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墨書 Inktalez
By the flickering campfire, the guards were still lost in the joy of reunion, completely unaware of everything happening around them.
At that moment, the gravestone closest to the guards suddenly trembled, loose soil sliding away with a rustling sound. Following that, a dry and decayed hand reached out!
The guards gathered around the recently returned Baisaro, happily drinking Wheat Beer, occasionally letting out loud whistles. No one noticed that about twenty meters away from them, a rotting corpse was slowly crawling out of its grave…
In its hollow eyes, a faint green glow emerged as it suddenly turned its head, fixating its gaze on the guard team.
Not far away, Garen watched this “uninvited guest.” Just as he raised his Stormblade, a whooshing sound of slicing air echoed from behind. The corpse had almost instantaneously reached the back of the guard team!
“What the…”
At that moment, the guard team finally noticed the commotion behind them. A chorus of startled exclamations erupted, but before anyone could react, the corpse lunged with a loud thud at one of the guards!
Suddenly, it was that Short Man!
His expression was filled with terror; before he could respond, two sharp fangs pierced his neck. His body convulsed violently as his muscles rapidly shriveled up, and in an instant, he became a lifeless corpse.
He was dead!
It was unimaginable that this man, who had just moments ago been holding Wheat Beer, apologizing to Garen and cheering with everyone else, had died just like that!
“Stand guard! Stand guard!”
Black Duncan was the first to react. He drew his sword from his waist and shouted, "Baisaro, prepare a magical attack! Boor! You go protect Baisaro!"
The guards snapped back to reality, drawing their swords and surrounding the creature that was lying on Short Man's corpse. Anger surged in their eyes; they clearly struggled to accept the truth of their comrade's death.
"Boom!"
Behind the lineup, under Boor's protection, the mage Baisaro quickly pulled out a magic scroll and unleashed a Fireball spell. A crackling fireball materialized, tracing a bright line of flame as it slammed into the enemy with a resounding crash!
However, when the searing fireball struck, the creature showed no signs of injury!
Instead, illuminated by the fireball's glow, everyone could see that the monster's decaying body was gradually becoming more robust! Its gaunt face, pale and sickly, slowly turned to gaze at the nearest guard.
"A vampire... he is a vampire! He belongs to the blood clan!"
A gasp erupted among the guards. The targeted guard trembled uncontrollably, dropping his sword to the ground as despair washed over him.
At that moment, the vampire seemed to sense something. It suddenly turned its head, but before it could see anything clearly, a straight beam of golden light shot toward it. With a loud bang, it sent the vampire flying several meters away!
At the end of that golden light stood Garen, wielding Stormblade!
Following his line of sight, they saw a gruesome wound on the vampire's chest, oozing thick green blood. At that moment, the flesh on the vampire was beginning to wither away, and even its two fangs quickly retracted…
Seeing this scene, Garen finally let out a sigh of relief.
Black Duncan's eyes were still wide with shock as he took two deep breaths. "Sir Garen, thanks to you arriving just in time..."
His voice was suddenly interrupted.
Garen's expression turned serious as he said, "We need to go."
Black Duncan was taken aback for a moment, instinctively following Garen's gaze. There, thirty meters away, in front of another tombstone, a decaying corpse was slowly rising…
A second vampire?!
"Retreat! Retreat!"
Black Duncan quickly snapped back to reality and shouted hoarsely, "Drop all heavy items and retreat immediately!"
Garen stared at the vampire crawling out, his expression growing increasingly grave. Although Fatal Strike had a magic suppression effect that could effectively restrain the power of the blood clan, it was important to note that a level four warrior's Fighting Spirit was not very deep. Especially with an attack of that magnitude, it could only be unleashed three times at most!
More importantly…
Who knew how many blood clan members were lurking in this cursed place?
"This way!"
At that moment, a clear voice called out, and Yasthia was seen waving from not far away.
Under Black Duncan's command, the guards quickly changed direction and ran toward Yasthia while continuously discarding their heavy items to conserve energy.
Garen followed at the back of the lineup, remaining vigilant against the recently awakened vampire.
The good news for Unique was that, aside from the vampire knocked down by Garen, it seemed that only this one, which had just awakened, remained. At least for now, there was no sign of a third vampire.
The team had been running through the overgrown graveyard for nearly two hours. During this time, the vampire had attempted to ambush them three times, but each time Garen had managed to intercept it in time. Fortunately, there had been no casualties.
However, soon everyone became aware of another problem...
This graveyard seemed endless!
After two full hours of frantic running, they still hadn’t escaped this graveyard!
“There must be something wrong…”
Garen furrowed his brow. Looking back, he saw the vampire still trailing them from a distance, like a tail they couldn’t shake off. Perhaps due to its failed ambushes earlier, it seemed to have developed some caution towards Garen and refrained from making any reckless moves.
At the same time, this was bad news because after two hours of relentless running, everyone was exhausted. If they continued like this, it wouldn’t be long before someone collapsed from exhaustion.
Suddenly, Garen realized something.
Over a hundred meters away, the vampire’s body appeared to be standing taller than before. Its once decayed and festering flesh seemed to have filled out considerably, as if... it had just fed on blood!
Garen's heart sank as he turned to look at the running team.
Black Duncan, Yasthia, Baisaro, and the twenty-two guards who were all drained of energy and wore desperate expressions... not a single person was missing?
Then why was that?
Blood is almost a second life for the bloodline, and only the blood of the living can heal their various injuries. But if no one in the team has been lost, why is this vampire's vitality growing stronger?
Did someone secretly feed him blood? Impossible! Garen remained vigilant against the vampire while keeping an eye on everyone's actions; he noticed no one behaving unusually.
At that moment, a cold laugh echoed from the lineup.
"Heh heh... Die! Everyone should die! You all deserve to die!"
Turning towards the sound, they saw a middle-aged guard suddenly stop, a sinister smile spreading across his face as his chilling gaze swept over everyone present.
"Naxus! Are you insane?!" Black Duncan exclaimed, momentarily stunned before shouting in anger.
However, Naxus seemed not to hear him. He slowly turned around and once again let out a hoarse laugh directed at the distant vampire.
"Come on! Come kill me! Hahahaha, come kill me!..."
The entire team finally came to a halt, all staring at Naxus in disbelief.
Black Duncan stormed over angrily but was stopped by Garen.
Garen shook his head and said, "He's gone mad."
Black Duncan gasped in shock, and as realization dawned on him, he looked back at Naxus with a hint of pity in his eyes.
Indeed, after running for two full hours through the eerie graveyard while worrying about the terrifying "demon" behind them, anyone's mind would be pushed to its limits.
Not only Naxus, but also the other twenty-one guards present, and even Black Duncan himself, would eventually end up like Naxus if this continued—terrified, insane, and broken.
“Are we just going to leave him here?” Black Duncan said after a long silence.
In this situation, there was no longer room to consider humanity, kindness, or friendship. The mad Naxus had already become an unstable factor, likely to bring even greater disaster to the team.
Garen shook his head.
“Let’s knock him out. We can’t let that vampire replenish its blood…”
At this point, Garen’s voice suddenly trailed off.
Black Duncan looked at him in surprise, following Garen’s gaze. His expression changed drastically.
In the pitch-black night, to the left of the vampire… another figure appeared!
This was…
The third vampire!
Unlike the previous two, this vampire's flesh was still decaying, clearly having awakened not long ago, possibly just having crawled out of its grave.
The two ghostly figures lingered in the night like the deepest nightmare.
Garen stared at the two figures and suddenly thought of a possibility.
"Did you notice it too?"
The speaker was the wizard Baisaro. After two hours of running, his face looked quite pale. He cast a deep glance at Garen. "If I'm not mistaken, perhaps it is we who have created these vampires."
Garen turned to look at Baisaro.
"Baisaro, what do you mean?" Black Duncan asked, confused.
"I once read something similar in a book of magic. It is said that apart from the bloodline vampires, ordinary vampires are quite weak. They can only rely on seduction, deception, and schemes to obtain their blood sustenance."
Baisaro narrowed his eyes and explained, "So, it is very likely that we have stumbled into a vampire's magic circle."
"And this magic circle itself cannot be considered powerful; it can only be activated by certain external factors, such as... fear!"
Those who can become wizards tend to have more active minds, so Garen was not surprised that Baisaro could think of this.
As he said, they had likely intruded upon a vampire's magic circle.
This magic circle was not strong; in fact, it initially lacked any offensive capability. However, when a large amount of fear was transmitted into the magic circle, it would be activated.
Just like when the Short Man died, he must have been filled with immense fear, which is why the second vampire appeared.
Now, Naxus had collapsed under pressure, leading to the awakening of the third vampire.
If one were to observe closely, they would also notice that the faces of those two vampires bore a resemblance to the Short Man and Naxus—about fifty to sixty percent alike—after all, their existence stemmed from the fears of these two individuals.
This was quite troublesome, as the members of the team were already teetering on the edge of collapse. Not far away, two vampires were feeding on fear and growing stronger...
Wait!
Garen suddenly realized a problem.
If all of his earlier guesses were correct...
Then how did the first vampire awaken?!
Unless...
Garen turned around and scanned everyone present.
Unless someone in the team had already died before Short Man met his end!
“Sir Garen? Sir Garen! Where are you going?”
At that moment, Black Duncan suddenly exclaimed twice, seeing Garen's tall figure suddenly spring into action, sprinting back along the path they had taken to escape.
...
Half an hour later, Garen returned to the original campsite.
At this moment, the glow of the campfire had dimmed considerably, yet the faint crackling sound of burning could still be heard. In this desolate graveyard, it seemed to become a unique sound.
Garen finally stopped in front of the corpse of a vampire.
He reached out and turned the body over.
A mass of maggots crawled out from within. Despite the fact that the face of the corpse had completely rotted away, one could still vaguely recognize the features of this person.
It was a familiar face.
"So it was you!"
Just then, in the reflection of the campfire's light not far away, a dark figure slowly approached.
"Ah, you truly are a brave and clever person."
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