293 Chapter 293: Blood Feud

"Incoming!"

Soldiers scattered as a rain of bloody projectiles fell upon them explosively. The Silver Wolves mercenaries attempted to retaliate with a volley of mana bolts, but the blood mages of the Blood Slaughter Sect neutralized them with blood shields and other crimson techniques.

"Fall back! We can't hold!"

"We need reinforcements!"

"They are coming!"

While the mercenary lines collapsed under the bloody onslaught, Anastasia and I stood alone as we tried to hold the line.

"Hah!"

Laughing wildly, Xue Tu lunged at Anastasia, who was attempting to evade and defend against Liu's barrage of blood lances, but fortunately I was on hand to intercept him. Unfortunately, I had to do it alone, for my Constellation spirits were fending off the disciples of the Blood Slaughter for now, to prevent the Silver Wolves' retreat from turning into a complete rout.

"Don't overestimate yourself!" Xue Tu sneered as he slashed at me with a huge blood blade. I shattered it with a swing of Bai Ri, and then unleashed a black wave of stellar energy from Hei Yue. Xue Tu was knocked back by the blast despite conjuring a blood shield to protect himself.

Staggering, he glared at me before hurling another couple of blood lances. I obliterated them with a couple of swings and closed in on him, forcing the bugger to withdraw.

"You're always getting in my way!" Xue Tu howled. "First, you took my woman, and now you're trying to halt the objective of my sect!"

"Only the second accusation is true!" I hollered back, scything through a layer of blood blades to get to him. "I never touched or took your woman! Actually, Lilith isn't even your woman to begin with! She's not an object or the possession of anyone! Stop treating her like that! No wonder she rejected you!"

"You don't know anything!"

Yeah? After listening to you rave and rant, and enduring your stupid attacks, I was more than confident that I could guess why exactly he got rejected flat out by Lilith. If I were her, I would certainly stay far away from him as possible.

"!!!"

An agonized bellow drew my attention back to my Constellation spirits. White Tiger and Leo were being knocked aside by a berserk goliath who nearly reached five meters in height. For some reason he was wearing very little, with his armor exposing most of his bulging muscles. His bronze skin was layered with blood-red symbols, most likely some kind of enchantment? An iron mask concealed a fifth of his face, only cover the bridge of his nose and spreading from ear to ear. Otherwise his glazed eyes and leering grin were clearly visible.

"Heh…Elder Liu decided to unleash Spartacus, huh? You're all dead!"

Laughing hysterically, Xue Tu renewed his attacks and drove me back. Gritting my teeth, I had Black Tortoise lumber forward to form a water barrier, but the Bloody Berserker smashed through it. Fortunately, the defenses delayed him long enough for White Tiger and Leo to launch a counterattack. The Bloody Berserker didn't dodge even as their devastating spells ripped through his body, nearly cleaving him in half and leaving scorched skin.

For a moment, Spartacus listed, dropping to his knees. Even with his head and half of his torso split off from the other half, he was still grinning. Then I saw the threads of blood thicken further and pull the two broken halves of his torso back together. Worse, his muscles began bubbling, and he appeared to grow bigger than before.

"What the hell!?"

"Our Blood Slaughter Sect's unique blood techniques allow us to create a warrior who is near immortal!" Xue Tu crowed triumphantly. "You mercenaries are all doomed!"

I noted his use the word "near". So, even with such incredible regenerative abilities, the Blood Slaughter Sect warriors were not immortal. Not yet. They had yet to reach that level.

So there was a way to kill that Bloody Berserker. It was just that it would be incredibly difficult. Even more so when I had to fight off Xue Tu and his approaching comrades at the same time. I might be forced to use the nuclear option, but that would end up destroying the dig site and killing the people I was supposed to be protecting.

"Ugh…"

Anastasia stumbled back as a volley of blood spears from Liu finally managed to catch her. She warded them off with her daggers, just barely, to avoid a fatal hit to her vitals. However, while she was retreating, another Blood Slaughter Sect warrior tried to stab her in the back. Anastasia spun around to parry the blood blade but the female blood mage kicked her.

"Kuh!"

Even though Anastasia succeeded in raising her arm just in time to soften the blow, she was still sent skidding across the ground. The blood mage pressed on, her lithe figure lunging through the air before she unleashed another bombardment upon Anastasia. While the former Assassin sliced through her enemy's attacks, Liu prepared to impale her with another set of blood lances.

"!!!"

Ferocious flames exploded across the ground, forcing Liu back. A red-haired mercenary landed between Anastasia and Liu, twirling his spear and launching another torrent of fire at the retreating Liu, who was forced to conjure a row of blood barriers to protect himself. The red fluids immediately boiled into crimson steam, but they still managed to prevent the worst of the flames from reaching the elder.

"Mr. Redfield!"

"Sorry for taking so long, Ana." Redfield thrust his spear at Liu, who conjured a blood spear of his own to deflect the flaming weapon away. "But reinforcements are here."

I saw another company of mercenaries arriving to support the retreat, and the withdrawal immediately turned into a counterattack. Suddenly faced with a fresh contingent of soldiers and severely outnumbered, the momentum of thee Blood Slaughter Sect's charge faltered, and then halted entirely.

Spartacus roared and batted White Tiger away before barreling almost clumsily toward the newly arrived mercenaries. Before he could close the gap, however, someone landed in front of him.

"I won't let you come any closer," Brent declared.

The Bloody Berserker couldn't care less and roared wordlessly, his seemingly lobotomized mind filled with nothing but violence and murder. He only saw a prey in front of him, a target that he should crush. Clasping both hands, he took a massive swing at the smaller, but still gigantic, mercenary captain.

Brent calmly raised a hand and stopped Spartacus's swing. The ground beneath his feet shattered and tremors rippled out along with massive shockwaves as an unstoppable force slammed into an immovable object, and knocked over mercenaries and blood mages alike.

When the collision finally came to a conclusion, it appeared that the latter had prevailed. Spartacus was perspiring profusely, snarling in incomprehension as he struggled to shift the annoying obstacle in front of him. However, Brent refused to budge even a centimeter, and he raised his other hand to punch the goliath.

I could actually feel the thunder of a sonic boom vibrating throughout my body before I saw Spartacus get blown back over a hundred meters from the single punch alone.

"Holy fuck…" I breathed, almost unable to believe the incredible sight. So size didn't matter, after all.

"Hmph." Xue Tu was completely unimpressed. "It'll take more than that to put Spartacus down."

His words proved prophetic. No sooner than Spartacus had crashed was he immediately back up on his feet again. It was as if the goliath couldn't feel pain. Instead, he was laughing manically, his tongue lolling about and spittle flying from his maw.

"Kill! Kill!"

"Damn it…" Liu groaned in irritation as he glanced at the monster he had unleashed upon our lines. "The bastard has gone into a blood frenzy again. It's going to be difficult to sedate him after this."

"You sure you have the luxury of worrying about your subordinates?" Redfield yelled as he thrust his spear at the elder, who spun his own blood spear to deflect it away from his chest. Flames ignited and boiled part of the lance away into red steam, but Liu merely restored it with more blood from goodness knows where.

"Do you honestly think you mercenaries can beat our Blood Slaughter Sect?"

"That should be our line," Brent responded steely, and then snorted. He stood his ground as Spartacus charged at him again, and stopped his punch. This time, he actually grimaced from the impact and the ground ruptured into a crater. A frown creased his brow. "This guy…he has actually gotten a bit stronger?"

"And he'll only get stronger and stronger from here on out!" Xue Tu taunted gleefully, his voice dripping with scorn. He dodged under a swing from Bai Ri and then parried Hei Yue with a blood blade.

"And we're doomed," I finished for him as I rolled my eyes. Xue Tu glanced at me, shocked, but I didn't give him a chance to speak. "Yeah, yeah. I know what you're going to say."

"Shut up, you imbecile!"

Xue Tu tried to knock me away with a barrage of blood lances, but I blew them apart with a swing of my swords.

"You guys…what do you know about this tomb?"

To everyone's surprise, Principal Porter had emerged once more. I thought he had retreated safely to seek shelter in a more…covered area, but he had decided to show himself despite the protests of the mercenaries Brent assigned to guard him. His gray eyes were fixed on Liu, who smiled despite himself (and despite defending against an onslaught from an enraged Redfield).

"You say you want the tomb. Why? What's inside it? What do you know?"

I see. So his curiosity and thirst for knowledge had cause him to abandon all caution and seek information. Principal Porter had a good point. There must be some sort of reason why the Blood Slaughter Sect was willing to assault one of the most reputable and skilled mercenary to claim the tomb.

"Some sort of treasure, I'm guessing?" Principal Porter frowned. "It must be really precious if you're willing to risk declaring war on the Silver Wolves just to get your hands on it."

"We have no reason to tell you. Not when all of you will be dead within the hour."

Liu's voice was cold and malicious.

"We'll see who will be the ones dead by the hour!" Redfield growled as he swung his flaming spear, forcing the venerable elder to retreat after his hastily improvised blood spear was snapped cleanly in half.

"Fools!" Xue Tu sneered. "All of you are already dead! You just haven't realized it yet!"

"Yeah, I mean, because corpses can continue to move around, talk and fight as long as they don't know they they're supposed to be dead, right?" I asked, each of my words dripping venomously with sarcasm.

"Shut up!"

Oh wow. Resorting to silencing your opponent just because you got outsmarted and couldn't win a verbal duel. Very mature.

Xue Tu bit his hand and then flung his blood onto the ground. He grinned as he finally completed the advanced spell that he had been trying to cast this entire time. To my complete lack of surprise, the pool of blood glowed before expanding and growing, taking on a human shape. Within seconds, it transformed into a gargantuan figure about the same size as Spartacus. Unlike the Bloody Berserker, however, this new…thing didn't have any features. It was vaguely humanoid, but its blocky arms and legs had no fingers or toes. The spheroid at the top of its body that passed off for what seemed to be its head totally lacked a face.

Having learned summoning magic as part of my specialization in Jing Tian Academy, I immediately recognized the new monster.

"A golem," I murmured with a nod. "A Blood Golem, if I'm not mistaken."

"Hah! So you know what this is!" Xue Tu crowed. "Then you know that you can't beat me!"

…huh? How did he come to that conclusion? Where was the link between being able to identify his magic and realizing the futility of defeat? Did this guy suffer a blow to his head or something? Maybe Anastasia managed to deliver a concussion to him when I wasn't looking. None of his words were making any sense.

Shaking my head, I sighed and raised one hand, Hei Yue raised high into the air. Black Tortoise, White Tiger, Leo and Leo Minor were still around, and they were gathering around me, but I decided to show off a little and summon just one more guy.

"Green Dragon," I called out. "I'll be counting on you."

In a flash, an emerald dragon materialized behind me with a thunderous roar, its twenty-meter long body uncoiling amidst a storm of vibrantly colored petals.