-----

  Vd’s party became better at hunting the dangerous Dark Spirits, utilizing a strategy that allowed them to easily paralyze them and then attack them from every angle, facilitating its hunt greatly.

  Because Light Magic paralyzed Dark Spirits the first time it hit them, this was abused, allowing them to easily finish off the sed Silent Dark Spirit they found.

  BOOOM!

  “G-Gryyeeh…”

  The Silent Dark Spirit let out an agonizing sigh before dying; its entire bleeding corpse, while still fresh, was stored by Vd within his Iory for ter ption and dismantling.

  The uhing about Dark Spirits was their physical bodies, whial Spirits didn’t have. Vd theorized that this was because their Spiritual Energy had been corrupted or cursed by the Darkness or Miasma of Obscuritas, being solid and slime-like, just like Miasma itself.

  A, despite everything, they still ted as Spirits, and could be tracted, although the act of trag them to begin with was incredibly dangerous by itself, even more when it came to the Frenzied Dark Spirits, who were incredibly aggressive in parison to the Silent Dark Spirits.

  “Phew! We’re doh this one! Hey, that wasn’t that hard~!” Chris said while stretg his arms. “Let’s hunt a bit more before logging out, though; it’s getting te.”

  “Okay, let’s hunt some more then…” Vd nodded. “We ’t waste time; I also kind of want to log out soon, maybe an hour at most before we leave.”

  “I agree! I want to go have dier,” Emerlinda nodded. “But what about Camil here?”

  “We’ll bring her bae, of course,” Vd nodded. “Camil, how do you feel so far? Has it been fun?”

  “Kinda!” Camil nodded. “Although the whole thing that happeo Chris was… weird. But it was fun, brother!”

  Vd smiled, petting her head. Remembering a few weeks ago when she was so shy and looked so weak and malnourished made him quite sad.

  But now that she looked so healthy, strong, and happy, he felt quite happy, even proud… Paul never had any siblings, so this entire experience was very unique a good for him.

  “Let’s go then!” Vd nodded.

  Like that, they repeated the same trick ten more times, seg a lot of Dark Spirit corpses and blood. The trick worked every time; although sometimes the Silent Dark Spirits would freak out and jump over their heads, Chris would shoot them down with a Heavenly Smite.

  “We’ve huen so far, but… Hmm,” Vd looked around. “Emerlinda, don’t you feel something’s weird? Or odd?”

  “Yeah…” nodded Emerlinda. “It’s as if the Spirits are moving away… They’re gone, actually. They move surprisingly quickly.”

  They quickly realized that for some reason the monsters were being rarer around them as they tihrough the route that Vd had marked in the map, however…

  They quickly learned what was truly happening.

  “W-What the hell is that?” Chris asked.

  While looking behind several rge trees, Chris panicked, his demonic eyes allowing him to easily see through the darkness.

  “T-The Dark Spirits, all gathered together…” Emerlinda muttered, also managing to see from afar by infusing spirit energy into her eyes. “But why? What’s going on here?”

  “This… might be a little trap, perhaps,” Vd smiled half-jokingly. “It doesn’t really feel like something that occurs normally; don’t you think?”

  “Hmm… I hear something; mind waves somewhere.” Camil closed her eyes, sensing presences. “They’re quite far away now… but they were here. I hear their lingering thoughts a bit.”

  “Y-You do that?” wondered Vd, surprised.

  "Yeah, it’s a new ability I developed,” Camil nodded. “And… Hmm, it seems it might be indeed a trap. But… I think we’re surrounded already, bro.”

  “Huh?!”

  Vd screamed as he realized that within the map, their group had already been surrounded by almost a hundred Dark Spirits, which showed big red dots.

  There were Frenzied Dark Spirits, Silent Dark Spirits, and a third and rarer type of Dark Spirit that Vd had never seeered before in the Monster and Hunting Grounds Page.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Chris muttered. “Do we escape and fly away?”

  “Flying seems like a good choice,” Vd nodded. “But…”

  He smiled lightly, realizing that although this was a trap they could easily avoid by flying away… this was also an opportunity they couldn't miss.

  “Let’s stay and fight; of course, let’s do it in the sky; it’s too disadvantageous to do it on the ground, surrounded by the forest,” Vd said.

  “ we fly while fighting them?” Emerlinda asked. “I mean, I could try, but...”

  “{Wind Magic}: {Soar}!”

  FLUOSH!

  Suddenly, emerald winds surrounded Vd and Emerlinda, allowing them to fly with ease, although Vd had been already floating, barely stepping at all due to his annoying curse. But casting the stronger Spell from Float, Soar, helped him move even faster.

  “W-Woah! I’m floating!” Emerlinda was surprised. “It’s nice! Okay, let’s do it then! But I am a cled attacker…”

  “You’ve got spirits, right? So just use spirit magic! Jesus, girl, do we have to tell you how to do everything?” Chris pined, getting a bit annoyed by Emerlinda.

  “I-I haven’t… trained my Spirit Magic that much…” Emerlinda muttered, blushing in embarrassment.

  “…”

  “…”

  Chris and Vd facepalmed, but at the end they let her be.

  “Whatever, Camil will cover your back,” Chris said. “Right?”

  “Yep, leave it to me, Chris!” Camil nodded. “I’m fident after I made a new friend back then!”

  “New friend?” Chris wondered.

  “Uuh… Long story, I’ll tell you ter,” Vd sighed. “Anyway, you’re up for it?”

  “Sure!” Chris nodded. “If it mea to grind a lot in a small amount of time, it sounds like a sweet deal to me!”

  “Alright, it’s decided!” Paul nodded, crag his knuckles. “Let’s go!”

  The entire group quickly flew into the skies. Camil used her Psychiergies and Chris' wings to quickly reach the dark skies, right beh the Red Moon.

  Vd felt powered up beh its Crimson Moonlight, his Magic growing strohanks to the blessing he had received from the Goddess.

  “Let’s start with a lot of fireworks!”

  FLUOSH!

  With tremendous quantities of Ara Energy flowing through all of his equipment, Paul bined several Spells together through Geomand Synthesis, maing a massive magic circle above the skies.

  “{Crimson Moon Are Arts}: {Infernal Blood Meteor Rain}!”

  Massive four-meter-big meteors made of crystalized blood energy covered with infernal fmes fell from the skies, reag the gregated Dark Spirits, and causing tremendous chaos!

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  RUMBLE!

  As the dark forest trembled, the camp at the southern outskirts felt rge tremors e from the forest, most goblins gng into the distah worried expressions.

  Meanwhile, a certain goblin girl and her little squad were gng from very far away, fbbergasted.

  “S-So that’s the power of the Vampire Prince, huh? Damn…” The goblin girl’s eyebrows twitched in disbelief.

  These goblins, however, weren’t the only people that the tremors alerted, as the northern area of the dark forest hosted a rge gregation of people wearing dark green robes, with a red-colored lipstick smile imprinted on the robe’s hood.

  Their eyes glowed with bright green light as they directed their eyes towards the loud otion, suddenly sensing the presence of uninvited guests stirring chaos withierritory.

  An old man among the group quickly spoke with dry words.

  “Those heathens dare to disturb our sacrificial ritual towards our Maiden?! They’ll regret this!”

  -----

  Pach