Vampire Fight and Flight!

"Severus? And here I thought you could not get any edgier," said John.

"Oh, believe me, dragon, this will only get edgy for you," said Severus as he took another threatening step forwards.

The pressure that emanated from the vampire was immense, and a bloody red aura of magical energy starting to ooze off of him, mingling with his bloodlust to put a heavy air around the campsite.

"I…I don't think you know what the word 'edgy' means," said John.

"That will not matter when you are dead," said Severus.

John felt the magical energy radiating off of Severus, but he felt like he could handle it. It was strong, stronger than John for sure, but nothing too bad.

With his own solar beam capable of countering vampires pretty easily, John felt good about his chances.

Not to mention if things went really south, he had two casts of [Drokynthis] now to save him.

"You came here alone," said John. "Are you stupid? Or just that confident that you could take all of us on?"

John nodded to Hemet, and Hemet caught John's drift and looked at the frozen dwarf and injured werewolf.

"Are you sure, my dragon friend?" asked Hemet.

"Yeah. Free them," said John.

Hemet tapped his gauntlet, and the ice encasing the dwarf broke apart. Immediately, the dwarf scrambled backwards to John's side and aimed his blaster at Severus.

John then fired a solar beam at the werewolf man, but this time setting it purely to healing, and though a second or two of exposure did not heal the werewolf fully, it still gave him enough to fight.

The werewolf, too, came by John's side, lips curled up and baring fangs at Severus.

"I thought I had sensed Angelic energy signatures," said Severus. "So it was you, after all. That makes your blood all the more worth devouring.

With your blood, I will not only reign over the Vampires, but also conquer the sun that has oppressed us since time immemorial."

"That's not happening," said John. "You're outnumbered five to one."

"Five?" said Severus with slight confusion.

Oh right. John peered down at the still unconscious captain who he did not heal because he seemed to be the most violent and unpredictable.

"Hold up, my math was bad. Four to one," corrected John. "Still, you get what I mean."

Severus laughed, his voice echoing in sinister peals throughout the barren, bleached woods. "You are out of your league, young dragon. You think these dirty mudbloods will give you an edge?

Here, let me shatter your illusions."

Severus tapped the circle of glowing red on his chestplate, causing a whirring click to rumble through his armor. Then, the circle grew brighter, and immediately, the vampire's aura intensified.

Double, triple, no, fourfold, maybe even more.

John saw red. He saw red invade his vision, cloying in the air all around him, and he felt lightly dizzy, shaky on his feet like he was seasick. The smell of ash was strong in his nose, almost making him want to retch because of how disgusting it was.

This Vampire…was strong.

Extremely strong.

And if John, the strongest in this group, was suffering like this, then –

He saw as the dwarf put a hand to his chest, his breathing strained, and the werewolf's ears were flattened and his bushy grey tail curled between his legs as his instincts told him to flee.

Only Hemet remained standing tall through sheer force of will, though his legs shook from the pressure of the vampire's aura.

"All of you range in the Mystic core grade, the imp even less. Utterly pathetic. The vast majority of lesser lives will never breakthrough from the Mortal Boundary, but I, as crew of the Bloodriders, have ascended far past you to the Unbound grade.

Dragon, your allies may as well be fleas to me. Simply blood banks to drain from."

John could tell the vampire was right, but the guy was only one core grade higher than himself.

Why was the difference so massive?

Mel sensed his thoughts, his urgency, and explained, speaking fast and with urgency of her own. [My child, there is an enormous difference between the 'Mortal Boundary' that encompasses the Earthen and Mystic grades and the 'Unchained Boundary' that begins with the Unbound grade.

The 'Unchained Boundary' begins to loose the chains of mortal strength itself, and it is said that the difference between the Mortal Boundary and the Unchained is like that-]

'Like that between heaven and earth, I know,' groaned John. He knew the trope of escalating power levels well, but never before had he felt it as strongly as he did now.

He felt that if he took a single step forward, he would die, as if the grim reaper himself had set up a guillotine that would lop off his head if he moved ahead.

"If any of you do not want to fight, then get out of here now," said John.

"N-no," said the werewolf with a whimpering growl. "I like to fight!"

"Putting a hole in a Bloodrider will make for a mighty fine tale at the tavern," said the dwarf, but his blaster arm was already shaking, the hand cannon attached to his forearm rattling and clacking with his fearful movements.

"Insolence!" shouted Severus. His rage was palpable, rising due to the fact that those he considered weaklings still wanted to fight him. "You still dare to raise your arms against me!? Know your places!"

Severus thrust his hand out, and an arc of blood sped out from the red lines in his armor. John's draconic instincts were sharp, and he could inherently tell this arc was not lethal for him, but it absolutely would be for everyone else if he did not do something.

John steeled himself and followed his training to save and heal, leaping forwards to take the blow with his hardened crab shell plating.

The blood grew bright red right as it neared him, then, before it splattered on him, exploded into a fiery explosion that easily dwarfed even John's sizable form.

The shockwave from the explosion rocked outwards, completely knocking away the werewolf, dwarf, and Hemet a dozen meters back, slamming them into the ground or trees painfully.

The captain's body, too, sailed away into the thicket of the forest, and miraculously, he still managed to clutch at his box of Astra recordings even while unconscious.

"John, my friend!" shouted Hemet in immediate worry as he scrambled up.

"All good," said John as the flames of the explosion died down around him. The ground around him was charred and cratered, smoking from intense heat, and a fire was starting on the trees nearby.

Soon, that would grow out into a raging forest fire.

The scales on John's left side were largely all shattered, blood trickling out from exposed flesh, but he had neutralized a majority of the damage with his heat immunity.

Even then, the simple kinetic force of the explosion was enough to deal a powerful blow like this.

"That all you got, huh?" said John with false confidence as he mentally shoved away the pain. "Not all I got."

John opened his mouth and fired a solar beam at Severus. The golden light shot forth in a spiraling formation, and Severus put his black gauntleted hand out to intercept it.

The beam crashed into Severus's hand, but it did not melt down the vampire into goo or ash as vampire movies would have led John to believe.

Instead, the light seemingly absorbed into Severus's black armor, as if the darkness of the protective plating was like a black hole that swallowed all that was bright.

"Your Light is yet still weak, dragon!" said Severus. "It is only a stroke of fine luck that I have found you so weak and so young.

All those years at the bottom of the Blood Riders, ordered to do this, to do that, all of that has blessed me with the boon of your blood!"

'I thought vampires were weak to sunlight!?' asked John mentally in panic.

[Vampires know they are weak to the sun, and so they have devised armor to fend against it. However, there is a limit to what their armor can withstand. Even then, you do not stand a chance against this being.

My child, I will break tradition now and guide you, for I cannot bear another of my children to fall: you must flee.

Leave these lesser beings behind to slow the vampire down.

Your destiny is far greater than theirs. Your life is worth vastly more than theirs]

'No, Mel,' said John as he narrowed his eyes, staring at the vampire.

[My child-] began Mel in pleading tone.

'Don't worry. I'm not doing this as some kind of heroic last stand to save them. Or maybe I am a little, but I'm only doing this because I know I can win this,' said John. 'Trust me, Mel.'

A brief pause.

[I will trust you. I pray for your victory, my child. Let it be glorious, bright, and triumphant. Live, my child, live and show me the might of the Last Heir]

'I will,' said John resolutely.

"All of you, get out of here," said John to the rest of his allies both old and new. "None of you are a match for him, and I don't want you to get caught in the middle of this."

There was a brief moment of hesitation, especially form Hemet, and John snarled. "Now!"

"Eluf, escape formation!" shouted the dwarf, and the werewolf grunted, picking the dwarf up on his shoulder.

The werewolf also extended an arm to Hemet.

"Let's go, small demon!" said the werewolf.

Hemet looked back at John, saw that John was staring straight ahead at the vampire, and nodded to himself before climbing up, knowing this was a battle he had to flee from.

With that, the werewolf took off at full speed, sprinting into the depths of the forest.

"Ah, now the trash has finally been cleared," said Severus as he breathed in deeply. "Now it is only those with worthy blood remaining.

You, a dragon, and I, a vampire."

"All I see is a soon-to-be pile of ash," said John as he fired off another solar beam.

"This again?" Severus blocked the beam with his gauntlet again, and this time, he used his free hand to point his index finger at John. From the tip of his finger, orbs of blood formed before firing at rapid speeds. "[Blood Bomb Bullet]"

John sensed their approach with his motion sensitive plume and flew high into the air, but the blood orbs were fast enough that two of them tagged John's hind leg, exploding out into fiery explosions again that carved out huge chunks in his scales.

The vampire's explosive blood had enough firepower to shatter John's hardy scale layer, exposing raw flesh underneath, and if he got another shot off on an exposed area, John was going to lose a body part at best or die at worst.

"You think the skies your domain? Foolish dragon," said Severus as he gazed up at John. Bat-like wings sprouted from Severus's back with the grotesque sounds of cracking bone and tearing flesh.

"Just when I thought I'd seen enough of bats," said John. He knew his only chance right now was to use [Drokynthis].

Mel had said the vampire's armor was only strong enough to absorb sunlight up to a point.

[Drokynthis] would be guaranteed to punch through it, possibly even just flat out kill the vampire.

The issue was landing it.

John had to announce his Arcana, and then there was a ten second delay before the light strike hit.

If John said it out in the open, the vampire would immediately get suspicious, and then there was a massive issue of having him stick around in solid melee range for an entire ten seconds afterwards.

But maybe, considering Severus relied on ranged, explosive blood, he was not as strong physically.

John, however, did not want to find out, because if Severus was actually physically strong and grabbed John, that was it.

Severus soared high into the air, matching John's elevation with a single flap of his wings. They were a few meters above the treeline now, about fifteen meters up.

"Did you think to escape me by flying? Do you truly believe you can escape me?" said Severus, his pride oozing.

Pride John would take advantage of.

"Really now? You can catch up to me no matter what?" said John.

"Oh, certainly. You may as well be a slug compared to me, little dragon," said Severus. "Now then-,"

"Ten seconds," said John. "Give me a ten second head start, and let's see if you can actually keep up."

Severus scoffed at John. "Ten seconds? You take me for a fool? I see now. You wish to use a Transportation-class spell, is it? The fastest of which takes five seconds to channel. You thought I would allow you free leeway to-,"

"Three seconds, then," said John.

"What?"

"Can you catch me with a three second head start? You, a vampire this strong? I am literally three days old, you know, how old are you? A hundred years or something?" said John. "All those years, and you can't even catch a child?"

Severus laughed and crossed his arms. "Then you shall have your three seconds. Go on, then, little dragon. Show me how far you can run before I crush your heart in my hands."

"Aight, bye!" John sped downwards, into the thick of the forest where there were more obstacles for Severus to path through to reach him.