Chương 667: Ice, Blood, and Darkness

Luke's knives came down like rain and exploded. Shards of ice, earth from beneath the snow, splinters, debris, everything blasted outward in every direction. Lucien Rhiannon weaved through it all, slipping clear of the explosions as craters opened in the snow, but then Luke cut through the white haze and jumped, one kukri angled straight for the blind spot. The Rhiannon spun at the last instant, shield rising in time to catch it. [Crimson Fang activated] The moment the empowered kukri struck, the shield exploded.

Lucien was hurled backward, and Luke pressed the advantage, pouring [Mana Infusion] and [Force Infusion] into his kukris as he moved through the rhythm of [Demonic Blade Dance]. For the first time, the Rhiannon actually looked startled as he parried Luke's ice sword against blow after blow. Luke was faster now, pushing harder, his movements sharpening even more, and when he hit the sword again, the impact was strong enough to send Lucien skidding across the snow.

"Well, you managed to surprise me a little," Lucien said.

"I liked that shield."

"Fuck you." Luke's hands were wrapped in black blood as [Demonic Predator Hands] took over. Lucien smiled and kept deflecting the attacks with his sword. Then, when he slipped aside, he drove the blade into the snow. Columns of jagged ice burst upward around Luke, but he simply launched himself through them, smashed one apart, and kicked Lucien aw Lucien crashed into a wooden house and destroyed it on impact, yet somehow remained standing. Then he rolled his neck and laughed.

"So this is how you plan to invade my kingdom and kill the queen? I thought you were serious. Turns out you were telling a joke," he said, resting the ice sword against his shoulder. Farther off, Luke caught sight of Charlie fighting Curtis. She was charging through the snow with flaming fists, weaving past the arrows. She's fine.

"I'm curious about something," Luke said.

"Why is killing people your main solution here? You don't strike me as the type who'd waste time camping in a tower just to murder anyone who tries to use it. And it's strange that you're not doing the Beacon yourselves."

"We already cleared the Beacon," Lucien said.

"And you're right, I wouldn't waste time doing this without a good reason. It just so happens that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"So you weren't going to let me use the tower. Or has it already been used?"

"One has. The other hasn't."

"You answered that pretty easily. I thought you'd keep quiet. Is it because you need an escape route if something goes wrong?"

"An escape route?" Lucien said, amused.

"Were you trying to pry information out of me with that? Playing on my pride?"

"And I already learned a few things." Lucien smiled faintly.

"This place is my home, in a sense. I was waiting for a guest. Anyone who isn't that guest, I dispose of. Very simple." Then he raised one hand.

"Now that you've finished showing off, it's my turn." Above Luke, ice gathered with terrifying speed.

"Fall, iceberg." Luke tried to move, but the mass of ice dropped too fast. He barely had time to throw both kukris at Lucien before the block came crashing down on top of him. It should have crushed him. But with [Demonic Predator Hands] still active, Luke planted his feet, poured stamina and mana into his bones, and caught the weight of it. Then he heaved the block aside.

"That it?" he said. Then the Rhiannon was suddenly behind him, bursting forward with a speed boost, sword already cutting. Luke met the strike with his claws. The two of them crashed into each other. Luke drove a punch into him, and the acid ate through part of the Rhiannon's clothing, throwing him backward. The Rhiannon answered with a slash across Luke's arms, then a kick that sent him skidding through the snow before raising one hand and firing spheres of ice.

Luke answered with [Shadow Ball], blowing them apart as black fire and snow exploded together between them. They both cut through the chaos at the same time. Luke snatched his kukris out of the air and went right back into the exchange. Steel, claws, and ice met in a blur while they slid across the snow. The next impact sent Luke flying. He hit the ground hard, caught himself with his claws, reclaimed the kukris again, and charged. He leaped, spun, and threw both kukris. Lucien dodged. Luke threw two more knives.

[Witch's Thread activated] Two threads yanked him forward, slingshotting him straight into the Rhiannon. Luke crashed into him with a double kick that launched Lucien back, then rushed in and punched him again. The Rhiannon's ice sword fell from his grip, and Luke kept hitting him until Lucien started hitting back just as hard. Luke seized him and hurled him into a house, only to be blasted by ice spheres a moment later and thrown through another wooden building.

Lucien's ice sword reformed and came down toward him. Luke rolled clear and raised a hand. Broken timber, stone, and debris from the village rose into the air under his telekinesis. Luke pointed at Lucien, and the rubble shot toward him, fast, absurdly fast. The man smashed through it with his sword. Luke jumped, claws out, grabbed him, and the two of them rolled all the way down the slope before crashing onto a flat stretch below. His kukris flew back into his hands.

"That was your intensity?" Lucien asked.

"My turn." He inhaled and exhaled ice like a dragon. The massive freezing blast roared toward Luke. He ran, trying to evade, fully aware of what would happen if that breath caught him. He kept firing [Shadow Ball] until Lucien suddenly launched himself high into the air.

"Then handle this." Lucien pointed upward, and dozens of icebergs formed above Luke all at once. Then they dropped. Luke barely dodged one before the frozen plain beneath him shattered, and he plunged into the water below, into that strip of frozen sea running between the islands. More icebergs crashed down after him. The water kept getting colder and colder. If not for his underwater temperature-regulation item, he would have frozen solid.

Chunks of ice kept falling while Luke tried to swim up, but the icebergs burst apart into snow and freezing slush, locking everything down even more. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Damn it. Luke gripped a knife, poured mana into it, and hurled it upward. It exploded. A moment later, he burst out of the water coughing.

"That's all it was? All that determination?" Lucien said, standing atop a floating slab of ice.

"And with that, you plan to rescue Allison Rhiannon?" Luke smiled.

"Like hell I'm rescuing her with anything less." He raised a hand. [Telekinetic Pull activated] The kukris shot back fast from behind Lucien. As Lucien twisted to evade them, Luke came at him from the front, leaped, tackled him, and pinned him down in the snow. One kukri slammed into Lucien's back. The other struck his ice sword and knocked it away.

"You really think that won you the fight?"

"No. All I wanted this whole time was to pull you away from the hill. I threw a knife high into the air at the start of the fight." Above them, something had been falling slowly through the sky. Then [Telekinetic Pull] yanked it down at full speed.

"You bastard," the Rhiannon snarled. Luke trapped him with his demonic claws.

"You'll blow yourself up too..." Luke punched him in the face and pointed one hand downward. [Teleportation Circle II activated] [Teleportation Pentagram activated] Luke vanished. Then the explosion came. The largest one yet, packed with mana. The whole area was swallowed in black light and the shock of the blast. And Luke reappeared in the village where he had been with Charlie earlier.

"Let's see if that asshole survived," he muttered.

"Luke!" The furious shout came from behind him. He turned just in time to see a streak of red hurtling toward him. It hit. A blood bullet.

"Luke! I can't believe it. I actually found you, you son of a bitch!" said a voice he never would have expected to hear there. Jonathan. Luke's mind stalled for a second. Jonathan was there. He had appeared out of nowhere.

"Jonathan?" Luke touched the wound.

"I'm going to kill you, you piece of shit. Every single day I prayed I'd find you, and fate finally blessed me," Jonathan said, charging at him with an axe in hand. Luke slipped past the attacks and raised a hand. One kukri came whipping back like a boomerang and slammed into Jonathan's back. Catching the other, Luke drove it into his chest.

"Get the hell out of my way." Then Luke punched him with his free hand and sent him crashing to the ground. Jonathan had nearly died. Then he got back up laughing. The wounds had regenerated in seconds.

"You really thought I was the same as before? I'm not weak like you. I evolved!"

"How interesting," Lucien Rhiannon said as he dropped from above and landed nearby.

"You managed to tear my shirt. I admit, that surprised me." He survived. Plan A failed. Luke did not get time to react. Jonathan surged forward, bringing the axe down in a brutal vertical arc. Luke dodged, and the moment the axe hit the ground, red fractures spread out and a crimson explosion burst upward. Luke slid backward, skidding down the hill toward the sea. Jonathan pointed a finger and fired another blood bullet. The Rhiannon was surfing over the snow as he came after him.

"We're not done yet." He struck at Luke with the sword. Luke blocked, but the force launched him toward the water. He landed on a slab of ice, then jumped to another, barely avoiding Jonathan's axe coming down again. The Rhiannon kept attacking, and the moment his sword touched the water, jagged ice spikes began shooting up around Luke, forcing him to keep moving, leaping from block to block. Two of them.

"I'm going to kill him," Lucien said calmly.

"No. I'm the one who kills this bastard," Jonathan snarled, his eyes turning red. No mistake now. Those were vampire powers, or something close enough to them. Is that what this is? Jonathan bared his teeth, and his canines had grown sharp.

"I'm going to make you kneel and beg." Luke clicked his tongue as he saw the Rhiannon leaping toward him across the ice blocks, while Jonathan closed in from another direction.

"All right, Jonathan." Luke spun, conjured [Acid Blood Arrow], drew the bow, and fired in one smooth motion. The arrow struck the block Jonathan was about to land on, and a cloud of acid erupted. The moment Jonathan burst out of the cloud, Luke was already there, driving a kick into his face. Then he raised the bracer and fired a bolt straight into Jonathan's eye. Jonathan screamed. Luke landed beside him, caught a kukri out of the air, spun, and drove it into Jonathan's stomach.

[Crimson Fang activated] Jonathan was blasted backward by the impact, wounded and airborne. Luke immediately threw a knife. [Burst Throw activated] [Knife Storm activated] The knives, charged with stamina, hit Jonathan like sniper rounds. By the time he crashed onto the bank, Luke was already on him, raining punches into his face. Then Luke buried a knife in each of Jonathan's ears.

"I took out your main senses. Sight and hearing. That's how you deal with a vampire." He grabbed a kukri and pressed it toward Jonathan's throat.

"Now I cut off your damned head." Jonathan screamed and reached for his axe. A hit slammed into Luke's back. He went flying, bouncing across the snow. Something cracked in his ribs. He pushed himself back up, pain stabbing through him. What hit me? Lucien was still too far away. Something black came hurtling toward him. Luke threw himself aside. The sphere slammed into the snow, blasting open a crater. That hit me? It was a cannonball. Another shot came screaming in.

Lucien was closing in while Luke dodged the shots.

"Still holding back a few cards, aren't you?"

"That's not me," Luke said. The cannonballs screamed through the air again. Luke twisted and spun between them, dodging by inches. In the middle of it all, he saw someone standing still. A man in a cloak. The hood fell back.

"I told you to stay quiet and do nothing, Jonathan," said a rough, ruined voice. It was a man, or had once been. Now he looked like a dried corpse, brown and wasted. An undead thing.

"Tobias, I have to kill this bastard with my own hands," Jonathan shouted. Tobias? The monster raised one hand toward Luke, and the cannonballs came again. Luke dodged and hurled explosive knives, but the undead creature raised a barrier and blocked them. The Rhiannon stepped between them.

"So two more people have entered my territory. A vampire and a lich," Lucien said.

"Looks like all of us are about to try killing each other," Luke said.

"Oh, no. Those two aren't intruders in my territory. They're the guests I told you about," the Rhiannon said, taking his place beside them.

"More likely the three of us kill you," the lich said with a smile as he raised a hand and formed a black sphere above it. Luke had a problem. Three against one. And something tells me that guy is very dangerous. He tightened his grip on the kukris.

"Fine. Come at me. Form a line." The lich's expression went flat all at once.

"I'll kill you very quickly now." The black sphere grew larger, burning with a darker glow. Icebergs began forming in the sky above Luke. Spikes of ice burst up around him, locking him in place. Jonathan raised his fingers like a gun.

"Goodbye, insect," the lich said, and unleashed the spell at Luke. Then... A light appeared. A golden dome flared to life around Luke, shielding him from the blast. At the same instant, a blue bolt dropped from the sky toward his enemies. A figure hovered in the air above him.

"Sorry I'm late, my lord," Angie said, suspended in the sky. I really wanted this moment to happen in the previous chapter, just for the irony of an angel saving a half-demon in Chapter 666. Sadly, the timing didn't quite line up, but it was really close! And here's a fun little extra: there's Angie artwork for this chapter over at that other place.