Return to Jorgaldur Volume V: Reunion (2)

Coordinated attack (III)

Gjaki entered alone through a window, and was followed by a certain lynx. The Marabunta had preceded them, and had eroded the magic marks, if the traps hadn't simply exploded. It was a function that it didn't possess in the past, but that she had been developing over the years.

Many years ago, when the mercenaries Shabeladag and Lulorha had witnessed the Marabunta, they had been quite interested, and had asked and suggested a lot. Among others, they had wanted to know if it could do something about magical traps.

Gjaki had thought it was an interesting idea. So, after discovering that it could interact with mana, she had been practicing it against her own traps. Now, she was able to direct them to attack the mana fluctuations. If she was lucky, it deactivated them. If not, they exploded, and a few of her mana bugs were engulfed by the explosion. It wasn't quiet, but it was effective.

Shortly after, she found a level 73 vampire who was frantically attacking the small mana beings. He looked anxious and a little scared. Those bugs were weak, but there were too many of them. Although the mana beings' attacks weren't dangerous, their accumulation was.

With Blood Explosion, he removed the twenty that were climbing up his feet or had fallen on his head. His breathing was heavy, and in his eyes it could be seen that he didn't know how to deal with this.

Of course, that didn't have to worry him much more. A pair of fangs sank into his shoulder, and Unsettle stunned him. He also lost much of his mana due to Yum, Mana, as creating and operating the Marabunta wasn't free. He soon lost consciousness, although his attacker didn't kill him, not yet.

She turned and walked down a hallway. Her creatures had detected many presences.

"What do I do with them?" the vampiress doubted.

There was a group of relatively weak vampires there. They looked terrified, weren't armed, and it was evident that they weren't warriors. Furthermore, she didn't perceive in them the bloodthirsty aura of the other vampires, which gave an idea of how many those had slaughtered. These vampires seemed harmless.

Between her and the feline, they had captured three along the way who did possess that aura, and she had expected to encounter strong resistance in the face of so many presences. Therefore, she was hidden in Darkness, waiting for reinforcement from her ally, who was dragging the last body, hiding it. However, upon encountering those vampires, she sighed and released her camouflage.

"Who're you?!" one of them asked, almost panicking.

She activated Bloodline and Bloodlust, which intimidated them even more. More than half fainted.

"Have I gone too far?" she said to herself, somewhat uncomfortable with the result of her action.

Luckily, there were some left standing. Well, more like they were on the ground, looking at her with teary eyes, and she preferred not to wonder what certain puddles were. Even when she deactivated both skills, they didn't calm down.

"Here I ask the questions. Who're you, and why're you here?" she demanded, looking at each of those who were awake.

"We... We're workers, art... artisans, mages. We... We're here to work" a vampiress with short green hair confessed.

"To create a fortress? A base?"

"Yes..." she admitted, with wide eyes. They expressed her surprise that the newcomer knew the secret plans.

"If I ask you who's behind it, could you die?" Gjaki wanted to make sure.

She had witnessed the consequences more than once, and those vampires seemed more like victims than executioners. When the green-haired vampiress nodded, even more terrified if possible, it confirmed her suspicions.

"How did you become a vampiress?" Gjaki was interested.

"One day, they broke into my house and kidnapped me. When I woke up, I was at her service," she explained, shuddering.

"I could make you all my servants instead of your current father. Are you interested?" she offered them.

They opened their eyes wide. Without thinking much, they agreed. It couldn't be worse.

Gjaki left them there, after rendering the circles useless. They were protected under a kind of translucent dome, which a certain leprechaun had "lent" her some time ago. It allowed vampires to be isolated from their parents, in such a way that they couldn't execute them or communicate with them. She had no time now to convert them.

She left them there, watched by a discreet Bat. Meanwhile, what remained of the Marabunta continued its advance. The small mana beings had suffered heavy casualties, but there were still enough of them to be useful. Of course, she could summon more, but the summoning expense was significantly higher than simply maintaining them.

While going down to the next floor, she observed with sincere respect the battle of the dwarfs from a Bat. There were five vampires attacking them, plus more than ten toads.

That they could defend themselves against the toads wasn't so surprising, since their level was similar, and a pair of dwarfs in the center of the formation even had a higher level. On the other hand, the vampires surpassed them a few levels.

The problem for the vampires was that their attacks were met by the dwarfs' joint defense. The shields weren't only sturdy, but had the property of circulating mana fluidly between them. Hortun's expert direction brought together the sum of all mana to defend against each of the attacks.

Furthermore, not only the dwarfs holding the shields contributed mana, but also those behind them collaborated. In fact, they could even launch powerful joint attacks, as long as their enemies got within range. However, the current plan was only to contain them, unless their enemies wanted to retreat. If that happened, they would advance.

As for the toads, they simply blocked them with their shields, and attacked them with their spears if they got too close. There was no need to waste too much mana against them.

Therefore, for the vampires, that group of dwarfs constituted an insurmountable defense. As much as it was frustrating for them to not be able to crush those "low-level inferior beings", they didn't know how to defeat them.

To make matters worse, the dwarfs kept teasing, taunting, and insulting them. So much so, that one of the vampires, angry, ended up gathering his power to attack directly.

Shortly after, he lay on the ground, inert, in front of the dwarfs. A powerful joint attack had pinned him down. The spears had finished him off.

So, the rest of the vampires were looking at them with rage, helplessness and suspicion. They had even stopped ordering the toads to attack them, after verifying that it only managed to send them to their deaths, without even altering the iron formation. It was like banging their heads against a wall.