Severed limbs and shattered bodies littered the floor. Mario hadn't gone for kill shots. He was just taking away their ability to fight back, one limb at a time.
Though a couple of unlucky bastards had gotten the full treatment. His cleaver had bisected them at the waist, and their enhanced vampire physiology kept them screaming for a solid thirty seconds before they finally crumbled to ash.
"You can run, but where exactly are you going?" he called out.
Damaskinos was being half-carried, half-dragged deeper into the fortress by Nyssa. He wasn't worried about them escaping. After all, they had uninvited guests pouring in through the convenient two-by-two entrance he'd carved earlier.
The fortress had been designed to be impenetrable. And it was, except for the hole he had dug with his pickaxe. That single breach had turned their stronghold into a death trap. Now, reapers were flooding through that opening like commuters through a subway turnstile during rush hour. Their bodies crushed together as they squeezed through the narrow gap, snarling and clawing over each other in their frenzy.
Nomak stood at the center of the carnage, staring at his father's retreating back. He threw his head back and howled. Every reaper in the room responded instantly. Their jaws split open vertically, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.
"Mamma Mia." Mario felt goosebumps crawl across his skin.
The reapers surged forward. They attacked everything. Nomak apparently wanted everyone dead.
A few of the creatures broke away from the main group and charged toward Damaskinos. The maimed vampires he had left alive, the ones missing arms and legs, writhing on the ground, were instantly swarmed and drained dry.
He tightened his grip on the cleaver.
"That's my XP you're taking!"
He raised his blade.
"RAAAAGH!"
Like a character from a certain moba game activating a spinning attack, he launched himself into the horde of reapers. Within a three-meter radius around him, nothing survived. Any creature that entered his kill zone was instantly reduced to chunks of meat and ash.
Blade wasn't far behind. The crossbow mounted on his armor unleashed a storm of bolts. His heavy iron plating meant he didn't need to worry about counterattacks. The reapers' claws scraped uselessly against his armor while he shot them down.
Pearl, meanwhile, had adopted an even more direct approach. He sat on the ground and simply allowed the reapers to swarm over him. His hands glowed blood-red, and within seconds, every creature biting him had been drained completely dry.
He shook the desiccated corpses off, then immediately attracted a fresh batch of victims to repeat the process.
Their kill rate was terrifying.
Seeing the slaughter, Nomak roared in fury. All the reapers received his command and immediately retreated, pulling back from the group.
The sudden withdrawal left Mario hanging mid-spin. It felt like being teased for hours only to be told "not tonight" at the last second.
"Don't stop now! We were just getting warmed up!"
He waved at the surrounding reapers, beckoning them closer. Even with their limited intelligence, they took two steps backward. The scene around him looked like something out of hell, severed limbs, scattered ashes, and pools of blood everywhere.
The reapers had stronger vitality than regular ones. Some of them, even after being cut in half, were trying to crawl toward their companions to feed and regenerate.
His bloodlust was fully ignited now. When it came to vampires, he didn't distinguish between "mutated" and "regular." If it was a vampire enemy, it deserved to die by his blade. Simple as that.
Nomak stared at Mario.
"Butcher of the Night... I know who you are. I only came here for revenge. I don't want to be your enemy."
Mario stepped toward him. "You sure about that? Because it sounds an awful lot like a threat."
Nomak froze for a moment, replaying his own words. How was that a threat? I was trying to negotiate.
Mario pulled a speed potion and a strength potion from his inventory and downed them both. Then he stomped the ground hard, his entire figure launching forward.
Nomak was stronger than Damaskinos, significantly stronger. Otherwise, Damaskinos would never have considered partnering with Blade in the first place. If not for Blade's protagonist aura, Nomak's raw power alone could have wiped out this entire fortress.
Nomak dodged Mario's initial charge with a quick sidestep, then spider-climbed up a nearby wall. With a powerful kick, he launched himself off the concrete, claws extended toward Mario's chest.
The wall now bore a shallow footprint.
Mario had already put away his weapon. With the potion buffs active, his bare-handed power was slightly below Nomak's, but not by much.
Nomak's claws raked across Mario's chest. His health bar dropped by more than twenty points instantly, blood welling from four parallel gashes.
Mario didn't retreat. He swung his fist and smashed it into Nomak's jaw. The impact made Nomak's split mouth twist sideways like he was having a stroke.
Both combatants took a step back.
Mario glared at his torn shirt. "You vampires really love going for the heart, don't you?"
He pulled out a magic wand and cast another buff on himself. He loved the thrill of hand-to-hand combat. But he preferred being the one doing the beating, not the one being beaten.
"Ironflesh!"
[Ironflesh:
Tier: Advanced
Element: Healing
Mana Cost: 30
Effect: Grants the caster Resistance II for 30 seconds. Using an Advanced or higher-tier healing wand upgrades the effect to Resistance III.]
Seeing the Resistance III status appear on his interface, his expression shifted into a grin. He stowed his wand and charged straight at Nomak again.
Resistance was one of the strongest status effect in Minecraft. Its effect was simple: each level granted 20% damage reduction. With Resistance V or higher, one became immune to almost all vanilla damage except void damage, and even most modded damage.
With 60% damage reduction active, Nomak's attacks barely scratched him now, single-digit damage at most.
Mario had originally planned to grab Nomak by the hair, but seeing Nomak's head, he abandoned the idea.
Nothing to grab onto there.
Punch after punch rained down on Nomak's face and body.
Even with Nomak's monstrous physique and regeneration, he couldn't hold out much longer. His insane healing factor burned through his stored energy rapidly. At this rate, even if Mario didn't beat him to death, he'd starve to death from energy depletion.
The surrounding reapers wanted to rush forward and help, but Blade's sword wasn't just for show. With Pearl assisting nearby, not a single reaper could get close enough to interfere.
Thwick-thwick-thwick-thwick!
Dense volleys of crossbow bolts echoed from outside the fortress. Some even flew through the gaps Mario had dug, striking reapers and turning them to ash on impact.
A group of identically equipped hunters stormed in from outside, members of the Hunter Association. They moved in teams of three. Two carried crossbows, while the third threw glass bottles directly into clusters of reapers.
The liquid inside splashed out, and the surrounding vampires instantly emitted white smoke while letting out shrill screams of agony.
Another hunter carried in a wooden device. Soon, the entire space was filled with the pungent smell of garlic.
All the reapers began coughing violently, feeling sudden waves of weakness course through their bodies, their strength and speed greatly diminished.
Thwick-thwick-thwick!
Another volley of bolts flew out, harvesting the lives of weakened vampires. Although there were hundreds of them, the hunters were numerous and well-equipped with anti-vampire weapons. The reapers fell like wheat before a scythe.
Before long, ash drifted everywhere inside the fortress.
Mario looked at the arriving hunter reinforcements and shook his head slightly. He spoke to Nomak between punches.
"It's time to wrap this up."
He drew a wand that glowed with dark light. The moment Nomak saw it, a suffocating sense of death wrapped around his heart. Without hesitation, he dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead to the ground in complete submission.
Mario frowned. "I'm not letting you go. I can't let you go."
Nomak kept his head low. He knew very well that of all the vampires who had faced the Butcher of the Night and lived, only two remained, Pearl and Stacy. He wasn't afraid of death, but he felt unwilling.
"I understand. But I want to see my father one more time. I want to ask him something in person."
Mario narrowed his eyes slightly and twirled the wand in his hand.
For situations like this, he was more than happy to let them play out. After thinking for a moment, he decided to grant Nomak's request.
The fortress echoed with the dying screams of reapers, but before long, the cries faded. All who remained standing had been slain by the hunters, leaving only the wounded and dying on the ground.
Out of compassion, the hunters couldn't bear to see them suffer. One by one, they raised their axes and personally ended the creatures' misery.
---
Meanwhile, Damaskinos was hiding in a secure room with his core members, watching surveillance feeds. Despite their so-called immortality, high-ranking vampires feared death even more than ordinary humans.
Nyssa stood beside her father. In that moment, he had become a stranger to her.
Gazing at the figure kneeling before the Butcher of the Night on the screen, her eyes reddened and filled with tears.
"What else are you hiding from me? I trusted you completely... with my subordinates, my will, even my life. You made us fight and die for you, yet you used me... used your own flesh and blood—"
Before she could finish, Damaskinos reached out and gripped her neck, his sharp nails pressing against her throat.
"You're right! Compared to the survival of our race, what does family even matter? Tell me, who do you think God favors?"
He flung Nyssa aside and said coldly, "If not for that damned Butcher of the Night, my plan would have succeeded! Once I obtained the Daywalker, I could have created a new breed, vampires immune to silver and unafraid of sunlight. But now... everything's ruined!"
He turned toward one of the vampires beside him. "Any word from the other clans?"
"They've sent reinforcements, but they may not arrive in time..."
A shadow passed over Damaskinos's eyes. After a moment, he waved his hand. "Send my research data to every vampire clan. Make sure it survives even if we don't."
"Yes!"
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
A series of dull impacts echoed through the room. Every vampire turned toward the source. Cracks spread rapidly across the wall, then with a loud boom, it collapsed completely, revealing Mario standing behind it, smiling.
"Having a meeting, are we? Hope I'm not interrupting."
BANG! BANG! BANG!
His greeting was met with a hail of bullets. But he raised his battle sign, and in an instant, the gunfire stopped. Every vampire who had fired a shot was already lying motionless on the floor.
He quickly opened up a passageway, and hunters streamed in behind him.
"Kill them all."
The hunters charged forward. Each vampire was besieged by three or four hunters at once, crossbow bolts whistling through the air. The agile ones managed to dodge a few shots, but the weaker ones were struck and instantly turned to ash.
But no one was more emotional than Nomak. Fearing his father might be killed by the hunters, he let out a roar and hurled himself at his father.
Damaskinos, who had been parrying bolts, was knocked to the ground by his son's sudden tackle.
"Father... at last, I see you again."
Mario waved his hand, signaling the hunters to halt. Out of dozens of vampires, only four or five had survived.
Perhaps by protagonist's luck, Nyssa was still alive, lying weakly on the ground.
Damaskinos's body now appeared frail and hunched. "What happened to you... is a tragedy."
Nomak pulled him into an embrace and muttered as if talking to himself. "Don't worry, Father... I won't let you suffer the same pain I did."
With a wet chomp, he sank his fangs into his father's neck.