Meanwhile, Arata, landing on the ground at the same time as Hachiro, lost sight of him due to the trees.

“Hachi- ?” (Arata)

Before completely saying his name, he felt the communication between them cut off like when Honoka was downed.

Worried about him, Arata directed his gryphon towards the direction of Hachiro.

“Where are you going?! Your opponents me!”

Suddenly, from behind, a voice accompanied by a crisp sound of air being ripped apart was heard.

The attack was a blade made of air. 

It missed his throat by a few centimetres.

‘Bakik!’

The attack that missed his throat hit the tree behind him.

Arata who turned his head on reflex to the tree that was hit, saw that the attack gouged out a chunk from the bark.

Arata felt cold sweat dripping down his back after seeing the injury that could have happened to him.

Snapping out of his state, Arata turned his head to its original position where he saw the perpetrator.

Hovering a metre in the air while advancing slowly towards him was a lean, pale skinned vampire with  short silver hair. 

On one hand was a glowing wand.

From behind the perpetrator, Arata saw multiple dimly glowing objects that grew brighter as they approached.

They were twenty in total.

As the objects got closer, they were revealed to be wands the same as the vampire in front of Arata.

Grasping on the wands were vampires with the same appearance.

‘Clones?!’ (Arata) 

At that time, they stopped advancing when they surrounded Arata in a semi-circle and raised their wands.

‘Tch?!’ (Arata)

Arata quickly put up a thick barrier made of earth from the ground.

Then, from behind the earth barrier, multiple sounds of air ripping was heard.

There was impact after impact on the earth barrier decreasing its size.

‘Doga,doga,doga,doga!’ 

Arata, seeing his barrier breaking away, focused his staff in the air and chanted a fire magic.

Above each of the vampires, manifested twenty rapidly swirling fire balls. 

They were shot forward at the speed of a baseball launcher at point blank range.

Multiple explosions resounded as they hit upon contact, exploding with the power of a grenade.

Hearing the explosions and the enemy attack stop, Arata did not stay to wait. He rode his gryphon towards Hachiro’s direction.

‘Krag!’

That was when the ground split open underneath him. It wasn’t enough to make him drop in but it was enough to make his ride lose balance making them tumble on the ground, separating ways away from each other.

Because of the speed of the gryphon, both crashed at high speed. It was enough to shake his brain, making his vision blurred.

“Ugh....” (Arata)

Slowly getting up, he saw that he was in a clearing.

‘Tch! He’s relentless!’

Arata thought as an unharmed, no longer floating and now running vampire headed towards him, rapidly mouthing chants as he pointed a glowing wand his way.

The wand flashed, lighting the clearing and also robbed Arata’s vision for a bit.

When his vision cleared, the sight of multiple images of the same vampire met him.

They surrounded him, cutting of his escape.

“Again?!” (Arata)

On reflex, he activated his fastest barrier magic with ‘short cast’.

“Twister Castle!” (Arata)

The wind attack that the vampires in the surrounding attacked him with was disrupted as they were hit by the sudden force of the wind.

The force was such that it felt as if you were dropped into the sea, face first.

The air formed into a twister around Arata. That was when rocks were launched from the tornado.

Just after he finished materialising ‘Twister Castle’, Arata used another magic to make the ground crumble into pieces so it would be carried and be slingshot by the twister.

The counter attack only lasted for 20 seconds until the twister gradually died down.

Arata was on the ground where a crater was formed, kneeling as he gasped for air.

The reason for this was because it was hard to breathe inside the twister. He was barely able to speak when he was chanting to make the ground break up into pieces.

All copies of the vampire was hit, vanishing them. That didn’t count for the original who stood at the place he was a moment ago.

The vampire in front of him had cloaked himself in a torrent of air that was able to shred the pieces of earth thrown at him. His figure was slightly blurry, distorting his image as a side effect of the cloak.

"I've got to give it to hand it to you. I didn't think you would have been able to last this long seeing your condition. Especially against my 'chain castings'. It's true what they say, a cornered prey is dangerous."

In a slightly impressed voice, the vampire told Arata who was breathing on all fours.

"Too bad you ran out of magic. You may have been able to last longer."

He pointed his wand at Arata.

'Who said I ran out of mana?' (Arata)

He misunderstood his heavy breathing as a sign mana exhaustion so his guard was down.

Mumbling under his breath, Arata said a word.

"Warp!" (Arata)

He vanished from the vampire’s sight who had launched an air cutting attack that missed his neck by a few milliseconds.

The attack from the vampire, missed its target gouging a chunk from the earth.

The vampire stood there baffled at what happened.

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It wasn't long until he chose to find Arata after he snapped out of his perplexed state.

He cancelled the torrent of air that was cloaking and began to chant for a locating spell.

But, before he finished the chant 

"-Wha?!"

A large paw blasted him to the air.

The perpetrator was the gryphon who was separated from Arata.

It had been waiting for a chance to strike as it hid behind the cover of the tree’s.

It was as large as a multi-decked bus, so its swipe from its front paw most likely decimated the opponent.

‘...’

After no signs of him coming back, it went to look for Arata.

-------

-Hachiro’s side- 

Launched at the speed of a baseball thrown by a professional player, the sniper was launched towards Hachiro with the bayonet mounted musket pointed directly at his head.

A normal attack like a bayonet stab wouldn't inflict a fatal wound on the high spec Hachiro, but his instincts immediately flared up, telling him not to take her attack lightly.

On reflex he ducked down, avoiding the attack.

'BAKI!'

The sound of a tree exploding resounded behind.

Looking behind, the opponent had made a crater on a ten meter tall tree that made the creaking sound of a tree falling.

Hachiro seeing this dripped cold sweat as he prepared to face off with the enemy.

Like a knight on horseback, Hachiro, who could not walk due to his injury was relying on his gryphon to move around.

Effortlessly and quickly pulling out the weapon stuck in the tree, she quickly backed off and disappeared into the forest under the cover of the night.

Hachiro didn't stay there waiting to get shot, he moved away from there, heading towards Honoka's direction.

'POOB! POOB! POOB! POOB!'

As he headed towards Honoka, shots were fired from above at three seconds interval.

The surrounding trees that were shot had the areas burst due to the power of the attack.

The shots were extremely accurate as practically every one of those shots missed Hachiro's head by a few inches, sometimes even grazing his nape armour.

Unable to take the thought of getting shot, Hachiro began to chant a magic without the use of short cast as he wanted to preserve his mana.

After finishing the preparation, he quickly swung the huge sword at the direction of the attacker.

A silhouette protruded from the point of the sword as if extending.

The silhouette grew longer until the attacker was in swinging range.

It took all of his power to swing it, as the down side of this attack was the great amount of strength required to swing. It was like trying to push a heavy and giant lever horizontally.

The sniper stopped her advance and used her rifle to block the attack.

But due to the power behind the attack, she was blown away just like the other vampire.

Seeing that there was no more gun shots, Hachiro breathed a sigh and turned his head around to see that the sniper was gone.

----

Honoka and her gryphon, Fae, were downed by the two attackers.

Before they crashed, the two attackers pulled out their swords and disappeared from Honoka’s sight.

The crash knocked out both rider and gryphon.

But that was just for a moment.

Steadying her consciousness, Honoka who managed to stay with her gryphon when she crashed stood up as she raised her metal gauntlets.

Closing her eyes, she waited.

Then,

““This is no time to rest!””

The attackers from before, who were actually twins, came rocketing through the air from both sides of Honoka with their sabres. One aimed a swing on the neck, the other aimed a swing at a leg.

That was when she put each gauntlet in front of the direction of the attackers as she opened her eyes.

A meter until their sabres connected, something like a field around each gauntlet deflected both attacks to the sides like arrows.

The girl who aimed for Honoka’s leg was redirected towards the ground face first, making her tumble and crash into the trunk of a tree. Her twin was flung overhead making him spin forward countless times towards the forest further away.

The young looking girl was knocked out, evident from her face that showed her open eyes with the whites of her eyes.

“Phew…. As if two was enough to beat us all. Arrogant prick….” (Honoka)

She remembered what the count said about only needing two of his men to beat all of them. 

After her rant, she treaded towards the girl a few metres in front.

When she was five steps away, she stopped.

She was receiving a ‘call’ from Hachiro and Arata.

Accepting, she inquired in a panicked voice if both of them were alright.

“Are you two alright?!” (Honoka)

The two answered back with an affirmative.

“I’m gl-” (Honoka)

“We have to retreat! I don’t know if they’re coming back but I’m not staying to find out!”   (Arata)

Just as she was about to say ‘I’m glad’, Arata added.

“He’s right. We have to get away quickly.” (Hachiro)

“Wait, I have one unconscious here and I was just about to-….Gone. She’s gone!” (Honoka)

The girl disappeared when she took her eyes off of her for a moment.

“Forget about it! Get on Fae and escape on ground! We’ve ran out of mana so we can’t take the chance of fighting them again.” (Arata)

“Kuh…. Fine!” (Honoka)

With an annoyed voice, she consented.

----