About five minutes...that's how long Persia could stay in her VamPanther Mode, probably because it had somehow merged with her Retractable Anima instead of being a seperate Vampire Mode transformation. In comparison to my Vampire Mode, her speed and strength were just about two thirds of mine...more specifically, my Vampire Mode is fifteen times my normal state, and she was currently ten times my normal state in terms of speed and strength, plus her flexibility was even greater than before.

Which meant that once she learnt how to use the Accelerate Cross...she could reach a speed that was forty times my normal state. Holy crap...

​​

If she could use that level of speed now, she might even be able to solo Lazarus...but there was no point in trying to force it when she couldn't even activate it yet. Still, once she masters it, she'll the fastest person in the world by a huge margin. Heck, forget the two-minute quadruple boost, even the double and triple boosts would make her faster than I am in Vampire Mode.

"Heh, I can probably beat you in a fight after I learn how to use this Cross...then again, you'll probably get another random power boost before too long," She remarked with a laugh, as we headed for the rendezvous point.

"Yeah, I wish it was that convenient...I certainly wouldn't complain if I did get one though."

Looks like the coast is clear, I don't sense any other Vampires nearby. Also, back when we were setting up this plan, I remember Les saying that it was a small church...it looked pretty massive to me though. Granted, this was the first church I'd seen since coming to this world, but come on...how is that small? It was taller than any of the buildings we had passed by so far, and was pretty wide too.

As we got within three hundred meters of the church and continued closing in, I could sense a few people inside...four, to be specific. Definitely not Vampires, so they had to be some of the others...

"We finally made it here," Sighed Persia in relief.

"Yeah, it's taken a little over a day, but we're here...we've completed the first stage of this mission."

All in all, I'd say things had gone pretty well so far...I wonder how everyone else was doing?

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Point-of-View: Selesa Jeule

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This feels like it's taking forever...it had been over twenty hours since I started, and I was exhausted as fuck. I had only encountered and fought two Vampires so far, but I was still really, really tired...and that was probably because I had barely taken any breaks.

I couldn't help it, everytime I felt tired and stopped to rest, I start feeling really paranoid about how much distance I have left to cover and as a result, it becomes super difficult to just relax and regain some stamina. I was part of the group that was heading to the west side of Silvland after coming in through the north wall, and the rendezvous point where we were supposed to meet was at the boundary of the slums, where the middle-class area started.

There was a small building there that was usually occupied by guards, who had the job of preventing the slum residents from crossing the border into the middle-class area. But given the circumstances, that building was sure to be unoccupied now, making it the ideal place to meet up. I wonder where the others who are supposed to rendezvous at the west are...we had all left around the same time and in the same direction, I was a bit surprised that I hadn't crashed into anyone, regardless of the fact that we had all started out with a fair bit of space between each other before equipping the Stealth barriers.

Then again, there were multiple routes to get to the rendezvous point, through the streets, or the alleyways, or on the rooftops, or a mix of all of those options...and some of the weaker members of this group might be moving at a slower pace due to fear. It wasn't impossible that some might have even opted to run away.

As for me, I was moving along the edge of the slum area, this way, I'd make it to the rendezvous point for sure, without having to worry about getting lost. I grew up in the east side of Silvland, and I knew the south area pretty well too, but the north and west I wasn't too familiar with, so I wasn't taking any chances.

Ughhh, how much more distance do I need to-...oh, there it is, the rendezvous point. Guess I really hadn't needed to rush after all. That was the good news. Unfortunately, the bad news outweighed the good news. There were a bunch of Vampires here. I should have figured that they'd beef up security to the west after the diversionary attack. We were several kilometers in from the west gate, but I could see faint wisps of smoke rising in the distance from its direction.

Okay...what the heck do I do? There must be at least twenty Vampires here. It looked like most of them were Minions, but I also spotted three Generals and one Knight. There isn't any point in going into the rendezvous point like this, with all these Vampires teeming around it. Until I can think of an alternative plan, I might as well get closer and listen in to their conversations...its not like they can spot me like this.

Okay, I can hear that they're talking...but not about anything particularly important. I think they're discussing at which age human life force tastes the best or something...kinda creepy, but definitely not helpful. An hour passed...followed by another...

And then, finally, they spoke about something actually worthwhile, the diversionary attack yesterday...

"The attack yesterday...it was rather strange," Remarked the Vampire Knight with a frown.

"What do you mean, Lady Cynfael?" Asked one of the Generals.

Cynfael, I definitely saw that name in the list of Vampires that the Rustlands' Guild made available after Atticus and Kuro have given them the details...Demelza Cynfael, if I remember right. Her Cross was Repulsion, if she pointed either of her palms at an opponent within twenty-five meters of her, she could send them flying back without even touching them, the intensity would depend on how close they were to her.

She wore the same cape that all Vampire Knights wore. She had short hair, that was a mix of black, white and gray, with a red streak down the middle, and wore a red tube top and dark blue shorts with thigh-high black boots.

"Those that attacked us appeared to be the survivors from The Empire, the ones that destroyed their own nation and dozens of our Minions along with it. And considering that even the Generals and Knights we sent there suffered casualties, with the Generals nearly all wiped out...it is safe to assume that those were some rather powerful humans, far stronger than any we encountered prior to our imprisonment by that human, Ginma Docer."

That name kinda sounded familiar...oh, now I remember! She was talking about the guy who made the Forbidden Zone barrier spell...and then destroyed it after sealing up all the most dangerous monsters in the resulting barriers, to make sure than no one would ever be able to reverse-engineer a spell that could undo a Forbidden Zone. He was a citizen of Silvland at the time, but as soon as he finished setting up the Forbidden Zones, he mysteriously disappeared without a trace...probably assassinated by jealous rivals or something.

"What I am getting at is this...if those humans really were so powerful, why did they only attack from outside the west gate without coming in, and when we attacked them, they did not put up much of a resistance and were killed quite easily. That does not make sense to me."

Looks like she's pretty sharp, huh...

"Perhaps they used up all of their Magic energy- their Mana. They did use some rather powerful attacks," Pointed out one of the Vampire Generals.

"Yes, such large and powerful attacks, launched instantly...that does not make sense either...even the most powerful of humans would need time to charge up such attacks, that is a fact that applies to us as well, we cannot fire highly destructive Blood Magic blasts without first taking some time to build them up. Hm, Eighty-Seven mentioned something similar when she returned in defeat...an ambush with powerful attacks launched instantly, which she was able to counter using her Cross. Perhaps I am overthinking this, they may have simply attacked us out of sheer desperation...but I cannot shake the feeling that we are overlooking something here."

Crap, she's really sharp...though from what I was hearing, the diversionary team didn't put in any effort to mask the fact that it was a diversion, they must have just showed up and launched the attacks without thinking too much due to fear...and then they all got killed.

"I did consume the life force of one of them...and now that I think about it, it was rather mediocre. Humans with the capability to fight us Vampires on equal or even greater terms have much richer life forces due to having greater Magical power...I believe you are onto something, Lady Cynfael."

Uh-oh, this isn't looking too good, it'd be easier to kill off the Vampire King if the other strong Vampires are all spread out, but now this one seemed to be considering heading back to the castle...

"I will return to the castle, this does not bode well...we must discuss this matter with King Lazarus. I leave the three of you in charge of guarding this area, do not disappoint me!"

Not good...

"Understood!"

This is bad, but on the bright side, it should take her a while to get to the castle from here, at least four or five hours at top speed. In other words, I don't have to worry about her coming back here anytime soon. But...there were still nineteen Vampires here, way too many for me to take on by myself. There was a good chance that some of the others might have made it here already, heck, there might be someone right next to me and I wouldn't know it.

What do I do, maybe just wait out here till the thirty-hour mark and then attack? No, that won't work, not everyone had stopwatches on them, and besides, there were over seven hours left, someone could easily panic and act prematurely in that time. Wait, what if I pick off these Vampires one by one? There were a few shabby buildings around here, and the Vampires were pretty well spread out, I could try luring them to the alleys or behind buildings and then fight them one by one...it was risky, but it might be my best option here.

Okay, nineteen Vampires, which one should I-...wait, hold on...one, two, three, four, five, six...I count sixteen Vampires. Three of the Minions were gone. I then noticed one that was sitting on top of the roof of a rundown old hut turn his attention to the area behind the house and stood up, walking over and jumping down. I waited for about five minutes, keeping a close eye on that spot, but he never emerged. Did someone else get the same idea that I did?

Let's see, most of the people who had been sent to the east and west were A-Ranked Adventurers and The Empire's lapdogs, with a total of only three S-Ranks...of the ones who were sent west, there were two S-Ranks, myself...and Les. Alright, that settles it, time to-...

"What is this, I cannot sense all the Minions...," Suddenly remarked one of the Generals, before stiffening and beginning to exclaim, "I just felt one presence disappear, behind that-!"

Crap, this is bad! I need to do something! Before I could fully think it through, I shot towards the three Vampire Generals, slipping behind them and deactivating my Stealth barrier. I then took out a couple of smoke bombs and flung them forward into the air as hard as I could, with a blast of wind to speed them up. They exploded high in the air, and the instant all the Vampire Minions turned their gazes up at it, I took out the other barrier spell and quickly activated it, trapping the Generals in with me.

As they began to turn around, I equipped my knuckle-blades and shot forward, driving the blades into one of their chests and firing off a blast of Propulsion from my feet, slamming his back against the wall of the barrier, before swinging out slashes of wind from the blades as fast as I could, bursting out scything streaks of wind into his body.

He screamed in pain before going up in red flames and disappeared as I struck his neck, shattering his core. I then blasted myself straight up with a burst of Propulsion as the other two Vampires fired Blood Magic blasts at me, my boots getting a bit scorched, but I managed to narrowly avoid taking any damage myself.

"Where did you come from, human!?"

"It does not matter, kill her!"

I fired off a blast of wind from my mouth, kicking up a dust cloud as they sprang away to avoid it, the blast hitting the ground. Damn it, this barrier is fairly spacious but it wasn't big enough to fight two on one, ideally, I'd like to move around a lot with Flight, so I was really restricted in here.

I kept my distance while flying around and firing wind blasts at them and dodging their Blood Magic attacks, but I can't keep this up forever, and I definitely can't land a finishing blow like this. I was only able to take out that first Vampire because they were distracted by the smoke bomb I tossed up, and the fact that from their perspective, I literally appeared out of thin air. In other words, the element of surprise. Which was something that was used up almost instantly. I'm screwed.

Come one, just stay calm...I can probably keep dodging for a while longer, I can think up a plan-...before I could finish my thought, one of the Vampires extended out his arms like snakes, zipping towards me and grabbing my ankles, before flinging me to a corner of the barrier. I crashed down painfully, my head hitting the wall of the barrier and the wind knocked out of me. Ow, that sucked harder than a teen girl with daddy issues...stupid, stupid, I forgot about their Crosses.

"Now you die, human. But first, you will answer our questions," Remarked one of them, as they both surrounded me...I was literally cornered.

And ahead of the barrier, I could see that a bunch of the Vampire Minions were headed this way with confused expressions...that's right, they could probably still sense the presences of these two. Which means I can't take down the barrier...is this it for me?

"What is the matter human, do you not have any cards left to play?" Scoffed the other Vampire, charging up a Blood Magic blast in his hand, "Move or refuse to answer our questions and I will incinerate your legs off. Where did you come from, and why are you here?"

Cards...oh, that's right, how could I forget!? The day before yesterday, while we were all preparing for this attack, I maybe, sorta, kinda stole something...an Extract Spell...

"Okay, I'll talk...I had a message to deliver from my leader, uh...Tirayze Valaque. My orders were to deliver this message to the Vampire King, and kill any Vampires I ran into along the way."

"Oh? And what is this message?"

"It's in my pocket, I'll take it out now...don't shoot, I'm not stupid enough to try something in this position...," I lied, taking out the Spell Card and holding it out to them, before quickly running my Mana through it as one of them reached for it, "Now, Extract!"

Flames suddenly appeared, roaring and swirling in front of me, before spinning forward with immense intensity and scale, as I swiftly deactivated the barrier. Panicked cries rang out from the Vampire Minions, who'd just been a handful of meters away from the barrier before I took it down, way too close to dodge this. I blasted wind out of my hands with as much intensity as I could muster, strengthening the flaming tornado as it swallowed up the Vampires...and before long, red flashes went off within it, as the Vampires were scorched to death.

I then blinked...and got startled when I opened my eyes, a bunch of people around me. The others...they really had been here this whole time. Les too...and his armor was a bit damaged, looks like it really was him who had been picking off the Minions.

"So much for covert, huh?" He remarked with a pointed stare at me, as the flames died down, not a single Vampire left.

"Hey, things happened and I had to improvise. And besides, we took them all out, so we didn't blow our cover!" I replied with a grin, a huge sense of relief washing over me...I totes thought I was a goner back there.

"That was amazing!"

"Yeah, you seem like an idiot, but you really are an S-Ranked Adventurer!"

"Exactly, you always act like a fool but I guess when it matters, you can be competent!"

"Hey!" I protested indignantly, as the others crowded me.

"Yeah, that was pretty amazing...but hold on, you're a Wind Magic user, and that flame attack was-...wait, were you the one who stole one of the Extract spells!? I knew I didn't miscount them!" Exclaimed one of the A-Ranked Adventurers.

"Oh, uh...sorry about that?" I apologized sheepishly.

"Alright, we need to stay vigilant...we somehow cleared the obstacles to our rendezvous point, let's not waste that effort now...everyone, reactivate your Stealth barriers and head into the building," Commanded Les, as he scanned our surroundings warily, before looking around at us, "Hm, nine including me...it looks like there are still seven who are yet to arrive. And we still have several hours left before the next phase of the plan. Focus on rest and recovering any lost stamina."

"Right!"

"Understood!"

...heyyy, why are they taking him more seriously than they took me? I'm the older sibling of the two! Eh, whatever...that had been really close, but I somehow managed to squeak through safely...'focus on rest and recovering any lost stamina', huh...yeah, that sounded pretty damn good right now...

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