Chapter 1289 - The Puppet Master As a society based on strength, many vampires looked down on those who used tools to show off their strength. It was why many of them refused to use beast gear, even though some had voiced that this sentiment seemed contradictory since their ancestors used blood weapons. However, certain vampires felt like this was still part of their strength since they were created from crystals that could only be obtained from vampires, rather than borrowing it from mere beasts. However, despite this belief, neither the regular nor the vampires in a family would look down upon the members of the thirteenth family, who were considered to be a strong family. Nonetheless, their real strength stemmed from their ability, for which they needed a tool, one that only their top members possessed and that was something called a puppet. Of course that had not always been the case. In fact, in the past they had been mocked because of it. One day, an argument had escalated to the point that the family leaders had been forced to get involved. Picking one of the many families that had publicly mocked the thirteenth family's ways, he had called for a duel to settle the matter once and for all. The Vampire King himself had come to observe the fight, just like all the other family leaders. The thirteenth family leader had done something no one had expected… Using his strings he grabbed one of the Vampire knights from the very leader he was about to face. At first the other leader had scoffed at the thirteen's actions, believing that the other had done so to make him hesitate, however he did no such thing. With his first attack, he made it clear that he would not be holding back, but what happened next was a tale that would be told within the thirteenth family for centuries. Using his strings, the thirteenth leader proved to be so skillful in controlling the Vampire knight puppet that he managed to make his opponent yield. A Vampire knight of the same family being able to to beat his own leader was something unheard of. It was such a huge embarrassment for the family that the leader was forced to go into eternal slumber to save face. From that day on, vampires stopped regarding a puppet as a type of tool, instead treating it as the real trump card of the thirteenth family and the proper way for how the string ability was meant to be used. Ever since, the higher members of the thirteenth family spent much of their time mastering that art, and that included Fex. After slamming the coffin-like box that was on his back on the ground, the lid fell to the floor, and a human male could be seen inside. "Alright, Agent 11, it's time to do your work!" Fex shouted, as he kicked the box down and quickly threw needles tied with his strings towards the man, and started to summon his blood weapon right after. Once it was in Fex's hands he wasted no time stabbing Agent 11 in the back. "Ahhh! What the hell is going on!" Agent 11 cried out, after seeing the outside light for the first time in a long while. He had only been able to hear noises from inside the box, so he was confused about what was going on. His freedom was short-lived, as he got stabbed by Fex, finding himself surrounded by blood thirsty killers on all sides. "Look, you want to live, right?! Well if I die, you die. As you can see, those aren't your Pure buddies who have come to save you. Use your Qi or whatever else you have in store with your sword, and just let me do the rest!" Fex ordered. The one that Fex was using as his puppet right now, was the Pure agent they had captured. Fex had never been able to use his Influence skill on, which was the reason for capturing him in the first place. Although, even Quinn had been unable to bypass his mental defenses, the group had decided to keep him prisoner, for one he had tried to kill their members and the second reason, they thought they might eventually find a way to get information out of him at some point. It was then that Fex had come up with another use for him. Agent 11 had a strong body, and was able to use the power of Qi, not to mention he was close enough to being a single agent, the strongest type in Pure. Fex had briefly tested him out with his puppeteering skills and he had turned out better than the vampire had imagined. During this fight, for the first time Agent 11 would be even stronger thanks to his blood weapon. The masked men, seeing one more person who wasn't an ally, started to charge in. Agent 11 had no choice, tightly gripping onto the sword in his hand, he channeled his Qi through it. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞 "Just focus on your Qi, relax your body and let me do the rest!" Fex shouted. It was a hard thing to do, especially since Agent 11 could see someone charge at him, but he knew what Fex meant. Agent 11 had reluctantly been used as Fex's practice tool on his downtime, and he knew that it was worse for him to go against the flow. Soon, using his sword, a slash even faster than Agent 11 was ever capable of using, sliced the masked man's hand off. The vampire swivelled around holding his arm, and noticed that the wound wasn't healing. 'Haha, I hope you enjoy this surprise. It looks like you guys have never fought against someone who can use Qi before.' Fex thought gleefully as he continued to control Agent 11. With his sword, he sliced the vampires in his way, thrusted them down, and finished most of them with a single strike to the point where they could no longer get up. As for the other side, they too had decided to charge towards Dennis, but now that Fex was able to deal with a majority of them, Dennis' load had lessened. The gorilla was able to help out massively, as it leapt through the air, slamming its giant fists on two of them, and then using its smaller arms underneath to continue to punch the vampires on the ground. "I'm not going to lose out to a freaking gorilla!" Dennis shouted, as he went forward and continued to fight with his fists as well. He had used up his MC cells, unable to cast his shadow ability, which was why his fighting had also turned more beast-like. He continued to punch, with the gorilla, and held off the enemies in front of him. Eventually, Dennis had slipped on some blood and caught himself but was now down on one knee. A masked vampire saw this as the right time, throwing a claw towards the back of Dennis' head. Reaching out the vampire was inches away before a burning sensation was felt on its head, and soon it fell to the floor, before it succeeded in its attack. 'What was that, acid?' Dennis wondered, as he continued to fight, and glanced at the tree where the attack had come from. There he could see that there was a snake-like beast in the tree, and now it was helping them as well. Shooting out acid towards the masked on the ground. "I don't know who is controlling these beasts, but I'm going to have to thank them!" With excitement and support by his side, Dennis was feeling invincible, ignoring the wounds that he had received, just focusing on the fight. He was pushing himself beyond what his body was already capable of. Pain was a sign for the body to stop what it was doing, to tell it, that it was in trouble and as a result, Dennis didn't realise just how much he had been hurt. When going to punch someone, he was a few seconds slower as his rib cage had been cracked from an earlier hit, and it looked like the few remaining vampires noticed this as well, ready to at least take one of them down. 'Crap…I didn't get to…I didn't get to even spend that week off with Megan.' Was going through Dennis' mind as he saw the fists coming towards him, almost in slow motion, but there was nothing he could do about them. "You're not dying on my watch, old man!" Fex shouted, running across Dennis' back, and kicking two of the vampires' heads in front of him. Fex then quickly pulled one forward with his string and sliced it from the head down in half finishing the last few remaining ones. Dennis, seeing Fex back could see that his black needle was in his back. "What happened to them? Huh?" Dennis said, confused. "That guy is good enough to handle himself. After dealing with most of them, I let him do his own thing and used the power of the needle on me." Fex replied. Eventually the group had dealt with all forty of the masked men. With this brief break it looked like no more masks were coming in their direction. They wondered if it was because the enemy thought that they would be finished by now, or had they really defeated all those coming from this direction. Either way, they had time to rest and with the humans they had killed, both Dennis and Fex consumed their blood as they started to recover. Eventually, Fex picked up the wooden crate that was still in good condition. "Alright, we should be good now. Come on, you know the drill." Fex clapped his hands looking at Agent 11. "Seriously? I just saved your asses! Heck, I didn't even try to run away, yet you want me to return to that stuffy box? When's the last time you even cleaned it!" Agent 11 wasn't too keen to listen to that order. "Oh please, where would you have even run off to? We're on an island with all sorts of people trying to kill us. Just get in the box!" Fex ordered, getting his strings ready. "Look, I promise I will help you guys, just don't put me back in there! I won't resist if you control me, or puppet me or anything! We both know that if it wasn't for me, he would have died and you should at least reward me for that right?" Agent 11 argued, pointing towards Dennis. "Just let him stay outside. He did help us after all." Dennis took his side, relaxing and allowing the blood to heal their wounds. "Argh, fine! But just this once, and don't even think about getting away!" Fex loocked eyes with the gorilla that was still alive. "Gorilla, keep an eye on him." Fex was annoyed, but at the same time worried that Pure Agent was just waiting for a better opportunity to make a run for it. It had taken him a long time to find someone this good he could use, but it looked like Agent 11 was staying close by. Fex decided to go up to his attackers hoping to get a good look at them and one was lying in the grass. 'Why do they even wear these masks, is it to cover up their ugly faces?' Fex thought, taking one of them off, revealing the man's face. 'He's not ugly enough to need a mask, in fact he's actually quite handsome. I wonder why they all use those masks then? I don't recognize this guy." Fex thought, thinking it was one of the agents from the Vampire World. Not that Fex did know every single vampire in the settlement. Out of curiosity, Fex decided to go to another masked man and took his off as well, and when he did, he had to rub his eyes twice because he couldn't believe what he was seeing… "What the… were those two twins?"