Age of Adepts
chapter-768

Second Grade versus Third Grade?

It was something that couldn't possibly happen in the World of Adepts.

Such a thing could never happen, regardless of how powerful the Second Grade adept was and how weak the Third Grade adept was.

The World of Adepts was one of the famous large planes of the multiverse. Its division of the adept grades was also undoubtedly one of the most authoritative ones. A certain busybody once did a calculation. For every increase in an adept's grade, the adept's power would increase significantly by over ten times.

It was precisely due to the strictness of the World of Adept's division of grades that the adepts had become such a famous and intimidating group in the multiverse.

Thus, all the adepts in the stone hall and the tent were stunned to see this Second Grade female vampire prepare herself for battle against the intermediate Third Grade Vampire Haines.

This Bloody Mary seemed to be a fearless person.

Of course she was fearless. She had an adept's tower supporting her from behind.

The adepts in the tent started gossiping and talking. Finally, someone pointed out the real reason behind Mary's actions. The talking adepts immediately understood what was happening. That was right; she was within the radius of the tower!

The discussion outside naturally couldn't disturb the two vampires.

"Not bad!" Even Haines himself couldn't help but praise Mary, let alone the people outside. However, it was hard to tell whether he appreciated Mary's reckless impulse, or whether her unmoving will actually moved him.

After all, the fact that she could stand straight and resist the power of the bloodline while he was right in front of her was already well beyond his expectations!

In the end, vampire adepts belonged to the ranks of bloodlines adepts. The power of their bloodline was almost entirely woven into the core contents of their growth and development. It had probably been etched into their flesh, their bodies, and their souls.

That was why having a bloodline adept resist their bloodline origin was no different from having them fight against themselves. There was no chance of victory.

At the very least, there had never been such an occurrence in the history of bloodline adepts!

The power that the tower remotely sent over was supporting and protecting Mary's mind, allowing her to avoid enduring the instinct to submit that came from the depths of her soul and bloodline. The bloodline of vampires might not be all that impressive, but it was extraordinarily savage and unrelenting. The energy or bloodline power of any other species could only become nutrition for its further growth. There was no possibility of assimilation with other bloodlines.

In theory, even a dragon, once converted into a vampire, would turn into a pure-blooded vampire in the shortest time possible. A situation where the vampire bloodline co-existed with the dragon bloodline was not possible. From this aspect, the vampire bloodline was even more overbearing than a dragon bloodline and even more extreme!

For instance, some major vampire families could give birth to blood descendants by natural means. As this relaxed part of the bloodline shackles on descendants, truly independent souls only had a chance of appearing from among such descendants. Meanwhile, blood servants created through the Embrace were personal soul slaves that purely belonged to themselves. These servants had no true freedom or independence.

As Mary had perfectly inherited the vampire bloodline of Leicester, she was completely free, from a particular perspective. However, Mary's current understanding and exploitation of her bloodline power was still too limited. That was what caused her to be restrained by the constant spiritual pressure and bloodline summonings of her blood origin.

The blessing of the tower improved Mary's abilities significantly. She glared coldly at the approaching Haines and bent down slightly. The blood energy in her body started to circulate and rise at a wild pace.

The next second, the two vampires of different grades bared their sharp fangs simultaneously and charged at each other with all of their savagery and brutality.

Mary's body had initially been very slender and frail. Even her five fingers were just as long and white.

However, now, as the surging blood energy filled her hands, her slender fingers turned crimson red as her nails started to grow wildly. They had become sharp and gleamed with a cold light.

Ever since she had advanced to Second Grade, Mary had fallen in love with this pleasant feeling of ripping her enemy's throat and piercing their hearts with her claws. Moreover, such close-ranged attacks made it easier for her to absorb sufficient blood to regenerate the damage to her body and the Spirit she had exhausted.

The two high-grade vampires were like two rapid and ferocious storms, tearing at each other with wild abandon in the stone hall. However, it was clear that Haines' speed, Strength, Agility, and Physique were all above Mary's. More significantly, whenever Mary's blood energy tried to stop Haines' wounds from healing, the blood energy would simply be absorbed. Meanwhile, Mary couldn't deal with Haines' blood attacks with such ease!

If it weren't for the blessing of the tower providing Mary's attributes a certain degree of improvement, she would probably have had immense trouble keeping up with Haines' speed and rhythm. She would have been unable to do anything other than stand there and be toyed with like a dull puppet.

Even so, Mary was at an absolute disadvantage in this civil war between vampires. She was forced to dodge with all she had, and the terrifying gashes on her body were only increasing in count and severity.

Mary had no way of obtaining any blood from Haines' body. She occasionally opened up deep cuts on his body, but the ripped flesh would regenerate in a short amount of time. The blood that had been spilled would also turn into odd fanged creatures in midair.

These drops of blood seemed to have a mind of their own and would wriggle and twist in the air. The closest drop of blood to Haines would turn and instantly dive into his body. The ones that were further away would drop to the ground and transform into all sorts of weird shapes as they bounced and jumped after him.

It was a shocking scene to behold!

Mary felt exhausted after a mere seven seconds in battle.

For some unknown reason, the wounds Haines inflicted also bled blood-energy at an extraordinary rate. Mary couldn't stop the loss of blood essence even when she consciously locked down the blood energy within her body. What made things worse was the fact that she couldn't get any blood from Haines.

Such loss without any hope of replenishment was taking a toll on Mary, even with her Physique; she couldn't last much longer.

Mary tried her best to fight as she retreated, and the two of them dashed all over the narrow tunnels of Fire Cave as they fought. If it wasn't for the remote protection of the tower, Mary would have long since been captured by Haines and turned into his prisoner.

Several squads of Archers hiding in various spots in the darkness released furious tongues of fire and violent storms of metal to engulf Haines.

Sadly, all they could capture were the afterimages that Haines left in the air. Haines' real body flickered to a corner of the tunnel like a phantom as he pursued Mary and quickly exterminated the Archers.

The impenetrable alloy bodies of the Archers exploded into components and metal shards under the corrosion of a Third Grade vampire's blood energy. They didn't even last more than a moment. As the two vampires extended the battlefield underground, such explosions from the magical machines became even more frequent.

"Dammit, Lady Mary can't last much longer! We have to find a way to bring her back." Gargamel shouted angrily, his voice filled with unconcealable worry and concern.

Mary was already the most powerful adept of the tower at the moment. If even she couldn't fend off the attacks of a Third Grade adept under the support of the tower, how were they supposed to deal with the siege that came after?

The other Second Grade bloodkin could not be sent out again.

It was clear from their fear of Haines that the effects of a battle between high-grade vampires on them were too great. In such a situation, the only ones that could help Mary were Dragonborn Zacha and Tigule.

Tigule was still hesitating, but Zacha had already courageously lifted his Frozen Mallet and Lightning Spear. He roared and charged into the dark and narrow tunnels. Tigule let out a bitter smile. He was worried that something might happen to Zacha. Thus, he let out the Goblin Shredder, jumped into the machine, and followed after the dragonborn.

If a Second Grade couldn't deal with that Third Grade vampire, then three of them would fight him at once!

Zacha and Tigule were enveloped in the crimson magical forcefield created by the tower's blessing. They roared and lunged out of the darkness, quickly joining the battle against Haines.

One had to admit that the heavy armor and dragon scales on Zacha, as well as the Goblin Shredder's thirty-centimeter-thick alloy armor were way too dense for a vampire to pierce. Even though every claw attack from Haines carried with it over three hundred points of blood attribute damage, he couldn't do anything if his attacks couldn't pierce the enemy's armor.

If they were the only two dealing with Haines, then the old vampire had over a hundred ways to slowly use his blood energy to destroy their defenses before murdering them. However, when the three of them gathered together–the dragonborn attacking, the Goblin Shredder defending, and Mary stalling–then even the Third Grade Haines couldn't help but be troubled.

If he tried to focus on Mary, she could easily kite him for a period of time with her twenty-eight points of Agility (her own twenty-six points with a +2 bonus from the tower). During this time, the Second Grade dragonborn's lightning spear and Frozen Mallet, along with the Goblin Shredder's magical guns, posed a decent threat to the Third Grade vampire.

At the very least, Haines could no longer ignore the threat that they represented!

On the other hand, if Haines wanted to focus on the two of them, the dragonborn's lasting lifeforce and the goblin's speechlessly sturdy machine made them challenging targets.

Third Grade Haines weaved between the three enemies, always finding gaps and opportunities to dive in. He would occasionally scratch Zacha, strike at Mary, or lead Tigule about in circles. However, he still had no way to exterminate any one of them quickly.

Thus, the battle continued in this awkward stalemate!