Obscure War (4)

"She cheated!" a woman on a balcony complained. Others murmured to each other. "How could they…" "Even her father wouldn't…" "She can't be our queen!" "Yes, she's unfit!"

Vampire society was ruled by strength, so Raphael Vanthorn had gotten an immense following throughout the Obscure Guild. However, he was killed by outside interference during a duel. Despite their murderous tendencies, vampires liked to remain classy and fair. As such, Gabriella's false victory wasn't received well.

Gabriella Rivampe remained frozen in place. She felt ashamed as guilt overtook her and glances were thrown at her, the rightful heir.

Raphael's masked vampires were not about to accept defeat as they pointed their weapons at the rule breakers.

"Don't worry. We'll protect you." Said Luo as he, Jenna and Isaac quickly formed a circle around Gabriella.

Out of the dozen of vampires, four attacked. They targeted Jenna and Luo as Isaac smashed his hand against the ground and enclosed themselves in red-magic to prevent more vampires from jumping in.

The one with a spear was the first to attack. Luo dodged to the side and threw a blue fiery punch. Another vampire in a hideous pig mask came a second later, scratching the fire mage's shoulder with his sharp claws.

Jenna fought against one in a silver demonic mask. She dodged her two bright red daggers but almost succumbed to another vampire's blade. However, she cut it clean with her plasma daggers and eliminated the latter before focusing on the woman in a silver mask.

A bull-masked vampire in a leather jersey jacket aimed at Isaac's shield and fired with his grenade launcher.

"Hurry and kill them!" Isaac managed to preserve the red-magic field but knew it couldn't last much longer.

Having glanced at Isaac and Jenna, Luo quickly finished off his two opponents amongst blue flames, medium-rank vampires were weak to fire, and took on Jenna's opponent. Jenna Angel sat on the floor and meditated to activate her soul manifestation.

*Boom!*

The shield broke down at the second grenade. It was a three-versus-nine.

When Luo smashed the demon-masked's head against his knee and burned him, four new vampires had already arrived. He knew that while he could predict and avoid their attacks even if they were medium-rank vampires, four quick vampires at once was too much, even for him. Luo charged his body with fire and leaped into the air, intending to fight aerially.

Jenna, who couldn't fly with her spirit manifestation, had to defend against three vampires, including the bull-masked one with a grenade launcher. Each move of hers shook the arena, yet the spectators stayed out of excitement or hatred directed against Gabriella and the humans.

She tried to grab or hit some of the vampires, her moves weren't slow at all despite the manifestation's giant size, yet the vampires were much quicker than her. When they flew up, Jenna couldn't hit them. When they dashed, she could only see their afterimage. Despite their artillery and close combat attacks, the vampires couldn't break the soul manifestation and go through her.

There was a single high-rank vampire amongst them. He went for Isaac. The young mage couldn't react in time as the vampire's sword plunged into him. He didn't even have time to shift his body to minimize the damage, getting stabbed directly in the heart.

"Ah!" Gabriella watched in horror as Isaac coughed up blood yet moved effortlessly, jumping onto the vampire. The vampire couldn't pull out his sword in time as Isaac crushed his head with red magic, blowing it up to confetti.

Isaac could hardly breathe when he pushed off the dead vampire. Not a second later, a final vampire fired his rifle at him. Six bullets passed through Isaac Tremblay's body before he collapsed.

'I can't feel anything at all,' he thought he was dying, but a sudden pain pierced his heart. 'I have to imbue more red magic. We can't lose, not yet.'

Isaac focused on his mana flow, focusing red magic around his heart and his bullet holes, it healed him enough for now, but he couldn't move like he wanted and fell into a coma.

"Stop," Gabriella said at the corner of her mouth.

No one heard her.

She glanced at Luo, Jenna and Isaac.

Luo had already reached his limits when a vampire kicked him in the stomach. Losing control of his flight, he crashed on the cold arena's floor with a few broken bones.

Jenna wasn't doing well, either. Her manifestation was at its damage threshold. The grenades and the constant melee attacks had exhausted her.

"Stop it," Gabriella's eyes widened.

Isaac was barely alive.

"STOP IT, I SAID!" Her dark, majestic wings grew from her back, sharper and thicker than any other vampire.

Everyone paused to look at the queen in the air, all but the vampire with the grenade launcher who aimed at Jenna. Gabriella flew down and struck his back with such force that her arm came out on the other side.

All sights were now on her.

She cleared her throat. "Your king is dead!"

No one spoke.

"I may have won unfairly, but our duel wasn't fair, to begin with! How could you let a teenager fight against an old vampire for the future of the vampire race?

"For hundreds of years, hasn't it been the pureness of our blood which rules? I'm the only one who can turn people into high vampires and keep our lineage. Unless you accept me as your Vampiric Queen, we will become history!

She took the grenade launcher and pointed it at her feet. "You have two choices: Accept me as Queen, or let us be the last generation of vampires!"

The public grew quiet as they considered her words. Some changed their minds, while others remained skeptical that she would be a good queen or was bold enough to kill herself. Her father wasn't a good regent, they thought. And despite continuing the line, Arthea Rivampe hadn't done much for the vampires.

"I won't accept that!" One of the masked vampires rushed towards Isaac.

"NO!" Gabriella cried out. She knew she couldn't get to him in time; the tall vampire was already on top of him, his golden dagger pointing at Isaac's neck.