But compared to Mary's light wounds, Adept Latour was almost completely bathed in blood.
Even though both of them were bloodline adepts, Mary's vampire bloodline was adept at agility, while Latour's wolf bloodline was famous for being ferocious. In such a narrow area, both parties couldn't possibly use all their strength or initiate an actual deathmatch. Thus, Latour was clearly disadvantaged in this battle of speed in such narrow quarters.
In the short few seconds just now, Mary had already left several dozen of wounds on Latour's werewolf form with her claws. Moreover, as the blood spilled out of the wolf's body, a red radiance vaguely flickered across Mary's body. Under the suppression of the red radiance, the black smoke on her arm wounds was slowly dissipating while the edges of the wounds were showing signs of regeneration.
After turning into a werewolf, Latour's intelligence had an obvious degradation.
Triggered by the numerous wounds on his body, blood began to show in his ghostly green eyes. He opened his wide fanged mouth and breathed heavily, letting out white breath as he did so. His body crouched slightly, and his hind legs covered in black hair pressed against the ground. A low growl rumbled in his throat as an intense and savage fighting intent quickly gathered about his body.
A curling grin appeared on Mary's pretty face. Her large leathery bat wings opened with a woosh. The blood pool beneath her was almost boiling, and fountains of blood were rising and falling. A bloody mist gathered around her, wrapping around her like a crimson cape.
Several blood servants outside the room started screeching in anger. Their eyes turned blood red in an instant, and they bared their fangs and threatened the werewolf. They had sealed the entrance, and were waiting for Mary's orders to rush forward and fight the enemy to their deaths.
In the world of vampires, blood servants had no choice but to obey the source of their bloodline. This kind of control even outclassed most of the contract spells that existed.
"Enough! Everyone stop……" Adept Muret could no longer stand the sight. He shouted in a solemn tone, "Sir Fügen sent us here to deal with a problem, not for you people to create more trouble! If anyone else moves they will be defying my authority……"
As he spat out the last word, Muret's entire body burst forth with flames that reached the sky, turning into a human torch. The temperature in the room instantly went up to a thousand degrees. Some of the wooden materials that were exposed outside instantly started smoldering, letting out crackling sounds.
A few vampires that were close to the door couldn't endure the high temperature, and quickly dehydrated. Their previously smooth white skin instantly became withered, dry, and wrinkled. In less than three seconds, the front of their bodies had been completely burnt black. There was even black ash that was slowly falling off.
Greem flicked a finger, and a red barrier emerged from his body, enveloping the room. The elementium flames that was violently surging forth from Adept Muret's body paused at that moment, as they could no longer spread their high temperatures and heat outside of the red barrier.
Muret finally looked at Greem once again.
"To think that you chose fire as your mastery! Very rare indeed… I wish to have a good conversation with you if we have the opportunity!"
Once he finished speaking, Muret turned and glared at Latour, who was about to explode in anger, before raising his head high and leaving the room first.
The vampires standing guard by the door gave way under Mary's instructions. They bared their fangs and attempted to intimidate him, but none of them truly dared to attack a veteran adept!
The werewolf Latour growled and roared, finally managing to use his will to suppress the savage fighting spirit, that had almost burst within him, with much difficulty. A shroud of black smoke rose, and Latour changed back from his werewolf form, becoming a human once again.
The regenerative abilities of werewolves were indeed exceptional. The scratches all over his body had vanished in less than five seconds. Latour glared at Mary with his ghostly green eyes, then turned to look at Greem for a moment before silently walking out of the room.
Both parties had separated on bad terms, so naturally there was no possibility of sitting down and having a peaceful discussion.
The two adepts were still fuming and took the skies. They quickly found a noble's manor they found to their liking 1.5 kilometers away from the city. They didn't even bother to hide their identity. The two broke into the manor, and in less than fifteen minutes, they had become the new owners of the land. The original owners of the manor had either been turned into corpses, or converted into puppets under someone's control.
And so, Muret and Latour settled on the outskirts of Blue Hillock City!
Mary finally reverted from her state of combat after the two annoying fellows had gone. She softly landed on the edge of the blood pool, looking at Keoghan and the rest amusedly.
"What, all of you had your necks pushed so low you can't raise your heads? A bunch of guys, and yet you are all cowards. Don't think I'm an idiot! All of you don't stick your necks out, yet still bring those two guys to rampage at my place. Were you guys about to let me be the cannon fodder? Let me be the one who sticks her neck out? Let me tell you all something. If you don't compensate me for my losses today, don't even think I'll let you treat me like an idiot next time!"
A wicked grin appeared on the faces of Keoghan, Kiel, and the rest. For the first time, they felt like Mary's straightforward personality was a pretty good thing.
As adepts, fair and equal trades were the key to ensuring long term cooperation and benefits.
Their identities were awkward and unsuited to having a direct conflict with those two fellows. Paying a little price and having Mary do it in their place was a natural thing to do.
The sounds of intense bargaining rang out within the room!
Chapter 189
Herdurand City.
It was the time of the day where the sun was at its brightest. The large square before the spacious and majestic city hall had been filled with a large crowd. People could hardly even move about. Groups of city guards armed to the teeth pushed the crowd about with the halberds in their hands, ensuring that the surging crowd didn't go into the large empty space in the center of the square.
It was the start of spring, and the light winds that blew about still brought with them a little chill. Even so, the city guards in charge of keeping order were still very exhausted and sweating profusely.
The citizens squeezed into the square. Regardless of gender, they were all holding bouquets of fresh and beautiful flowers in their hands. They stood on their toes and grabbed onto poles, desperately looking about the horizon, as if they were waiting for something. There, in the blue skies, was nothing worth noting except for a few white clouds floating about.
A squad of witcher-knights and a squad of the governor's guards, with their distinct armors, were facing each other as they stood on both sides of the city hall. The two parties couldn't be said to be tense, but the atmosphere was still solemn and stern, as compared to the mood in the square below.
Whenever the gazes of the witcher-knights on their magic colts swept across the other side, there would be a slight and unnoticeable sense of disdain in their eyes. Yet when their eyes looked towards the skies, an excitement hidden in their expectant eyes would surface.
The personal guard belonging to Grand Duke Lington could be called ferocious and powerful when compared to common city guards. But the warhorses under them were clearly inferior to the witcher-knights’ magic steeds, who possessed superior size and ferocity.
And if one also put into consideration the runic swords of the witcher-knights, the gap between the personal guards and the witcher-knights was so large it couldn't be crossed.
On the Continent of Witchers, only those who had sworn their loyalty to the king and passed the witcher-knights test could get the standard equipment of magic colts and runic weapons. And these were resources that were strictl
y kept in the hands of the central government. The outside world had no means of getting colts and runic equipment in large amounts, causing the witcher-knight army to become the strongest armed force on the Continent of Witchers.
As most of the witcher-knights thought of themselves as knights that served directly under the king, they did not recognize the authority of local nobles when they were out on missions or stationed in various places. Thus, every year, the forces of the local nobles would have plenty of disagreements with the witcher-knights over laws and jurisdiction.
This caused the forces of the local nobility and witcher knights to often engage in armed conflict when disagreements intensified. Hating each other had become a common occurrence between the local forces and the witcher-knights.
However, the insignificant enmity between subordinates did not affect the courtesies and good relations between the higher-ups.
The long table used for city council meetings had been pushed to one side in the bright and spacious city hall. It was now filled with plate after plate of fragrant delicacies and drinks. Delicate stir-fried foie gras, steak covered in sauce, golden lamb that had been perfectly roasted……
However, no one was paying attention to the food at this moment. Everyone were waiting impatiently for the arrival of those few important figures.
At the entrance of the hall, nearly a hundred men wearing the armor of spellbreaker knights stood in two straight lines, raising their heads and looking about. A dozen Radiant Knights had gathered together behind them, and were silently conversing.
By the standards of the Continent of Adepts, these radiant knights were all terrifying and powerful beings that had reached the Second Grade. Yet on this day, even they were not the protagonists. Instead, they were merely members of the crowd, waiting impatiently for the arrival of the true protagonist.
As Second Grade members of their class in the witcher-knight group, the radiant knights' power was naturally much stronger than the spellbreaker knights. The spellbreaker knights usually wore a full set of knight's armor. Most of their body would be hidden beneath the tough armor.
With the runic armor’s twin resistances to physical and magical damage, the defenses of spellbreaker knights had reached an outstanding degree. In the few wars against evil on the Continent of Witchers, it was the spellbreaker knights that endured the spells of the heretics head-on, charging through their lines with brute force and killing them.
It was easy to imagine how powerful their defenses were!
Compared to the spellbreaker knights, the armor of the radiant knights had dramatically shrunk instead.
The delicate and fancy armor was no longer a clumsy full-body armor, but individual armor parts that could be removed easily. These armor parts would only cover the chest, groin, shoulder, the arms, and some other key parts of the body. To ensure agility and swiftness of movement in battle, the rest of the radiant knight's bodies were covered with leather armor, or even left exposed.
If a spellbreaker knight could be said to have mastered simple weaponization of the runic energies, a radiant knight had reached the level of using runic energies to enhance their physical strength.
What few armor parts the radiant knights wore all had mysterious patterns carved on the inside. When they met the enemy, they only needed to activate these runic arrays to draw power from the rune energies, turning them into a powerful runic knight.
The reason they were called radiant knights was because their bodies would radiate a soft glow, like the runic weapons, when they drew the runic energies into their body. At that moment, they were essentially a human-shaped magical weapon.
Would a rampaging magical sword need defenses and armor? Of course not! All they needed to do then was attack, attack, attack……
The impatient crowd had been there since the rise of the sun until now, but not one person was dissatisfied or slacking off. Even Grand Duke Lington, who was always calm and measured, was pacing about the city hall and occasionally looking at the skies faraway.
It was obvious that the protagonist of today's welcoming feast was an extremely important person, such that even Grand Duke Lingtom was waiting expectantly, silently enduring the torturous wait!
Finally, amidst everyone's anxious waiting, a crisp ring sounded from a bell in the watchtower at the city's wall far away.
Everyone was excited. They put their hands above their brow and looked to the west.
They came!
They really came!
It was a bright and sunny day today, and two tiny black dots had appeared on the edge of the horizon in the distance.
In less than two minutes' time, the two black dots gradually grew larger.
A loud dragon's roar rumbled across from a distance, causing everyone that heard it to be stunned and nervous.
But before they could figure out the source of this odd and unwarranted fear, the two black dots had already appeared above Herdurand City, their great and massive bodies on display before the crowd.
These were two terrifying Green Dragons, with bodies that were twenty meters long. If you included the long tail, covered with bony thorns and a spindle-shaped end, that the dragons were dragging behind them, the total length of the two Green Dragons were a staggering thirty meters.
Like alligators, they had jaws that were filled with sharp teeth, and the lines of their long faces were clearly defined. Layers of fine emerald dragon scales perfectly covered every inch of their bodies. The dragon claws beneath their bodies were thick and powerful, the sharp edges gleaming with a cold light.
The common Green Dragon of a normal material plane only had one pair of wings, but the Green Dragons of this plane had two pairs of wings. This undoubtedly gave them an even more terrifying flight speed!
As the gigantic bodies of the Green Dragons circled above the square, the olive-coloured eyes of the dragons looked down upon the crowd below. They couldn't help but raise their heads and let out a resounding dragon roar that shook the heavens and the earth.
The dragon's mighty auras fell upon the crowd below!
A commotion instantly occured amidst the crowd in the square.
Many timid women and children let out screams, creating chaos in the crowd.
The dragons seemed to have an odd liking to creating chaos, as the depths of the Green Dragons’ eyes glimmered for a moment. They were clearly happy with their handiwork. Jefferson, who was seated on one of the Green Dragon's backs, let out an expression that was neither smiling nor crying.
As one of only three Dragon Knights on the continent, Jefferson had ridden the Green Dragon Ysondre and visited countless human cities. Every time he saw a dense crowd, the Green Dragon, that had just reached adulthood, would do something like this. Just looking from this point, it wasn't without reason that many ancient tomes listed the Green Dragons as an evil dragon.
Jefferson patted the neck of the Green Dragon and signaled Kalyk, who was on the other dragon. The two Green Dragons dove downwards, beating their wings and landing on the emptied space in the center of the square.
The winds created when the gigantic dragons beat their wings was akin to a small storm. The crowd near the centre was blown all about. The flowers and the hats on their heads disappeared in an instant, as if they had grown wings.
The crowd had waited this long to witness the great dragons. Now that they had seen the strong and overbearing silhouette that resembled a mountain flesh crouching in the square, everyone was so frightened that they held their breath.
All of the nobles, along with the knights that had been waiting in the city hall, walked out one after another, welcoming the two great dragon knights with their impassioned gazes and claps.
The atmosphere had suddenly become lively.
Yet as the two parties were shaking hands and exchanging greetings, several hooded figures in the crowd were watching the occurrences in the square with greedy and fervent gazes from a long alley.
Once everyone had entered the city hall
, the hooded figures exchanged looks and secretly slipped into another alley.
"Not only have the radiant knights shown up, even the dragon knights have. We have to report this information to Mistress Mary!"
"Very well- I'll go immediately. The rest of you stay here and continue monitoring. If those two dragon knights make any significant movements, we must hurry and report it....”
"Yes, I understand……"
"You should leave soon. Be careful on the way."
After a quick conversation, a cloaked figure took advantage of the commotion in the city and snuck out of Herdurand City. When he reached a place with no one around, he turned into a puff of smoke, emerging as a bloodsucking bat and taking to the skies, undertaking the 200 kilometer trip to Blue Hillock City.
Chapter 190
The banquet was still going on.
Attractive noble ladies dressed in beautiful clothes, girls as shy as fawns, as well as seductive and alluring beauties……
These beautiful women, that were usually out-of-reach and cold to most suitors, were all flocking around Jefferson. Either giggling while covering their lips with their silk fans, or blushing while pressing themselves onto him, or sending seductive gazes from afar. Though the beauties here were far less distinguished than those in the royal court, there were many of them, each with their own appeal, like flowers waiting to be plucked at his whim.
After much effort, Jefferson managed to free himself from the ladies and met with the dozen radiant knights that had been patiently waiting in a secret room behind the city hall.
"Vieri, tell me! How has the preparation been going?" The moment he entered the room, the faint smile on Jefferson's face had vanished, replaced with a dense killing intent.
After greeting Jefferson and bowing to him, the radiant knights took their seats. Vieri, who was in charge of the operation this time, stood up to explain their progress in rallying the knights.
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