Despite the provocation, Noapte had yet to make his move. In fact, his interest in the battle waned further as a steady pattern began to develop. Even as Henry's next strike managed to shatter the jaw of one of the monsters snarling at him, their overlord didn't do so much as flinch.

Had some callousness been expected? Oh, most certainly. But this kind of hands-off approach meant one of two things: either he wanted all these vampires to die first for some reason, or he was unwaveringly confident they'd be able to handle things on their own.

So, down here on the ground, what did this mean for all of them?

Henry ducked low and replaced another fallen copy, wracking his brain to piece together the puzzle in the heat of battle. Start with the known quantities, then see if they can solve the unknowns. He knew that no matter what, they'd definitely kill some of these vamps even if they all went down in the process. And if he knew that, it was practically a given that the arch-vampire up above knew it too, and was okay with it. So, whatever his objective was, he was willing to trade lives for it, but not to make a move until after they'd all been dealt with.

He managed a sidestep and a half before one of the other vamps got around behind him, delivering a punch to the small of his back that was definitely going to leave more than just an ache if he survived. The blow sent him staggering forward only for another vampire to completely clothesline him, but he forced himself to get back to his feet even though it felt like he was about to throw up his adam's apple.

Hard to concentrate on tactics and strategy at the same time. He stumbled into his rapidly shrinking area of open space, flailing the pipe out in front of him as a means to ward his opponents off. One didn't quite get the memo, and had their kneecap bent inwards with a sickening crunch.

Back to where he left off. He and his friends needed to be dealt with. This implied that if the fight reached a point where they couldn't be dealt with, Noapte would have to rethink his strategy. The obvious answer for him then to that was kill anything that moves, but that was easier said than done. These last few dozen vamps were all regenerating menaces in their own right, and whenever he tried to finish one off, the other handful or so ganging up on him would provide cover for the injured one to back off and heal.

This was quickly becoming a battle of attrition, and Henry didn't like it one bit. That was a recipe for someone else getting exhausted and dying, and he simply couldn't let that happen. The only solution that left him was to play some of the cards he was holding close to his chest.

I'd been hoping to save this trick for once the ashy bastard got down here… but I guess I've got no choice.

He had one option that seemed most applicable right now. Not a very well-practiced one, but… it was an option. Two vampires coordinated to strike him at the same time; one he batted away and the other he clumsily dodged. He groaned in pain as the sharpened nails of the second found slight purchase on his back, leaving nasty red furrows that began to ooze blood. He came out alive on the other end, with a moment to spare.

Thankfully, one moment was all he needed.

There weren't really words to describe the action he took next. The best way to describe it was like he was reaching into his Exotic Domain for his copying ability, then shifting his arm a little to the left to grab something else. Not that there was actually an arm he was reaching with, or a shelf that he just happened to pull abilities from, or even a straight line between those two trajectories… but if you got past those hurdles, it was pretty much the exact same. His soul grasped around in unfamiliar territory within itself, fumbling about for the correct string to pull that would perform the maneuver he intended.

There. A handle that he'd only turned on a few times before, and only very recently learned he could turn off. Like a ripcord, he pulled, the hue of his crystal shifting into a pale, sickly green.

The color change was the most obvious effect, but certainly not the most profound.

Immediately, everything about his fighting stance that was incorrect became blindingly obvious to him. His positioning, his grip, his focus… much more besides that, too, but he didn't have the mental bandwidth to address that just yet. Add onto the fact that the moment of concentration he'd needed to switch over had left him in a very bad spot, and his new instincts were having a field day telling him every little thing he was doing wrong.

Like twenty little voices in each of his ears, all backseating his motions at once and only shutting up once he got things right.

Frustrating. He got to correcting them one by one straight away.

Your balance is off, the loudest one said. He shifted his footwork slightly, just before another vampire got in close and forced him on the defensive. Holding the pipe in one hand and bracing it against his other forearm, his bones creaked as they absorbed the impact, but held.

The voice disappeared, but that just gave space for the others to breathe.

One coming in from behind. He crouched low just as one leapt overhead, missing him by bare centimeters.

Capitalize. The end of his weapon stabbed upward like a sword, striking the airborne vampire squarely in the gut. While not sharpened, the multiplication of force the artifact provided itself caused the blunt tip to punch straight through, skewering the beast above his head and showering him in black viscera.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

He pulled the pipe free, and continued to pay close attention as the chorus of voices began to smooth themselves into a steady stream.

Wounded. Eliminate.

A step back, then two more forward once the body hit the ground. Vamp was still moving. Tough bastard. One, two, three hits to the back of the skull finished it off for good.

Three left. Closest favors his right side.

Henry flashed around the indicated target to his own right. This one was feigning strength. Not noticeable before, but it had a slight limp from where its broken knee hadn't set quite right. Overhead strike before it could react. Hit it on the ball joint of the shoulder, staggering it but not killing it entirely.

Followup strike to the head. Only one needed this time. Lucky.

Two more to the le-

A vision of another clone dying flashed in the back of his mind. Reinforcements needed, he reassessed. Make space.

Henry backed off a few paces, away from the battlefield. A few moments of intense concentration corralled the voices back into their usual compartment, and his crystal turned blue once more.

When he came out of the fugue, it felt like he was resurfacing from deep underwater, right down to the sensation of sound returning to him. Blugh… he thought to himself in the way he recognized as him. That was weird. Is it going to make me feel like a death robot every time I do that?

Probably, he realized, but he supposed he'd be finding out soon. He only needed to resurface for the amount of time it took to replenish his duplicates. That was pretty much second nature for him at this point, so between that and reassessing the battlefield, he really didn't spend much time thinking it over.

He plunged back underneath. The voices returned, and immediately went to town pathing a route through the current situation.

Of the twenty-eight vampires alive at the start, nineteen remain. Two handled personally, one from a now deceased clone, and six by the rest. Screening efforts by copies proved effective at giving them space to attack from, as three of those six appear to have died before reaching melee range.

Henry locked onto another vamp, this one much more wary of his metal pipe than the others had been. Didn't run, but didn't try to get in close, either. Stalling for time, rather than let him rack up more kills.

Close quarters combat has forced the others to withdraw a significant distance, but with no signs of debilitating injury or death thus far. Exhaustion likely within two minutes, after which their combat readiness reduces dramatically.

No time to be stalled, then. Henry reached for one of his neglected knives, and threw it center mass at the vampire with a level of technical skill he knew he hadn't possessed before. He didn't wait for it to connect – he knew inherently it would – he simply rushed in after it to land the killing blow.

Further medical breakdown is as follows.

Crunch.

Dee has significant bruising around his trachea and several healed-over lacerations. The few skeletons he's managed to summon for this fight and Giselle's shield have spared him from the worst, but not all, as the signs of Fauna Domain healing indicate.

Vampire fell to the ground twitching, but not dead. He wrenched his knife free, readying the next strike.

Cecil and Giselle show no outward signs of significant damage, but do hold some superficial injuries. More concerning is their rising levels of casting fatigue. Claire has completely overdrawn herself, and is relying entirely on her artifact bayonet to deal damage.

Crunch. For sure dead this time.

Updating count. Some of the vampires pursuing your friends show signs of debilitating injury. Target them first.

The intent of his subconscious analysis washed over him, and he set the necessary actions into motion straight away. Now, instead of being surrounded by the monsters, he was the one doing the surrounding.

From the perspective of the four others, at first they didn't notice anything. They were too focused on the nine others in front – which Giselle's shield was literally stretched to the limit trying to keep away – to notice the tenth keel over. It wasn't until the second one had a split second to realize something was wrong, then a third catching the second get brained from behind in a spattering mess of viscera, that the alarm got raised.

The offending creature's head popped like an overfilled balloon shortly after. Not because it fell victim to the pipe. Rather, Claire's bayonet whistled through the air like an arrow, drilling up through the base of the skull and out through the eye socket.

Less than half of the vampires that had tried to break their formation remained alive now. A tipping point had been reached; the remainder no longer had the numbers or the strength to keep each other from being picked off one by one. The vampires tied up with the skirmishers immediately peeled away to try and salvage the situation, but that only opened themselves up to opportunistic attacks from the half-dead clones still on the battlefield. A few fell to the ground with knives in their back, forced back into the fights they'd wanted to abandon to save their kin.

And even with the consolidation of forces, things were slanting further and further away from the vampires winning. Henry had been forced to play a trump card to make this situation happen. Now, if Noapte wanted to wrestle the situation back under his control, he would have to play a trump card of his own.

Play a trump card he did.

The arch-vampire's leathery wings unfolded from his back, and with a keening shriek he dove off the rooftop above. His beady eyes were aimed directly at Henry's friends, faintly glowing in the moonlight as he sought to take them out of the equation.

This will hurt.

He was coming in at a steep angle. Too steep for Henry to reach regularly. So, instead, he reached irregularly.

Dive to the ground, arm with the pipe tucked close to his face. Just before he landed, in that perfect moment where his whole body was suspended in the air, he struck as hard as he could. Not at the bodies of the vampires around him, but at the bare earth.

Most things gave way when struck by the pipe. His target gave way a bit too, admittedly, but not by much. The earth was something far, far too big to receive more than a dent from the attack.

Most of it was simply dispersed into nothing, but enough came back up at him that he managed to propel himself several meters into the air from sheer backlash.

His timing was… unnaturally impeccable. Henry intercepted Noapte's path before he could land anywhere remotely resembling where he'd intended. They began falling to the ground in a tangled mess of limbs, and it became quickly apparent that he'd be the one on the bottom, not the arch-vampire.

Update. This will hurt more.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.