Spectral tales

The chaos

Undead city-Altraud
In the dungeon of shadows.

In the grasslands, Arya ran towards the large wolf while dodging an attack from her back.
Turning around she stabbed the attacking wolf's skull with a blood dagger and continued her march when another wolf attacked her from her left. She ducked to avoid its claws and stabbed its stomach but before she could stand another wolf attacked her from behind, sending her tumbling to the ground and causing a deep wound on her back.

Taking in a deep breath Arya activated <regeneration> and <blood control>.
Her pale white skin turned red and her body emitted fumes as she stared at the attacking wolf.

The wolf that was previously slightly faster than her now looked like it was moving in slow motion. With the boost from <blood control>, Arya became twice as fast as the wolf and used it to reduce the distance between them in seconds.

Converting the blood dagger in her hands into a long double-edged sword she swung it at the wolf, splitting it into two and glanced at the large Wolf in the distance.

The grin on its face was long gone, replaced by an unbridled fury. It howled out loud, ordering the wolves around it to attack in unison.

Arya smirked and stared at her skin, "only five minutes huh" she mumbled and sliced an incoming wolf in half.
Her weapon changed shape every few seconds, turning from a long double-edged sword into a dagger, then into a spear and then into a large war hammer, as she attacked the wolves with crude yet deadly attacks.

4 minutes left

Time was running out and the wolves were rushing at her like a never-ending tide yet she did not retreat. After what seemed like an eternity but was only two minutes long, Arya reached the pack leader and struck its skull with a blood war hammer, only for it to turn out to be an afterimage.

Turning towards her left she found the large wolf attacking her with its claws. Hurriedly converting the hammer into a large shield she received the hit and propelled herself away from the wolf and created a distance between them.

Landing on her feet she spun and converted the shield into sharp needles of blood and launched at the wolf. The large Wolf couldn't dodge in time but its thick fur cushioned the impact leaving only surface wounds.

3 minutes left

Sprinting back Arya collided with the wolf again and again exchanging as many blows as she could and using her <blood control> to try to land a critical wound on the damn wolf but its thick fur and incredible speed made all her attempts unsuccessful.

2 minutes left

With the time running out and the fatigue from the skills, Arya's eyes blurred, forcing her to stumble. The wolf didn't miss the chance and ripped a large chunk of her abdomen in one bite.

"Teacher!?" Peter screamed, almost jumping down the tree to help her but Ervin stopped him in the nick of time. Ervin too didn't look pleased but kept his cool and searched for any opening to help his teammate. Unfortunately for the bony boy, his arrows didn't have the firepower to hurt the wolf.

Arya grimaced as blood flowed down from the angle of her mouth and glanced at the worried duo. Her condition didn't look good and the imposing wolf ahead of her didn't help, yet a smile found its way into Arya's mouth.

The wolf stared at her expecting to see fear in her eyes but what it saw was...excitement...
The beast's instincts tingled as it tried to spit the blood away from its mouth but it was already too late. The blood inside its mouth transformed into an endless tide of sharp arrows and attacked the beasts inside until the wolf could no longer bear the pain, its knees bucked as it slumped down while howling at the top of its lungs.

1 minute left

Arya got up from the ground while tumbling a little in the process and approached the wolf. Her fatigue had already caught up to her and she was barely resisting her urge to fall unconscious. Raising her blood dagger she intended to deliver the final blow when she observed a flock of flying crows led by a gigantic metal-feathered crow approaching them.

Knowing that staying there any longer would be risky she struck the wolf's throat with her dagger and spirited back to the rabbit hole. She knew that the attack was not enough to kill the beast but she had no time to finish the job.
Along the way, she saw many dead wolves with arrows stuck in them. Glancing at the duo she screamed "Get into the rabbit hole", and saw them do just that.

30 seconds left,

Finally reaching the hole she too jumped down, barely escaping the claws of a crow and landed inside the chamber. The hole was too small for the wolves to enter and the crows avoided going underground. Sighing out in relief Arya slumped down when a bony fist collided with her face breaking her nose in the process.
The boy Ervin didn't stop punching her until she was unconscious.

*************************
Human camp
Human-undead border.

A few kilometres away from the human tents, a group of vampires lay flat on the ground while a long undead snake coiled around the only alive vampire.

The vampire, head Butler of Selena, glared menacingly at the human who was controlling the undead.
"Why did you kill us? We made a deal, didn't we?"

The man-Blaze chuckled at the question and unhurriedly approached him. He appeared to be around 40 years old, standing 190cm from head to toe with orange hair and pale green eyes, he looked average.

"Deal? Yes, we made a deal but the ones who made it were my higher-ups and Selena. Do you know what the deal was? You don't "
The vice-captain of the human camp spoke with a mocking grin, irking the vampire to no end.
He then glanced at the undead snake "Carry the dead vampires and hide them near the captain's tent "

The snake nodded at his orders and slithered towards the dead vampires, after picking them up it scurried away from the area, leaving the other two alone.

"Hm, what were we talking about? Ah yes, the deal. Want to hear an interesting story? " Blaze glanced at the vampires while speaking and found him trying to use his skill to no avail.

"I poisoned the food you ate so quit trying to use your skill, it won't work" he quoted and sat on a nearby rock.
"Anyway back to the story. There once was a little vampire called Selena, she was too bored to stay in her Palace and went out to hunt. Unfortunately for her, she ventured out during the time of war, a war called 'War of Gaints' and was captured by the human supremacists. They did all kinds of experiments on her and invented a poison that when used made the vampires unable to use their innate affinity for almost an hour"

Hearing about the poison made the vampire's expression go dark but Blaze didn't care and continued,
"Selena suffered for 3 months when a prince charming swooped in and rescued her. Angered at the humans he went on a rampage and decimated many human facilities. The 'War of Giants' raged on until the previous Vampire King, the nightmare vampire King Louis was killed by the human hero.
The Prince made major contributions to the war and became famous and even married Selena but in the end, do you know what happened to him? You do, don't you?"

The vampire gritted his teeth and spat "Of course I know. He was killed by Veld, the present Vampire king"
Blaze grinned " Right, all that contribution and fame amounted to nothing. In the end, he died at his little brother's hand "

The vampire just scoffed at his statement, "What does that have anything to do with our dead?" he asked with a frown and saw the man grinning at him.

"It has everything to do with the deal. Selena was devastated by her husband's death and offered herself to human supremacists. The deal was for us to help her kill Veld's family and in exchange, she would be our slave and do all our bidding. You are one of the sacrifices. We asked for a few vampires to experiment on and she sent you to us" Placing his hand on the vampire he smiled one last time and slit his throat.

Turning around Blaze saw a group of humans approaching and pointed at the dead vampire, "That vampire is dead but there may be more. I feel like they are targeting the captain. I will go check on him, you guys clean up the mess" he ordered and walked away.

Looking at his departing figure one of the humans mumbled " He is so responsible. Let's do our best and follow his lead"
The other members of the group nodded and returned to the work at hand.