“Hehe, that was even faster than Kashi’s run,” Syèl remarked with a laugh as the invaders appeared in the lobby. He looked at Shokō, whose relaxed shoulders, subtle smile and tranquil gaze suggested she had undergone something significant. Unfortunately, with the handful of seconds they had, he could not dig out the truth.

Sensing Syèl’s gaze, Shokō chuckled and nodded at him. “I’m fine. Get a move on before the random teleportation starts up.”

Having confirmed that Shokō’s change wasn’t negative, Syèl gave a mock salute, and then confidently pushed open the door, revealing the portal. “Alright guys, don’t get too comfortable. We’ll be out soon!” With those extremely boastful words, Syèl walked into the portal with a sardonic grin.

Whoosh!

Syèl blinked as he shook the portal’s disorienting effects, and then took in his surroundings. He seemed to have appeared on a giant desert plain. The scorching desert sun bore down unbearably on him, its judgmental light weakening his vampiric blood. Fortunately, Syèl was a Vampiric Prince or else, he wouldn’t have been able to confidently deal with the holy sun’s debilitating effects.

“Where can I find a couple of Elder Dragons?” Syèl could not wait until he advanced to Vampire King. By then, he would be completely immune to the sun. Well, it wasn’t like Elder Dragons would fall from the sky on command.

“HAHAHA! Twerp! Are you paralyzed from fear!? Don’t worry. I’ll play with you for a few hours before I kill you.”

Syèl’s brow slightly rose as he glanced at the abnormality within the sand ocean. A giant stone castle stood at the distance. A bronze-skinned, bear-like cerulean stood atop the tallest tower gazing down at the distant Syèl with a proud sneer.

The cerulean, with biceps larger than Syèl’s head, chuckled as he spread out his hand and gestured toward the vampire. “How do you like my Greed!? Your puny clans can never match a conqueror’s greed.”

Syèl cast a gaze across the hundreds of thousands of bear-like ceruleans who stood guard around the castle. That’s right, they were all clones of the cerulean Primate. Syèl guessed that the man had a cloning ability that was further augmented by Greed’s floor.

Syèl gained a rudimentary understanding of the Sin Floor’s rules from Kashi’s explanation and the previous two floors. Each floor enhanced any ability that complimented the floor’s sin.

Wrath transformed the goblin’s burning flame, Envy enhanced its primate’s illusion, transformation and mind-reading abilities to improve their ability to instill Envy in the invaders. Following this train of logic, it made sense that Greed enhanced the Primate’s cloning ability. After all, every conqueror was greedy for territory and soldiers above all!

On any other occasion, Syèl might have been apprehensive. However, faced with the unreasonable odds, the vampire’s lips slightly curled upward.

“Do you know why greed is very dangerous?” Syèl casually spoke despite being at least four kilometers away from the castle. Evidently, he was not concerned that the Primate would not hear him.

“Haha… It’s true, what they say. You Maggots are too arrogant.” The Primate’s amused response proved Syèl’s conjecture correct. “What, do you think you can defeat my clones because they are weaker than me? Indeed, my clones are usually only a tenth of my true strength. But, have you forgotten I am currently empowered by my doppelgangers battling your friends?”

The Primate flexed his chest and playfully wagged his finger at the distant halben. “Don’t shit your pants, but each of my clones are currently just as strong as my original strength! Do you know what that means?” The Primate’s voice grew heated and more boisterous as he happily screamed at the distant halben. “Right now, you are facing one hundred thousand Primates! Hahaha! Are you shaking yet? Don’t pass out now, the best is yet to come.” The Primate laughed sardonically as he revealed, “Thanks to the Greed realm, my clones have fully materialized in flesh and blood! They won’t crumble from a simple blow! Haha—”

“And there it is,” Syèl interrupted with a cheeky grin as he began walking toward the army. His steps looked simple, but each time his feet moved, he seemed to move across several meters at once. “The greatest downfall of greed. You just never know when to stop. You’ll keep striving for more until you destroy yourself or everything around you.”

“Have you gone made from fear?” The Primate sneered at the approaching halben. Chaos Order’s intelligence did not have too many details about Syèl. From the last report, he appeared to be a powerful mage that wreaked havoc in large armies.

However, the Primate was not worried. No matter how strong Syèl was, even he would quickly run out of mana if he had to fight off tens of thousands of Primates.

“It would have been enough to improve your cloning ability.” Syèl continued, ignoring the Primate’s outburst. “Even I would have had a rough time battling thousands of clones. I’m not a fountain of mana, after all.”

“But, you did not stop there, did you?” Syèl’s yellow eyes hardened and his grin widened once he was within three kilometers of the nearest clone. “You just had to turn your clones into real flesh and blood. Your greed has destroyed you.”

Despite being four whole kilometers away, protected by thousands of clones and a giant castle, the Primate suddenly felt his skin crawl. Wait. Did he overlook something? Could Syèl somehow defeat his thousands of clones?

No. That was absurd! Not even their Queen could confidently take on these many clones, let alone a single halben.

Having shaken off his doubt, the Primate’s confidence soared. “Hahaha! Nice try!” The Primate’s voice boomed across the desert with increased strength. “You almost made me lose faith for a second. But alas, you’re not intimidating enough. What now? If you go on your knees and beg, I might grant you a swift dea—"

As if taking pity on the Primate’s ignorance, Syèl gamely explained, “I’m a vampire.”

“Vampire?” The Primate’s brow shot up in surprise at the unfamiliar term. Vampires, much like werewolves and dragons, were beings of legend. Pre-calamity scrolls told tales about these pridefyl beings that ruled over large territories.

Unfortunately, even the Chaos Order lacked full records on Vampiric abilities. Perhaps only the higher-ups had in-depth knowledge of these elusive species.

Even within the Hopeful Maggots, only Kashi and the most senior personnel knew that Syèl was a vampire. The dwarven battle only reinforced Syèl’s image as a powerful mage because he always used spells that talented mages could emulate. As a result, the various forces’ spies within the Maggots never uncovered this crucial fact.

That gap in intelligence could be very fatal in the right circumstances.

Just like now.

“Who cares if you’re a vampire?” The Primate chuckled. “Do you think that you’ll recover if you drink my clones’ blood? Haha! I’ll just crush you before you do!”

“I see. You’re actually stupid.” Syèl suddenly burst out in laughter. He did not bother to hide his ability as he raised his hand to the sky. “[Minor Meteora]!” The excruciatingly long spell he had been chanting in his mind suddenly came to the fore!

Following his shout, Syèl’s skin suddenly shrunk, turning dried and desiccated as he lost over eighty percent of his blood at once. The weakened vampire resembled a mummy who would crumble to dust with a gust of wind.

Despite his precarious state, Syèl’s grin only grew wider and he kept walking toward the distant army even as a ten-meter mandala appeared in the skies above.

Vwoosh! Without any ceremony, a ten-meters long boulder shot of the mandala with the speed of a comet, toward the army below.

At that speed, there was no doubt that the impact would leave a crater at least a kilometer large. It would undoubtedly wipe out the massive army!

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Haha! Was this your best shot?” Surprisingly, the Primate burst out laughing as he looked at the falling meteor. The ultimate spell, which was a nightmare to all forces only elicited a sneer. “Any other time, I might have been scared of it, but now…”

The Primate waved his hand, and ten thousand clones leaped into the sky in unison. The clones gathered under the falling meteor, and pulled back their left hands.

Syèl’s gaze twinkled with intrigue as he sensed a massive formation gather around the clones. It seemed like they gathered their energies, synergizing as one to create a tremendous force. Syèl could sense that the resultant energy was not as simple as an addition of their individual energies. Rather they seemed to have joined into something greater than the sum of their parts.

In layman terms, rather than 1+1=2, the formation somehow produced 1+1=3.

It was an impressive feat that even Syèl respected. There was no way the halben could face that combined force head-on.

Of course, such an abominable skill had its downsides. First and foremost, it completely drained the clones, leaving them without any drop of ki. As a result, they would be useless for the rest of the battle.

The Primate did not commission any more clones precisely because he wanted to avoid exhausting his entire army. Besides, a punch from ten-thousand primates should be enough to stop even a natural disaster like a meteor… right?

On the ground, just barely a kilometer from the army, Syèl revealed a smirk. “Wrong.”

‎ The Primate’s combined ki created a giant fist that struck the incoming meteor.

BOOM!

Wild winds buffeted the environment, sending several clones flying. Clumps of sand rose from the desert and then hardened around Syèl’s leg, preventing him from getting tossed around by the wind.

The Primate on the tower erected ki-shield in time, protecting him from the winds. However, he did not relax as an unbelievable sight greeted his eyes.

The great punch struck the meteor head-on, but it failed to stop its descent!

However, the strike seemed to shake something significant as the meteor’s appearance blurred and then shattered like a glass screen had been shattered.

The Primate’s eyes widened with hatred and shock when he sensed several magical fluctuations around the revealed black stone. The Primate was no mage, but he recognized the magic fluctuations. They were Strengthening Magic from the Alteration school of magic.

Strengthening magic temporarily boosted the physical properties of an object. The spell’s potency was directly proportional to how much mana the caster imbued. Theoretically, this meant that with enough mana, one could strengthen a piece of paper to cut diamond.

Unfortunately, it was not so easy in reality. Not only did strengthening objects past a certain level require astronomical amounts of mana, but the spell’s effects only lasted for a few seconds. As a result, the Strengthen spell was not widely used.

However, to the Primate’s shock, the mana-guzzling spell covered the entire meteor! He could not begin to fathom the amount of mana needed to accomplish such a feat. How could Syèl contain so much mana!? Was he some sort of god?

Syèl naturally did not allay the Primate’s curiosity. However, the reason was much more modest than the Primate feared.

As a vampire, Syèl converted blood to mana. Furthermore, Syèl’s recent evolution to Vampire Prince granted him the ability to store vast amounts of blood to for future use. The vampire spent the days since he parted ways with Kashi hunting monsters to build up his reserves. Currently, he could store almost triple his maximum blood as reserves.

One would assume this was enough to crown Syèl as the most powerful being amongst the Summoned. Unfortunately, this power came at a great cost.

“Let me give you a history lesson,” Syèl leisurely spoke as he watched twenty thousand clones jump into the sky to intercept the meteor. At their level, both Syèl and the Primate could speak several sentences in the span of a second. “Vampires were once considered to be one of the apex predators in the world. Yet, despite their strength, the vampires’ numbers barely reached a million worldwide at the peak of their existence. Of that number, over eighty-five percent didn’t even qualify as Vampire Barons. Do you know why?”

The Primate sneered, ignoring the rambling halben as he instructed his clones to launch another attack. Now that he knew the meteorite’s true strength, he was confident they could stop it.

Syèl continued, seemingly unfazed by the Primate’s indifference. With a laugh, the vampire spread his arms as he laughed with ridicule, “Blood! You have no idea how much blood vampires need to sustain themselves! Every single day, we have to consume a lot of blood just to remain alive. If we don’t, we end up looking like this.” Syèl revealed a bitter smile as he raised his desiccated arm. “At severe levels, our bodies will even shutdown until we can supply our bodies with new blood. What’s worse, the amount of blood we need, just to survive exponentially increases with every rank.”

“I’m a Vampire Prince.” Syèl pointed at himself as he let out a sardonic laugh. “I’m only two ranks away from Vampire Lord. Do you have any idea just how much blood I need to live, let alone fight?”

The Primate frowned. He could not understand the point of Syèl’s rambling, but he kept his attention on the falling meteor. By this point, the twenty-thousand clones had reached the meteor and were pooling their strengths for a counter-blow.

“It’s astronomical!” Syèl’s yelled with widened eyes as he exaggeratedly waved his arms. “Astronomical, I tell you! I have to store a lot of blood in advance, or else I can’t even survive a single day, even with my fast blood regeneration. That’s why there were only a handful of Vampire Princes, even at the apex of the Vampires rule. There isn’t enough blood in the world to sustain many high-level vampires!”

BOOM!

The Primate revealed a complacent smile when the clones’ punch struck the meteorite. Unlike the last time, the strike managed to kill off ninety-percent of the meteorite’s momentum. Even though they did not completely stop it, the ‘meteorite’ was nothing more than a heavy rock falling to the ground. At most, the ground would quake a little.

To be safe however, he sent another ten-thousand clones to replace the previous twenty-thousand. This time, they would pool their strengths and utterly shatter the meteorite to harmless chunks.

With his victory in sight, the Primate finally spared Syèl some attention. “So? Is therea point to all this rambling? Do you want to buy time to regain some mana? Don’t worry, go ahead. I will let you do as you wish.”

“Heh, how kind of you.” Syèl sarcastically laughed. But then a dangerous light twinkled in his eyes. “What’s my point, you ask? Let me reply with a question of my own. Do you remember this floor’s Sin?”

“Greed.” Syèl did not give the Primate a chance to answer. “You already know the Greed floor empowers any ability or spell that shares affinity with that sin.”

Psh.

The sand around Syèl’s legs crumbled as the vampire took a step forward. His aura suddenly transformed, turning incredibly malevolent and dark as indescribable bloodthirst blew over the desert.

“What!?” The Primate involuntarily trembled as hair along his arms and legs stood straight. It felt like a predator had locked onto him, and ran its sloppy tongue across his skin as if checking the quality of its meal.

“My need for blood. Endless rivers of blood.” Syèl’s grin grew increasingly demonic as his steps slowly quickened. “Do you think there’s any being that’s greedier than I am right now?”

“Wait—Stop!” The Primate suddenly sensed a huge threat. He quickly ordered the clones in the sky to return post-haste!

“Too late.” Syèl eyes flashed as he snapped his fingers. “Explode!”

BOOOOM!

‎ Blinding Light blasted over the skies, followed shortly by a thunderous explosion that nearly deafened every living being.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Several whistling sounds followed the explosion as tiny chunks of meteorite scattered across the sky at breakneck speeds.

Puchi! Puchi! The initial thirty thousand clones who had expended their ki did not stand a chance. The unforgiving artillery strike turned them into honeycombs, causing the thousands of bodies to fall from the sky.

Tens of thousands of bodies rained down in tandem—a gruesome sight to behold, but that was only the beginning.

The batch of ten thousand that wanted to blast the meteorite also got caught up in the explosion. Barely half of them managed to erect their ki-shields in time. Unfortunately, many failed, causing them to break down under the relentless assault.

Meanwhile Syèl leisurely raised his hand and chanted with a deadly smile, “[Dawn Pelmut!]”

Blurksh!

The world turned red!