93: vampire

“You shouldn't kill passing travelers!” The Holy Knight's gaze turned from pity back to determination.

“But I get hungry too!” Aileen's terrifying voice roared, “Don't you hunt wild beasts when you're hungry?”

“Holy Light! Let this poor Undead Creature be judged!” The Holy Knight no longer listened to her explanations; the holy emblems on his chest, breastplate, and shield lit up one by one with sacred radiance.

In the dim underground space, Randall himself transformed into a bright ball of light, charging towards Aileen.

Randall's heavy armor gleamed with a dawn-like halo under the holy emblem's blessing, and amidst the screeching of his tower shield scraping the floor, I smelled the charred scent of carbonized crimson carpet fibers—along the Holy Knight's charge path, the exquisite patterns curled into burning thorns.

I slammed the Red Tassel Spear onto the ground, propped it up, and at the same time, inserted the torch into the gilded and painted dining cart.

Aileen agilely dodged the Holy Knight's cleave, her Hands transforming into sharp claws, instantly grabbing Randall's arm.

The Holy Knight's defeat, as she imagined, did not happen as she expected.

The Holy Knight, wearing this divine armor, is immune to all physical attacks from Undead Creatures.

At the same time, the active ability of this armor is activated: directly eliminating weak Undead Creatures.

Aileen's screams mixed with the booming of flapping bats, her golden hair fading to straw-like gray under the Holy Light's radiation.

Three clusters of bats that collided with the halo instantly carbonized into paper-cut silhouettes; as the remaining bat swarm gathered above the dome's crystal chandelier, her cracked lips twitched uncontrollably.

This ancient vampire was not directly eliminated.

She was as strong as I imagined.

The moment her fangs pierced her lower lip, black blood dripped along her child-like rounded chin.

I chanted a short spell, instantly marking Aileen as my prey with Hunter's Mark.

The Dragon King's Wind Blades struck the vampire in mid-air one after another, but she skillfully dodged them all.

“Undead Creature Immobilization!” The Holy Knight once again activated the sacred ability of his armor.

The remaining chains of the crystal chandelier suddenly tensed, and Aileen, using the momentum, swooped down towards me, bringing a shower of prism fragments.

She also dodged the Undead Creature Immobilization.

I kicked the spear shaft with the back of my foot, then stepped back, hunched over, and thrust the Red Tassel Spearhead fiercely into the air.

The cold glint of the spearhead rapidly magnified in the countless prism fragments and Aileen's pupils.

“Clatter…”

The moment the bat swarm exploded, the Red Tassel Spear passed through their gaps.

Watching the black bat swarm continue to dive rapidly towards me around the Red Tassel Spear, the Holy Knight's shout came from the right: “Holy Mystery!”

It was the powerful ability on Randall's shield!

The bat swarm seemed to withstand the attack, only taking half damage.

But at the same time, they were weakened by the Holy Mystery; now they are more vulnerable to damage.

The Thunderwave incantation rumbling in my throat had already materialized into faint blue runes.

As the sound wave ripples emanating from my fingertips swept across, the air suddenly took on a viscous texture like marsh gas bubbles.

The surging sound wave slammed the bat swarm against the fireplace grate, and twenty-seven bat bodies crashed into blood mist on the cast-iron patterns.

The loud roar of the Thunderwave echoed in the dome, forming a vortex, and the stained glass and other glassware in the room shattered in response.

As Aileen staggered out of the shadows in the corner, she tried to wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth.

A loose cast-iron decorative panel crashed down, and Aileen instinctively lunged towards the fireplace to dodge—this instinctive reaction, born from her human period, caused her rotting vocal cords to suddenly emit the weeping sound of a ten-year-old girl.

Randall's sword edge had transformed into a light-forged sun disc; where the blade passed, the air retained the scent of burning parchment from scriptures.

At the wound where Aileen's left arm was grazed, hundreds of black blood threads struggled and twisted in the Holy Light.

At this moment, my Hands had already switched to two short swords: the fangs of the Vampire Wolf King.

I simultaneously shot out two flying swords, which transformed into two silver arcs, pinning the vampire's back.

Aileen, in despair, suddenly transformed into black mist and darted towards the entrance of the passage we came from.

The two short swords lost their target and fell to the ground.

The moment the wolf sinew vibrated, I spun and flicked my wrist, the flying blades tracing a semicircle in the air—the swirling blades passed through the black mist, and with two “clinks,” they pierced the stone slab on the ground.

Amidst the crisp sound of the twin swords embedding into the stone slab, the black mist vanished into the depths of the passage.

Randall and I chased into the underground ancient tomb we had entered, but still saw no sign of Aileen.

The dripping sound of seeping water suddenly amplified in the quiet tomb, and the torch cast Randall's shadow on the moss-stained tomb wall; that black shadow trembled slightly with the Holy Light lingering on his breastplate.

The stone coffin, which had been pushed open, was now tightly sealed, with frost-like salt crystals condensed along the edge of the lid.

When I raised the torch closer, those salt grains suddenly danced into blue flames in the heat, revealing fresh claw marks on the coffin surface—the size of the ten bloody fingerprints clearly belonged to a young girl.

Randall and I exchanged glances, then cautiously approached the stone coffin.

“My teacher taught me how to deal with vampires,” the Holy Knight said, slinging his tower shield onto his back, “When they are severely wounded, they turn into gas and return to their coffins.”

“Holy Knight Lesson Thirty-Five: A vampire's return to the coffin is like a drowning person clinging to driftwood.” His deep voice was imbued with the lingering echoes of scriptures, “Only holy water, a holy cross, and a holy emblem can destroy her!”

As his silver gauntlet pressed onto the coffin lid, the salt crystals were corroding the metal surface, and the bulging veins in his wrist, combined with the creaking sound of the coffin lid opening, formed an eerie symphony.

The booming sound of the stone coffin lid hitting the ground echoed in the tomb for a long time.

When Randall extended the holy emblem into the coffin, Aileen, curled at the bottom of the coffin, had shed her vampire form, revealing the skeleton of a ten-year-old girl beneath her rotting flesh.

The moment the Holy Emblem's light touched her heart, the remnants of Aileen's vocal cords between her bones vibrated violently: “That child has had a fever for three days in the barn attic…” A bitter scent squeezed out from between her broken throat bones, “Without the goat's milk I stole…”

Randall paused, the Holy Light already shining on the skeleton, “Everyone must pay for their mistakes!”

“I will die one day too. Can you… look after the children in the village for me?” Her hollow eye sockets turned towards me by the stone coffin, “They are all William's children's children. I am willing to trade everything I have, gold, jewels, everything in this underground tomb, for them.”

Tears unknowingly slid down my cheeks, dripping onto the salt crystals at the edge of the stone coffin, making a faint sizzling sound.

“Randall,” my voice was hoarse, “If she is willing to change, can we… give her another chance?”

The Holy Knight's Hand, holding the Holy Emblem, trembled slightly, like the wavering fulcrum of the scales of judgment.

“Ryan,” he sighed, “A vampire's nature is like fire needing fuel; human blood is the fuel they rely on to survive. For hundreds of years, no vampire has ever been able to break free from this curse.”

Aileen's jawbone made a sound like dry branches breaking, and a milk tooth rolled to the bottom of the coffin. “I tried drinking animal blood, even tried elixirs…” Her broken vocal cords squeezed out a bitter laugh, “But every full moon night, that hunger feels like millions of ants gnawing at my bones. I'm tired… truly tired…” Her finger bones gently stroked the hollow eye sockets of her skull, “I only ask that you… look after those children. Look after this village.”

“If,” I choked, my fingers tracing the William family crest on the stone coffin, “If the villagers are willing to become my liege, protecting them will be my duty.”

Aileen's spine suddenly straightened, and her hollow eye sockets glowed faintly. “Swear by the gods!” Her voice suddenly became clear.

“I, Ryan, Lord of Black Panther Fortress, hereby swear in the name of the gods.” I placed my right Hand on my heart and raised my left Hand high, “If the villagers are willing to pledge allegiance to me and become my liege, I will treat them all equally and do my utmost to protect them.”

Aileen's finger bones trembled as they reached into a hidden compartment in the stone coffin, retrieving a yellowed parchment. “The deed…” She pushed the scroll towards me, “Sign your name, register it with the Gorebest government scribe, and you will be the owner of this land.”

“The raven's nest on the third beam of the barn… holds the key to all the treasures in the tomb. Except for the things in the fifth treasury, which are for the village, you can take everything else.” Then she took a brass ring from her finger and threw it to me, “Tell Hand he still wet the bed when he was 9, and I spanked his bottom then; I never told anyone about it. Tell Shirley that on her first day of marriage, I gave her an apple, and she stopped crying. Tell… them, I will always love them…”

As the brass ring rolled into my palm, Aileen embraced her lover's skull, hugging it towards the Holy Emblem in Randall's Hand.

As the Holy Light consumed her last trace of form, I saw the inscription on the inner wall of the ring by the torchlight… Beside the crooked oath, there was also a small line of text: “Aileen will always protect William.”