Chapter 36: First Defeat

|3rd POV|

"Let's dance, bloodsucker!"

Vale takes out his weapon from the box and shoots the undead in front of him, turning it into ashes. His guardians also take out their weapons and begin to attack the enemies near them. Luca is already blasting all the vampires and undead on his way as his storm flame roars in excitement.

Felicia swings her sword around with a bloodthirsty grin on her face. Killing vampires is a joy for her, and there are a lot of them in a single room for her to kill. Martha takes out a staff and stabs it to the ground. The staff releases a sun flame that heals her crew while she takes a battle stance. With a single step, she appears in front of one of the undead who tries to attack her and punch its head. A second later, it exploded into red mist at the impact of Martha's punch.

Vale swings down his sword and releases a massive wave of Sky Flame that burns all the undead and some of the vampires in front of him. He flares his silver when he feels one of the undead manage to get away from his first attack and crush it under heavy gravity.

He dodges to the left and shoots his gun at the vampire in front of him. When he sees the vampire manage to block his attack, he dashes forward and swings his sword. However, a second vampire appears in front of him and creates another barrier.

"Fools!"

Vale says that and flares his aura, increasing the gravity around the vampire in front of him. However, to his surprise, the vampire managed to stand still and roar.

"You underestimate us too much, human! This is nothing!"

Instead of saying something, Vale increases the gravity even more until the vampire buckles and his body falls to the ground, turning into a bloody mess. He raises his sword to block an attack from the vampire, who looks at him angrily.

"Damn you! Die already!"

Vale moves his sword and points his gun at the vampire in front of him. He fires his gun, and when the vampire changes into a cloud of bats, he releases a torrent of fire from his gun that burns all the bats.

Vale looks at the next target, but before he can dash forward, his instinct screams at him and tells him to block or dodge. He obeyed his instinct and raised his sword to block an incoming attack from his left.

He gets thrown to the wall behind him, creating a crack from the impact. When he looks up, he can see Dominik appear above him. He pushes his body and barely dodges the next attack. Dominik does not let Vale react as he releases spears made of darkness.

However, before it can even reach Vale, the spears disappear as a Sky Flame easily consumes the darkness.

"Tch. Your power is annoying, human! However, this should be enough to kill you."

Dominik changes both of his arms into something more monstrous. His claws now look like metallic claws, and his arms are covered in darkness. He then dashes forward and appears in front of Vale in the blink of an eye.

Vale manages to raise his sword to block the incoming attack. He flares his aura and increases the gravity around him. However, instead of getting down, Dominik laughs and says.

"Now I understand why the others are easily defeated. They cannot get close to you, huh? Sorry, but it needs more than this to make me kneel!"

He roars and pushes Vale's sword using pure strength. Vale grunts a little when the claw manages to hurt his body and jumps away. Vali takes a defensive stance and takes Dominik's blow head-on.

The two of them exchange blow after blow, creating a shockwave when each of their attacks hit. Their movement is so fast that it looks like a blur to normal humans and even low-level vampires.

However, there is something that even the lowest-level vampires know. Vale is losing in terms of physical strength. The only reason why he can still fight on an equal ground is because of his Gintoki Template. His damage tolerance and swordsmanship let him fight against a stronger opponent. Not only that, the perk he gets from Gintoki, [He Who Endures], also gives him an edge as he slowly gets more powerful the longer they fight.

Vale roars and swings his sword as Dominik blocks his attack. His attack was strong enough to throw the Vampire Lord away from him. However, instead of looking angry at Vale, Dominik has a grin on his face.

"Fantastic! You are a worthy prey, Valerian Millefiore! Let's take it up a notch!"

Vale grits his teeth and takes his battle stance. He pushes his flame to the limit and enters Hyper Dying Will Mode. He can feel his mind open up, and his senses break its limit. He can see the incoming attack more clearly and push his body to dodge the attack before doing a counterattack.

Unlike the previous fight, Vale managed to counterattack after noticing an opening in Dominik's fighting style. However, as Vale abandons his defensive stance, he now gets even more injuries from Dominik who gets even more excited at fighting someone powerful.

He has been bored lately. As a successor of the Tepes Clan, he rarely went to the frontline, and because of that, he rarely got the taste of a fight. However, seeing that his enemies manage to hold his ground and even injure him, he reawakens his battle lust.

"Bwahahaha! More! More! More!"

Dominik laughs maniacally as he continues his relentless attack against Vale. He ignores the wound on his body as he continues to attack Vale using his claws.

Vale starts to grit his teeth as he can feel his body will not last long at the relentless barrage. The barrage stops when a red flame hits Dominik and throws him to the wall.

Vale's guardians abandon their fight and decide to help their sky because they feel Vale's weakening Sky Flame. Martha heals Vale using her sun flame while Felicia and Luca point their weapons against Dominik, who slowly gets up.

"Boss, are you okay?"

Vale spits blood and says.

"I am fine."

"What should we do now, boss?"

Vale looks around and notices there are still a lot of undead and vampires still alive. There are still twenty vampires and more than two hundred undead in this place. Because of this, Vale decides it is time to go.

"We need to retreat."

Luca nods his head because as much as he wants to kill all the vampires, he knows that he is running out of juice. Not only that, but he cannot use his strongest attack because it will destroy the entire underground and hurt the others—the same as the others. That is why they cannot kill the vampires simultaneously alongside their undead.

"Do you think I will let you do that?!"

Vale smirks and says.

"Look above you."

Dominik looks at the ceiling in confusion for a second before saying.

"What are you talk–"

Before he can finish his sentences, a meteor punches through the ground and lands right in between the two groups.

Vale and his guardians quickly run away, using the sun to prevent the vampires from chasing them. While running away, Vale looks at the destroyed base with a frown on his face. He did not like the taste of defeat because that fight was his defeat.

He is too arrogant to think he can beat anyone even when the arena is at a disadvantage to him. He needs to fix that and make a promise in his heart that he will not be defeated the next time he meets Dominik once again.