Reclaiming the Demon’s Curse - Chapter 208

It is now the third day after the Outbreak happened in Flushdenn City.

The number of casualties has now reached over 120,000 and is still increasing.

However, there is still some good news about it.

The Vampires are now affected by the sunlight and the army, together with the help of many Awakened including the S-Rank Awakened of the other countries, have wiped out the Vampires that have escaped the city. As far they know, there are no more vampires and they have been killed already.

Right now, they have contained all the Vampires within the City. The Noble Vampires seem to have taken a liking to the large city as well as they made it their base and created several fortresses. It’s becoming difficult to approach them like this.

At this point, the military is already thinking of just erasing the city with massive bombs. However, they have received word that there are still people inside the city and are hiding within highly protected shelters.

They worried about these people so they needed to approach this matter carefully.

The government estimated that the number of Vampires within the city had reached over six thousand…

As for the Vampire Bats, they are basically uncountable.

***

Gordon Stadium, Temporary Meeting Camp…

“I will lead the team inside the city to kill the strongest Vampire… I need everyone’s help in this plan and we will execute this within half an hour while the sun is high up in the sky…”

A man in his forties announced with determination. His name is Arnold Hynes, he is an A-Rank Awakened of ASTF and he’s the most experienced officer in the Task Force as he fought against the Vampires even before the outbreak.

Unfortunately, although the other ASTF are highly trained as well, they are only at B-Rank and they might just become familiars of the Vampire Prince.

That’s right, they learned from a captured Vampire Viscount that the strongest of them is a Vampire Prince.

With that in mind, they can’t just send anyone on the mission to avoid unnecessary casualties.

Instead, the higher-ups decided to put him in the team of S-Rank Awakened to lead them.

“It’s fine… I’m not a good leader so just go ahead and tell us your plan…”

Steinar Reistad, from the Kingdom of Palais, said calmly.

He was sent here by the Royal Family after the Republic asked for help to deal with this problem.

Apparently, although the Veprus Republic still has hidden S-Rank Awakened, they were still too young and inexperienced. They haven’t even fully grasped their Rank-S Artifacts yet. They might just waste their life in this battle before they could even grow as a powerful Arcane Explorer.

“Same for me… As long as we capture a living vampire, I’m good with it.” Katelyn Gleeson from Traoland Archipelago added.

She is a warrior-like lady as she sat in the meeting room wearing full armor.

Nevertheless, if Cyril is here, he would surely recognize this woman as one of Aeon Flux’s assistants which would create huge trouble in the future.

Well, it wasn’t surprising since she came from Traoland and she requested a living Vampire. This is something Aeon needed for her experiments. Especially after learning about the Vampire’s impressive regenerative ability. They would surely become great lab rats.

Anyway, her matter is unimportant right now.

Arnold would have to lead these two including Asta to enter the central part of the city.

Luckily, Katelyn and Steinar have Rank-S Artifacts that could help them kill the strongest Vampire. Once they did that, the Blood Mass Sacrifice will be canceled and their soldiers can attack en masse.

“Alright… Layout your plan then.” Asta spoke as she waited for Arnold to explain their plan.

After several minutes of discussion, Asta couldn’t help but be impressed about how Arnold considered all of their abilities as S-Rank Awakened.

It seems that the ASTF’s intelligence officer is working really well. They are even fully aware of other country’s Rank-S Artifacts…

Then, Arnold also decided to use the military’s missile bombardment to attract the attention of the Vampires while they approach the central part of the city.

With that, it will lessen the burden of being attacked on all sides.

The other two S-Rank Awakened nodded as they liked the plan and didn’t suggest any changes. They are confident with their skills as well after all.

The only problem they have is that the information about the Vampire Prince is extremely limited.

Unfortunately, the Saint Torido Clan has never encountered them before. The strongest Vampire they fought was just an Earl.

It had even killed two A-Rank Awakened even after being surrounded by almost a hundred Awakened.

“I have a question about Kendel’s death…”

Steinar asked. He’s wearing a half-face mask and a monocle on his right eye so Asta couldn’t examine his face clearly. However, he has red hair which is a common feature of the people who came from the Kingdom on the western part of the continent.

“Mhmm…” Asta briefly looked at him and nodded.

“The Blood Burst that was used to kill him, it came from three Vampire Familiar, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“So only three Blood Bursts and it’s enough to kill an S-Rank Awakened. Even if he’s unprepared, it must’ve been really powerful since his own Aura Protection wasn’t enough to defend against it… Sigh~ Then, have we considered this in our next battle? I didn’t hear it being mentioned so I’m curious about our plans about it.” Kendel asked.

“Don’t worry about it… We received an order that once we enter the battlefield, any humans approaching us must be killed. We must not let any more S-Rank Awakened perish here. Same for other weaker Vampire Familiars. Luckily, we know that the Blood Burst only works on Thralls, Newborn Vampires, and Familiars.”

“Oh~ I like that… We can just kill all the humans we see then?” Katelyn replied with a smile. Anyway, by the looks of it, she didn’t have plans to let others get close to her as well.

Asta can actually tell that although Katelyn only has a single Rank-S Artifact, she has over twenty hidden weapons at the Rank-A and Rank-B level.

After confirming everything about the plan, the group of four strongest Awakened in the region had finally made their move.

“We’ll wait for the bombardment… I already gave the signal.” Arnold said as they got out of the temporary camp.

Soon, they heard the missiles being launched in a certain direction as the Army started getting active in different parts of the city. This is the cover they had to do in order to conceal their small group’s intention.

“Group Stealth… Windrun… Featherweight…” Arnold then activated three support skills of his Rank-A Artifacts.

Of course, it wasn’t over yet as Asta similar activated her Artifact’s Haste ability. Although slightly similar to Windrun, this is still a Rank-S Artifact and it has a long duration, unlike Windrun’s short burst.

“Ho~ This is fun!” Katelyn have never felt this sensation before as she moved agilely. The combination of the Featherweight and Haste was just too good.

“Ten Thralls ahead… Follow me.”

The one in the front is Steinar. It is because of his Rank-S Monocle Artifact that allows him to have a great vision…

Not only that, but this Artifact also has a great ability called Weakness Detector. Just like its name, it is capable of finding weaknesses or flaws in its target. With this Artifact, they thought that it would help them kill the Vampire Prince who is currently hiding somewhere.

Whoosh~ Whoosh~

The four moved with great speed as they avoided many Vampires. Well, if they had gotten 10 meters closer to the enemies, their Group Stealth that has 10 minutes duration would be canceled after all.

It would be such a waste of good skill as it has an hour of cooldown.

They have to maximize this 10 minutes in this situation!

Now, they can only trust Steinar’s ability to find the hiding place of the Vampire Prince.

They have narrowed down the possible hiding place of the Vampire Prince into three Bloody Fortresses. With his help, they should be able to find the Prince in no time.

“The strongest Vampiric Aura is on the left building… The weakest one is on the right.” Steinar reported.

“Understood… The Prince must be hiding in the right building then. Let’s go.” Arnold said as they moved in unison.

However, before they could get to the Fortress, the Great Stealth’s duration has finally ended.

Because of this, the Vampire Bats surrounding the Fortress detected their presence… Soon, a bunch of Vampire Knights welcomed the four Awakened!

Soon, the headquarters lost the connection to the four individuals… No device or even Artifact could detect the four Awakened and it lasted for eight whole hours!

This news greatly shocked everyone including the people who were waiting and watching the news.

However, they did not lose hope at all since they have noticed that even after the night came, the Vampire’s activity greatly lessened as if they couldn’t be bothered with the Army at all as they retreated to the central part of the city!

Soon, the three huge gatherings of blood called Blood Mass Sacrifice disappeared without a trace!