Danmachi Familia from Hell

21

Claws and fangs slashed left and right without restraint. Ribs, collarbones, humeri, skulls, and every other bone were being minced like children’s paper cutouts.
In response, violet ghosts flew in wave after wave, burning straight through flesh, destroying tendons and muscles.
Neither elf nor vampire had any intention of holding back. Complicated strategies and race-born abilities vanished.
How many of these skeletons does he still have?! The thoughts of the self-proclaimed ruler of the province were shrouded in a bloody haze. Instinct took over, commanding him to destroy everything that stood in the way of his goal.
How long are you going to keep regenerating?! Over Belakher—who always fought with caution—anger was beginning to take hold. This battle exhausted him physically, mentally, spiritually, and magically. The longer he had to face the vampire, the more he began to hate him.
It was a simple war of attrition, meant to determine who would break first. The Landgrave felt his clothes and hair practically glued to his skin from sweat poured out in buckets, and the onset of dizziness testified that he was slowly running on his mana reserves, dangerously approaching Mind Down.
Meanwhile, the lord of the castle felt his body weakening. Not from fatigue—being a vampire, he possessed stamina mortals could only dream of. Rather, the effect of the transformation after drinking blood did not last unless he voluntarily returned to his original form. The duration of the transformation depended on the quantity and quality of the blood consumed, and while he could not complain about the latter, the former was far from satisfactory. Using his enhanced powers only accelerated the reversal.
Enough of this, he thought, scraping the ground with his limb like an enraged bull.
The vampire hurled himself forward, heedless of the claws tearing into him, the goblins digging into his calves to stop him, or the arrows embedding themselves in his body. He wanted only to finally reach that damned elf, no matter how much pain and how many wounds it would cost him. When a harpy swooped down from above and gouged out his eyes with its talons, he simply hacked it to pieces and continued running forward, letting regeneration do its work.
He’s gone mad! The elf thought at first. No, this isn’t madness. He’s simply stopped caring about any obstacles between him and me. There’s no point in summoning more undead; none of them have enough mass or physical strength to stop this living battering ram. I have only…

- Ghostcrowd! - roared the violet-eyed elf furiously.

He drove his bident into the ground to free both hands for casting. Phantoms slammed into the vampire, whose legs were now completely swarmed by Goblins and Kobolds. Despite the additional weight, the bloodsucker did not yield under the pressure of the spell and forced his way forward. In response, Belakher telepathically ordered the still-undestroyed minions to circle behind the provincial lord and bring him down. Skeletons leapt onto his back and shoulders, but the humanoid simply shook them off like irritating mosquitoes.

- Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! Ghostcrowd! - The Landgrave screamed like a madman, spitting saliva with every word.

Casting the spell again and again greatly increased both the volume of the spectral stream and the damage it dealt, but also made it more unstable and harder to control. The impact of the final blast pushed the elf backward and forced him to dig his legs into the ground, and he paid for it by seeing not one but five vampires—due to the strain on his brain caused by the sudden loss of a massive amount of mana, and the resulting momentary blurring of vision.
Although the costs Belakher incurred were enormous, he could not complain about the results. Even the bloodsucker in his monstrous form could not break through the enlarged beam of magic while being restrained by the Landgrave’s servants.
The spell mercilessly stripped him of skin, tendons, and nerves down to bare bone, starting at the hips and ending at the head. Only his enhanced regeneration saved him from falling apart. He was “drying out”, he felt it. The blood he had drunk would soon be completely burned up by his body. Was this truly his end? After more than seven centuries? Would his existence be erased by some cursed elf wielding black magic and his hellish spawn? Was he finally to stand before judgment in the realm of the gods?
Never! He thought, making a violent forward lunge that swept the skeletons clinging to his back away with the Ghostcrowd. Feeling that small but significant relief, he used his still-functioning upper limbs to tear off most of the undead clinging to his legs like leeches. Lighter now, no longer held by so many beings, he resumed his march toward the life of the damned mage.
He was closing the distance—slowly, laboriously, but unmistakably. Belakher felt the sweat pouring down his forehead just as clearly as the stench from the maw of the approaching beast, whose self-healing ability had, by some miracle, increased once more.