Blood trickled down the two steel blades and down onto the floor, gathering in a small pool.
The room seemed to fall silent before one of the vampires spoke up.
"I remember the prince being tougher than this."
Leon still hung between their swords, skewered like an animal.
"I agree."
The vampires had a weird way of speaking, only one sentence at a time and only one could really speak a full sentence, the other simply answered. Odd, and all things odd are at least slightly horrifying.
Couple that with the brutal scene before him, and anyone would understand why Rehns heart was pounding like it was going to pop out of his chest at any second.
He needed to think quickly, but he couldn't act rashly. He didn't want to fail the dungeon, but he knew he couldn't beat it alone. Whether in the real world or in the game he had never really been one for thinking too much, he charged at most his problems head on.
He really wanted to be a master smith in the game, and he had his reasons for that. But if he decided to flee now just to save a bit of exp, could he honestly succeed in that? No. He needed to take some risks.
He ran back into the room as fast as his legs would carry him, and then he quickly delivered a light punch to one of the vampires. Rather than hurting the enemy this punch hurt him.
But he didn't care, he had gotten their attention now.
The two vampires turned toward him and smiled.
"The little one wants to play."
"He does."
Before they could react, Rehn cast his healing spell on Leon, who had fallen to the floor like a sack of potatoes after the swords had been removed from him.
(+1000)
Without hesitation, Leon stood up behind his two enemies. There was no time to waste, and he knew this very well. Before they had even reacted, Leon had leapt forward and landed multiple different attacks on his enemies.
He hadn't made use of all his attacks, but he decided now was as good a time as any to use [Banishing Seal], which his enemies didn't take very well. The two vampires retreated, some of their flesh scorched by the [Banishing Seal].
[LV. 45][Vampiric Royal Guard Captain][1235/7500]
[LV. 45][Vampiric Royal Guard Captain][2384/7500]
The two guard captains had taken a surprising amount of damage from the surprise attack, but they had now turned their attention to Leon who was still gravely wounded from their last attack.
Luckily, this was still a game and as none of his limbs had been cut of he could keep going the same as usual even if he had been riddled with holes.
That's what he had read on the wiki, turned out that having most of your blood drained from your body at once still caused quite some exhaustion. But he was back now, and he felt more ready than ever to kill the two vampires.
The vampires both attacked at once, without even saying anything. If they hadnt been before hey were now definitely aiming for his life though Leon wasn't going to lose that easily.
He focused on the two swords coming at him, they had both centered their attack on the same location, combining the two blades into an X-shape. He also noticed they were covered in the same dark mist that the previous vampire had launched at him, he wasn't willing to find out how much damage that attack might deal.
He instead dodged directly beneath both swords, he could feel the cold aura the mist gave of pass by his nose by a mere centimeter. He didn't have time to think though, he needed to act. He swept his leg towards one of the vampires, causing him to stumble and subsequently bring the other one with him.
The other vampire recovered by turning into mist and reappearing a little bit away, the other vampire wasn't as lucky when Leon had pushed his sword through its back using [Holy Stab].
The vampire let out a horrifying screech as the area around Leon's sword was scorched by holy energy. Leon pulled his sword out quickly and retreat wen the next vampire attacked, making the overhead slash instead land on the other vampire, killing it.
"Noooooooo!"
The vampire let out a loud scream as he killed his own friend. This didn't make Leon hesitate in the least, and he pressed his advantage to use [Holy Stab] on this vampire as well. After a few seconds of screeching, this vampire also turned to dust and died.
"Woah... I think I want to learn some combat skills too."
Leon turned around as two level-up notifications and a list of drops filled a corner of his vision. Rehn's voice had given him a miniature heart attack, and he had nearly stabbed the boy.
"Oh... You do?"
His heartbeat was extremely high, and Leon was having a little bit of trouble returning it to normal.
"Yeah, I mean so I can get more loot from dungeons like this, you know... On my own."
"Yeah sure, we'll find some skill books later."
Leon took a deep breath to slow his heartbeat.
"Where do we go from here?"
Rehn excitedly asked and Leon looked around the room. He couldn't see much, part of the wall was broken, but that was all. The roof had collapsed, and the entryway they came in from wasn't the most natural one.
Vines hung from the ceiling and the sunlight only barely slipped through them.
Leon looked through the hole in the wall, noticing a large broken building beneath. Something white lined the floor, almost like a large spider's web.
"Let's see..."
Without giving it much of a thought, Leon sprinted out of the window and plunged towards the spider's web down below. He had a particular disposition of being far too recklessly at times that didn't exactly call for such behavior.
Rehn could only watch in shock as Leon plummeted down towards the broken building beneath. But, he soon followed after. He couldn't complete the dungeon on his own, so it didn't really matter anyway.
The two both plummeted down toward the area beneath, the wind screeching as they fell. It was an exhilarating experience for Leon, and a horrifying experience for Rehn. For a few seconds the boy had forgotten about his fear of heights, but he remembered it very well now.
The two of them landed in the web about a split second apart. They bounced slightly upon landing, but the fall was safe. Well, 'safe' was probably the wrong term. There was a terrifying figure looming over them, a woman who was hanging upside down from a web.
She was quite a beauty, her red eyes were carefully observing the Leon and Rehn as she spun around and slowly lowered herself towards them. The womans body was very voluptuous, but her claw-like fingernails, and the fact that she was hanging from a web were more distracting.
She lowered herself onto the floor, the part she was standing on was not covered in web, so Leon took the initiative and got of the web he had been laying on. He didn't feel safe knowing the woman could manipulate it.
"So you two have come to challenge me, have you? You are indeed quite lucky to have taken the way with only those wretched undead... Had you encountered my minions they would surely have killed you like the bugs your are."
She spun her web around Rehn as if to prove how powerful she was. Luckily he wasn't far away, and Leon could easily cut him out. He had expected the web to be ridiculously strong like the vampire's skin, but it was much softer.
Rehn fell onto the stone floor beneath and quickly stood up, a slightly angry expression on his face until he looked at the woman, blushed and looked away.
Leon didn't blame him, the girl was wearing a skimpy black leather outfit that didn't leave much to the imagination. Personally though, he was more afraid of dying after coming this far than staring at some NPC.
"Well, one of you is certainly more on their feet than the other."
She let out a haughty laugh before looking at Rehn.
"Come, boy."
Without a word Rehn started walking towards the woman, his body waving from side to side and his feet moving slowly. He was shuffling forward, almost like a zombie.
Leon placed his hand on his shoulder.
"Stop. I need you to stay behind and heal, remember?"
The moment he finished his sentence Rehn spun around and swung his fist toward Leon at full force. Being a smith, Rehn did have a lot of strength, but he also needed intelligence for his other skills.
Even so, Leon didn't expect the punch and hit him square in the face and staggered him. Rehn threw another punch and Leon seemed panicked, as if he didn't want to hit the other boy.
"Hahaha, I love this! Seeing adventurers succumb to their own allies is so much fun!"
The woman let out another laugh and smiled a wicked smile at the scene. Rehn was about to land his second hit, and Leon didn't seem to be doing anything.
...
But before the punch could hit he moved. Leon had swiped at his legs, causing him to fall over. Leon ripped a part of the spider's web of without hesitation and tied Rehn up by his hands a feet.
Then, he turned his attention back to the woman, worried that she might be able to remove the spider web, but rather than that she seemed more surprised than anything.
"Well, I certainly didn't expect that. Hmm... I'd say you deserve to know my name after that, I am Liff, Queen of the Arachas."
"I'm Leon, what you want with me and my friend here?"
The woman raised an eyebrow as if she was surprised at his question.
"Well, you were the ones who came barging into my home, right?"
"Well..."
For a second he had forgotten he was talking to a NPC but now he remembered. All he would need to do was upgrade something, so he opened the menu, prepared to spew more useless crap from his mouth than he had ever done before.
"You see, we thought the only creatures who were infesting this place were undead. We saw a chance for treasure without disturbing the living."
He paused for a second, reading the desertion of a specific skill.
[Silver Tongue] [Level 1/10]
(Active) 20 MP/S
Description: When activated this skill increases charisma by 10 for the duration it's active. It's a skill many merchants posses, and it's a favorite of some of the best traders out there.
Without a second thought Leon unlocked and activated the skill before he continued speaking.
"And there was this map we found which told us to go here. There was something we needed here... Something about a prince?"
Leon didn't dare cancel the skill, so he kept it on while the Liff placed a hand on her chin, seemingly in deep thought.
"Well yes. I do have something like that."
She walked over to a wall and pushed her hand against it, opening up a hole to another room. Peering inside, Leon could see a rectangular, purple slab covered in markings laying on the floor. That was definitely what he was looking for, he could feel it.
"But!"
Liff stopped Leon from entering the hole in the wall.
"You will have to do me a favor in the future, prince."
It was now Leons turn to raise an eyebrow.
"What kind of favor?"
"There's someone you must find... But you're not ready yet. I will inform you when you are."
"Alright."
Leon really just wanted to get that slab and leave, but another quest might not be too bad.
"Then you may go ahead."
Quest Accepted
Twisted Web 1/6
Goal: Reach Level 45
"And bring your friend with you."
Liff used her web to sling herself up to the roof and disappear from his sight and Leon made his way over to Rehn to cautiously release him. Rehn didn't seem to have been in control when he attacked Leon, but he was alright now.
Leaving that aside, it was time for Leon to get that slab and then they should both get out of there.
The moment he grabbed the slab, both of them were teleported out of the dungeon and back to the surface. Leon had avoided an impossible fight, but he had also realized once again how weak he truly was on this island.
But he would take care of that later. For now he needed to check out his new item.
(Slab Of Control)
[Allows the user to found a city almost wherever they wish] {Single Use}
It seemed that the Bloody Prince questline was definitely what was pushing him forward the most right now, but he wasn't bothered by that. It was finally time, he would soon found his city.