Chapter 143: The Difference
Khalil attacked.
He moved like a crimson blur — Predator Form amplifying his already monstrous physical stats, blood mist armor gleaming wetly in the rain. His clawed hand swiped at Wei Chen’s throat while his other hand drove a fist toward Bruno’s chest.
Clang-schlik.
Wei Chen deflected the claw with his blade. Bruno caught the fist against his metallic forearm — boom — the impact skidding him backward but not breaking his stance. They separated, regrouped, and attacked simultaneously from different angles.
Wei Chen came high — a diagonal slash aimed at Khalil’s neck. Bruno came low — a driving punch aimed at Khalil’s kidney.
Khalil spun, his blood mist armor shifting to thicken at the points of impact. Wei Chen’s blade carved a shallow groove across the shoulder plating. Bruno’s fist dented the back armor but didn’t break through. Khalil’s counter was instantaneous — a backhand that caught Wei Chen across the face and a knee that drove into Bruno’s stomach.
Crack-thud.
Wei Chen staggered, blood spraying from his lip. Bruno doubled over, air exploding from his lungs. But they didn’t fall.
Bruno straightened and launched a punch at Khalil’s exposed side. Khalil dodged, but it was a feint — the real attack came from Wei Chen, who’d used the distraction to position himself for a thrust aimed at Khalil’s heart.
Khalil’s armor shifted, a plate sliding to intercept. Clang. The blade pierced the plating but stopped before reaching flesh. Khalil grabbed the sword arm and wrenched —
An attack came from behind. A blood mist blade, formed by Khalil’s own ability, launched at Wei Chen’s back while he was restrained.
Bruno moved.
"Martial King Fist Art — First Form: Iron King’s Foundation."
He anchored his feet — thud-thud — his entire muscular frame hardening, compressing, becoming a single solid mass of metallic flesh. He stepped into the path of the mist blade and raised his mana-reinforced forearms.
Crack.
The blade struck his guard and shattered. Bruno absorbed the kinetic energy directly, his body vibrating from the impact but holding firm. Before the dispersing mist could reform, he unleashed the counter — a short-range, explosive punch driven by every ounce of stored force.
BOOM.
His fist connected with Khalil’s ribs. The blood mist armor cracked. Khalil grunted — pain flickering across his face — and was pushed back three meters.
Wei Chen capitalized immediately. He tore his arm free and raised his sword above his head, Sword Spirit blazing.
"Celestial Severance — Fourth Form: Celestial Collapse."
The massive wall of sword intent erupted — twenty meters wide, ten meters tall, rushing toward Khalil with enough pressure to flatten a building.
Khalil’s eyes narrowed. He raised both hands and blood mist surged outward, not as armor this time but as a concentrated shield — hsssss — the mist compressing, thickening, forming a wall of crimson that met Celestial Collapse head-on.
BOOOOM.
The collision sent shockwaves rippling through the street. Rain was blown backward in a perfect circle. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ground beneath Khalil’s feet.
He held.
The wall of sword intent shattered against his mist shield, but the shield was barely intact — thin, wavering, on the verge of collapse.
Khalil lowered his hands. His ribs had already healed. The cracks in his armor were sealing.
He smiled maniac and hungry.
He rushed them.
CLASH-CLASH-CLASH-CLASH.
Claws met sword. Fists met armor. Wei Chen and Bruno coordinated desperately — one attacking high while the other struck low, one drawing Khalil’s attention while the other flanked, one defending while the other recovered. They landed hits. Bruno’s Tremor King’s Impact cracked Khalil’s shin guard. Wei Chen’s Starfall carved a line across Khalil’s cheek.
But Khalil kept coming.
His stamina was insane. Every wound healed within seconds. Every crack in his armor reformed. He didn’t tire, didn’t slow, didn’t make mistakes. For every hit they landed, he returned three — claws raking across Wei Chen’s chest, fists driving into Bruno’s gut, knees and elbows finding joints and ribs with surgical precision.
They couldn’t keep up.
Khalil moved like a quasi-Grand Core Realm master rather than a Peak Core Realm vampire. The difference wasn’t just power — it was experience. Decades of combat, centuries of killing, refined into instinct. Every movement was efficient. Every counter was punishing. Every feint led into a trap.
Bruno’s metallic luster was fading — Martial King Body draining his mana reserves. Wei Chen’s Sword Spirit flickered — his own reserves dropping from the sustained maximum output. Khalil looked as fresh as when the fight started.
"Enough."
Khalil dissolved into mist — hsssss — and reformed behind Bruno. His arm wrapped around Bruno’s throat. Bruno grabbed the arm, tried to break free, but Khalil’s grip was iron.
BOOM.
Khalil slammed Bruno into the nearest building. The wall crumbled. Bruno’s head lolled — unconscious, pinned to the rubble by Khalil’s arm pressed against his throat.
Wei Chen lunged. Khalil released Bruno and turned, catching Wei Chen’s sword between his clawed hands.
Screeeech.
Metal on mist-reinforced bone. Wei Chen pushed with everything he had. Khalil didn’t move.
"Pathetic."
Khalil headbutted him — crack — and followed with a knee to the stomach that lifted Wei Chen off his feet. As Wei Chen doubled over, Khalil’s claw raked across his back — shhhhlik — tearing through flesh and muscle.
Wei Chen collapsed to his knees. Blood pooled beneath him from a dozen wounds — chest, back, arms, face. He tried to push himself up. His arms shook. He made it halfway before falling again.
Khalil stood over him, breathing evenly, not a single wound remaining on his body.
The difference between human and vampire. The difference between twenty years of training and a century of killing.
Twenty meters away, Omar was having a much worse time.
Unlike Khalil — a true born vampire, older, more experienced — Omar was a half-breed. Younger. Less refined. And currently being beaten black and blue by a silver-haired seventeen-year-old who refused to stay down.
Lucian moved through the rain in blood armor — crimson energy wrapped around his body, reinforced by Crimson Vessel, turning his skin into something that refused to cut. Omar’s blood mist blades struck the armor and scattered. His claws raked across it and left nothing but scratches. His kicks connected and Lucian absorbed them, Eternal Regeneration handling the internal damage before it could accumulate.
Primordial Sight tracked Omar’s every movement — the moment he dissolved into mist, Lucian saw the trajectory, the reformation point, the attack angle.
Omar materialized to Lucian’s left, dagger thrusting. Lucian sidestepped — tap — and fired a point-blank Solar Flare.
FWOOSH.
The concentrated sphere of light caught Omar in the chest. He screamed — AHHH — and was launched backward, the light burning through his shirt and searing the flesh beneath.
Before he could recover, Lucian raised his hand.
"Light Judgement."
A sustained beam of pure light erupted from his palm into a continuous stream that erased matter along its path. It caught Omar mid-flight and carried him, pushing him through the air, burning through his regenerated skin, blasting him into a wall.
CRASH.
Omar slumped against the rubble, chest smoking, eyes wide with pain.
Lucian appeared in front of him using Light Steps. Aethon thrust forward —
Omar dissolved into mist.
The blade passed through empty air. Omar reformed five meters to the right — but this time, Lucian was ready.
"Light Blades."
Four blades of solidified light erupted from the ground around Omar, pinning him by his clothes to the building behind him. He struggled — the blades held. He tried to dissolve — the blades disrupted the mist formation, forcing him to stay solid.
Lucian had figured it out. After seeing Zara use blood mist form multiple times in Egypt, and now Omar doing the same — analyzed with Primordial Sight, the pattern was clear. They couldn’t stay in mist form for more than five seconds. When they needed to attack, they had to reform. And the reformation had a brief window of vulnerability.
Lucian raised Aethon. This was over —
"Lucian."
He froze.
Khalil stood beside Bruno’s unconscious body, one clawed hand resting casually on Bruno’s throat. A thin line of blood trickled down from where the claws had dimpled the skin.
Khalil looked at Omar with contempt.
"What a useless fool."
He turned his crimson eyes to Lucian.
"Now let him go, or I kill your friend over here."
Lucian frowned.