Grant stopped and looked down at him from above.
“It's over.”
Bell leaned against the crumbling stone pillar, his chest heaving violently.
Three of his ribs were broken.
The jagged ends of the bones pressed against his internal organs.
He spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of tissue.
His brain completed a situational analysis in a tenth of a second.
An ancestor’s muscular explosive power far exceeded human limits.
Physical defense based purely on earth elements couldn't block that kind of kinetic energy.
Forcing a large-scale defensive spell would require a two-second chant.
Those two seconds would be enough for Grant to tear him to pieces.
A conventional magic duel wouldn't work.
He had to change the rules.
Bell braced his hands against the ground and slowly stood up straight.
“It's still far from over.”
He raised his right hand, and earth element mana compressed frantically in his palm.
“Flying Sand.”
High-density brown dust exploded outward with him as the center.
Visibility in the hall instantly dropped to its lowest point.
Grant gave a cold snort.
“A deathbed struggle.”
He kicked off the ground, his body turning into a red afterimage as he charged into the dust.
Relying on a vampire’s keen sense of smell, he locked onto Bell’s position.
Grant threw a right hook, aiming straight for Bell’s head.
His fist passed right through Bell’s body.
There was no sensation of hitting a physical entity.
It was a humanoid silhouette condensed from high-density earth elements.
Bang!
A muffled thud came from inside the earth element decoy.
A burst of blinding white light exploded before Grant’s eyes.
It was accompanied by an extremely sharp, high-frequency sound wave.
This was a defective product Horn had made in the laboratory.
A physical blinding grenade made by using wind mana crystals to compress air, combined with light element powder.
A vampire’s five senses far surpassed those of ordinary people.
This kind of physical strike targeting the senses was surprisingly effective.
Grant let out a muffled groan.
He instinctively raised his arm to block his eyes and took half a step back.
His ears buzzed, and his sense of balance was momentarily disrupted.
Bell flashed out from behind a load-bearing pillar to the side.
He held three fist-sized black metal balls in his hand.
The surfaces of the metal balls were covered in complex alchemical arrays.
His thumb flipped the catch at the top of a metal ball.
He threw the three metal balls at Grant in a triangular formation.
The metal balls disintegrated in mid-air.
The liquid Mithril inside came into contact with the air and instantly expanded and solidified.
A silver metal net dropped over Grant’s head.
With his vision obstructed, Grant could only rely on his hearing to distinguish the sound of the wind.
He swung his arms to tear the net apart.
Mithril possessed extremely high mana conductivity and malleability.
His fingers sank into the metal net, but instead of tearing it, the net wires coiled around his wrists.
Bell did not stop his movements.
He pulled a half-person-high heavy ballista from his storage ring.
This was no ordinary ballista.
The bowstring was woven from the tendons of high-level magical beasts mixed with Mithril wire.
The tip of the bolt was a cylindrical glass tube.
The tube contained a dark purple liquid.
Bell stepped on the base of the ballista and used both hands to pull back the string with all his might.
The mechanism clicked into the groove.
He aimed at Grant, who was trapped by the Mithril net.
He pulled the trigger.
The thick bolt tore through the air.
Just as Grant broke free from the Mithril net’s restraint, the bolt was already in front of him.
He turned his body to dodge.
The bolt grazed his shoulder and thudded into the wall behind him.
Crack.
The glass tube on the arrowhead shattered.
The dark purple liquid contacted the air and rapidly vaporized.
A strong, pungent odor permeated the hall.
This was a toxic gas made from high-concentration Aconite extract mixed with silver powder.
It was specifically designed to target the vampire respiratory system.
Grant inhaled a small amount of the gas.
A violent cough erupted from his throat.
His originally neat suit had been sliced by dozens of cuts from the Mithril net.
His golden hair was covered in dust.
He looked extremely disheveled.
The observing ancestors fell into a brief silence.
Ed set aside his wine glass.
He stared at the metal fragments on the ground, the contempt on his face vanishing.
Purely physical attacks that didn't rely on mana at all.
This bizarre way of fighting exceeded their understanding.
Lilian sat on her throne, her fingers unconsciously stroking her scepter.
She watched the man constantly pulling out various strange props.
This style of using any means necessary to achieve practical results was exactly how she remembered her master.
Leila stood to the side, a strange light flickering in her crimson eyes.
She was full of curiosity about the weapons Bell created using physical laws.
This was much more interesting than a simple exchange of magic spells.
Grant stopped coughing.
He looked down at his ruined suit.
This was his favorite formal outfit.
It had been dirtied by a human using this scrap metal.
An unprecedented sense of humiliation welled up in his heart.
Grant looked up, his gaze locking onto Bell.
Red mist rose from his body.
The temperature in the hall plummeted.
The air was thick with the scent of blood.
He no longer intended to play a game of cat and mouse.
Physical strength couldn't quickly deal with this slippery human.
Then he would crush him with absolute magical power.
Grant brought his hands together, interlacing his fingers.
“Blood Source Magic: Thousand Blades.”
A large amount of blood seeped from the gaps in the floor tiles.
The blood quickly solidified, turning into hundreds of translucent blood-red short blades.
The short blades floated in the air, their tips all aimed at Bell.
A magical attack of this density left no blind spots.
Ballistas, smoke bombs, and Mithril nets were meaningless in the face of absolute power.
Bell looked at the sky full of blood blades.
He didn't pull out any more alchemical tools.
He had used up the stock in his storage ring.
The limit of physical means was here.
Grant pushed his hands forward.
Hundreds of blood blades created an ear-piercing sound as they tore through the air, raining down on Bell from all directions.
Everywhere the blood blades passed, stone pillars were shredded and deep furrows were plowed into the ground.
Bell stood his ground, making no move to dodge.
He looked at Grant.
“Who decided that only vampires can use blood magic?”
The sentence wasn't loud, but it clearly reached the ears of everyone present.
The ancestors were stunned.
A human using blood magic?
This went against the common knowledge of the magical world.
The foundation of blood magic was the unique constitution and mana circuits of a vampire.
Bell raised his right hand, fingers spread.
He mobilized the blood source mana that had just formed in his body.
Over the past few days in the side hall, Leila had taught him more than just theory.
She had also taught him how to control the essence of blood.
He sliced his left wrist.
Blood gushed out.
The blood did not fall to the ground; instead, it suspended itself in mid-air.
Bell’s right fingertips twitched.
The floating blood rapidly stretched and thinned, forming a dark red hemispherical shield.
It enveloped his entire body.
The first wave of blood blades slammed into the shield.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Dense impact sounds echoed through the hall.
The blood blades shattered, turning into blood mist.
Ripples spread across the surface of Bell’s shield, but it did not break.
Grant’s movements stalled for a moment.
He stared fixedly at that shield.
Pure blood magic fluctuations.
Not mixed with any other elements.
A human had actually cast blood magic.
The wine glass in Ed’s hand fell to the floor, shattering into pieces.
Elizabeth stopped playing with her hair.
Every vampire in the room watched the human standing behind the blood shield.
Lilian stood up abruptly.
The Crown of Thorns glinted coldly under the dark clouds.
Leila looked at Bell’s back, her chin lifting with satisfaction.
This was the partner she had chosen.
Grant’s shock lasted for less than a second.
He quickly noticed the crudeness of Bell’s blood magic.
Although it had taken shape, the arrangement of the mana structure was extremely loose.
It was merely a superficial imitation.
“A laughable imitation.”
Grant let out a cold laugh.
He slammed his hands downward.
The blood blades in the air instantly merged together.
They transformed into a giant blood-red battle-axe five meters long.
A high-density mana halo flowed across the axe's surface.
The surrounding air was sliced, revealing black cracks.
This was the true application of blood magic at an ancestor’s level.
In the face of absolute quality, any technique was futile.
Grant controlled the giant battle-axe, swinging it down with a savage force.
The axe carried a destructive power as it smashed into Bell’s blood shield.
Crack.
A crisp sound of breaking echoed.
A massive fissure appeared on the surface of the blood shield Bell had constructed.
The crack spread rapidly, covering the entire shield.
Bell’s chest suffered from the shockwave.
His legs gave way, and he fell to one knee.
The wound on his wrist split further, and more blood was lost.
He gritted his teeth, desperately squeezing the mana in his body to repair the shield.
But the speed of repair couldn't keep up with the speed of the axe’s destruction.
After all, he was just a beginner in the application of blood source magic.
Facing an ancestor who had lived for thousands of years, the gap in foundation was laid bare.
Grant continued to apply pressure with both hands.
The giant battle-axe pressed down inch by inch.
The distance to the top of Bell’s head was less than half a meter.
The sharp air currents from the axe had already sliced several strands of hair from Bell’s forehead.
“Human, your circus act ends here.”
Grant’s voice was bone-chillingly cold.
He prepared to deliver the final blow to this arrogant human.
The battle-axe slammed down.
The blood shield shattered completely, turning into a rain of blood.
The massive blade headed straight for Bell’s head.
The moment the blood shield shattered, the powerful air current sent Bell flying.
His body lost balance in mid-air.
His back slammed heavily into the broken marble floor tiles.
A large area of the tiles shattered.
Bell rolled twice on the ground to bleed off the momentum.
His left arm was twisted unnaturally.
The aftershock of that last strike had broken the bones in his forearm.
Grant gave Bell no time to breathe.
He raised his right hand, pointing his index finger at Bell.
“Blood Piercing.”
The ground beneath Bell suddenly turned dark red.
Three thick blood-red spikes erupted from the ground without warning.
They lunged toward Bell’s limbs.
Relying on his combat instincts, Bell forced his waist to twist.
He avoided the lethal attacks aimed at his heart and throat.
But one of the blood spikes still grazed the outside of his thigh.
It tore away a long strip of flesh.
Blood instantly stained his pant leg red.
Bell flipped up and landed on one leg.
He quickly took a green recovery potion from his storage ring.
He bit off the stopper and tilted his head back to down it.
As the potion flowed down his throat, the muscles at the wound on his thigh began to squirm and contract.
But his fractured left arm couldn't be restored in such a short time.
“You dodge quickly.”
Grant walked slowly toward Bell.
With a flick of his fingers, the giant battle-axe in the air disassembled again.
It turned into dozens of slender blood-red whips.
The whips twisted back and forth in the air.
“That magic of yours just now truly surprised me for a moment.”
Grant stopped three meters away from Bell.
“But that’s all it was.”
“The essence of blood magic lies in the stripping and reshaping of the life force contained within blood.”
“That crude shield of yours didn't even scratch the surface.”
Bell leaned against a broken stone pillar.
He gasped for breath.
His brain worked at high speed.
Grant was right.
His understanding of blood source magic was still stuck on the level of physical form changes.
He hadn't touched the core level of the rules.
But he didn't despair.
The purpose of this battle was never to defeat Grant in the first place.
It was to show his value.
To show that as a human, he possessed the ability to break conventions.
Bell raised his intact right hand.
He didn't bother to wipe the blood from his face.
His palm was flat, facing upward.
The blood on the ground that belonged to him was once again drawn by mana.
The blood turned into tiny droplets, floating in the air.
Bell stared at Grant.
“The essence?”
“The nature of magic is the conversion of energy.”
“No single type of magic is perfect.”
Bell’s fingers snapped shut.
The floating blood droplets instantly accelerated, turning into a miniature rain of blood.
They shot toward Grant.
Grant didn't even move to dodge.
A blood-red barrier naturally emerged in front of him.
The blood droplets hit the barrier, making a dense pattering sound.
They didn't even cause a ripple.
“Useless struggle.”
Grant raised his right hand.
Dozens of blood-red whips lashed out at Bell simultaneously.
They sealed off all his paths of retreat.
The whips carried a whistle as they tore the air.
They were less than ten centimeters from Bell’s body.
The gray wrinkles of the Desolate Realm appeared beneath Leila’s feet once more.
She was prepared to intervene by force.
Lilian gripped her scepter tightly.
She couldn't let Bell die here.
The tips of the whips touched Bell’s clothes.
The fabric was instantly shredded.
The dark red mana light illuminated Bell’s face.
In that instant.
Bell did not retreat.
Instead, he took a step forward, meeting those lethal whips head-on.
The blood-red whips Grant controlled suddenly jerked in mid-air.
After all, he couldn't actually kill Bell.
Their speed slowed by a full beat.
Bell seized this opening.
He balled his right hand into a fist, and earth element mana condensed into a sharp cone on his knuckles.
He slammed his fist into the gap between the whips with all his might.
The cone accurately struck a mana node in Grant’s blood-red barrier.
Crack.
A tiny fissure appeared on the barrier.
Grant’s movements paused.
He immediately mobilized more mana to fill the crack.
The whips regained their speed and lashed heavily against Bell’s back.
Bell was hit by the immense force.
He pitched forward.
The earth element cone in his hand shattered completely.
Grant retracted the whips.
The blood-red whips converged in mid-air to form a longsword once more.
The tip of the sword rested against the back of Bell’s neck.
The sharp blade cut into the skin, and a trace of blood seeped out.
The hall was as silent as a tomb.
Everyone watched the scene.
Bell lay on the ground, gasping for air.
Grant held the hilt, his wrist pressing down slightly.
The blade cut a fraction deeper into the muscle.
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