Chapter 11

Sez tightened his grip on his karambits, bracing for the imminent confrontation ahead. Legions of vampires, some of the most elite to ever tread upon the earthly plane, began to take up strategic positions.

Malachi, seated upon his ominous throne, wore a devious grin across his face. The vampires under his command were poised to pounce upon Sez and Elara, their numerical advantage clear, and their intent to exploit it palpable.

These vampires possessed a unique quality; each of them wielded weapons that seemed intricately linked to their kata. Two vampires lunged at Sez and Elara, brandishing deadly spears. In a swift display of agility, the pair dodged the incoming strikes.

"Let's give them everything we've got," Sez shouted, his voice filled with determination. He focused his inner energy, reinforcing his body with a radiant purple aura, known as KiChi. "Hopefully, backup will arrive soon."

His enhancements had magnified his power and speed tenfold, while Elara harnessed her Kata, exponentially augmenting her physical capabilities.

The apparent leader of the vampires, a towering, sinewy creature with fangs that resembled wicked daggers, leapt towards Sez. Swift and precise, Sez intercepted the attack, skillfully deflecting the creature's claws with his karambits and delivering a potent kick that sent it tumbling backwards.

As the remaining vampires closed in, Sez gracefully twirled his blades, conjuring a defensive barrier woven from shimmering shadow steel. This Kata was the product of years of relentless training and had saved him on countless occasions. Yet, the vampires remained undeterred, launching wave after wave of relentless assaults, their movements a frenetic blur of supernatural speed.

Sez's breath quickened as he fought off the onslaught. With each swing of his Karambitz, he severed limbs and decapitated his undead adversaries. But their numbers seemed endless, and their ferocity unmatched. Sez thought to himself that one vampire might be duplicating them as he noticed a degree of replication among them.

One vampire managed to land a glancing blow across Elara's shoulder, causing a searing pain, but she gritted his teeth and pressed on. Summoning every ounce of her strength, Elara launched herself into a powerful spin, her blade becoming a deadly whirlwind of death. She took control of the splashing blood and turned into spikes. With an expert showcase of skill, she launches them at the vampires.

A large ball of fire rushes at her, it incinerates the blood spikes and leaves her burned. She reacted immediately and blocked so the damage was minimal, the vampire who unleashed the attack quickly rushed at her with his sword and she blocked.

Vampires are falling left and right as Sez mows through them with his blades. One of them attempts an attack at his neck but he switches to an incorporeal state and the sword goes right through him, striking a vampire in the lower jaw. Sez slits it's throat to finish him off while kicking away the other.

"Where could they be" Sez pondered to himself, Though he and Elara seemed to be handling the situation fairly well, there were still more vampires in the cave that Sez could sense, and the battle with Malachi was an inevitability at this point. If they were to be able to ensure their victory, backup would need to appear.

Sez felt the ground itself shift as one vampire ran towards him, Sez entered a lower stance to try to dodge any move the vampire would make and instantly unleash a counterattack on the vampire. But the ground changed states and took on a viscous form, Sez's feet began to sink in and 3 vampires' lunged themselves at him with their spears.

Right when they're about to make contact, Sez switches places with the vampire who manipulated the ground as his shadow as long as others were marked. It is only after their spears pierce him do they realise they have killed their own.

Sez rushes towards them and dodges one of their blows. He uses his blade to stab the eye of them, he puts the blade so deep it cuts over halfway into the vampire's brain. He draws his arm out smashing the frontal part of the skull.

The onslaught continues, but the vampires don't seem to reduce, even though the efforts of Sez and Elara led to the eradication of at least a dozen of them.

A large monstrosity of a vampire appears holding a large Metal axe. Sez noticed that the vampires had a lot of their equipment being metallic including the blades, but he had no time to continue the observation for the vampire let out a swing of his axe straight for Sez.

He leans back to dodge, but the space around the air he slashed begins to freeze at a rapid rate. It catches Sez the upper part of Sez's body and some parts of his arms.

The vampire raises his axe to strike him down. Sez waits for the axe to be less than an inch from himself to change to his incorporeal state. He stands upright, but then, something weird happens.

The vampire smirks as Sez, even though in an intangible state, begins to freeze. "What!?" Sez exclaims as his totality begins to be encased in a solid ice prison.

"Sez!" Elara yelled, with her momentary distraction being taken advantage of by the vampires surrounding her to pin her down to the ground.

Sez tried to power his way out of the ice or phase by flowing deeper into intangibility than he had ever gone before, but it proved futile as the ice refused to grant him passage.

"Is that all you have for me, mortals? Pathetic, weakness is the true dominant trait of your race. I had hoped to have found a diamond among the fragile glass of humanity" Malachi remarked, disappointment littered on his face.

"If you are incapable of handling these vampires as they stand now, how would you hope to fare had the battle taken place in our native realm" Malachi added.

But at that moment, an arrow of flame shot at Sez, completely destroying the ice. It passed through Sez thanks to his intangibility.

A female huntress appears as a figure of mystery and skill. Cloaked in shadowy attire, her emerald eyes gleamed with enthusiasm, she wore a weathered leather jacket covered in hunt patches, a dark, flexible shirt, cargo pants, and rugged combat boots. She extends her lance and slashes the vampires surrounding Elara.

A voice speaks out as the rest walk in, "You have not lied vampire. Truly, humans are weak, frail, creatures, barely equipped to survive on this planet with the outbreak of your kind. But we hunters, we are the exception, born from fragility, forged by adversity. It is our duty to be the guardians of the frail, the champions of the weak, and the storm against the darkness, for in our weakness lies our greatest strength."

Out of the shadows, they appear, the backup Sez had been anticipating since right before he entered the cave. Toka, his cousin, who is considered his older brother and his comrades burst onto the scene.

"Looks like you've been doing well, brother" Toka remarks, as he conjures up a chain from deep within the shadows. He too had inherited the shadow manipulation Kata of their clan, and although he lacked the sheer versatility of Sez's usage of it. He more than made up for it in skill and power.

Sez simply nods as he rushes forward at the large vampire who acted as his captor not long ago. Toka followed suit launching his chain to wrap around the foot of the vampire, and subsequently yanks it so that he would lose his footing.

Sez seized the opportunity offered by his brother's timely assistance, launching himself gracefully into the air with agility that belied his supernatural prowess. His karambits gleamed as they sought the vampire's vulnerable neck, and with a precision honed by countless battles, he struck home, slicing open the creature's throat. The vampire staggered, crimson ichor spilling from its wound, and sank to one knee, but not for long. With eerie speed, its flesh knitted back together, healing the grievous injury.

Toka's expression shifted with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. He turned his gaze toward his unflinching brother, a wry smile forming on his lips. "What do you say we leave it with nothing to regenerate from?" he proposed. Sez nodded in agreement, the air around them charged with anticipation.

With a fluid grace, Sez began to circle the vampire, channeling his KiChi, the energy of his very being, which glowed brilliantly from two fingers on his right arm. Toka mirrored his movements with near perfection, their synchronized dance a testament to their uncanny unity. The vampire, frustrated and desperate, swung its clawed limbs and axe at them, but their movements defied the laws of physics, leaving only a series of elusive afterimages to be frozen in the space they vacated.

Coming to a sudden halt at opposite sides of the beleaguered vampire, they raised their arms in unison, two fingers pointed like ethereal wands. A blinding torrent of purple light erupted from their extended limbs, capturing the attention of every onlooker. As their voices harmonized in a chilling crescendo, they unleashed their fearsome attack, "shadow void!" The devastating blast surged forth, obliterating the vampire from existence, leaving no trace of its malevolence behind.

Malachi's teeth clenched in clear irritation at the audacious hunters who dared challenge him. With an ominous grin on his face, he rose from his throne, every fiber of his being now primed for the imminent clash with these relentless foes.