Nightmare System - Volume 1 Chapter 28 A Proper Welcome

The portal encompassed the vampires, Hell along with his teammates and his copies. The spell was large enough to teleport them all this time. Hell wanted to learn how he did it, it was an incredibly useful skill to learn. But he would have to kill him to get this skill, which was not worth it, yet.

The cheers of Hell’s vampires carried on to the other side, their battle cry heard before themselves were seen. However, it was surprising to see that, they were no longer in the base, but in a large field, only seeing Lirger’s base in the distance. They saw Lirger sitting on a throne he made for himself with around 200 ghouls as pawns in the front, and 300 vampires behind them. Lirger’s base was certainly the most diverse one, all kinds of creatures as vampires were seen.

He glanced at the copy he told to protect Theperes as he stood behind with the 8 copies stationed themselves next to Aurus, telling him that their order was as such, following his commands. Aurus looked like a kid who just got new toys. It would certainly be fun to control 8 creatures each one almost as strong as his Lord, Virgil.

“Lirger got up and started walking toward Hell’s army with his scales covering all over his body and his wings out already, ready to fight immediately. They had a distance of around 100 metres between one another, but he was walking slowly, in no rush. His vampires all took defensive stances already as they see the behemoth closing in on them, but Hell said it was all right and he also started walking toward Lirger. They met in the middle.

“We had been waiting for a whole day here, kept us waiting,” Lirger said with a snort.

“I see you moved the teleportation pod, or whatever you call them,” Hell said. “Scared we would ruin your home? Oh, I also see that you glued that wing of yours back, congrats!”

Lirger smiled, showing his teeth while doing so. His teeth looked incredibly sharp, fit for chewing through anything. He didn’t look like a regular vampire, more of a monster. He raised his hand and made a motion in the air that would be clearly seen by his own army. They opened up a path and Hell saw 15 minotaurs revealing themselves with one of them having charred-black skin with a slightly smaller frame compared to the others. He looked more feral and frankly, more dangerous.

“You will destroy me with just around 100 vampires?!” Lirger laughed uproariously. “I will give you one choice to hand your base over to me and become my slave, then I may leave some of your friends alive.”

“Of course not,” Hell said. “Some of them are there to only watch me kill you.” Hell, at this very moment, saw a small movement in the shadows. He was aware of all shadows after living with vampires for some time. They could be dangerous if they got close as such.

His snarky remark was not as funny to Lirger, whose face turned into one with fury. “Kill him!” as he swung a punch towards Hell. He was prepared and didn’t expect a dumb-looking animal like that to be polite enough to only come here to talk. He executed Quickening and Short-Distance Warping simultaneously and sure enough, a man in black came out the shadow behind him, bent on ripping his heart out with his claws. However, with Lirger’s speedy attack, the man in black was still scratched by his swing and pummelled into the ground before melting back into the shadows.

“Attack!” Hell yelled while in the air as his vampires began moving in an orderly manner.

“Butcher them all!” Lirger yelled right after, glaring at Hell in the air who used his Warping again to land back.

Hell had 3 brands prepared for the war. One for the Healing effect on his chest. One on his Sword of Blood for the Cutting effect and one on his palm in his right hand for the Decay effect.

He figured preparing Explosion while he was sure of what actions to take would be a lot better, likely not very usable without harming his own troops in a battle like this.

Both armies started running toward one another with a fierce intent to tear each other to pieces. While Lirger returned to his seat, his army opening up a path for him as he watched the war from his throne.

Aurus was stupefied and incredibly disappointed in Hell. This was definitely a case of overestimating one’s abilities. Sure, Hell was strong, their copies, too. But as Hell said before, their mana wasn’t infinite. This battle reminded him of the war against the demons of Lucifer. Luckily, they’d be the ones with the advantage in numbers during those battles, he felt terrified for a moment but gathered his thoughts soon after.

Theperes was also very anxious, seeing the vast difference in numbers, content with staying behind. It all seemed hopeless, but the reason she was so taken aback with Hell was because he, of course, was a man who could achieve greatness and surpass the mountains that were impossible to climb.

Aurus gave the following command to Hell’s 8 copies: “Fight alongside your vampires, kill the enemies they are having trouble against using your base speed without any abilities that may diminish your mana. Your sword will be able to cut through most of these vampires before they can even guess what is going on!”

Pseudo Hells all left at once as they were also advised not to leave one another’s side since the enemy would likely try to pick you off one by one. With the superior speed and strength of the copies, as long as they did their job, they were likely to win, Aurus thought.

Hell wouldn’t only watch and fight with his copies and party overall. He called Leon, Leila and Vaun to his side. Vaun would be able to block the attacks of these minotaurs now with his raised stats and Leon had found out a new way to use his abilities, making him stronger. He didn’t know if Leila had gotten any stronger, but she was also strong enough to silently kill a few vampires at a time.

The two sides collided with Hell’s party opening a bloody path toward the minotaurs. The first wave of attacks were ghouls, the vampires of Lirger were standing back and watching the ghouls get murdered. With the joint force of Pseudo Hells, Hell’s party and his vampires, the majority of the ghouls were quickly dispatched of, obviously not creating the effect Lirger would want them to create, which was to at least tire Hell’s army out a bit and cause some casualties. But ghouls were slightly stronger than the average human anyway, there was not yet even one casualty on their side.

“Go, kill them,” Lirger roared, ordering his vampires and minotaurs to attack. This wave of enemies each one at the very least being as strong as Hell’s vampires with a majority of them being stronger, would not be as easy to handle. There were still scratch marks on some of his vampires, with the ghouls only having held on for around 5 minutes.

“Unbeknownst to Lirger, it was still enough to tire some of the vampires out. Half of his vampires still had basic vampire regeneration, unable to get it to the medium level as the rest did. Those who were hurt with basic regeneration could barely recover before they began fighting once more.

The real battle had begun through this clash, with Aurus changing to the previously discussed tactic. The wanton slaughterers in Lirger’s army severely miscalculated their as they simply charged with no plan in mind. A species such as vampires did not usually think about tactics and such while fighting. They could easily bolster their numbers and would be strong enough in a fight to at least cause problems to most enemies.

What’s more was that some talented individuals would sometimes spring up and become elites in the unending army of vampires. Aurus, however, was a spellcaster. Spellcasters were very rare, but almost all of them cared about strategies, and tactics. You had to be intelligent enough if you wanted to cast spells, after all. The ones believing brute strength was the best would fail to become spellcasters even if they had a talent for it. It was simply a matter of contemplation, battles, for one such person.

Hell’s army surrounded Lirger’s and the confused vampires in the back were slaughtered in large numbers. Hell’s base killed around 20 vampires from the enemy’s side with only 1 casualty on his side as they started retreating back. As per his orders, Pseudo Hells also contributed in the attack and as they were told to do, all used Fire Channelling to launch some fireballs against the enemy. Another 15 casualties were seen on the enemy’s side with large patches of fire on the battlefield created a fog of war, isolating the enemy forces from one another.

Lirger was absolutely shocked that his forces were so easily suppressed in the initial attack. He got up and flew into the sky, observing, waiting for an opportunity as he also commanded Miur to kill those copies of his enemy, who nodded his head and melted into a shadow.

Although there was only one casualty on Hell’s side during their attack, 10 seemed to have died or they were at least unable to continue fighting momentarily in the frontline when they tried to defend against the enemy as well. The difference was still huge, the numbers were a great difference.

Hell’s mind, however, was calm as he and his party cut off minotaurs’ path. The one with the charred-black skin howled in a wolf-ish manner which seemed odd to everyone since minotaurs were monsters with the body of a man and head and tail of a bull. These minotaurs didn’t seem like they were vampires, weaker than the ones he fought with before but they still had close enough strength to kill himself with a good enough hit.

A minotaur swung his hammer toward Hell, only to be stopped by Vaun who threw himself in front of Hell, seemingly ready to bear the immense brunt of that attack. Vaun felt a thud as he opened his eyes, only to see a large minotaur with his steaming breath preparing for another attack. These had nothing on that dinosaur from earlier and he was even stronger now. He swung his sword with passion, thinking he was stronger than the creature before him.

Vaun’s sword caused a slight scratch on the minotaur’s skin. Just as the beast was unable to harm him, he was unable to harm the beast either. It was still fine, he was strong enough to take attacks from them with ease, it seemed like. Vaun tried to stop the hammer this time using his palm, and it had worked! His hand was hurting immensely, but it worked, nonetheless! He then saw other minotaurs attacking his party and tried to attract the attention of as many of the beasts as he could. He managed to annoy four of them enough that they all started hitting Vaun from all sides. He was hurting a bit, but he was elated simply savouring the taste of being actually helpful.

Hell got anxious momentarily when he saw that there were still so many enemies left and his side seemed to be almost engulfed in enemies had it not been for Aurus constantly changing formations. He was going to be a good commander. It was fine as long as he didn’t lose the majority of his army.

Hell saw the minotaurs coming, and to test their strength, he cut off one’s head as the creature dropped dead. These weren’t vampires and were easier to kill! He immediately yelled this and notified his friends when a large shadow hit him from the top, chopping his left arm off. Hell risked getting cut in half to retrieve the arm, he’d need the brand on it, couldn’t allow it to be destroyed right now so he used Quickening and Warping once more, utilising his speed to utmost. Although Lirger was unusually fast compared to his stature, he missed, and Hell snatched his arm back.

“We are even, now.” Lirger was again smiling in a creepy manner.

“Oh yeah, why don’t you make me regret it even more?” Hell replied, trying to lure Lirger away. He also summoned two more copies. As they were created just now, they also had the same exact memory of the original at the time of the creation, thus they knew what to do. Hell wanted the two to help his party kill the minotaurs as soon as they succeeded in luring Lirger away.

Lirger’s eyes resembled slit pupils with a yellow glow as he sized Hell up and down and flew into the sky once more. He was a brute and not incredibly smart, but he was not an idiot. He realised he couldn’t fly, so why would he leave his advantage in the sky?

“Damn it,” Hell said as he created one more copy and sent them three to help his party while he used light attacks to keep some of the minotaurs occupied as he observed the sky. Leon and Leila had killed a minotaur at this point. It seemed that Leon had an edge in attacking them, but it would be quite hard if these were vampires as well. There were still 13 minotaurs attacking when Leila was punched by one, sent flying for a few metres when Lirger suddenly came flying down to snatch her. Hell was prepared so he got close to him and threw the sword as he activated the brand on it. Cutting had a different effect compared to the other brands, it didn’t provide an instantaneous effect, but made anything incredibly sharp.

The sword hit Lirger in his right shoulder and it almost cut him in half, not stopping until it was close to his other shoulder. Had he used this in a swing, it could have been over for Lirger.

“Leon, hold him!” Hell yelled, hoping Leon would react fast enough and keep him halted in the air. Leon immediately did as such since he was worried about his sister, looking at her direction already. Lirger was held in the air, as if paralysed, roaring in pain. Hell used that one second Leon used the majority of his mana to stop him and he half-hit with a palm attack, activating the brand on his left palm, Decay. Leon was immediately attacked by the charred-black minotaur as soon as he turned his back, who seemed to have transformed into something else, posing a threat by itself.

Leon was still alive but hanging by a thread, even with the basic vampire regeneration Hell has given him from a vampire he killed. Any vampire would do for this basic ability which granted immortality, so he gave it to all his friends including Vaun as soon as he found any hostile patrol after capturing his base. But basic vampire regeneration couldn’t restore your limbs, neither was it enough to get you back into the fight immediately after enduring incredible damage.

As he was punched, his concentration faltered and Lirger was momentarily free, but it was enough that Hell was able to touch his scales right before he activated the ability, which caused scales to start rotting off of Lirger. He regenerated new scales right after, but the effect would repeat without a stop, slowly spreading to his body. Lirger didn’t hesitate and removed the scales on his infected right shoulder, cutting it off immediately along with his right arm as a result.

The severed arm continued rotting on the ground until it was no more than a rotten corpse soon after, even bones becoming disfigured.

“Huh, not bad,” Hell murmured.