Chương 35

Oliver froze. This was most definitely a trap. There was absolutely no chance a level 59 vampire was on kitchen duty wearing rags. Doubly as unlikely with the werewolves actively assaulting their front door. Slowly, he looked back at Kiki with wide eyes. He couldn't say anything to her, not without alerting the vampire, so he flicked his hand, gesturing for her to go back.

Instead of following through with his request, Kiki stepped past him, proving that he had made an exceptionally wise decision not to include her in his initial reconnaissance mission. Her katana hummed and glowed neon pink as she unsheathed it.

"Hey! You there!" Kiki pointed her sword at the vampire.

"What do you have in that pot?" The vampire stopped stirring and slowly turned to face them. She cocked her head, a smile spreading unnaturally wide across her face.

"Ben. How has Kiki not died before today?" Oliver asked the drone." There have been some close calls,"the [Technomancer] admitted." But she's survived largely because most things that threaten her suffer from a sudden case of beheading soon after."

"You wish to see inside the pot?" the vampire asked with a sultry voice.

"Step closer and I'll show you, dearie." Before Kiki could do something even dumber, like actually step forward, Oliver unloaded his blunderbuss into the vampire. But before the BANG even finished sounding, a crimson wave erupted from the pot, shielding the vampire from harm. Blood. Of course she was boiling a pot of blood, what else would a vampire be cooking in a kitchen? Especially one with the class [Blood Manipulator].

Oliver wasted no time as he reloaded his blunderbuss, hoping for another opportunity to shoot with Kiki here to act as a front line. The same basic strategy they'd used against the hoards of ghosts in the last biome. Kiki in the front, Oliver in the back. The curtain of bubbling blood split, revealing the vampire unharmed from his first shot. She reached a hand out and the bullet fell from a strand of blood into her open palm. Her mocking sneer twisted to pain as the metal touched her open skin.

"Silver?" the vampire hissed. She cast the bullet aside, her hand now sizzling from the moment of contact.

"We've got more than just silver," Kiki declared. She charged her foe, slashing with her blade. Neon flashed through the air accompanying her sword strikes and cutting through the dark ambiance of the castle's kitchen. The vampire blocked with crimson blades of her own. Coagulated blood met Kiki's sword. Kiki's skill allowed her blade to slice through most things, but the liquid nature of the blood made the vampire's defense uniquely difficult to penetrate.

The blade was trapped in the blood as the liquid pressed on the flat of the sword from either side, pinning it in place. Unfortunately for them, that defensive maneuver required very little of the vampire's current blood supply. Two more hardened spikes that shot out to skewer Kiki. One of the spikes missed with the other only grazed Kiki as she shifted her stance. Her high-tech samurai armor absorbed the blow with only a dent.

The change in stance helped her evade a mortal blow to the gut, but it placed her in a precarious position, the blood twisting her katana around. Between Kiki's new position and the weight of her own bloodied blade bearing down on her, Kiki was forced to pull her sword away and disengage from the clash. Thankfully, those seconds she'd bought hadn't gone to waste. Oliver raised his reloaded gun.

The vampire saw the attack coming and prepared herself, also shifting into a defensive tactic with the blood once again forming a shield. The barrier completely blocked Oliver's line of sight, the swirling red liquid protecting the vampire from his bullet. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Only, Oliver's attack never came. At least, not the one the vampire had prepared for. Instead, Oliver lashed out with a handful of powdered silver.

It gleamed in the torchlight as it passed through the space between him and the vampire. Some dust got caught on Kiki, but the most sizzled through the blood barrier and caught the vampire completely off guard. She howled something incomprehensible. Kiki capitalized on that moment of distraction, once again lunging forward with her blade. However, the vampire hadn't reached level 59 without trial or tribulation.

The bloodsucker clearly had been hardened by years of battle experience, not to mention whatever other memories had been installed in her by the experimenters. Even through the pain of silver flakes melting holes in her exposed skin, the vampire still manipulated the blood in front of her with extraordinary power. The [Blood Manipulator] smashed Kiki's blade down with the blunt force of all of the available remaining blood, rather than exercising finesse to catch and twist Kiki's sword like earlier.

Unfortunately for her, Kiki wasn't a low-level opponent deterred by something as simple as a wall of blood. The vampire's wild defenses altered Kiki's blade's trajectory, but didn't halt it. Pink neon glowed, illuminating the blood surrounding it as it punctured the vampire's hip. The sword sliced deep, the vampire's servant rags ripping alongside its flesh. Kiki dropped into a crouch and pressed up against the bloodless wound, using her sword like a spear as she skewered her enemy with an upward jab.

It physically lifted the vampire up and let gravity work against the bloodsucker's escape from the blade. While a non-lethal attack against the creature of the night, the wound Kiki inflicted would cripple most any mortal. Sadly, vampires weren't considered mortal. Despite the literal blade chopping through her internals, Kiki's blade appeared to hurt the vampire less than Oliver's silver dust. While certainly inconvenienced by the metal jammed through its body, the vampire's face was neutral.

Not even remotely comparable to the scream Oliver's dust had gotten out of the bloodsucker. The vampire pressed forward, sliding down the length of the blade, letting it pierce through her torso. She grasped at Kiki with claws that lengthened by the second, closer and closer to Kiki's resolute face. The bloodsucker's face was now a twisted horror with eyes completely consumed by scarlet and an unhinged jaw that snapped up and down. Lips curled back, Oliver had an open display of its pale gums and fanged canines.

It was approaching, more monstrous for every inch it slid down the blade. The blood, now coating the floor around them, bubbled and boiled as the vampire took on a new form. Still, Kiki's assault had not been in vain. It served as a vital distraction. Oliver lined up his shot, and fired. The vampire's head jolted backwards, bits of shattered white teeth sprayed out of her mouth alongside the squirt of black blood. Then she slumped on Kiki's blade, the bullet having pierced through the skull.

"Damn. You stole another kill from me," Kiki muttered. She tipped her katana down and let the vampire slip off it and collapse in a heap at her feet. The body splattered in the pool of blood, staining its pale body.

"Not yet," Oliver replied. He reached for one of the tools holstered at his belt, then tossed Kiki a sharpened wooden stake. She caught it and frowned.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Oliver rolled his eyes. He'd explained this after they arrived in the biome.

"If you want the kill, stake Evelyn there with it. Straight through the heart. Otherwise the vampire will recover in a few minutes. Faster, if any of that blood she's lying in gets into her system. Silver bullets work better on werewolves than bloodsuckers. My attack won't immediately kill her, just cause pain. I'm lucky it tore through a bit of her brain. It looks like the damage has caused her to go comatose for a bit. Still, she'll heal it if you let her."

Without further prompting, Kiki raised the stake high over her head. Oliver watched as his companion brought it down on her enemy with a speed that blurred, clearly enhanced with an extreme amount of Dexterity. Evelyn jolted as the stake pierced through the servant's rags and into the vampiric heart beneath the cloth and skin. The bloodsucker's arms lashed up in the direction of Kiki, claws out and about to clamp on her like a flytrap. Kiki jolted back, abandoning the stake buried in the vampire's chest.

But she needn't have worried. All the strength left their enemy, the claws inches from where Kiki had been. The arms stiffened, then flopped down. A limp and lifeless corpse was all that remained of the fearsome creature of the night.

"Nice." Kiki removed her helmet and wiped the blood splatters from its visor with the dead monster's rags. She smiled as she stood, showing her teeth. There was a greedy gleam in her dark eyes.

"That was great experience. Probably the highest level I've fought since getting here. Let's kill a few more while we find the [Technomancer]'s server."