Chapter 55: Illusionist

"HAAH! You prideful bitches can do anything besides talking? Just come at me like a vampyer would." Karl taunts.

The lady's seems unaffected by Karl's taunt but Yelm's dark red eyes are glaring at Karl in fury. Without wasting any more time, Yelm dashes towards Karl. He tries to punch Karl but like before his hand phases through Karl's body.

Karl lifts his hand to slash at Yelm's body but stops midway as his gaze meets the female vampyer. Her unsusally calm expression sends chills down Karl's spine, in fear he uses levitating steps and disappears.

"What was that magic?" The mistress asks her retainer.

"Forgive this fool. But I am as unaware as you milady." Yelm bows his head.

Karl is frantically running around the forest. His face is all covered in sweat as if he ran a marathon. Once out of breath, he stops and hides behind a large tree. He holds the sword in his mouth and rips off a piece of his shirt with his other hand. Then, he wraps it around his wounded hand to stop the bleeding. While taking long breaths, Karl notices the sky is becoming dark.

"HEHE!" Suddenly, the sound of a little girl giggling echoes in the forest. Karl runs in a random direction, away from the creepy sound.

After running for few minutes, a sense of déjà vu hits. 'Wait. I was here, wasn't I?' He takes a look around but every tree looks identical and every path looks the same.

"BROTHER~" A small pale hand wraps around a tree's trunk in front of Karl.

"FUCK OFF!" Immediately, Karl blasts off the tree using the pressure punch.

"HEHE!" The giggling sound echoes once more.

"Mmph!" Karl coughs a mouthful of blood. 'The potion's effect wore off this early? No. Something's different.'

"Brother? Are you hurt?" A voice comes from Karl's back. He quickly turns around and sees a small girl wearing a white frock sitting on the branch of a tree, there is still no face. Karl grits his teeth and swings his sword at Leonard's sister. The entire tree falls on the ground. Karl quickly takes the stance and ready's himself for any incoming attack.

"Brother! Please don't hit me." The girl appears behind Karl. Karl swings his blade once more but it hits nothing. Fatigue is slowly taking a toll on Karl as his wrist aches just by swings the blade.

"Please don't hate me!" This voice whispers in Karl's ears as he runs through the forest.

'How can I defeat something whom I cannot hit?' This question hovers in his mind.

While, running he summons his last potion and drinks it. An idea pops in his head which made him stop running. Karl stands still, waiting for his ghost sister to arrive.

In a few seconds, the giggles sounds comes back and in a blink the girl stands in front of Karl.

"Am I a bad girl?" The ghost asks in a low voice.

Surprisingly, Karl smiles and answers. "No. Absolutely not."

"Then, Why did big brother ran away?"

"I just mistook you for someone else."

"Really? Then! Will you play with me?" The girl asks in excited voice.

"Sure. What do you want to play?"

"Hide and seek! But first, hand over that sword. It looks dangerous."

Karl doesn't reply and grips the Talwar tightly.

"You can't do this much for your little sister?" The girl asks in a cute voice.

Karl smiles once more. "Gladly." He hands over the blade to the girl.

The girl lifts heavy sword as if it was paper weight. Karl lifts his hands once more and pats the girl. "I hope his real sister isn't this creepy."

"Huh?"

Karl immediately covers his only hand with mana and it goes through the girl's head. He pulls his hand down, making his hand phase through the child's chest as well as sword's tip. That's when the magic circle glows on Karl's phased hand as he opens up the void storage. The Talwar suddenly disappears from the girl's hand. Karl pulls his hand out of the girl's body and resummons his sword. Due to Talwar's long length, the sword is summoned in between the girl's chest, piercing it. Karl doesn't stop there and pushes the sword down, making a vertical cut from the chest to the abdomen.

"AGHHH!" The girl screams in distorted voice. Karl calls back his sword and takes a few steps back. The illusion fades away and the girl turns out to be the female vampyer. She falls on the ground as her intensities and kidneys are poking out of her wound. She tries to cover her wound but the blood is flowing out non-stop.

"H-How did you know?" She asks. Anger is could be sensed in her voice.

'How can I defeat someone whom I cannot hit? It's easy. By letting myself get hit.' This was Karl's idea.

"That you are an illusion? Since the beginning. Or that the girl, was you? I just had a feeling after seeing the swift movements and how you demanded the sword."

The vampyer bits her lip in frustration after seeing Karl's reply. 

BOOM! A big explosion happens as Yelm flies through Karl's head and hits the ground below. The dust quickly fades away, Yelm standing in front of his mistress to protect her.

"Did you really think I let my guard down?" Karl taunts.

Yelm's finger-nails are now bigger and longer like a claw, making his hand look inhumane. "YOU! YOU! INFERIOR SPECIES! HOW DARE YOU!"

He launches himself at Karl. This time Karl uses pressure punch and uppercuts Yelm in the air launching him into a tree.

Before Karl could do anything, Yelm again dashes at him like an animal. His appearance has taken a bizarre turn. He is no longer beautiful but primitive. His eyes dark red, fingers broken due to impact and his jaw broken due Karl's punch. Yet he still jumps at Karl.

Karl summons his sword and blocks Yelm's attack. They are head-to-head with eachother but Yelm is too strong for Karl, especially with one hand. Seeing this Karl backs off. Yelm growls like a predator.

"Was he this big?" Before Yelm was 6.2 ft tall but now his body is visibly growing. He easily towers over Karl at 7 ft.

"DIE!" Yelm's hand glows red as he slashes at Karl. The attack was too fast to dodge, Karl barely managed to block it. His only hand wasn't enough, he is also using his right shoulder to push as much as he can.

"AGHHHH!" Yelm screams in an inhumane voice. The lady vampire watches the fight from the sidelines, she knows that if Yelm is starved anymore, he would lose his sanity forever. She tries to stand up but her insides would fall apart. Mysteriously, her wounds aren't healing at all. At first, she thought the weapon would just slow the healing but it completely eliminates the self-healing of any vampyer.

The battle rages on, as Yelm launches multiple slash attacks at Karl in frenzy, without stopping. He is already way stronger than Karl but his attacks lack posture. Knowing this, Karl isn't deflecting any attacks but he is just redirecting them instead. Yelm's mind has been clouded in rage so much that he couldn't even counter Karl's redirection. Slowly, Karl starts to feels that the blows are becoming heavier and faster, he starts to prepare a counterattack. It seems there is no end to Yelm's stamina.

In midst of battle, Yelm strikes at Karl with a blood arc which is too fast to dodge. Karl takes the attack and phases his entire body through Yelm. Even the Talwar phased through like butter. The female vampire watches the unique ability. Karl comes out fully naked and quickly pierces Yelm's chest from the back. For few seconds, Yelm couldn't even register what happened and moves like nothing happened. Karl twists his blade and slashes it through his ribcage. Yelm falls on the ground.

"UEGH!" As soon as Karl relaxes his body, he pukes a litre of blood. He somehow manages to stay awake as his eyes starts to turn blurry. Karl sluggishly gets up and walks towards Yelm's body.

'Brain along with heart, was it?' He thinks as he aims for Yelm's overgrown head.

"WAIT!" The lady vampire pleads. "Let him live. Please I beg you. He is the only one I am left with, please don't take him from me."

Karl sees the female vampyer crawling towards him, leaving a trail of blood.

"Please."

Karl's ego is now satisfied.

"I give whatever you want! Just let him live." The female pleads once more as she bows her head at Karl's feet. Karl thinks for a moment and puts his sword away. "I take the sword then."

"YES-" Karl grabs her hair and forces her to stand. Her intestines fall down as she stands up.

"Open the portal back to the auction." Karl orders.

The lady slowly lifts her hand and the dark portal appears on a nearby tree. Karl looks at the portal. "Will this really take me back to the auction."

"O-Of course! I swear on the name of our Blood Lorde!" Karl notices her desperate expression and releases her. He slowly walks towards portal. 'Ugh! I hate this shit.'

He looks back once more and sees that the female vampyer crawled all the to Yelm's body and now she is pouring some kind of red liquid into Yelm's mouth through a vial. Karl jumps in the portal.

The female vampire face looks bad. Once the vial is empty, she breathes in relief. "This should save him." She says as she watches Yelm's wounds visibly healing. But her expression worsened as she looks back and sees her intestines and kidney on the blood trail created by her own blood. There are no more blood vials remaining.

She touches her wound. Almost all of the blood is dried up. 'It's not healing. Is my time here? Will I die like this? Without avenging my family?'

Suddenly, a sweet aroma enters her nose.

'Blood!'

She quickly finds Karl's puked blood on the ground.

Her entire life depends at this decision.

She hesitated for moment but leans in with her remaining strength and licks the blood off the ground.