Nightmare System

Hell sent two copies of himself into the city to secure any spots that could be alerted by the army and continued watching the feeble Captain before himself as he figured he didn't really have anything else to do for now. Belland gazed at his lover's tranquil face, but she started squirming after a few minutes. He swallowed his saliva and looked at Hell. He still hoped a piece of mercy, but there was none there to find. He then looked at the city gate and saw Vampire Lord Hell's knights having donned Pandoria city guardsmen's uniform. There was no one coming from there, either.

It seemed all hope was lost for Amilyr, he couldn't bring himself to betray Lord Pandora who had taken himself and many others like himself under his wings. Lord Pandora was a great benefactor that he would dedicate his life to. But this was his lover, if at least she should be saved, he could do one good deed by killing himself after his betrayal.

"Hey Miur, what does it mean if her face is twitching like that?" Hell asked with a mocking tone, while Belland was still thinking. They had already taken over the guard towers in this part of the city. There were no other Captains as able as himself guarding the towers. Would Lord Pandora even be able to take him on?

"We will both die for Lord Pandora!" Belland yelled, his heart aching for Amilyr.

"Drop the girl," Hell commanded Miur and started walking towards Belland in slow strides. "You just killed yourself and your girlfriend together, you poor fool."

"At least we'll die as loyal soldiers, not a monster like yourself," Belland replied, barely standing up. Simply the force of the punch he took earlier had damaged him greatly, it was amazing he could even move in his state, only fuelled by his strong will. He tried to move towards Amilyr the vampire called Miur threw on the ground with his slow steps. He was then stopped by Hell holding his hair and turning Belland against himself.

"You will die alone, not with your girlfriend there," Hell sniggered, but before he could do anything further, a ball of mana blasted him away from Belland who then fell on the ground and looked in the sky with eyes full of admiration and hope.

"You did good, Belland," the floating figure in the sky said. "Rest now. I will take care of this pest."

"Take care of me?" Hell laughed, getting up with seemingly no damage on himself. It is said that condensed mana has the power to ravage skin and bones, but this man currently looked to be fine, only some damage on his clothes. "Are you able to?"

Hell then saw his Knights rushing outside from the windows and doors of the tower, only his copies staying further away to keep any help from coming out. The nigh-blue ball he was hit with was quite potent, it could even kill him if the attack was a little stronger. He was very unprepared to receive it.

"I am Lord Pandora of Pandoria, state your name, vile creature," Pandora said. He was a middle-aged looking Menaroan with white, glowing eyes. He had a fairly strong build with some robes on himself, befitting for a spellcaster. He seemed to have some grey hair on the sides of his head, but otherwise black. His almost bronze skin also caused his bushy brows to stand out on his face. It would be hard to realise he was Menaroan, had it not been for his pointy ears protruding from the sides of his head. He had a wand on his hand with a large conic-shaped red stone at the top.

"I am Lord Helleborus of Hell, and I am here to kill you."

"We'll see about that," Pandora said and summoned five creatures, each with some elemental property to them. One looked to be a sentient man-sized firestorm, two imps with one made of water and one made of ice. The imps had a mischievous look on their faces, ready to attack. One was a creature made of coal and the other one looked to be a humanoid tree, both sprung up from the ground.

Pandora stayed in the air still and looked down on Hell and his Knights. "If you return with your army now, I will spare you all," he commented with a lofty air around him as he sent his tree elemental to fetch Belland and Amilyr, ignoring Hell who blatantly challenged him.

Hell, seeing his confidence, was enraged and immediately sent three more copies to engage and prevent Belland and Amilyr from being taken. He was strong, he was to be shown respect accordingly. Hell then used his skill "Body Manipulation" and grew his leathery wings once more. He rose to Pandora's level in the air, with the latter watching the happenings with amazement.

Pandora didn't expect such high-level techniques from a kid. One that could immensely boost his speed and one that allowed him to split his body into almost as strong parts. The copies, however, had a very little mana presence, and unbeknownst to Hell, Pandora could dissolve their magic as soon as he touched them.

"Kid, you are still way too young to be messing with me, stand down, or I won't hesitate to kill you."

"Your tree and coal creatures seem to be having a lot of trouble down there, sure you don't need to save them or whatever?"

"Elemental plane's creatures exist differently from us, they simply return to their home plane to be part of a whole once more if they are destroyed, and another can be deployed by me with ease. So please, do try to vanquish them if you can."

Hell, surprising Pandora once more, drew a godly artefact from out of nowhere in the air and stabbed himself with it. The Sword of Blood was awakened as Hell felt the sword's spirit trying to get into his head once more. Pandora continued watching from afar as he sent the imps to attack him soon after, feeling the surge of strength in the blade and in his opponent.

Hell was looking at the sword with the frantic rush of the imps paid no heed to what he was doing, only releasing their attack from a suitable distance. Their attack consisted of the ice imp freezing a huge log of water created by the water imp and with the two controlling the crushing attack together.

Just when it was about to hit Hell, the huge block of ice was cut in two by the said sword, with now seemingly 6 of them flying in the air with the same godly artefact instead of one. Pandora thought the three on the ground and five here would mean he could summon eight of them for now. It was fine, he could easily match their numbers with similar elementals. The problem was that the artefact that scared him so was in the hands of each of them in the air. Of course, he could tell which was the real one, but that didn't mean the threat before hi lessened.

"You are full of surprises," Pandora said and summoned five more elementals that were all seemingly transparent. Air elementals, these could be called. They used the wind to cut through their enemies and were quite formidable.

"You are about to be full of holes," Hell laughed with a crazed look in his eyes. He thoroughly enjoyed interesting fights like this. "Use Fire Channelling," Hell commanded, and 5 balls of fire blasted towards Pandora and the air elementals. Fire was an air elemental's greatest weakness, immediately crippling their strength. Pandora was taken aback, this kid in front of himself who looked no older than 21 could use a multitude of high-level spells from various schools of magic with ease, and now an intermediate spell from the school of fire.

"You don't need to do this!" Pandora yelled, his remaining elementals of fire, ice and water standing guard beside him while air elementals tried to fend off the attack. Pandora was well aware of his own weaknesses. Although he was not bad in close quarters fighting, it could not compare to the level of a Vampire Lord, thus useless to fight against a strong opponent like that. He was very s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e towards mana of all living beings, so he knew the original Hell was closing in on him.

Sure enough, a super-speed creature with wings was next to him the next moment and aimed to chop himself in half. Lord Hell's face told a lot about his mentality, but Pandora was none the wiser, still trying to salvage the situation. The three elementals joined their power to create an explosion immediately, pushing Hell back and saving Pandora.

"What do you want from us?!" Pandora yelled, his face hoping for a slight bit of compassion. Hell was thinking how useless the information from Praneo was about the Vampire Lords' rankings. This wasn't an easy a fight as he thought, but it was at least entertaining.

"Nothing personal," Hell replied. "I need to kill the Djinn Queen, and we need to dwindle your numbers properly to achieve that."

"Killing the Queen?!" Pandora was once more, stunned. There was never one who dreamt of killing the Djinn Queen. Pandora knew the prowess of the vampires near the Queen, he would not want to be an opponent to them. Each was at least as strong as the three devil generals of the Demon of Pride. Pandora thought that this kid would be dead against them without a doubt, so he had an idea:

"We won't participate in the war, just let us be!"

Hell stopped along his copies mid-air; the air elementals already destroyed by their swords. It seemed even a cheap copy of that sword was able to slice through air elementals, the most formless of the elementals. "You will betray your Queen?" he asked.

Pandora saw his elementals already destroyed in his peripheral vision, three more copies had sprouted wings and slowly coming towards himself. There were now nine of them with two more stood on the ground and looked up in the air, observing. With the boost they had, Pandora realised he would have no chance against eight copies and the original himself attacking himself. Even the copies could heal very fast and light damage affected them not.

"Just take me," Pandora said. "Take my life but leave my city alone!" Pandora begged. What he was really scared of was that sword, he was feeling extremely afraid of it, more so than the immense force of nine before himself. He landed on the ground, threw his staff away and pleaded again: "Will you listen to this old man's last wish?"

Hell looked to be surprised, each of them landed on the ground right in front of the pleading old man and surrounded him as the original seemed to be in deep contemplation. Pandora seemed to have aged by at least a few decades by human standards, humiliating himself like that. Vampires had achieved total dominion in this part of the world and there were very few that could challenge them in any way. Aside from the Demon of Pride, no one would dare attack them. Even if someone did attack them, Vampire Lords were always strong opponents, not anyone could challenge one.

Yet this kid had done it very casually with overwhelming force, to the point of subduing the Vampire Lord Pandora. He truly believed that it would be enough if he gave his life away, if what he said was truly his goal.

Hell truly did see some interesting figures this time around, and he was glad. He sized the old man up and down and made his decision. He thought about taking him prisoner or letting him join himself, but it was no use, although there was no direct interference with Hell's spirit and mind, the Sword of Blood did make him more bloodthirsty, nonetheless.

"Hold him," Hell said and two copies used Quickening to respond to his wishes immediately.

"You know," Hell said as he began puncturing Pandora's heart, "I'll still massacre the entire city."

Pandora had only a defeated look, having accepted death, as the blade began puncturing his heart and ravaging his organs. But as soon as he heard the words spill from Hell's mouth, his eyes began glowing even more fervently and an explosion of mana blew away both Hell and his copies. It was too sudden that Hell couldn't even activate his Quickening to finish him off.

"Damn it," Hell said, "after him!"

The copies followed from the front as Pandora flew into the city with immense speed. Hell was only inching towards him even with the use of Quickening. Pandora entered the city and flew towards a very big building nearby. Hell could see one such building in each corner of the city with Pandora finally reaching the top, in front of a lectern with an old book on top. He was haggardly breathing with his heart punctured like this. He was no vampire, in reality, just a Menaroan. Even the tip of the blade entering his heart had almost killed him.

"I will protect my city!" Pandora yelled, blood gushing out from his c.h.e.s.t. He cast a spell that created a barrier around himself that Hell and the others had some trouble destroying. It only took one swing from each one to destroy it, but another spell was already cast by that time. Pandora mumbled some words imbued with magic and his heart was suddenly ripped out, hovering before the book as the blood dripped onto it. Pandora's eyes lost their glow and all life they had as the body collapsed on the ground.

Hell sent a copy to slice that hovering heart on top of the book, with Pandora now dead. The copy used Quickening, understanding the situation was already eerie and slashed the heart with speed. The sword went through the heart as if it was some sort of liquid. As the blood gushed onto the book more and more, shrinking as it did. When there was finally nothing, the book released a white glow into the sky in force.

"This isn't good," Hell said and sent one of his copies to send word to Miur and the others to stand back, outside of the city.

Hell sent a fireball aiming at the book but there was no effect. He flew outside alongside his copies to see what would happen as they observed. He saw that his army was still quite far, this was probably good, because what was in front of his eyes seemed nuclear already. The tower was shaking and many officers, guardsmen and soldiers were being mobilised, but they would be of no use at this point.

"I will protect my city!" the voice of Vampire Lord Pandora resounded throughout the city as the light shooting up into the sky dimmed and seemed to be only coming from inside the tower now.

"I will take that deal you proposed a minute ago!" Hell yelled into the tower, there was no response for a few seconds. A blue light shot outside right after, smashing the head of one of Hell's copies to bits. It was fast, as fast as Hell when he uses Quickening.

It was a figure laden in a very saturated blue glow, but Pandora's face was still visible to an extent. He seemed unstable but resolute at the same time. "Not this one," mumbled the blue figure, discarding the already melting corpse of the copy away, turning his frantic eyes on another.