Listen While Reading: Yagyu Sword icles -----

  The Realm of Ennead.

  A realm of dunes, seas of sand, and limited resources. However, it was also a world brimming with tless a and dangerous tombs, filled with a and precious treasures. Among all Realms, Ennead was the Realm with the most “natural” dungeons all over the Realm.

  However, because of this, it was also a very dangerous Realm, powerful monsters roamed every er of the sands, as of all types existed, creating umospheres aructive zohat most normal people wouldn’t be able to withstand.

  Amidst these endless dunes, many nomadic tribes lived, and the oo which Shamir belonged erhaps the stro and most dangerous of them all, known for being bck magic sorcerers, assassins, thieves, and masters of poisons—the vilest of elves.

  Desert Elves.

  In the world of Ennead, every person was born with a Soul Treasure Orb within their body, there was no other power in this Realm, and so everything derived from what their first Soul Treasure became.

  Being born with a Soul Treasure was as rare as finding a drop of water in the desert. Most people had to find a patible Relic to absorb and transform into their Soul Artifact. Hehe aombs, filled with dangers and rewards, were where these people would raid endlessly, seeking power to overe the difficulties of their upbringing.

  The Essence of the Sands of Time was the energy that the people of Ennead maniputed, allowing them to empower, evolve, transform, and enhahe Soul Artifacts they possessed, bringing forth their true powers to the world.

  And Shamir here, possessed a powerful Soul Artifact. Paul had only seen this online, but these things were like growth-type equipment directly ected to the user’s stats; the more they grew, the more the user grew as well.

  They developed skills, abilities, auras, and more as they evolved by abs materials and the souls of other people and monsters.

  Meaning that… they were utterly broken!

  The thing is, most pyers that started on Ennead gave up; the difficulty at the beginning was too much, as nobody started with a Soul Artifact, and had to find ohemselves without being able to grow stronger.

  It was obviously the highest difficulty someone could choose, and in an online game, no less. There might still be some tenacious pyers in Erying to get the Soul Artifact, but right now, Vd has yet to hear about any doing anything worthwhile.

  Yet… that didn’t apply to the Realm’s own inhabitants, who had been living there sihe beginning!

  “{Soul Artifact}: {Dual Shadow Serpent Daggers: Ent}”

  With a few words, Shamir shook the hearts of Paul and Chris. His twin bck daggers, which resembled slithering bd dark purple snakes, glowed brightly. The eye-shaped jewels on them glowed, releasing a deadly aura of darkness and poison!

  The Assassin moved too fast; Paul couldn’t simply rea time, and the only thing he could do rotect Chris with his own body.

  Thankfully, he had already repaired his damn armor!

  CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

  CLAAANK!

  A series of sshing attacks reached Vd immediately, like a flurry of sshing waves of purple and bck colors. His arman to gain several scratches and even tiny cracks.

  The amount of damage this attack dealt alone was tremendous!

  “Get away from here! You ’t handle him!” Vd said.

  “But what about you?!” asked Alitheus. “ you even handle him with your Trait?! This guy’s insane!”

  “My brother and that dragon were hard too, but I won anyway, trust me!” said Vd.

  “You really are quite fident just because you possess armor,” Shamir ented. “To think you would start chatting as if I’m nothing to you… How disrespectful. Are all the people of this Realm like this?”

  Shamir grew furious; even though his way of speaking seemed very refined, he was still unmistakenly a cold-blooded assassin. With a burst of power, he imbued the energies and aura of his Soul Artifato his legs, kig Vd and Alitheus at the same time.

  BAAAM!

  “Aaaggh!”

  “Ugh!”

  The two ended up hitting the wall with a tremendous, thunderous sound. The entire cave below the city trembled, with small boulders falling from the ceiling.

  Shamir slowly started walking towards them, a smile clear beh his semi-transparent bck veil c half of his face.

  If Paul had to be ho, with his slender body, fwless face, and long blonde hair, he was a very beautiful man.

  But that wasn’t the only thing noticeable about him—his fighting teiques. His attacks showed the experience of someone who has lived for many years fighting.

  He’s an experienced assassin.

  So…

  “Where did that damn hobgoblihe es to summon someone like you?”

  Vd quickly stood back up, holding onto his sword as he imbued rge quantities of Ara into it, which also spread through the rest of his body thanks to his powerful magical armor.

  “Hmm, I am not someohat likes doing small talk, but this is my first time iing with people from this Realm…” Shamir smiled, lig his lips. “To make things easier for you to uand, It’s the will of my master and leader of our cult that Hobgoblie his attitude, is a member of our cult, part of... our extended branch. That is all I will reveal to you before your death. Now, be prepared, undying vampire. Death es to all, even to your kind.”

  FLASH!

  Before Vd could respond, Shamir appeared in front of him, moving so fast that he resembled a bd purple-colored blur. His two daggers were moving down, attag Vd several times, hitting a single point of his armor, the chest, and trying to break open a hole to stab him in the heart.

  CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

  “Shit…!”

  The power and force of each hit were pletely different from any attack from Vd’s brother, and although not as burning as the dragon’s breath, it was just as devastating.

  The momentum that Shamir built based on his attack power and speed was immense; Vd was uo respond, stantly being pushed back before he could even nd a hit.

  “Hmm, strange. Your armor doesn’t break no matter how hard I hit one point? Is this some sort of spell that keeps it together?”

  Shamir immediately figured out on his own the power of Vd’s armor, which had already saved his life many times. His entire full-body armor, despite being several different parts, was ected through an artificial soul.

  This made it so their durability was shared in a huge pool; no piece would break as eae shared the same durability as if they were a big pieetal instead.

  This made it so that unless all durability reached zero, the armor would simply never break!

  However, it would develop cracks and grow weaker as it took damage.

  “My crafting skills e in clutch again... If I hadn’t made all of this equipment beforehand, just how much would I have been fucked over by all these foes?!” thought Vd, gritting his teeth as he quickly swung his bde vertically.

  SLAAASH!

  A wave of fmes was unleashed, quickly taking the shape of a fiery dragon. Shamir faced it fearlessly, swinging his daggers against it and slig the dragon into pieces.

  “Weak.”

  The ruthless assassin rushed back to Vd, notig something.

  “Wait, where’s the girl with him?”

  His eyes widened as he noticed a presence disappearing far away, enpassed by a veil of shadows. It was nobody else but Chris!

  Using his magic bow’s ability [Veil of Dark Fmes], which creates dark fmes that are invisible to most eyes, he increases his stealth abilities.

  Vd didn’t just engage in a versation with Shamir to learn something about him, but to fully put the assassin’s attention into him.

  “You! Where do you think yoing?!”

  With a furious roar, Shamir quickly imbued his Sand Esseo the daggers he wielded and quickly thew one of them towards Chris. ected to a long snake-like aura maion, the dagger moved around, chasing Chris as he tried to escape.

  “He even manipute the daggers like that?!” Vd thought.

  He rushed forward, quickly imbuing Ara into his bde and releasing its full painst Shamir while he tried to chase Chris.

  In that very small window of time, Shamir ended up l his guard slightly.

  “{Dual Bzing Bde Arts}: {One Sword Style: Burning Cleave}”

  SLAAASH!

  “Hmph!”

  Shamir swung his ger several times, releasing a storm of sshing attacks made of darkness and poison. Vd’s teique was easily blocked.

  BOOOM!

  However, o was destroyed, the teique exploded, c all of Shamir’s surroundings with fmes, giving Vd enough time for his armor to activate its ability as well!

  “[Elemental Magic Shockwave]!”

  Imbuing his Armor with a Light Elemental Spell, a powerful shockwave of this element was released, hitting Shamir directly right after he blocked Vd’s initial attack.

  FLAAASH!

  “Ungh?!”

  Shamir had to reflectively close his eyes as the light burhrough his body; the shockwave alo him flying, as he was uo overe it pletely.

  The snake-like aura thread that ected him with his ger was temporarily destroyed, allowing Chris to free himself from the dagger’s chase and quickly fly away to where the hobgoblin had gone.

  “That dagger…”

  Vd quickly imbued his body with the Soar Spell, flying towards the bck dagger on the floor and aiming to steal it from the assassin.

  However…

  “SHAAAHH!”

  The dagger hissed at him, suddenly transf into a giant, three-meter-tall bd dark, purple-colored sh emerald jewel eyes.

  “Ah!”

  The young vampire prince was shocked this thing could even transform; the snake quickly hit him strongly with its tail before leaping towards him and aiming to bite his head off!

  “{Bzing Doppelgangers}!”

  FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

  However, Vd could also py the same game; his bzing aura erupted from his body, quickly dividing into five doppelgangers, perfect copies of himself copying a small portion of his base stats ued by the curse of gluttony.

  The Bzing Doppelgangers blocked the biting attack of the dagger-turned-snake and started attag it on their own with powerful, explosive, and bzing blows, with small explosions c the snake.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  “So that is your power; you wield many elements, but your specialization is fire!”

  Shamir’s voice whispered behind Vd. The young vampire’s eyes widened as he felt even the warm breath of the seductive desert elf behind him. His heart begaing faster, adrenaline rushing through his body a few seds before a dagger were to slide through his armor pieces and aim for his throat.

  “Dammit!”

  FLUOSH!

  Before that could happen, a mass of cursed ghostly energies surged from Vd’s body, transf into yet another e of himself, blog the dagger a sed before he mao evade the blow, punch Shamir iomach with a giant stone fist, and then send him flying away with a gust of wind.

  “You’re full of little tricks, aren’t you?!”

  Shamir suddenly smiled, showing his sharp teeth. The dagger that he was holding quickly transformed, being a long whip-like snake, hissing at Vd.

  “{Soul Artifact}: {Dual Shadow Serpent Daggers: Abyssal Snake Whip}”

  FLUOSH!

  With a single swing of his arm, the giant snake rushed towards Vd, hitting him several times within a few seds. Terrible explosions of bd purple fmes erupted, engulfing his entire body.

  CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

  The Bzing Doppelgangers he had summoned were pletely ed by this deadly venomous dark fire, disappearing oer another, at the same time as [Cursed Ghost e] began to grow weaker while trying to resist the attacks.

  “His ons aren’t just daggers, but he turn them into other things! That’s so unfair!”

  Paul started tret not having crafted that shield he wao make yet; it would have been much better to defend using that thaing his armor absorb all the damage and end up with its Durability already below 50%!

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Any movement, spell, or skill he tried to use was in vain; the attacks from Shamir were too fast and too powerful, and Vd was being stantly pushed back without any opportunity to attack.

  “So there’s nothing else I do... Alright then, time to pull out the trump cards.”

  Suddenly, the crimson runes c his body started to glhtly as his skin began ging from its pale white to dark red color.

  Horns started growing from his forehead, and his hair became long and bck-colored, at the same time as he felt two sharp tusk-like teeth grow on his lower jaws.

  His entire body’s muscuture started growing rger and bulkier, his armor barely adapting to his ges.

  RUMBLE!

  And his Blood Aura erupted with tremendous rength.

  “Oh?!”

  Shamir couldn’t help but smile as he felt a tremendous surge of power.

  “Good! Don’t let me dow! Show me how far the warriors of this world go!”

  “RAAAAHHH!”

  With a mighty roar, Vd rushed towards Shamir, using his bare hands and his sword to tear through and cut the tless Aura Shat the Desert Elf jured.

  [The Skill [Blood Demon’s Immortal Chimera Body (SS)]’s Ability {Lesser Blood Demon Transformation} has been activated!]

  [Your body has transformed, taking upon the form of an A Blood Demon of your Lineage for 15 Minutes and Increasing All Stats and Vampirid Chimeric Abilities Power and Effects by 330%!]

  [While in your {Lesser Blood Demon Form}, you are Immuo any Status Effect, and your Stats ot be lowered or increased any further. You also use the following Abilities without any cost: {Blood Asura’s Rampage} {Blood Domain}, {Blood Curse}, etc.]

  Vd unleashed the Demon within him.

  -----

  Pach