Chapter 1283 - Don't Turn Quinn only had a short amount of time to test the capabilities of the Roseus tree beforehand, but now, forced into this real battle situation, he was quickly picking up new tricks and skills that were helping out with the fight against their enemy. For example, while using Full Control on the Demon tier tree itself, he could still continue to give it simple commands as if he was giving someone partial control orders. What this meant was that the Vampire Lord could focus on certain parts on the island to help boost creatures and fight against the enemy. The masked vampires were getting frustrated as more and more beasts had been coming out of nowhere, since the tree's roots had been marking new one whenever one died off. Another difference between the tree and the Demon tier amulet was in regards to the energy transfer. The tree actually never seemed to run out of energy, it seemed more like it was allowing the beasts to borrow its energy. At first, whenever one beast was close to death, Quinn would drain their energy, but before discovering the ability to delegate some tasks to the tree, he had been unable to drain every creature before its demise. However, this did lead him to the realisation that whenever one of the Marked beasts died, the energy inside them would automatically return to the Roseus tree. Essentially, the beasts that did remain were able to grow stronger as Quinn continued to give them energy. . 'No wonder the original Demon tier Tree had been so difficult to deal with. I've been wondering how Robin got so strong, even after it had Marked all the others.' Quinn thought to himself. Surprisingly, while checking around the island, Quinn discovered one of his fellow comrades who seemed to be on his own… only there were actually two tagalongs behind him. "Damn it!" Peter shouted. "I thought I could get a head start and head to where all those ships were to deal with them before they came to the island, but now I have no clue where I'm going. I'm lost!" However, even if Peter was lost he still managed to run into his fair share of opponents as well, the only problem was… Six masked men had been running through the jungle, they had easily spotted a large pale body from a mile away and had designated him as a target. All of them chose to attack, throwing out their blood swipes through the trees. They thought their attack was sure to hit, but the pale body avoided all of the strikes. Seeing this, the masked men thought it would be best if they attacked head on instead. Using their physical strength and vampire powers, they charged in. That's when they noticed Peter as well next to the pale body, he had a strange smile on his face as if he was excited. Peter crashed his knuckles and cracked his neck turning it side to side. 'Finally six of them, maybe these guys will be a m-' Before Peter could finish his thought, he heard something similar to the sound of a whip. The masked men didn't quite register what had even happened, as they carried on moving forward, soon finding their upper bodies sliding off from their legs, and eventually falling to the ground… "Damn it!" Peter shouted. "Legs you keep killing them all before I even get to hit them! I know you're just trying to protect me, but I want to have a little bit of fun as well, you know?!" Quinn couldn't believe what he had just witnessed. Slicer's legs with the tail were still just as strong as before. Not even vampires could match up to it, and Hilston's body was also faster than they could react. Seeing this, Quinn thought that maybe Peter really wasn't someone he had to worry about, and decided he could leave him be to do his own thing, while he continued trying to slow down the Masked. ——— Inside the castle, Borden had just entered the dining room, only to discover a trio of three spiked Dalki already inside. 'It looks like they recognise me from that video. Should I feel flattered that Dalki watched it as well?' Borden thought, as he was about to turn away. 'There goes my plan to pretend to be one of them. Not that I was going to do that for long anyway.' Currently, Borden was a three spiked Dalki, just like the ones in front of him. At the time he hadn't noticed it, but during the fight against Slicer he had been so filled with anger, seeing his brother in trouble he had managed to summon a fourth… Unfortunately he was unable to do the same at this moment. He didn't understand why he was different from other Dalki. He could take on a human form while others couldn't, just like he could hide the number of spikes on his back, but it didn't matter, he was different. Still, when his body was about to turn around, he heard a voice in his head speak to him. 'Are you going to just run away?' The voice was clearly his own, yet somehow just the mere idea of running away annoyed him. 'No.' Borden decided as he turned back around, just in time to see an incoming punch from one of the Dalki. Moving his head he avoided it, only to counter with a punch of his own, delivering a devastating uppercut to the Dalki's chin, sending it up in the air. 'I can't run away, because I am going to protect them! I'll kill these guys!' Borden let out a scream. He was able to hit the first one, hoping it would be enough to kill the resilient Dalki, whose resilience rivaled zombies at times. Borden moved forward hoping to finish off the Dalki, but two more fists came towards him. Borden lifted his arms up blocking the attack. He could tell that although they were all three spikes, their strength was not on par with his, as he was only forced back a few inches from where he had stood. Still, there was a crucial problem, there were three of them and one of him. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺 Before he could do anything else, the fist from the second Dalki connected with his stomach, causing him to drop to his, then the third Dalki used his foot to kick him in the head The first one had also recovered and jumped up to join his companions as Borden gritted his teeth. When it was close enough, Borden surprised them all, by lunging at the first one, both of them landing on the floor. Only to receive two more hits from the others, now damaging the scales on his body. This continued, for every hit Borden was able to get in, he would be hit two times back himself. At the same time, even though he was getting stronger with each hit, so was one of them. 'I have to do something, otherwise I won't last long against three of them. Unless I manage to get to my fourth spike like back then, I'll lose this fight!' His worries started to distract Borden, and the Dalki who had realised that their opponent intended to turn this into a slugfest were smart enough to all start aiming at the same location, the side of his ribs. One of them had even decided to claw at it, rather than make a fist, ripping some of Borden's scales off. Green blood was now spilling from his side, and he was pretty sure his ribs were broken. "Arghhh!" Borden screamed, ignoring it, and charging in again, he latched onto the Dalki that was injured the most. This whole time Borden was aiming for something, he had purposely decided not to hurt the other two as much, and whenever he got the chance to attack the first one, he had used his full strength, judging now was the time. Leaving the others alone had been to to weaken their powers, and hurting this one was to put him on the edge. Borden, then lifted the Dalki into the air, and over his shoulder, planning to slam it into the ground, but he could see two fists coming his way. 'They're going to hit me right after I beat this one… and it's going to hurt.' Borden thought but continued with his attack anyway. Slamming the Dalki down, it had made a whole in the floor cracking the ground beneath them. They were on the bottom floor but what they didn't realise was that there was a whole cave system underneath. Now the Dalki had been lost. 'Wait, why aren't I getting hurt?' Borden thought, as he had expected to get hit by the other two any second now, but it had never come. Looking around the room, he saw a large black furred creature with giant black wings on his back, and a snout-like face with devastating fangs. On his forearms, there were also what looked like smaller wings, only folded giving them a strong and sharp look. In front of him on the ground was Dalki that was blooded, while another had been hit away into the wall. "Vorden… you evolved?" Borden asked in amazement. "Yeah, but I'm not the only one." Vorden replied with a smirk.