Carlus grit his teeth, because strange animal sounds were escaping from his mouth again. It truly was a curse. Listening to his weird sounds, Pace laughed his head off and lightly flicked his hand. He chuckled, “Kekeke. Someone played a funny trick on you.”

Paching! As soon as Pace spoke, something shattered from within Carlus’ body.

“I can easily break that. Consider this on the house.”

“Who are you… Hup! The weird animal noises…” Carlus muttered.

“That won’t happen anymore since I just broke the curse. Is that important, though?” Pace asked.

“What?” This time, no strange animal noise followed his sentence. Carlus realized that the weird cries that were bothering him had disappeared.

“Sign a contract with me. We will take care of the person you despise,” Pace said.

“Hup?!” Realizing that Pace wasn’t offering empty promises, Carlus gulped. He flinched, feeling a pressure pressing down on him. He frowned menacingly and turned pale.

“How is that?” Pace asked.

“You…can kill him? Davey has a stigmata, and someone else is also protecting him. He’s not that easy a target.”

Pace should have been surprised at Carlus revealing information that should be disclosed with caution, but he just shrugged. “He’s nothing but a human.”

“You speak as if you aren’t one.”

“Well, it should be settled soon. I have already sent my subordinates that way.” Pace slowly stood up and as he did, Shari, the lady-in-waiting who was hanging from the cross, disappeared into the air. Pace’s red, bloody eyes shone. “They should have his head by now.”

* * *

Only one authority allowed for blood-related abilities, such as making blood stronger than metal. It came from an unknown power. It was the power of blood, the authority of vampires. However, the thing that appeared before Davey’s eyes wasn’t exactly a vampire.

“Who are you?! How dare you come in here!”

“Show your… Gasp! Elder! Look!”

The dwarves, who were flustered at the sudden attack, ran all over the place. It was only after an unexpected discovery did their jaws drop.

-A demonic beast… And a high-level one at that.

‘The power of blood is unique to vampires, but a demonic beast has it too.’

The beast was about the size of a house, and it had huge claws and spiky thorn-like fur. Its appearance was threatening.

‘The blood-made knife probably came from that.’

The beast looked down at the village as if eyeing its prey, then it fixed its gaze onto Davey.

-Grr…

The beast smiled eerily, took a deep breath, and let out a loud roar.

-Roar!!!

The volume was astonishing.

“Keugh!”

“Agh!”

The aftermath was quite severe; as soon as Davey reflexively released his holy power and cast a protection spell on the two dwarves who were in front of him, an intense vibration resonated through the village and began breaking the surrounding rocks apart.

Thud!! The two dwarves couldn’t endure the bestial roar even with Davey’s protection spell and collapsed onto the ground.

The beast came down, looking satisfied. It never cared about the dwarves anyway, since its target was Davey in the first place.

“Would you look at that?” Davey scoffed at the absurdity of the situation.

The beast slowly circled around Davey. To Davey, its thoughts of playing with him before killing him were plain as day.

Demonic beasts were animals that acted on instinct. The beast using the power of blood, which was the vampires’ unique power, was unexpected, but it didn’t change the fact that it was an idiot.

‘And this beast has such thoughts? It’s not even funny.’

“You think you’re the predator?”

As if it understood Davey, the beast, which was putting pressure on the surroundings with an eerie strength, became extremely furious.

-Grr… Roar!!!

Davey’s gentle provocation had gotten the beast ferocious in seconds.

-Blood aura?

Perserque sounded surprised as she noticed the red energy current that was surrounding the beast’s claws. The power of blood was a unique power that vampires of a certain rank could release, and some high-ranking ones could even release a red blade energy. Even if it was the same aura, a blood aura was sharper and stronger than a regular one.

This particular beast had the power of an ‘Expert’ level. Normally, it took a person of the highest level in ‘Expert’ to easily kill any demonic beast that wasn’t a high-ranking one. However, this red beast in front of Davey was incomparably more dangerous than regular demonic beasts.

“Hm…”

Crack!! Davey didn’t have to care about someone watching him go wild because no one was conscious. He put his hand into a void as he stomped and smashed the ground. It was helpful that he had forcibly created a subspace because he didn’t have a good space to store them separately. The spell to create a subspace purely from a mage’s powers and without any tools was a high-ranking seven-circle spell, and it was difficult to cast with the mana circles Davey had now, since he hadn’t reached the seventh circle yet. All he could do was create a very small space that was enough to store two swords.

The best way to deal with the beast was to use high-level holy magic or borrow the power of the divine sword, but Davey had two tools that were much better than that.

-Roar!!

Even the Aura Blade of a ‘Master’ would have a hard time slashing the beast’s body, which was like a huge lump of metal. However, Davey didn’t cast Aura Blade, the symbol of the ‘Master’ level, or Aura, the symbol of the ‘Expert’ level. All he did was swing what was in his hand.

“People have to use tools.” Since he now had the best weapon, Davey had to try it out. One could only truly appreciate a new car after taking it for a ride.

[Demon Sword Art 24th Form]

[Majestic Flash]

It was a slow and gentle slash that seemingly couldn’t even cut the beast. However, as soon as the blade came close to its body, a red afterimage instantly accelerated and split into a dozen strands that covered the sky.

28. An Omen

The World of Martial Arts hit its prime when Davey’s swordsmanship teacher, Dokgo Jun, the Heavenly Destroyer, had been alive. From what Davey had heard, there was a time when people grew tired of the extremely corrupt Orthodox partisan dignitaries and those who trained in martial arts found it increasingly difficult to do anything.

[So, what I did! Hiccup! So… Um, what did I say? Hiccup!]

To be honest, Dokgo Jun had been nothing but a drunkard who couldn’t really be believed. But Davey had heard numerous times that he had united the entire World of Martial Arts with one sword.

There were 88 moves that Dokgo Jun had made, and each one had been like a finishing move; his destructive and extremely powerful swordsmanship combined with Sword Lord Ares’ and became the most optimal form for Davey. Split!!! With a momentary vibration of the air, the beast was shredded.

“Woah, this is nice.” Davey’s expectations were exceeded. He had made these swords for himself and no one else; as such, there was no way the swords wouldn’t be compatible with him.

Davey shook off the blood on the sword as soon as the charging large, red demonic beast fell onto the ground. The blood slowly began evaporating, as if burning away as steam.

“I think this is enough for the Red Ribbon.”

As Davey spoke calmly, Perserque poked his cheek.

-You. That thing isn’t dead yet.

“I know.”

Shshshsh…

‘Be careful of what you wish for.’

Thanks to the Red Ribbon, the beast had been cut into several pieces. As its blood began moving and combining with each other, as if it had its own will, Davey put his hand into the void again. He pulled out a sapphire-colored sword.

“Perserque. Do you know anything about a demonic beast having qualities of immortality when it’s not even a high-ranking vampire?”

-A beast using the power of blood isn’t normal in the first place.

-Grr… Roar!!

Showing an unbelievable recovery speed, the beast’s shreds of flesh clumped together before it came back alive. The insane beast came at Davey in extreme anger, charging as if it was going to rip him into shreds with its sharp claws. Its speed was no different than before. Split!! As the red flash of light cut its body once again, its attacks lost strength and it flew into the air.

“Well then… Let’s see the authority of destroying immortality.”

High-ranking vampires had a survival skill similar to ‘Reach,’ which hid the source of immortality somewhere away from the physical body. Breaking the source would kill it, but without breaking that, the physical body could revive again and again. Death was possible if the physical body was shredded into very small pieces, out of power, or exposed to a large amount of holy power. However, it was difficult for that to actually happen. Simply put, it meant that this fight was going to be an annoying one.

As much as it was an OP ability, there were still some limitations; the physical body would be extremely weakened if the source were attacked or if it was struck with high-level holy magic. It would also become less powerful if the body were separated from the source of immortality. It was kind of like a balance patch from God, the divine will… But it was clearly still a dangerous power when fighting with an unprepared opponent.

Unlike ‘Reach,’ the source of immortality, the survival skill of vampires, couldn’t be hidden far away from the physical body. That was because immortality was quite a high-level authority. It was only given to the high-ranking vampires who were strong enough to be the Lords.

‘But why’s that kind of power given to a demonic beast?’ Davey momentarily thought that maybe he should capture the demonic beast and investigate this, but it was unfortunate that the current situation wasn’t that great.

As the demonic beast, that kept reviving when slashed with the Red Ribbon, collapsed onto the ground with one strike from the Blue Ribbon, it felt strangely exhausted. The Red Ribbon was far superior to the Blue Ribbon in terms of precision and sharpness, but the Blue Ribbon was highly effective on demon-type and immortal beings.