The illusion shattered, and countless black bats soared into the air, instantly flooding the entire hall. The knights and lycanthropes felt their eyelids grow heavy and their thoughts turn sluggish, wanting to lie down right where they stood and get a good sleep. The spots where these phantom bats gathered thickest were none other than the Great Knight of the Frost Giant bloodline and Sir Duda.
When Katrina had blasted open the door with "Lucian's Fireball," Duda's body had already begun to change. His towering frame—already around six foot three—stretched even taller, muscles bulging one after another, black scales sprouting across his skin wreathed in a faint aura of blood. His eyes had turned a deep crimson, as though reason had been stripped away, leaving behind nothing but the purest killing instinct and desire for destruction.
"Demon bloodline!" Yakov, Anna, and the others, half-dazed beneath the altar's thick shroud of blood mist, caught sight of this transformation and felt a jolt of horror that sharpened their minds ever so slightly.
The aura of blood coiling around Duda held the illusory slumber-bats at bay. Two wounds deep enough to expose bone split open along his back, and from within them sprouted a pair of black bat wings. These wings beat gently, lifting him into the air and off the ground, so that he looked down upon the hall and the altar.
Such was the advantage of demon and devil bloodlines—even at only the Great Knight rank, one could fly at low altitudes and seize control of the skies!
Suddenly, a violent gust of wind swept through, sending the thick blood mist swaying and scattering until it was cleared away entirely. The minds of Anna, Yakov, and the other mercenaries snapped to clarity, as if they had truly awoken from a nightmare. A powerful aftershock of dread coursed through them at the killing intent and hatred that had just filled their hearts—if this had continued any longer, they would have become demons who slaughtered their own companions!
"Sister Katrina!" Anna cried out in alarm, for there in the half-air of the hall, facing Duda, stood the tall and statuesque Katrina. She stood upon empty air with nothing beneath her feet, her golden hair whipping wildly in the gale, her right hand raised high a staff set with a translucent gem that exuded a thin, pale white mist.
The mist spread rapidly, utterly unaffected by the "gale."
Gazing at this unbelievable sight, Anna felt certain she was still dreaming—dreaming of the powerful mages from the Bards' tales, who flew through the sky, who commanded the weather, who conjured flame and wrought frost, who were at once mysterious and terrifying!
The pale white mist spread outward, and aside from the area around the altar where Anna, Yakov, and the others stood, the rest of the great hall was quickly shrouded in the thin, gauzy fog.
The werewolves and knights who had been lunging toward Katrina froze in place, the light fading from their eyes. Hollow sounds escaped their throats, and uncontrolled drool trailed from the corners of their mouths.
They seemed to have lost all capacity for thought, reduced to nothing more than empty shells.
Watching the fearsome werewolves and the knights whose very willpower had once made her tremble reduced to idiotic husks the moment the thin mist enveloped them, Anna tilted her head back and stared with a dazed expression at the scene unfolding in midair. "Sister Katrina is a mage? And a powerful one at that!"
Katrina's current appearance matched her imagination of what a mage should look like almost perfectly—save for being somewhat less sinister and cruel.
"Mind Fog? A mid-rank mage… Katrina is that terrifying mage I encountered that night…" Yakov was a veteran mercenary of many years. Through various channels, he had acquired numerous descriptions of Arcane Magic, and after becoming an official knight, he had obtained even more materials from Count Calcat, giving him a completely new and detailed understanding of spells. On top of that, he had once cooperated with a formal mage, so he could naturally make a rough judgment of what spell was being used based on its manifestation and effects—though only for the more common ones.
Gazing at Katrina hovering in midair with her golden hair whipping in the wind, at the layer of flowing, transparent arcane runes wrapping around her body, and at the black fireball launched by Sir Duda that, upon striking the rune barrier, produced no violent explosion but was instead absorbed by the runes—Yakov's mind went completely blank. He was both awestruck and disheartened, so overwhelmed that no coherent thought formed.
Roar!
The Great Knight bearing the "Frost Giant" bloodline swelled in size as countless snowflakes swirled around him. A semi-transparent aura of cold radiated outward, pushing back the surrounding Mind Fog. But at that very moment, a figure emerged silently behind him—dressed in a black shirt and a red coat, with slender, pale fingers tipped with gleaming, razor-sharp nails. Then, as though plucking the strings of a seven-stringed lyre, the figure reached from behind and lightly drew a finger across the Frost Giant's throat.
A wisp of dark energy flickered and vanished. The thick layer of ice around the Frost Giant's throat silently melted away.
Ahh!
The "Frost Giant" let out a pained shriek as blood gushed from his throat. His massive greatsword swung backward, but it struck nothing but an afterimage. Count Carlandia had already appeared from another direction, lifting his right hand to his lips and giving it a delicate lick. "The taste of blood is quite pleasant, and there's no poison."
This perverse act was performed with such elegance and naturalness that it truly seemed as though he were savoring a delicacy served by his host.
The "Frost Giant" possessed terrifying strength and excelled at all manner of frost-type spells, but those were only useful if they actually landed. Against Count Carlandia, whose speed and agility completely surpassed those of an ordinary fifth-tier Great Knight, he was like a helpless child—unable to land a single blow, yet getting scratched time and again, struck by dark-attribute spells, and Count Carlandia even found the spare moments to dispatch the werewolves that had turned into "imbeciles" around them—he truly despised that stench.
Glancing down at the handsome man who could only catch glimpses of afterimages and his overwhelming power, then looking up at the dazzling array of strange arcane spells flying in every direction and the radiant Katrina beside her, the fear and worry in Anna's heart somehow vanished without a trace. She thought to herself: "Mages and vampires really are the forever-villain duo from the Bard's tales—they're so perfectly matched, so cool!"
"Thank goodness Big Sister Katrina is here, otherwise…"
She patted her chest in relief, filled with admiration and longing for the strength and fighting style Katrina had displayed.
Though Duda was a fifth-tier Great Knight with a demon bloodline, he found himself completely hamstrung before a well-prepared mage, unable to unleash any of his true power. Time and again he was afflicted by Hexes, the Maskelyne Curse, Slow, and other spells, drawing ever closer to the brink of defeat. Every one of his attacks either went wide under the influence of illusions or was blocked by Douglas's Spell Absorption Wall, Stoneskin, and similar magic—utterly ineffective.
"I can't keep going like this…" Because his demon bloodline was the only thing he had, Duda was still barely able to retain his capacity for thought during combat. Seeing his dire situation and the fact that the "Frost Giant" was about to be finished off by the vampire, he began searching for a way to break free from this predicament.
Anna, now somewhat relieved, Yakov with his complicated emotions, and the other even more bewildered mercenaries watched the battle from the sidelines—when suddenly, they saw Duda's right hand seize his own left arm, and with a savage wrench, tear the entire limb from its socket. Then he let out a deafening roar.
"What's he going to do?"