maqaue, Davos Fararin.
There were no different opinions to have.
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—woosh
—woosh
—woosh freewebnσvel.cøm
Contrary to what most people watching assumed, Ethan didn’t go for Wuna directly.
He didn’t go for the Blade Devil either.
With Vlad occupying the creature’s attention, Ethan moved through the cloud of bats, his form folded inside it, invisible until he wasn’t, and came out beside the second summon.
A burst of light filled the creature’s vision.
It recoiled.
That was enough.
He cut at its throat in one clean motion, the moon blade doing the rest, and felt the connection sever before Wuna had processed what was happening.
Wuna felt it a second later.
The disconnection from his soul.
By the time it registered, the blade was already rising.
Ethan came in at his neck.
"You dare?!!"
The shout tore out of him before he finished the thought.
A wave of energy left his palm with a heavy burst of light, catching Ethan across the chest and sending him backward through the air.
—boom
He hit the ground and the impact ran through his ribs.
A tier 8 spell.
In the stronghold flea markets there had been spells in every corner, most of them ordinary, the kind anyone with coin and basic ranking could walk away with. A tier 9 spell was already a rarity, something that required standing and influence before a seller would even acknowledge the inquiry.
Tier 8 spells were something else entirely.
They didn’t appear in any market accessible to commoners.
"You take pride in killing people’s summons, huh?!!"
Wuna’s eyes had gone red.
The dust still settling from where his first summon had been.
"Let’s see how you like it."
His gaze snapped across the stage to where Vlad stood locked against the Blade Devil. He moved immediately, a blade appearing in his hand, its edge shimmering with gold light as he closed the distance.
He was fast.
But he stopped.
Not by choice.
A chill ran through him that had nothing to do with temperature. He felt it move through his blood first, then into his arms, settling into his bones as numbness that spread outward from the center of his chest.
[Killing intent detected. Activating Vampire’s Lust.]
[When true and calculated killing intent is aimed at the Vampire Baron, his blood lust takes control, increasing his stats temporarily so that he may feed.]
Ahead of him, Vlad turned.
He had just absorbed a direct hit from the Blade Devil without breaking his stance. Now he was still, the spear at his side, eyes that had been flat and operational a moment ago shifting into something different.
The color drained from his skin.
Sheet white.
His eyes locked onto Wuna with a focus that had nothing operational left in it.
Vlad no longer looked completely human.
He bore the semblance of a powerful creature of the night, something old and unhurried, something that didn’t need to rush because it had already decided how this ended.
The gold light on Wuna’s blade flickered., but it was no match for Vlads instinct.
Before he knew it, Vlad had turned into a puff of smoke and bats appearing right beside Wuna.
He didn’t even give Wunw the chance to recall his summon before he felt a cold bite penetrate his skin and send a wave of blood through his veins.
[Summon is feeding]
[blood package is enough]
[you have been granted a new skill]
