The ghasts observed Ray tentatively observing him, gauging his strength, Ray draws is sword and activates his flame aura around it. The ghasts, seeing this as a declaration of war, swarmed him all at once.
“Crap!”.
They were like a stampede of animals, drooling, hungry for a long-awaited meal. If Ray was to survive, he couldn’t just stand there, he had to charge right on in, he activated a weaker flame aura around his body, similar to what he could achieve before he evolved,
“This should last longer.”, he thought as he rushed in.
As he met them heard he began an unskilled yet ferocious onslaught of swings as he stormed through the swarm of ghasts, slashing, piercing and beheading them one after another. However, it wasn’t easy, although he could attack, he couldn’t defend all of the attacks and so, he was scratched at, sliced at and bitten as he went, but with his new body, power and the fact that he was only using a low amount of flame aura, he was able to recover from these attacks whilst still going, hid healing no longer zapped him of a huge amount of energy, though he shouldn’t go overboard.
Ray leaps out of the swarm of ghasts, a “Semi-perfect pitch.”, charging up in his palm, as the ghasts swarmed and climbed over each other to reach Ray they were met by the speeding ball of white, hot flames. As Ray snapped his fingers, the ball exploded, there was a massive explosion and a blinding white light and a huge chunk of the ghasts had been reduced to nothing but ash.
“Finally, a time to breathe.”.
However this didn’t last long as the swarm, uncaring for their fallen brethren, continued after him.
Ray continued his slaughtering of the ghasts when he noticed something, there was another ghast, which appeared to be unusually conscious and in less of an entranced state, killing and eating other ghasts, but why? A cannable? That was odd... why was it doing that? Ray decided to ignore it for now, after all, he was thinning the numbers of the number of enemies he had to watch out for.
Hours later, as Ray continued his onslaught of the ghasts, he sensed an incredible rise in power in the nearby vicinity. As this happened, all the ghasts that were attacking Ray stopped and looked in its direction, as they did, Ray imitated them. There was a vortex of red liquid in the middle of the hall that folded in on itself into a ball. Ray was confused on what was going on until he remembered what he had previously saw, a ghast killing and eating other ghasts... could that ghast... be evolving into a lesser vampire?
As the ball of blood disappeared a man stood in its place, he was slim and tall, with dark black hair that stuck upwards, Ruby red eyes and small fangs. A lesser vampire. He stood there in the rags he was wearing as a ghast, admiring his new form. Ray was amazed, he had just witnessed an evolution before his very own eyes, the ghast had changed so drastically in such a short amount of time it was bazar, is this how he looked to the others when he evolved. The lesser vampire cracked his neck. Ray was on guard, the vampires were a dangerous group, they didn't possess the attributes for magic or skills but instead had their own powers, “Blood manipulation.”, very similar to his own flame manipulation. At the lesser vampire stage, it was quite weak... but the more they evolved the more dangerous it got.
“Finally... I can speak again, curse that bitch for turning me into that.”.
Ray was confused at first by this statement, had he been turned into a ghast? He thought they were just an evolution of skeletons but then he remembered that apparently skeletons were once humans and he had to remind himself that he didn’t know everything about the real world of Evoden.
The lesser vampire looked at Ray.
“Do you speak human my friend?”, The lesser vampire asked Ray jovially.
“Yes...”, Ray responded.
“Perfect...”, he said walking over to Ray. “Do you know where we are? we’ve been in a trance like state for quite a while and we can’t remember a lot of things, my memory is foggy.”.
Ray explained to the lesser vampire exactly where they were on the map.
“We see, so we’re in a dungeon between the southern beast tribe and Dwarvern wastelands?”. He holds his head in pain as if trying to remember but no dice.
“So, what happened to you?”. Ray asked curiously.
“We can’t remember how long ago it was... but we were a rookie adventurer and whilst on a solo adventure we met a strange woman, she was quite beautiful we... talked? For a while and... we can’t remember the rest.”, The man said clasping his forehead.
“But we’re assuming she must have been a vampire.”, he concluded looking around the room and seeing the swarm of ghasts, all staring at him, still as statues.
“Hey... do you believe that humans are superior to Demi-humans?”, Ray asked, wanting to test out a theory.
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“No, why should we?”.
Ray was confused, either this man had been stuck down here as a ghast for longer than 10 years or turning into a monster had broken the hypnosis that Claire had said the demon possessed. He explained everything that he knew too the lesser vampire about what was going on in the world which gravely shocked the Vampire.
“THE KING DIED!!!! BUT HE WAS ONLY JUST APPOINTED KING!!!!”.
“HOW OLD ARE YOU MANNNN!!!!”
After calming down and sitting on the floor they continued their conversation.
“So, the king died, and a demon has hypnotised the whole of the human plains into hating Demi-humans...”.
“Pretty much yeah.”.
“And you're travelling with the sword hero and the princess of the northern beast tribe to the southern beast tribe so you can inform them of this and attempt to stop this demon to save both the demi-humans and humans?”.
“Yeah hopefully, that's the goal.”.
“Hey, do you mind if we come with you guys. It would appear that we've been down here for quite a few years, and we have nothing better to do. Also going on an adventure to save the world from a tyrannical demon has been a dream of mine since we were a child.”.
Ray looked at the lesser vampire, he was quite odd, he was unlike Ken who was quite calm and collected, he was bubbly, energetic and quite childlike... but was a lesser vampire and he saw the way he was fighting as a ghast... if he could fight like that then he would prove to be a strong alley and a great asset against the demon lord.
Ray stood up.
“What's your name?” Ray asked.
“Alex Izaburn and you?”, he asked also standing up.
“Ray Smith, aright Alex, I’ll let you join us, but this journey is going to be extremely dangerous and full of intense battles and so I can only bring you with us, if I am sure, you can protect yourself and others.”.
“And how do we do that?”.
“Using those vampire powers of yours. If you can land one hit on me. I’ll take you with us.”.
“Oh, is that all?”. Alex responded nonchalantly.
Ray smiled as he pulled out his sword
“Let's do this then.”.
Alex created a blade of blood.
“You did that kind of easily for someone who just evolved into a new species.”.
Alex laughed, “It just came naturally to us we guess, like it was programmed into me.”.
“I’m ready when you are Alex.”, Ray said as he got into a combat stance.
It was time to see what Alex could do, despite his bubbly personality, could he be a great warrior or was he just a happy go lucky guy with dreams of being a hero?
Alex dashes towards Ray, he was unexpectedly fast, but even without his flame aura Ray was faster. He blocks Alex’s attacks and kicks him away. However, this causes the ghasts around him to become agitated, Alex regains his composure and dashes towards Ray, He throws his blade of blood at Ray, who dodges
“Not bad.”, Ray thinks to himself.
“We see we can’t hold back around you then, we’ll go all out.”.
“Wait... we?”, Ray says confused, it had only just hit him in the mist of what had happened... but Alex referred to himself as we and us.
Alex closed his eyes and suddenly his hair dropped, covering his eyes, he suddenly creates 2 twin blades that were slightly shorter than the last one.
“Split personality?”, Ray asks Alex.
“Precisely, I was the one who was in control when we were a ghast for all those years. I take over when we need to be serious or our lives in danger, the other me is quite the dreamer but struggles to use our full strength, whereas I can.”.
“Your straight out of an anime.”, Ray says smiling, getting into stance.
“Ana-may? What's that.”.
Alex darts towards Ray, he was much faster than before, so fast that he caught Ray of guard for the first few attacks, Ray being pushed back and forced to dodge, Ray was currently level 127 and Alex was 150, they were quite evenly matched. Ray quickly matched Alex’s pace and as they danced around the room, their blades clanged and clashed together in a strange harmony. However, Ray was holding back, he had not yet used any of the Phoenix’s powers and it appeared that Alex was doing the same, although lesser vampires have a lower level of blood manipulation, he should be able to do far more than just create weapons. It had appeared that they had Bothe decided to stick to surely combat, with no aid from further abilities.
“What level are you?”, Alex asked curiously.
“127.”, Ray responded.
“Impressive, I’m a whole 23 levels above you and yet tour holding your own without falling behind. Are you some kind of prodigy?”.
“You could say that. Though you're not too bad yourself.”.
Alex smiled, it had seemed that he had found himself a worthy Rival, whilst Ray was thinking that a 3-way battle with Ken in the mix would be intense.
As the hours ticked down, the 2 continued their spar, not one of them gaining the upper hand over the other, where Alex was skill full and had 2 weapons, Ray made up for with his greater physical strength and unorthodox style of fighting. It was safe to say, that they were quite evenly matched.