The vampire's torso falls to the ground after being brutally ripped apart from its lower half by Reign's attack. The vampire's head slowly turns to look at Reign, even after such an attack he was still alive, the vitality of a vampire was terrifying, to say the least.
"A hu…man?" The vampire's eyes constrict a bit as he sees Reign, his mind spinning in disbelief, the attack that killed him was incredible, one should know that at his level he could be considered one of, if not the fastest, seeing a mere human being faster than him shocked him.
"To think th- cough, cough!" The vampire violently coughs up blood before being able to finish his sentence. Reign comes to him and grabs his arm, turning him to lay on his back, even though he and the others used what someone may call a cowardly method to kill him, they still had respect towards this vampire's strength.
"Hahaha!" The vampire laughs bitterly while his eyes never leave Reign, his hands lay powerlessly on the ground as his life slowly flickers away. "To think humanity would progress so fast, already having warriors of your caliber."
The vampire's eyes change for a moment, showing a bitterly look of sadness. "Waiting for the final moment before killing the two of us, a great tactic, you all managed to get great rewards with no risk."
Reign and the others hang their heads down, partly in shame but also because they didn't want any praise for what they did.
"You are the ones that killed me, Althrean!" The vampire shouts. "So lift up your heads humans, this is war, nothing is shameful if you manage to defeat your foes!"
The vampire's words shock everyone, they thought that the vampire would curse them, yell at them with everything he had before dying, him actually praising them was something they would have never imagined.
"Listen, humans, this universe is vast and terrifying, everyone gives it their best to survive, including me, as my final words I tell you to live, no matter how you do it that is the most important, after all, the stronger you become the more worthy my death becomes." Althrean smiles after finishing his words, his eyes slowly close as he enters an eternal slumber.
Reign's face was grave, he would have felt much better if their enemy simply showed hatred towards them before dying, the words of encouragement Althrean spoke to them only confused him, he wanted to know exactly what the vampire went through to take his death so … peacefully.
Ding!
[Battle has been concluded, distributing experience...]
- Lvl 20 Vampire Althrean killed, 1000exp gained
- Lvl 20 Alpha Blood Wolf killed, 1000exp gained
[ System has withheld the items gained until the completion of the quest for a higher reward opportunity.]
[The players have earner 2 000exp and 100S coins, distributing …]
[The player has earned 400 exp and 20S coins.]
[Battle has been concluded, distributing subordinates experience...]
- Lvl 20 Alpha Blood Wolf killed, 300exp gained
[Your subordinate has killed 1 monster, 300 exp points earned.]
Looking at the notification everyone was stunned for a second, this was the first time something like the system withholding items happened, they recover in a moment though as they were sure nothing bad would come of this, as the system already said that they might have a chance for better rewards.
Looking at the two corpses on the ground they decide to take the valuable items from the wolf, they leave Althreans body untouched out of respect, they knew this will matter little though as the numerous monster in the territory will definitely rip it apart and try to evolve, but unfortunately, they didn't have the luxury of time to bury him.
Everyone takes one final look at the vampire's smiling face before they leave, the howls of wolves and sounds of battle had already come near them, getting into a fight with so many monsters would spell their death right now.
They run towards the end of the forest, it was near the vampire's territory, but they would still have to run a couple of minutes before getting there, something that is incredibly difficult to do right now.
Only a minute passed before they came across the first group of enemies, a pack of three wolves was fighting against 5 vamps. As soon as they saw the party they froze in their tracks, that only lasted for a moment though as they immediately attacked them. The vamp's and the wolves were enemies, but they were fighting against each other for the territory, for a third party to come here made them furious, making them leave their differences aside before killing them.
The fight was short however as the small group was simply too weak to deal with Reign and the others, they might have had a chance to fight them for a longer time if they worked together, but the wolves and vamps weren't willing to fight them together, they were still enemies after all.
As more time passed more and more enemies started showing up. First, it was other small groups similar to the first one, but after some time bigger groups started showing up more frequently, usually ganging up on them right away.
The party had to fight with everything they got, they knew something like this would happen after they killed the bosses, they hoped to use the same tactic of jumping from tree to tree to flee but the neared to the end they got, the sparser the trees were, the distance between each making it impossible.
The fights were brutal, numerous corpses lay on the path they took, flesh and bones were everywhere and pools of blood had formed. The stench of blood made the surrounding enemies go crazy, all of them running towards Reign and the others as they had already found the corpses of their two leaders.
The strongest if each species were left where the corpses were, none of them wanted to pass on an opportunity to evolve, making the pressure on them a bit lighter.
Reigns lighting flashed as he stabs through a wolf's head, smashing apart its skull and frying the brain with lightning.
"We have to hurry, we can't take it much longer!" Wolf shouts from the front as he slashes his sword sideways on the ground, creating a thin wall of fire to ward off the monsters, his tactic works as they all take a step backward in fear.
Tank simply put his shield upfront and charged at any enemies that were dumb enough to stand on his way, he was saving the bull's charge for later, it will be an invaluable help to them when they are near the forest's end.
Beast fires off an arrow before a transparent green shield shows up on his arm, blocking the bite of a wolf that jumped on him.
Thud
Shadow comes to his aid immediately and uses his Shadow burst, stabbing his dagger through the wolf's ear, making the explosion happen inside its head, killing it right away.
Beast gets up swiftly and continues running with the others, as the enemies quickly converge on their location they finally see the end, light was shining through the gaps of the trees as if lighting a way for them.
"Bulls Charge!"
Tank activates his charge the moment everyone gets behind him, the huge bull shrouds them all as they smash every obstacle in their way, even the higher-leveled wolves and vamps were too weak to stop them.
Beast continues launching his arrows while they charged, the more enemies they kill the better the reward from the quest became after all.
Shadow switched his daggers and was throwing them relentlessly at the enemies, sometimes using the shadow blades with them, picking off some of the wounded enemies.
They come out of the forest right when Tank's charge ends, the monsters staying at the border while looking at them with resentment.
Everyone was injured, the relentless assault of hundreds of monsters was not something they could survive if not for the rules that prohibited them from coming out of their perspective areas.
They all go a bit further away, just to make sure that nobody would attack them from afar before they sat down on the ground, exhausted. They were currently at a clearing, its width was about 100 meters, connecting the BloodHill Forest and the other, more dangerous forest.
This was probably something the system did to allow the players to rest up a bit before they ventured forward.
Everyone takes out the food and water they had in the inventory and starts feasting. They were incredibly tired and hungry after such an ordeal, replenishing their strength with food was a must right now.
It was now 5:30 in the afternoon, they had been traveling for about 10 hours now with no rest, one thing to consider is that their speed was far above that of an average human, the distance they covered would take much longer for people to traverse before the game's start. The sun would still be up till 8 and they were considering whether to enter the forest now or wait till morning to continue.
"I don't think we should risk it, Eldar told us that this would be the most dangerous area we would face in this journey, with that in mind we can interpret that the areas after it are probably the same as the ones we crossed now," Wolf tells them with a straight face as they all listen to him, looking at each other they nod their heads and decide to wait here until morning.
There was still no notification for the end of the quest though, the battle between the vamp's and wolves probably had to come to an end before that probably. The monsters had already gone back to fighting each other shortly after they left the forest, so they were sure that the quest would be done by morning. With that in mind, everyone rested before going to sleep when night came.