"I guess I could go alone," Cless pondered. "I don't have to breathe. Then I could... wrap the vampires with a contract, maybe?"

Venaris rolled her eyes, "And how exactly will your Majesty speak underwater?" She asked, sarcastically. "Your power has a glaring flaw, sister. You need to communicate."

"That's a lot of water," Vic commented, trying to defuse the situation.

"There are ten floors of catacombs until the level where Auntie's coffin is," Jason added.

Feeling cornered, Cless took a page from the gloomy vampire's playbook and shrugged. "I guess we can let them remain trapped in their coffins. If the water hasn't gone away yet, it isn't going anywhere."

She made eye contact with Silverfang to try and get some approval but the Lycan scowled at the same time he avoided her. The mood dropped and it was as if the water would freeze.

"The water is dropping," Kurt broke the silence. The Mawarpy was kneeling next to the waterline. "You can see where the water soaked the stone during the flood. Here, this line. It will be slow but the catacombs will eventually dry. The water must be seeping into the ground."

"And Auntie can go a long time without feeding but she will get hungry eventually," Jason added. "Once she does, she will berserk and break out of her coffin. And if we are not here, the mansion staff will be the nearest humans. Helga and the girls will be in danger even though they are too strong to be mere houseworkers."

"Hum." Cless nodded. "That's why we came here today. We know that!"

"No clever ideas?" Venaris prodded.

"NO! And you are supposed to be the smart one!" Cless snapped back.

"We need to get this water out of here," Vic pondered, trying to defuse the situation. "Couldn't we dig a tunnel downward and drain the water there?"

It was so obvious that everyone froze and stared at the snake boy. Vic hissed and sensed the air with his forked tongue.

"Okay. Maybe I can do clever," Cless smiled. "We will need to wait until tomorrow. Vic, I'm giving you the Skill [Breathless]. Then I am selecting it as our Hird Skill. This way everyone can dive underwater."

"Kate and Shad won't," Kurt said.

"We can leave them guarding the basement. They can hold back a vampire or two."

With a plan, they returned home and waited for the Hird Skill to set. Once it did, none of them needed to breathe and they went underwater. The descent was slow because the Light spells would glare them with all the dust suspended in the water and the fluid viscosity. In the end, they resorted to tying a rope around everyone and having Jason lead as he didn't need light to see. It took an eternity for them to reach the deep catacombs but eventually, they came into a room with some coffins lined up.

The catacombs were inside Cless' domain for the mansion and she could sense the three intruders inside the coffins. It seemed that the two vampires that fled during her initial encounter with Jason managed to get into their coffins somehow. Or they rejuvenated inside because she was sure they became dust. She had no idea and Jason was a neophyte vampire, uninitiated into the deeper mysteries of undeath.

She signaled for everyone to gather in a corner of the room and used Earth magic to seal the passage, technically entombing everyone in the sealed chamber. During the day they had to wait, Cless thought that she didn't have to drain the whole catacombs. If she could cut off the vampire chamber from the rest of the water, she would need to drain only that much water. The block was a few meters thick because it would have to hold the pressure of the water above.

Once it was done, she started to dig a pit on one corner for the water to go. After she got ten meters down, she swam up and checked the roof of the room. It was still full of water with just tiny air pockets, less than a handful here and there.

She dug deeper into the bedrock. Twenty, thirty meters. She swam up and the situation was unchanged. The whole room was still full of water. She felt annoyed and tried to understand what was happening. She was putting the rocks she dug in the extradimensional space created by the Deeppockets spell and it was obvious that there should be room for the water down there. She thought it was too bad she couldn't put liquids in the magical pockets.

She dug more and filled another pocket before returning to the room. She could see that the pockets of air expanded but there was one weird thing. Ice. Small crystals of ice hung to the roof in these air pockets. She was thinking about what was the reason for that when she felt the water stir. [Dangersense] tingled and she turned around.

One of the coffins opened, releasing a huge air bubble and a woman with red glowing eyes. That must be the vampire matron called Auntie, Cless thought. Hissing and releasing air bubbles through the mouth, the undead monstrosity charged.

The water worked in Cless's favor. Even with superhuman strength, the fluid was not a big friend of sudden movement and it gave her time to react. Cless kicked and moved backward. Auntie's claws missed her by a good margin.

Bolstered by [Shadow Eminence]'s Agility boost and [Water Sprite] movement bonus, Cless swam and drew a slender spike-like wooden dagger from her belt. She tried to stab the vampire woman's chest but the momentum-absorbing properties of the fluid they were fighting in worked both ways. Auntie evaded easily.

Their eyes met and Cless released the dagger. Dazed, she remained motionless as Auntie cackled. She had dominated the human girl with her vampiric charm. Cackling underwater, she took her time to approach her new prey, extending her fangs and licking her lips at the tasty morsel she was about to have.

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Auntie approached the powerless mesmerized girl, ready to drain her lifeblood away. Cless's life was forfeit.;

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That would be the case if the vampire matron wasn't tackled and ravaged by a frenzied werewolf.

Silverfang couldn't see in the darkness but the vampire lady was kind enough to make her eyes glow. In the pitch-black catacomb, it was as if she lit two bonfires. Once she laid her arms over Cless, he knew Cless was endangered. He kicked against the wall and dove like a torpedo. Once he reached her, the werewolf went all-out. He used [Ironclaw] to get his talons as long as he could and then opened with [Puncture] coupled with [Shiver Shiv], aimed at the vampire matron's arms. The first Skill caused deep bleeding and the second numbed the nerves as it spread the chill of death from the wound. He grabbed the wound and held firm, moving his legs into a clinch, straddling the vampire's waist. His [Close-Quarters Fighter] technique shone.

Auntie tried to bite him but her fangs slid on his [Steel fur]. She just nicked his skin underneath. After he was holding firmly to her, he dug his claws out, rending and slashing the vampire's flesh. He used [Mangle] to cripple both arms on the way out and lashed out with [Flurry Swipes] from his class, which would increase attack speed gradually for as long as he kept the offensive.

Behind him, Vic and Jason engaged the two "uncles", the vampires that fled from Cless. Venaris and Kurt were still in the corner of the room waiting for the water to drain. Their bodies and builds were ill-suited for underwater combat.

Auntie trashed and even though she was stronger than Silverfang, she couldn't do a thing to get the werewolf off of her. Meanwhile, Silverfang was ravaging her body - in a non-sensual way - merrily slashing strips of undead flesh from her body. Even if they had light, by then it would be useless, the water already turbid from the vampire's blood.

The struggle ended as Silverfang felt Auntie's body sag. The werewolf, however, was too wary of a ploy. He drew a wooden stake and drove it through the vampire's heart at the first opportunity. Auntie gasped as the stake slid through her reinforced flesh too easily, courtesy of Silverfang's [Pierce Defenses]. She tried to fight back again but it was too late. The stake was safely lodged in her chest piercing her heart through and through.

He noticed the movement of tiny bubbles that were rising from the ground where Cless dug a hole. He swam there, carrying Auntie and felt the bubbles rising up and clinging to his fur. Ignoring the itch, he kicked and rose with the bubbles, finding an air pocket near the ceiling of the room. It wasn't wide enough to keep one's head above the water but if the bubbles kept rising, it would be, soon.

He thought about how easy it was to subdue the vampire matron and if there was any trick in that. But the water was an equalizer. Usually, to hunt a vampire, it would be aware of your presence before you closed in and you ran into the odd chance you'd be charmed and helpless if you met their gaze, just like Cless right now. Once the water pressure lowered as it filled the hole Cless dug, Auntie could leave her coffin but it clouded her senses and muddled her reflexes.

The waves sent by the struggle in other parts of the catacombs ended. Silverfang was unaware of who won but if it were the vampires it would just mean the start of another struggle. That it went quiet meant Vic and Jason succeded in subduing their marks.

That's when the fear hit. Silverfang felt it in his core. To him, it was as if an elder dragon, the pinnacle predator had set its eyes on him. Or something even stronger. He wanted to flee but he couldn't move.

The earth shook the water stirred. Up above, he could see with the faintest light from somewhere that the air bubble expanded. The water's pressure also lessened even more and it was as if something was sucking him down. He held the matron's inert corpse for fear of releasing her from her wood-induced torpor.

He hated not knowing what was happening. He had a hunch but there shouldn't be no greater danger in the catacombs than the matron he subdued. Unless something came in the water but Cless sealed themselves in.

Cless.

Sending the matron into torpor should have released her from the mesmerizing gaze. And how would she react? Silverfang bet she would be royally pissed.

Another rumble, another drop in the water level. The ominous terror subsided and he could swim up to put his head out of the water. He didn't need to breathe but it didn't mean he was liking to be submerged in vampire soup.

He got out after a few moments a Light spell was cast on the roof. He could see Kurt and Venaris on the other side and soon the heads of Vic and the vampire boy appeared too. Silverfang noticed that the vampire boy had blood seeping out of his mouth.

"Is everyone alright?" He asked.

"Yes, thanks for the concern," Vic answered. "I got one of the vampire lackeys staked, he is wrapped in my tail."

"I got uncle," Jason added. "I drank his blood so he is dead."

That was another disgusting thing about the leeches. They could not only drink the lifeblood of humans but of each other. The honorless scum had just declared, nonchalantly, that he "ate" his uncle. It wasn't his birth relative but nonetheless, it was someone that...

No, there was no nurturing between them. He was being tortured by the senior vampires, wasn't he? Forced to become a killer.

Maybe Silverfang was being too rough on the vampire boy. He was as much of an outcast as any of them. Now, where was Cless?

Another rumble, another drop in water level. He could feel the current dragging him down. He gasped and found that the air was at the same time moist like a rainforest and faint like the tallest mountaintop.

Interesting.

The whole room shook and the water went down like a tub whose drain was plugged. Everyone yelped and was dragged to the same place. The waterlogged furniture in the room became visible and Silverfang found metal underneath his paws. The water rushed down some sort of rough grate and left them in the dry.

Then a sudden wind came up, a dry burst of stale air full of mold spores. Smelled like a cavern.

And after some time waiting, Cless came up underneath the grate.

"Is everyone okay up there?" She asked.

Silverfang could sense the concern, anger, and frustration in her voice. Another Light spell from Kurt and Cless's unmistakable face showed up. She was also completely soaked.

"Yes, everyone is alive and accounted for," Silverfang replied. "We captured two vampires and the third was killed by Jason."

"The matron?" Cless asked as she shaped the metal grate away so she could climb up.

"Here, staked. I guess you wanted to do the honors."

Cless' eyes were pure rage as she took in the vampire's sleeping countenance. "Yeah, I guess? Why pass up a perfectly good opportunity to get some stats and her Skill? Do you know what she has, Jason?"

"No idea. She kept her cards hidden all the time."

"Erm, guys," Cless mumbled, embarrassed. "Sorry about the fear aura back there. When I snapped out of the vampire's mind control, it was my first instinct in self-defense."

They nodded but nobody said anything. The fear had hit all of them like a sledgehammer.

They put the matron and the other vampire on tables. Cless looked at them, tapped her feet the way she always did when she had a tough choice to make. Then she relaxed and spoke.

"On second thought, let's just kill them. I would need to give them something in exchange for their status traits and I doubt killing them would stay on the table. What's the fastest way to kill them, Jason?"

"There are two. Either exposing them to sunlight without any shelter nearby for their ashes or to let me drain their blood. Or if a vampire drains all the blood of another, the victim dies the true death."

Cless' lips curled in a wry smile and she took a step back. She pointed at the two slumbering vampires.

"Your vengeance."