DD 202 Ch 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2

The path to the castle quickly opened up into a giant courtyard. There was already a party of adventurers hacking away at a group of vampires.

Our large group’s presence was felt almost immediately as more vampires rushed from around or within the castle to greet us.

“Tanks up front.” Fayeth smashed her shield with her glaive, eliciting a loud thunk as she started marching forward.

“If they are going to come out to greet us, this’ll be so much better.” Des spun up a bolt of dark magic in her hands.

The vampires just kept pouring out of the castle as if there was an army within those walls.

“Yeah… if they ever stop coming.” I stared at the castle where a steady stream of vampires were pouring out. Though, it would be quick experience if we didn’t have to split off the majority of our group to draw monsters into a group.

Each vampire looked a little different from the next, but all of them were dressed like they had been at the fanciest ball of their lives.

“Good thing we have you.” Des clapped my shoulder.

I started jogging forward, my blades flashing out in my hands as I rushed the vampires that Fayeth had already established aggro on.

The first vampire had his hair slicked back so hard that his forehead was pulled taut, keeping his beady red eyes wide as he drew a rapier and struck at my elven lover.

She smacked his thin blade away and drove her glaive in a wide arc as she used [Cleave] to hit him and several other approaching vampires. My women could be such badasses.

I slipped in beside her, my blades carving into the first vampire.

The new skill book I’d gotten from the UG as a reward appeared in my CID and I used it now that Charlotte cleared me to use my mana channels again.

I activated [Triple Breach], my dagger stabbing out three times at the vampire. The dagger punched through what little armor he had and blew holes out the other side. Two of them had procced the piercing quality of the ability and punched right through him.

“New skill looks good.” Fayeth stepped into the swing of another vampire, using the shoulders of her armor to block the blade as a heal from Charlotte made her glow slightly.

I hovered near Fayeth, stabbing and stunning vampires as they collected around her. Spells flew overhead from Des and storms buffeted them away from us, courtesy of Felin.

The rest of the groups had similar formations. Their tanks were spaced out in front, taking on a section of the oncoming vampires while their teams supported them from behind.

It was like they were rocks amid the rapids, churning up the flow of vampires into black smoke.

I killed one of the vampires in front of me, moving out of the normal black smoke. But beyond the smoke, a trail of blood shot off from it, swirling through the air and back towards the castle.

“Heads up!” Des called out as magic flung back at us.

I lifted my hand and used [Absorb] to catch one of the spells and then used [Spell Mirror] to spit the spike of blood back out at the closest vampire.

Quickly, my stacks of Liminal Speed were stacking up and my attacks began to increase in speed, only growing the stacks of Liminal Speed that much faster. It started to scale at an incredible pace.

This was the true power of the ability I’d gotten from the Dungeon Trial.

The weapons from the Harem Queen only made it more effective as I fought around Fayeth, helping her trim down the vampires before they could surround and overwhelm her.

The vampires were fast, ducking in and out of range, trying to pierce Fayeth’s armor with their thin rapiers, while others gathered in the back lobing thorns of blood over their compatriots at Fayeth and then at everyone’s healers in the back line.

Felin waved her staff and a wall of wind erupted between the healers and the vampires, knocking the thorns of blood off course.

My own speed was ramping up and the vampires around Fayeth popped one after the other into black smoke with a trail of blood shooting off into the castle. “I’m going to deal with the casters.” I called out.

Rather than wait for an answer, I shot off into the group ahead of us.

I knew that in the worst case, I could always use my stacks of Liminal Speed to pull myself out of a pinch.

Jumping past two vampires rushing to the front, I cut both of them down in a dozen strikes that landed before they even focused on me.

The casters were becoming a huge problem as more and more of them amassed in the back.

I wasn’t the only one pushing forward trying to reach them. A few groups were having their casters lob spells over the melee vampires to deal with their own groups.

Those had the unfortunate side effect of shifting the ranged vampires’ focus to those casters, putting their healers under tremendeous strain.

Yet, I was determined to be the most effective of everybody. Competing with Crimson really had brought out my competitive streak.

And having gotten Liminal Speed, I felt a certain responsibility to lead these groups in damage. It would be almost embarrassing if I got outdone when I had this ability.

There was more to it. This ability almost elevated me above everyone.

I hadn’t spoken to anyone about my fear, but I worried that I’d far outstrip my current party given the power I now possessed. After all, I could start to keep up with freaking Crimson if I built enough stacks. How were any other damage dealers at my level supposed to keep up?

Outside of someone helping me stay alive while I got my stacks going, I could likely get fast enough to solo most bosses.

That fact had been swirling around in my mind during my ten days of bed rest, and I couldn’t get it out of my head.

I carved through the first few casters before they started to turn to me, focusing on the one cutting through their ranks.

Bloody Thorns rocketed past me as I twisted and dove out of the way, making sure to keep up my attacks and my stacks of Liminal Speed as I sped up.

My blades swung as I scratched the casters, moving faster and faster with each attack, even if I wasn’t able to really focus on one of them.

Spells went every which direction and even a few of the new melee vampires had rushed to attack me.

I slammed my foot down using [Earth Stomp] and stunned enough of them for me to dive into the casters with more focus. In the brief duration of the stun, I killed half a dozen of the casters before spraying [Blades of Shadow] over the group and applying a dot to each one of them.

The melee vampires were closing in trying to corner me with their swift strikes, but to me it was like they were clumsy slow idiots.

I effortlessly dodged them, returning their attacks five fold and turning them into smoke one after the other before returning to the casters.

At this point, everything else felt like it was slowed down and moving through molasses as I streaked about, shrouded in purple lightning.

Moving through the crowd of vampires was like dodging people in a packed mall. Pointy rapiers and flying spells just weren’t fast enough to bother me as I picked off the weakest of the casters and then continued to burn them down one at a time.

A spell cut at my hips, I had missed it.

There were just too many for me to dodge every single one.

Yet, it only lit a fire in me.

I mowed them down and then moved to the next group, clearing out their casters and then the group beyond that.

Every vampire I destroyed was faster than the last.

Blood from my kills started to twirl through the air, like streamers at a parade, faster and faster.

I stopped killing the ones already engaged and instead stepped forward to stem the tide.

My blades tore through the vampires as I ran against the stream, ending them in puffs of black smoke that must have looked like the launch site of the city fireworks.

I kept moving, pushing into the castle itself and began to sweep the place of vampires until the whole castle exploded with bright red light. Smiling, I raced past the large atrium I’d come through and to the statue at the back that was absorbing all of the blood and channeling it into a staircase in the back of the room.

The stairs wound down and I paused only a moment before I decided to check it out before reporting back to my party.

The room below was a criss cross of fancy red carpets trimmed with gold edges. All around the room candles flickered on sconces casting a dim light, perfect for a boss fight.

In the center, a giant blob of blood slowly churned, painfully slow.

I paused, staring at what I assumed was the boss forming. Then my eyes flicked to my stacks of Liminal Speed.

They hit their point and slowly started to fall off.

“Shit.” I turned back the way I’d come, but a pull from the blood sphere prevented me from moving very far. I frowned and tried to rush up the stairs, only for my feet to slip back down like I was running on some endless staircase.

My stacks were pretty high, but they were plummeting faster by the second. The speed from my ability didn’t seem to help me in regard to the pull.

The blob of blood slowly drew itself inward in the shape of a humanoid.

I watched the action with my heart racing against the clock that was my stacks trickling down.

Rushing towards the blob, I tried to start attacking it early, but even with my speed, it warped out of the way before I could strike it.

The Dungeon wasn’t going to make this kill that easy.

The blood that was moving so slowly suddenly snapped together in the form of a handsome man in a tuxedo.

If the Dungeon wasn’t going to let me escape, then I’d just have to take this head on.

“Ah. It seems I have a delight here tonight.” He laughed with a mouthful of fangs.

I shot forward again, this time cutting him and stopped the decay of my stacks at 80% increase to speed.

Then I activated [Triple Breach] and dodged out of the way of his first strike.

But the boss wasn’t going to be so easy. He pushed towards me striking out in a flurry of blows, half of which made it through my guard and cut me deeply.

“Aha! You dare come into my lair and ruin my ball? I had a grand entrance planned.” The monster spoke, though it felt rehearsed and a little stiff. Something told me I was going to hear those lines every time we did this raid.

“You will pay for that.” The boss jumped back to the center of the room and raised a hand.

A red line tethered me to him.

I dodged to the side, but it stuck to me like glue. Next I tried [Absorb] and nothing happened.

“This is the price!” The boss jerked his hand and blood gushed out of the center of my chest, taking my breath with it.

I gasped and used [Dodge] to shift to the side as the boss flew at me, his rapier ready to run me through.

He hit the wall and kicked off of it, rushing towards me.

I slugged back a healing potion and worked to get a few more strikes on him, but they were weak. I was weak.

Whatever the boss had hit me with had taken some of the wind from my sail.

[Drained - Weakened by 20% until healed to full]

What? Fuck. That wasn’t good.

I didn’t want to risk potion toxicity just yet in the fight. Clearly the boss had a long way to go.

Activating [Hydra] that I had from Elysara, I hoped to utilize some of the passive healing while I focused on dodging the boss.

A dozen strike dodging moves later, the boss stopped and flicked his rapier to the side. Almost half the room was suddenly engulfed by bats made of blood.

I wasn’t in a position to dodge those. [Shadow Phase] made me ethereal and most of the bats flew through me harmlessly, though a few hit me and knocked me back a few steps each.

Blood came out of my mouth as my ribs threatened to readjust themselves and several cracked.

“You will pay for interrupting my ball!” The boss jumped back to the center.

Oh, not this line again. That means…

A red beam centered on my chest in warning of what was about to happen.

I’d just used [Shadow Phase], and it was still on cooldown.

This wasn’t looking good.

“There he is!” Someone shouted from the stairs and a crowd rushed down.

The red beam ripped a chunk of blood from my chest again, and I cried out as I fell down, unable to move as he lined up his rapier and rushed me once more.

My savior came from the most unlikely of places.

Angel wings and red hair fluttered in front of me as Helen landed with a thud and her shield glowed as she braced for the impact with the boss.

His rapier pierced her shield and went right through her arm as her feet slid back to only just graze me.

Several different colors of light hit me, putting back together the hole in my chest and patching up all the cuts I’d suffered. It felt good to be whole again.

“Thought you could take it all by yourself?” Des grabbed me by the arm and lifted me up as the rest of the participants flooded into the room. It was a huge room, especially with the boss only slightly larger than the average person.

“I was just looking. It wouldn’t let me leave.” That was sort of the truth. I certainly hadn’t wanted to fight it once I knew my stacks weren’t going to stay. “The boss does an undodgeable drain, several dashes across the room, and a big wave of blood bats.” I shouted to the crowd.

The tanks grouped up and started to harass the boss as best they could as healers made sure everyone was topped up.

I was back on my feet and rushing the boss looking for my own sort of revenge. My blades danced along his side as all of the melee jostled for a chance to damage him.

Rather than fight for a spot, I went with the flow of the other fighters. Thankfully, the boss moved quite a bit and I was able to outrun the rest of the melee, catching the boss and blowing all of my abilities as well as getting a few swings in before rushing off again to chase him down.

It seemed with more people in the room, the boss was all over the place, targeting random people for some of his abilities.

“Tanks hold him still!” Someone shouted.

“They can’t stop the boss!” Someone else yelled back. “Unless you want them to die so you can do more damage.”

I could feel the tension in the group rise quickly before the boss moved to the center again.

“Ah. All of you unwelcome guests are still guests. Allow me to show my hospitality!” Red beams filled my vision as they lined up on each person’s chest.

“I can’t dispel it!” One adventurer yelled.

“You just have to tank it.” I shouted as people tried all manner of abilities to escape the ability that was targeting them.

“I’m not a tank!” Another yelled.

And then the spell hit.

Blood went everywhere as it burst from people. There was something about the sight of their own blood oozing out of their chest that caused a little more panic in the adventurers.

Not to mention a few hadn’t been topped up and went down in a heap, curling in on themselves in death. It was okay, we’d be able to resurrect them.

The blood all gathered back to the boss who practically radiated health.

Des confirmed what I was worried had happened. “He healed. Almost all the damage we’ve done to him is gone.”

“There has to be a better way.” Someone else complained.

The boss lined up his rapier and went right through the crowd, piercing several Haylon students and a random adventurer that had been present, skewering each of them until he hit the wall, cracking the last in line’s head against the stone before he flicked them off his blade.

“Never say I am a poor host. I always take care of my guests.” He flicked the blade and the blood of the four adventurers rolled off the blade, growing and forming several more vampires. “Tonight, we feast!”

“Kill them quickly.” The chaos had people worried, but I thought they were just normal vampires and ignored the boss to build up more stacks of Liminal Speed using the vampires while I could.

The room was so full it was actually difficult to quickly move around and get to each of them quickly, making sure not to damage any of the adventurers present.

I also wasn’t the only melee damage with that idea. We dog piled the four vampires as a way to vent out our frustration of running after the boss this whole time, only to have him completely heal.

Taylor smirked at me. “What are you doing? You are fast enough to keep up with the boss.”

“Doesn’t mean I like to be crowded any more than the next person.” I laughed and rushed back to the boss now that the vampires were dead.

The cycle repeated itself, only this time when the red lines appeared through the group, someone shouted. “Use whatever damage reduction you have! Throw out shields. Anything!”

I watched as Felin made a swirling shield of ice around a small group and I had [Shadow Phase] up again, using it to reduce the damage I had received. Everyone did what they could and I checked the boss with my CID. Reducing the damage we took did reduce the damage the boss healed.

“Great, now again.” I shouted.

The boss lined up his rapier and people quickly got out of the way the crowd parted. Only a healer at the end got skewered and nearly died as the boss cast her aside and continued to rush throughout the room.

That was a manageable loss.

The tanks started to spread themselves out in the room so that one tank was nearby no matter where the boss attacked rather than rush around and drag him back to the center.

We organized ourselves quickly.

My Liminal Speed stacks started to really add up and I kept up with the boss easily, several other melee damage getting out of my way so that I could continue to hammer away at him.

[Dark Blades] was always on my weapons, adding plenty of damage to the daggers as I tore into the boss.

Like this, we all continued until the boss melted into a puddle of blood, leaving behind a handful of shiny epic loot.