Chapter 868: The showdown's end Standing in the hallway, Bryce didn’t move from the spot he had last seen Quinn and Kazz. He stayed there, still as a statue. Eventually, there were those in the castle that had heard the commotion going on. They ran up to where they could hear all the fuss going on, only to see the hallway partly destroyed and Bryce standing there, with no injuries on his body. "Sir is the first castle under attack by someone?!" The vampire in front of the others asked. Bryce didn’t look away from the spot while giving a reply. "Leave this place, and if you hear anything, do not come back to this place. Make sure everyone stays away from here." The vampire guard gulped before ordering the rest of his men to do as they asked. ’How long will I have to wait?’ Bryce thought. At that moment, a black shadow portal started to appear. Bryce gripped his sword, ready for what was to come. He swung right at the shadow as soon as he saw a red gauntlet appear from it. A loud clang was heard as the two objects collided. However, unlike before, the clashes of power weren’t equal and instead, Bryce’s hand was flung backwards, nearly chucking his whole body with it. Coming out of the shadow was Quinn and Kazz. She quickly headed back into the room and stood behind the door peaking at the fight that was about to happen again. "You know, you are so predictable. I knew you would be out here waiting for us." Quinn stated. Bryce was a fast one to act, and it appeared like he had some knowledge about that shadow. So Quinn assumed he would be waiting for him. Knowing Bryce would be there was advantageous for Quinn. In the shadow space, he had enough time to gather energy for the hammer strike, and time it so when he appeared out of the portal, his fist would collide with the sword. ’Quinn, if there is any time to beat Bryce, then it is now. It looks like he only prepared one flask of blood for himself, so he can’t activate his blood weapon again.’ Vincent explained. For Quinn as well, he had consumed blood from his own flask to restore his HP, and he still had his trusty blood bank in case of emergencies. ’Your ability is annoying, but I can attack you from far away as well!’ Quinn threw out his blood swipe, quickly grabbing it with his shadow creating the blood scythe. Swinging it to his side, it scr.a.p.ed across the side of the walls. The hallway was large but not large enough for Quinn’s attack to build up its full momentum. Seeing the attack from so far away, Bryce was able to block it easily lifting his sword. However when it hit, it was more powerful than he had expected. ’Blood hardening, blood swipe!’ Bryce activated two skills, casing his sword in blood and then throwing out a swipe later on to throw the scythe away. ’That’s the same attack that silly boy used!’ Bryce shouted with anger. He started to swing his sword through the air at a rapid pace. Quinn couldn’t even count how many slashes he had done. What was strange though, was it looked like he was using a regular blood swipe, but when the sword swung through the air, the blood swipe would be created, but it didn’t move away. Instead, it stayed there, floating in the air. Now in front of Bryce, were around a hundred blood swipes floating there in place created from his sword. ’Blood control, move!’ Bryce commanded, and all of the blood swipes were now heading towards Quinn. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖 ’If I block this with my shadow, even with the extra MC points I have it will just use them all up. I have to do something else.’ Quinn thought. Waiting at the right time, for all the attacks to come his way, Quinn held out his hand again, and clenched it into a fist. [Shadow lock] Taking himself in the shadow space, he waited a few seconds. All the attacks had collided into the spot where Quinn was or into each other. The dust and rubble from the attacks made it hard to see, but soon Bryce could see that a figure was still standing there. Quinn had come out from the shadow lock, timing when the attack would be over. [Shadow path activate] Activating the shadow path skill, it threw a trail of shadows across the floor. Bryce seeing this from last time, wasn’t going to let the shadow touch him, knowing it would slow him down. He jumped to the side of the wall, digging his feet in, and started running fast towards Quinn. ’I knew you would avoid it, I never expected you to be hit by that slow skill.’ [Shadow hop] Sinking into the shadow unearth his feat, Quinn had reappeared right at the end of his shadow path and now was directly behind Bryce. Immediately he performed a blood crescent kick. Quinn grabbed it with his shadow, swinging it with his full power creating more momentum. It had hit Bryce, chucking him off the wall and onto the floor. Not letting him rest, Quinn jumped towards him lifting his leg above his head, and created another shadow scythe with his leg, hammering it down with an axe kick towards Bryce again. The strike hit the ground and caused the whole floor to rumble, even though it was made from the hard black material the vampires used, it felt like it couldn’t take much more punishment from a fight between two leaders. The vampires inside the castle were starting to worry. Someone who was fighting against Bryce lasting this long, they just couldn’t imagine, and they could feel the power of the fight, but they would follow their leader’s orders and not get involved. When Quinn had moved his leg, he could see Bryce had avoided the axe kick, but he was hurt and bleeding from the attack earlier, standing off to the side. ’That wound, it’s just going to heal again, and I can’t keep all these attacks up for much longer. If I want to beat him. I’m going to have to use my gauntlets like before!’ Rushing in, Quinn needed to only worry about Bryce’s ability, it would hurt him, but he needed to get hurt to hurt his opponent. He was at the mid-range level, and holding out his hand, Quinn fired a blood bullet towards Bryce. It had worked against other leaders in the past, and he thought it would do the same now. With Qi, it would be hard to heal. However, Bryce had moved his sword and body in a strange way, he spun his body, and with the side of his sword, had flung the bullet right back at Quinn, hitting him in the knee. "Arghh!" Quinn screamed but gritted his teeth. [-50HP] Bryce had used the force of his own attack against him, and made it greater than his own. [Blood bank activate] Activating the blood bank, he needed his knee to heal in time as Bryce came forward swinging his sword from above. Luckily, Quinn’s regeneration with the blood was fast, and he was able to stomp his feet in the ground, and punch the sword away that was coming from above, what he didn’t expect though, was a kick from Bryce to follow after, hitting Quinn right in the face. [-20HP] Stumbling down, with his hand touching the floor, Quinn had spread the shadow around the two of them. It was risky as Quinn’s shadow MC points were low, if Bryce attacked the shadow now, he would have none left, but allowing it to touch Bryce would slow him down. Lifting his own leg while falling to the floor, Quinn had hit the back of Bryce’s head, then using all of his Qi, encasing his gauntlets in them, with the second stage and powering them with the first stage. Quinn threw his fist forward piercing right through Bryce’s stomach. Ripping through the clothes, Quinn could see that Bryce also had been using the blood hardening skill through his whole body, but it seemed useless against Quinn’s Qi covered attack. As Bryce was about to fall on top of him, Quinn had sunk his body through the shadow and hopped to a different place. He looked at Bryce on the floor sweating and in pain and...he wasn’t getting up. Walking up to Bryce, Quinn wanted to make sure that Bryce was dealt with, so he would no longer cause him any trouble. "Please, please don’t kill him!" Kazz pleaded from the side. Looking at her, Quinn wondered why she still cared for him, even though she had no memories of this man, and how he had treated her. Was it because they were family, or the vampire bond? But her eyes filled with tears said it was something much more than that. Kicking Bryce with his leg, Quinn moved him so he was now lying on his back instead of on his belly. His face was full of pain, and the wound around his stomach wasn’t healing like before. Bryce had his hand over the wound, as if he was trying to remove the poison again. At that moment, Bryce chuckled, and started to laugh. "Haha, you really are the kid. The tenth leader, I lost to you!" Bryce said. "The vampires really are doomed having lost to the punishers and vampires." Touching his face, Quinn realised what had happened. When Bryce had kicked him in the head, the mask had broken and fallen. "Listen, old man, I never wanted to fight you in the first place, but you were the one who attacked me without asking questions. I just wanted to ask Kazz who the heck did this to her. I’m looking for the people who attacked my people, and that’s all that I care about." Quinn looked at Kazz one more time, and looked back at Bryce, before deciding...to walk away. "Just remember, I spared your life when I could have killed you. I’m not the one behind all of this, and you should treat your daughter nicer. If I was her, I wouldn’t save you right now." [Quest complete] ..... *******