‘Please cooperate. You just have to lend me your power, and I’ll do the rest.’

-You… What are…

[Divine Union.]

[Transcendental Longsword, Thunder Slash.]

Crack!!

Enlightenment was such a convenient system. Muscle strength was stored in the physical body, but reaching a new level and gaining enlightenment was engraved in the soul. For Davey, who had already experienced enlightenment once, a new change would simply be his hardened mana returning to its original state. Recently, his recovery speed had gotten quite slow, but it was just a phase from a lot of mana being released at once and not really about a lack of enlightenment.

Ares’ sword technique, the [Longsword], which could be seen as the original version of the [Mountain Crush] that Davey used, tore through the air with great power. Although it was a blow that lacked a lot of mana, a huge amount of holy power flowed out of the sword and made up for the lacking mana. It wasn’t a Divine Sword for no reason.

As a pure white spark of light flashed through the air, the red fog cleared for just a moment. Then, there was a horrendous sword marking left behind.

“For how much longer are you going to hide? Come out already.” There was no response, but Davey definitely felt a form beginning to appear. He commented, “I guessed that you were a vampire, but I didn’t think you would be high-rank.”

Black bats began gathering at once, clustering near the void of the red fog. They formed a mass and created a human-like figure. Looking at the form taking shape, Davey teased, “We’ve met before, haven’t we, Miss Lady-in-waiting?”

The colors began to return to the woman-like figure. She slowly opened her terrifyingly cold, red eyes.

* * *

Davey was certain about one thing after thinking back to what he had heard about vampires: the pride of vampires went through the roof, and past the limits of the sky and atmosphere. The vampires who called themselves nobility even formed the nobility class, creating class divisions amongst them. Of course, they were that much more powerful too.

Vampires were the only kind to use blood magic; like Draconic, which was the inherent ability of dragon kind, vampires naturally had a strong power over blood… And ‘Blood Polis’, the sanctuary of vampires, was a power similar to that.

“When someone killed my men, I thought someone was helping you from the shadows. I didn’t expect you to be the culprit.” Shari spoke airily. She didn’t look that surprised as she quietly looked down at Davey.

“Well, I am a little bit of a hotshot.” Davey made a remark to hurt Shari’s pride. “Can you come down from there? My neck’s getting a little sore from looking up.”

“Hmph, how dare…”

“Also, if you’re in the air while wearing that kind of dress, I can see your underwear. It’s black. Fits your personality.” Davey’s smile slipped away, “So, come down right now.”

Slash!! The spark of light flashed again, tearing through the space where Shari was. Davey hadn’t recovered enough mana to cut the space; he had just slashed part of the red fog. However, that didn’t matter. The Divine Sword [Caldeiras] had an ‘Ego’ with a huge amount of holy power, and vampires or any of the undead-type creatures were very weak against holy power.

Davey’s second blow struck much harder than before, so Shari slowly stepped down onto the other end of the battlefield with a frown.

“If you cause this big of a disaster, Queen Lynesse wouldn’t take the blame even if you got rid of Baris, Winley, or me. The relationship with the Boltis Kingdom would become extremely bad, but the Boltis Kingdom would be resented by many countries and wouldn’t go to war with the Rowane Kingdom.” Davey smiled at Shari, who glared back in silence. It was as if her pride had been hurt. Davey continued to taunt her, “I assume that you showed yourself because you’re confident that you can kill me. It’s quite smart, but too bad. It’s closing time, sucker.”

“Speaking weird things in a vulgar manner…” Shari spread her arms as her cold words pierced the air. Droplets of blood began gathering in her hand, quickly forming a red whip.

Shari ruthlessly whipped at Davey. Whip! Snap!! The whip struck down on Davey and the ground with a loud, tearing sound. It completely demolished the floor that was hardened with magic.

‘Woah. I guess she’s really mad.’

And if that wasn’t all, the places the whip touched began turning red and sharp thorns started rushing toward Davey at an incredible speed. Slash!! Of course, since Davey had no intention of just getting beaten, he lightly swung his sword. The sharp thorns were all slashed and scattered at once.

“It’s different than what I thought, but you’re still a lowly human.”

“Aren’t you currently a human’s servant, miss?”

“Absurdity!” Shari lashed the whip, which forcefully tore through the air once again. She seemed very angry, but there wasn’t anything Davey could do about it; the most effective way to defeat a vampire was to run one’s mouth.

-Vampire Lord? They’re strong, so damn strong. First of all, they are the strongest of their own kind. They are born insanely strong and the most special one among them inherits the position of becoming the Lord. Without a High Elf, their natural enemy, they don’t even die easily. 

-How did I defeat them? I ran my mouth until they were driven up the wall, and then I brought them down. Whatever they are, their actions become simple when they get really irritated. Especially since vampires have a strong sense of pride, there are a lot of high-ranking nobles that burst into anger like greenhorns if you criticize their origin or appearance.

That was what the Sword Lord had told Davey while lying on the wooden podium, like the lazybones he was. It seemed like the Pallan Empire strongly believed in the Sword Lord; Davey wondered how they would react if they saw the real Sword Lord.

Snap!! Crack!! There was a sonic boom as Shari persistently whipped at Davey with incredible force. A direct hit would be difficult to endure, even if one trained their physical body very well. Furthermore, the whip wasn’t a weapon that could be easily blocked.

The whip with blood-red thorns rushed toward Davey again, as if it were blocking his retreat routes. He couldn’t evade the attacks much longer. And if he retreated further, it would most likely affect the people.

After dodging Davey’s sword, Shari mumbled indifferently, “All that is left for you is death… Even if you have the power from the Divine Sword, that girl, who had learned swordsmanship from the Sword Lord, has collapsed.” She spoke arrogantly.

Davey tried swinging his sword, and the red droplets of blood surrounding Shari just bounced off his blade energy. He muttered, “A barrier of blood…”

-A vampire of higher rank than a count! She is part of the younger generation, but her bloodline is pure enough that she could try for the position of the Lord.

Davey slowly nodded at [Caldeiras], who saw the barrier of blood. ‘Then I should get rid of her now.’

-Can you do it?

Despite the whip’s enormous power, which surrounded him and rushed in to finish him, Davey twisted his body lightly while raising his sword. ‘Of course, why not?’

With a rough slashing sound, the red whip missed Davey by a paper-thin distance and struck down on his surroundings with force. It was quite difficult to dodge irregular attacks, but one could even strike back after getting the hang of it. Shari’s face momentarily tensed as her attack, which she was certain would hit Davey, missed by a small distance.

Without missing the short window of opportunity, Davey rushed in as he stomped on the red thorns that were chasing him. It was a very short window, but that was enough for him to attack. Although the sword path was very obvious and completely inefficient, it actually applied much more hitting force, since Davey was aiming at both Shari and the gigantic red jewel in the air that was releasing the damn red fog. “She learned the swordsmanship of the Sword Lord? She’s only scratched the surface; what are you thinking?”

-Thi… This sword technique?!

This was a light [Landing Technique of a Thousand Weights] that Davey had done hundreds of thousands of times as training. He had slightly changed it to suit him better, but it was the exact same attack of [Mountain Split] that Princess Illyna used on Baltian.

[Transcendental Longsword, Rock Split]

However, the power was clearly different from what Princess Illyna had shown.

“What is this?!” Shari was shocked at Davey’s sudden release of force. She reflexively created another barrier of blood with her eyes wide open, but…

‘It’s already too late.’

Slash! A flash, condensed with a strong, merciless power, created an enormous pure white spark of light. It tore apart the space along with Shari.

* * *

The aftermath of the massive blow was extremely extensive. The battlefield, which maintained its shape even after Shari’s attacks, collapsed from the huge vibration. It was completely destroyed. The floor of the battlefield was built with sturdy stones treated with magic, then treated with dozens of layers of magic again after it was built. Davey was quite surprised to see the floor, which could probably survive a bombing, crumbling into powder. All he did was use a proper weapon.

-What? Can’t you just use something good to make up for things that you lack? Danger comes whenever, even when you don’t intend for it to! Do you think you’ll have a really good item or artifact? 

The self-proclaimed ‘Survival Expert’ hero, Hercules, previously mentioned.

-You’ve yet to mature, haven’t you?

-You, just think of it simply, hiccup! Who do you think will be stronger: a damn strong guy holding a legendary sword or a guy with nothing… Hiccup! Agh, I’m getting drunk. Where was I… Ah, right. Or a guy with nothing holding a legendary sword. Hiccup… Ah, where was I? 

The lazybones Sword Lord Ares and the drunkard, Heavenly Destroyer Dokgo Jun remarked.

-Then why learn magic, if you can just swing a staff that has outstanding magic stored in it? Anyways, are you switching the topic after calling me a flat-chested shortie?

Mage Odin commented.

‘When did I do that?’

-You’re probably asking me now because you already got an earful from the others, right? Since I haven’t learned fighting techniques, I can’t really give you any advice, but remember that you always have to return what you have borrowed. There’s a big difference between what you have built and borrowing what has already been built.

Lastly, the God of Medicine Hypocria grinned at Davey while lightly pinching his cheek.

Ultimately, although there were many different kinds of people at the Hall, they were all saying one thing: do not blindly have faith in the strength items give. However, it would be difficult to say that after tasting the synergy that the item brought about.

“Wow… Amazing. That’s why everyone says to gear up.”

-I don’t know what you’re talking about. You know, back in my day! You know!

“Ugh, that mouth of yours.”

The Divine Sword [Caldeiras] spoke in a really refreshed voice. For thousands of years, she had just been well-kept. She did find a master, but her master wasn’t skilled enough to materialize her yet. And since she was currently being kept as a brooch, it seemed that she was feeling a little stuffy in there.

-By the way. Who the hell are you? How are you bringing out my powers? And how do you know about me? Your swordsmanship, too! The skill you just showed was certainly his sword technique, [Mountain Split].

“That’s true.”

-Also, like you already knew about me…

“Let’s just go with the agreement. Do we need to uncover unnecessary truths about each other?”

-What…?