Rowan studied me for a moment and I could see the caution in his eyes. Getting close to me was too risky, so he charged his sword with a lot of electricity. I could tell what he was planning, but it still made me sweat cold.

Before long, he swung down his sword as expected and then fired a blast of electric energy toward me. I only had time to turn into mist and nothing else, but as soon as I returned to normal, he was right in front of me and swinging his sword down.

With my two short swords, I was able to block the attack, but Rowan easily overpowered me… even with all my enchantments that increased my strength that much, he was still stronger.

My block was broken, but before he had the chance to cut me down, I used Shadow Step and moved away from him. Rowan turned around, looking a bit annoyed… he truly thought that he could finish me in just a couple of moves.

‘Taking him down fast won’t be that easy… even if the elves are far behind, that is still the best option.’

I had some cards that I could use, but I wasn’t sure if I should readily empty my mana. I could hear the sound of Glacien fighting some kobolds in the distance, so I couldn’t recover my energy in the middle of the fight. This made me realize how over dependent I was on my mana drain. It was another lesson learned.

Well, I didn’t really need mana, but I had to accept some costs to guarantee a certain victory against this guy. I let out a sigh, and then my swords began to glow for a moment. Rowan raised his guard since he didn’t know what was going on, and that served me well… soon enough, the glow on my weapons changed and he realized that I changed their enchantments.

“An enchanter, huh? That would explain why you managed to survive this long by yourself.”

“Shut the fuck up and come at me. It is time for you to disappear.”

I wanted to know what the empire was planning recently, but this guy was stubborn to a fault. He wouldn’t reveal anything to me and I didn’t want to take any chances with him. Still, this taunt didn’t work and soon he began to charge his sword with energy once more.

I didn’t wait for him to finish charging and used Shadow Step. Rowan saw me moving and then grinned while swinging down his sword, but he didn’t expect that I would actually attack him with feet on his face… I kicked the ground with my foot and turned my body in that short window of time to make that possible.

My double kick pushed him away and stopped his attack. Before I could even fall, I summoned my bow and then summoned and enchanted several arrows with Arcane Arrow.

In the next moment, several explosions happened in front of me. Still, I couldn’t help but click my tongue since at the last moment, I was able to see that asshole blocking my first arrow with his sword. He truly had lightning reflexes.

‘Even at ten meters away… he can still react this fast. I guess I don’t have any other choice.’

When all the smoke vanished, an annoyed Rowan showed up with his nose bleeding and with his clothes half burned. The explosions took their toll… perhaps I should have used frost arrows instead and locked them in the spot. Still, they weren’t as effective as the explosive ones. The shocking ones were out of the question. If he could use lightning magic that well, he certainly should have some resistance to it.

“It looks like I fixed your face a bit. No need to thank me. Consider it my good deed of the week.”

Rowan bit his lips to the point that they started to bleed, but soon he took a deep breath and started to calm down. It looked like my strategy was too obvious, since I was using it pretty often. I’d better shut up and then use my head and energy to make this fight end faster.

“It looks like I will have to take this seriously… despite everything, you do have that guy’s blood, after all.”

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“That has nothing to do with this. Don’t blame my merit and your incompetence on an outside factor.”

Rowan ignored my words and just charged his sword with energy again. He didn’t raise the weapon this time, so there was no opening that I could exploit. In the next moment, he touched the ground with the weapon and then created some electric mines around him. It looked like he wanted to do something big and he didn’t want any interruptions.

“Hah! Without the mana you are being fed, you wouldn’t be able to do this, huh?”

Rowan grinned while ignoring my words… taunting was no longer useful, so I decided to unleash a barrage of arrows at him. Still, the electric mines began to work and soon formed an electric wall that blocked my arrows. I soon fired an explosive one, but it was useless. The electric wall fired lightning bolts at my arrows before they could get too close and stopped them in their place.

I had the chance to run away now. A part of me believed that this was truly the best option, but I didn’t want to keep running away all the time in my life. So, I just braced myself for the unavoidable…

Rowan moved his sword to his front and then the energy around the weapon began to envelop his body like an armor. That was one hell of a technique and I wondered if he got that from a class or the sword granted him that power, my bet relied on that.

After charging that up for two minutes, it was already done. That kind of technique truly wasn’t useful on a battlefield if it needed that much preparation… it should also consume stupid amounts of energy every single moment. Still, it made Rowan look even more confident.

“Are you done dressing up? I don’t have all day, you know.”

“Don’t worry, this will be over soon. By the way, did you seriously think that I don’t know that enchanters can use their skills to destroy the effects of enchanted gear?”

My mind went blank for a moment… that shouldn’t be common knowledge, but it should be something those who were veterans would know. It looked like Rowan read me like an open book. Just like that time, when I was facing that Triton, I was planning to use Essence Extraction and make his lightning abilities useless, but that no longer was possible.

Still, Rowan probably needs to use that sword to attack and keep that magic electric armor active, so he didn’t have many options in the matter… or so I thought, anyway. In the next moment, he took some silver arrows from his magic bag.

“Good thing I borrowed these from the Elves. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself.”

In the next moment, Rowan’s arms blurred and then I felt a sharp pain in my legs. Soon afterward, I felt my body being shocked… crap, I really had messed up this time. When the shocking sensation ended, I looked at my legs and then saw two silver arrows piercing my knees. The sharp pain made me sweat cold and my mind blanked once more. Just standing was already painful enough.

“Did you know? Vampires lose their abilities when they are in contact with silver.”

I didn’t, but I had an idea about it… in the next moment, Rowan threw more arrows, this time, at my shoulders. I immediately lost the feeling in my limbs after the electrical wave took over my body once more.

Being zapped like that wasn’t pleasant… I was lucky that his magic wasn’t high, but he could charge anything with extra mana to pack a punch when he touched with electricity, it seemed.

“I am no member of the holy order, but I know a few things about how to kill a vampire. Silver arrows are very effective in weakening them. Still, chop them to pieces, burn them alive or bath them in corrosive poison, they always return… to kill them, you have to pierce their hearts and brain with anything that they hate. Silver is good enough, weapons enchanted with holy magic are even better… it is a pity that I didn’t have that with me. It is annoying since they are only useful to worms like you.”

Rowan approached without a care and soon raised his sword, but I could tell by the glint of his eyes that he wasn’t planning to let things end so fast. He also said that before as well.

“What? You still believe that you can survive this?”

“... You lived a sorry life, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Growing in the shadows of someone more famous and skilled who also had the same family name. Having to follow the orders of someone like that, even after despising them that much after doing something that you hated him even more for it. I would say that it was a very fitting life for you.”

Rowan studied me with a serious and astonished look on his face. He wasn’t the one who was good at psychoanalyzing others. Still, he didn’t give me time to continue and just touched my head with his sword…

I was zapped again. The feeling this time was much worse thanks to the main part being zapped was my head. I didn’t even have time to regret not increasing my spirit further.

I fell on my knees and I didn’t even have the chance to feel worse as the wound in my knees began to bleed even more… The wounds were already burned, but they grew larger thanks to it.

“You have a big mouth. Perhaps I should try to cut your tongue first.”

“Have you heard? People show their true colors when they are close to death… how do you feel realizing that you are this kind of person?”

“Am I supposed to feel anything when crushing worms?”

“You might need to use some glasses. I am too handsome to be compared to a worm, don’t you think?”

It looked like Rowan didn’t like my joke… because in the next moment, he swung down his sword and then my left arm fell to the ground.