I Awakened The Ancient Vampire System

System Quest Generated:

Defeat Wei Chen

Reward: ????

They charged.

Two blurs converging on the ruined battlefield — one trailing silver light, the other trailing white. The Moon Shattering Blade met Wei Chen’s plain steel in a ringing clash that sent a shockwave ripping outward, flattening grass in a thirty-meter circle.

CLANG.

Lucian’s arms vibrated from the impact. Wei Chen’s expression didn’t change. Their swords locked, grain against crescent edge, and for a single second they stared at each other — crimson eyes meeting black.

Lucian disengaged, spun, and swung.

"Elipse Sword Art — Crescent Moon Slash."

The arc of mana extended beyond the blade — a crescent of compressed light and spatial distortion screaming toward Wei Chen’s chest.

Wei Chen didn’t dodge. He raised his sword and swung back.

"Celestial Severance — First Form: Starfall."

A vertical line of concentrated intent crashed into the crescent. The two techniques met mid-air — light against sword pressure, spatial distortion against pure willpower. For a heartbeat, they held. Then the crescent cracked, fractured, and exploded into harmless sparks. The remainder of Starfall clipped Lucian’s shoulder — a shallow cut that healed in two seconds.

Lucian pressed forward. Another Crescent Moon Slash. Wei Chen deflected it with a casual parry and countered with the second form — a horizontal slash that Lucian barely blocked. The force sent him sliding back eight meters.

They exchanged blows in a blur of steel. Lucian’s speed was higher — Light Steps kept him mobile, unpredictable. But every time their swords met, Wei Chen’s technique was cleaner. Sharper. More economical.

Lucian feinted left, rolled right, drove a Light Bolt from his free hand at Wei Chen’s blind spot. Wei Chen turned, cut the bolt in half with a backhand slash without looking, and immediately followed with a thrust that Lucian only avoided by throwing himself backward.

It seems my sword style is still lacking.

A boot slammed into Lucian’s chest. He hadn’t even seen Wei Chen close the distance. The impact launched him thirty meters, tumbling across the torn earth. He landed in a crouch, one knee on the ground, Moon Shattering blade planted in the dirt for support.

Wei Chen stood where Lucian had been, sword at his side. Then he raised it above his head.

"Sword Spirit."

A halo of light materialized behind Wei Chen’s back — the silhouette of a massive sword, easily twenty meters tall, floating upright like a guardian deity. Its edges burned with white-gold intensity. As it appeared, a wave of pressure rolled outward across the arena.

Lucian felt it hit him like a wall of wet concrete.

╔═══════════════════════╗

║ ⚠ DEBUFF EFFECT DETECTED ⚠ ║

║ ├─ Mana Output: -20% ║

║ ├─ All Physical Stats: -10% ║

║ └─ Spell Power: -5% ║

║ Source: S-Rank Sword Spirit (External) ║

╚═══════════════════════╝

Fucking hell. His ability has a debuff effect.

Lucian gritted his teeth. Twenty percent mana reduction. Ten percent across every physical stat. Against a Late Core Realm sword genius who was already outskilling him.

But no matter. I have a counter of my own.

Fear Aura.

Lucian’s eyes darkened — the crimson deepening to something hungrier. An invisible wave of primal terror erupted from his body, rolling outward in all directions. It wasn’t mana. It wasn’t intent. It was something encoded in blood — the inherited dread of prey standing before an apex predator that had existed long before humanity learned to fear.

The two auras collided.

Wei Chen’s Sword Spirit pressure shattered against the Fear Aura like a wave breaking against a cliff. The debuff vanished from Lucian’s system window. The halo behind Wei Chen flickered as it was suppressed, its pressure reduced to a distant hum.

Wei Chen’s eyes widened.

"What—"

Lucian was already moving. He closed the gap in a single Light Step and fired three rapid sword slashes — high, low, mid. Wei Chen deflected the first two, dodged the third by a hair’s breadth.

Lucian didn’t let him breathe. He planted his feet, raised his left hand, and chanted.

"Blood that mirrors the flesh — Blood Clone."

Three pillars of crimson erupted from the ground beside him, each one shaping itself into a perfect copy of Lucian’s body. But where Lucian held the Moon Shattering Blade, the clones raised weapons forged entirely from hardened blood — one a spear, one a saber, one a straight sword.

Wei Chen looked at the three clones. Then at Lucian. His serious expression cracked into something almost childlike.

"That’s so cool."

The clones attacked.

Spear-clone thrust from the left — a piercing strike aimed at Wei Chen’s kidney. Saber-clone slashed from the right — a wide horizontal arc targeting the tendons behind his knee. Sword-clone charged straight down the middle, blade raised for an overhead strike.

Wei Chen moved. His sword became a silver blur — parrying the spear thrust, sidestepping the saber slash, and blocking the overhead strike in three fluid motions that took less than a second. But Lucian was already there, Moon Shattering Blade cutting toward his throat.

Wei Chen leaned back. The blade missed by millimeters. He kicked Lucian in the stomach, spun, and cut down the sword-clone with a single Starfall slash. The clone dissolved into a splash of blood.

Lucian made eye contact.

Mind Read.

╔════════════════════════╗

║ ✖ MIND READ — FAILED ║

║ Cause: Target mental fortitude exceeds Charm stat threshold ║

║ Required: 60 | Current: 40║

╚════════════════════════╝

So his mental fortitude is that high.

Lucian sighed inwardly.

Looks like I’ll have to use other means then.

He rejoined the fight. Spear-clone flanked low, driving toward Wei Chen’s ankles while Lucian attacked high. Saber-clone circled behind, waiting for an opening.

Wei Chen handled all three. His footwork was impeccable — never retreating, always repositioning, using the minimum movement necessary to deflect or evade. Every parry fed into his next strike. Every dodge set up his next counter.

Lucian pressed harder. He layered Light Steps on top of his normal movement, appearing and disappearing like a strobe light. The spear-clone matched his rhythm — thrusting whenever Lucian’s afterimage drew Wei Chen’s attention. The saber-clone attacked from blind spots.

A spear thrust grazed Wei Chen’s forearm. Blood welled.

A saber slash caught his thigh.

Wei Chen’s expression shifted. The relaxed confidence tightened into something more focused.

Wei Chen moved as he dropped into a stance Lucian hadn’t seen before — low center of gravity, sword held horizontally at waist height, both hands on the grip, blade parallel to the ground.

The air around him changed.

A field of invisible force expanded outward from Wei Chen’s body — a perfect circle ten meters in radius. Lucian felt it the instant it formed: the space inside that circle became heavy. Sliced. As if the air itself had been replaced with a thousand overlapping blade edges waiting to fall.

Lucian’s Primordial Sight screamed at him — the field was packed with concentrated sword intent, layered so densely that moving through it would mean getting cut by dozens of invisible slashes simultaneously.

They were all inside it. Lucian, the spear-clone, and the saber-clone. Ten meters from Wei Chen. Right in the center of the killing field.

There was no time to think. Lucian grabbed the spear-clone by the shoulder and shoved it forward — directly into the path of the descending slashes. Invisible cuts ripped across it from every direction — chest, arms, face, legs — and it dissolved into a spray of blood before it even fully registered the damage.

Crimson Vessel.

Lucian’s skin flushed crimson. The saber-clone activated it simultaneously — both their bodies hardening against cutting force. The invisible slashes began falling. Lucian felt them — dozens of thin cuts across his arms, his shoulders, his back. Crimson Vessel held against most, but the sheer volume was overwhelming.

The saber-clone was closer to Wei Chen. Closer to the epicenter. Its Crimson Vessel cracked, then shattered. The clone came apart in a crimson mist, dissolving before it could take a single step out of the radius.

Lucian threw up Light Shields — three layered barriers in front of him — and ran. His legs burned. Invisible slashes carved lines across his back, his calves, the backs of his hands. The Light Shields exploded one after another, each one buying him half a second.

He dove out of the ten-meter radius.

Rolled. Came up bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts across his arms and left shoulder. His combat suit was shredded below the elbows. Blood dripped from his fingertips.

Wei Chen canceled the technique. The oppressive field vanished. He clicked his tongue.

"Tch. Should’ve been faster."

Lucian didn’t respond.

Meanwhile,

A figure had appeared beside the EASA crystal.

Bao Lei. Mid Core Realm. Jade Fist. The one fighter from China’s roster who hadn’t engaged anyone all match. Who had been invisible — literally — for the entire fight.

His fist slammed into the crystal.

Nadia moved. She’d enhanced herself — Ancient Amplification stacked three layers deep on her own body — and threw herself between Bao Lei’s fist and the crystal. Her forearms crossed. Jade met enhanced flesh.

BOOM.

Nadia was launched backward, skidding across the ground, coughing blood. But she’d stopped the full force. Almost. A small section of the EASA crystal — near the base — had chipped off. A hairline crack spiderwebbed from the impact point.

Rose, pale and bleeding from her stomach wound, raised both hands from where she sat against the crystal’s base. Barriers erupted — three, five, seven — layering over the crystal and the damaged section.

Bao Lei’s next strike hit the barriers. They held. Another strike. They cracked but held. A third. They bent but held.

Rose coughed, blood running from the corner of her mouth, but her hands stayed raised.

Bao Lei pulled his fist back and looked at Nadia with a smirk.

"Damn. You’re one sharp lady, aren’t you?"

Lucian’s head snapped toward the crystal. His mind raced.

Bao Lei. How could we forget him? Was he waiting all this time for an ambush? Why couldn’t Blood Sense detect him?

He activated Primordial Sight.

╔═════════════════════╗

║ TARGET SCAN ║

║ Name: Bao Lei ║

║ Age: 24 ║

║ Cultivation: Mid Core Realm ║

║ Abilities: ║

║ ├─ A-Rank: Jade Fist ║

║ └─ C-Rank: Perception Filter ║

╚════════════════════╝

I see. He filtered himself out of my perception.

A sword slash came from his left.

Lucian twisted his body — barely. The blade grazed his ribs, cutting through the ruined combat suit and opening a thin line of blood. He staggered sideways from the near-miss.

Wei Chen stood where Lucian had been a heartbeat ago, sword extended from the slash, smirk firmly in place.

"You better focus."

Lucian’s crimson eyes burned.

Something shifted behind Lucian’s eyes.

Primordial Sight flared.