Chapter 698 - Cold Sweat

"Darkness Manipulation, huh…" Ryan furrowed his eyebrows. "This might be bad."

Ryan attacked at night because it was the only time he could use Lunar Arrow, but in the end, he wasn't the only one who could use it in his favor. In any case, Ryan came ready to fight and expected at least that much trouble. It wasn't a pity he didn't come with other items that could be useful against Dracula, like garlic or crucifixes. Still, Ryan felt like he would be silly by using them as throwable projectiles.

Even before Dracula could recover from the damage caused by the sunlight arrows, he suddenly disappeared. Half a moment later, Ryan felt his presence behind him and was pretty close to Femradiel. However, before either of them could do anything, Femradiel used Teleport and made Ryan and herself move away from the king of the vampires.

"When did you learn to use Teleport with that body?" Ryan asked, slightly relieved.

"I am your student, remember?" Femradiel replied. "After using that skill so close to me so many times, it is only natural that I would learn it."

That was the only natural thing. Still, Femradiel's lightning reflexes impressed Ryan and even Dracula. The vampire decided to capture her and let the other vampires join the fight, but he failed miserably. Instead of letting the failure bother him, Dracula decided to try something else. He increased the gravity around Ryan's body. His weight became so massive that flying became next to impossible, which even prevented Femradiel from blocking some blood projectiles. It would be a pain in the ass if Dracula could use that spell alongside Health Stealer, but for some reason, he couldn't. While Gravity was a pain in the ass, Ryan decided to make the most out of that situation and let Energy Conversion do its magic. It wasn't much, but the effects of the spell decreased.

You recovered sixty-five points of mana. 

You recovered sixty-five points of mana.

You recovered sixty-five points of mana.

…

While Ryan and Femradiel were being forced downward by the gravity, he decided to give her a hand in stopping the attacks of the other vampires. Their numbers were increasing fast since the fight was dragging out, and that was a problem. He opened his spatial storage with lightning speed and then fired two arrows of solidified light toward some of them. The projectile easily pierced and killed several of them, but the projectile lost its shape after just killing a few. The Light Solidification skill wasn't at a high level enough to withstand being used for long.

"We can use them to get rid of the small fries," Femradiel said as she watched the vampires turning into dust.

"We can't. I don't have that many of them," Ryan replied. "But that should be enough to keep them on their toes."

Once Ryan and Femradiel reached ground level, the other vampires joined Dracula to cast the Gravity that prevented those two from moving. That gave the king of the vampires the chance to do something else. Ryan and Femradiel tried to teleport nearby and prevent the attack. Still, when they did it, the spell became much more powerful, and they lost the chance of attacking. Ryan's bones began to crack, and Femradiel, who was at the top of Ryan's head, also was unable to lift even a single finger.

Both of them fell downward, but they prevented from hitting the ground and suffering even more damage. Without any other choice, Ryan decided to summon the copies of his Holy Crossbow. Still, his bolts lost power even before reaching Dracula… the vampires weren't using gravity on them. They were used from their location to where those two were. All in order to prevent their attacks and give Ryan enough time to prepare a big one.

Ryan and Femradiel couldn't help but sweat cold when they saw a sphere of dark energy growing bigger right above the king of the vampires. Unlike most elemental attacks, it was clear that anything made of darkness or light was much more powerful than any normal attack.

"What is your brilliant plan now, Ryan?" Femradiel asked.

"Sarcasm? Really? Now of all time?" Ryan asked.

"Of course, you can always avoid answering my question," Femradiel said.

Usually, Ryan would try to destroy the dark sphere with Lunar Arrow, but the barrier was standing in the way. His options were limited, and since increasing Darkness Resistance was a chance that Ryan had many times, he was considering taking the attack head-on. Still, his instincts were telling him that he wouldn't survive that one, not even for a couple of moments.

"Let's win this by relying on the power of friendship, Femradiel," Ryan said.

"… What are you saying now of all times?" Femradiel asked, showing a dubious expression on her face.

"Just create as much ice as possible to block the attack," Ryan replied. "If we work together, perhaps we can stop his attack. He can only use Mana Stealer when he is not using any other skill, so he can only rely on his mana pool, and his mana pool has a limit."

Femradiel understood what Ryan was planning when he began to create a massive wall of ice and was using INT potions at the same time. That whole plan will become a mess if Dracula's attack gets ready only after five minutes. Still, both of them doubted that was the case since a lot of his mana was being used at every single moment.

In the blink of an eye, Femradiel and Ryan created a mountain of ice in front of them. Even Dracula couldn't help but frown at that. His attack was powerful, and it could destroy even his whole domain, but it wasn't absolute. When the possibility that those two could block the attack entered his mind, Dracula concluded that betting all his mana right now in a single attack didn't seem like a good idea. So, he fired the dark sphere of energy when it was as big as Ryan in his draconic form.