Chapter 741: Trap

Mingyue hadn’t made them all the same.

She had baited Thepes into believing each one was simple ice he could easily break.

By the time he reached the trap, it was already too late.

Mingyue mixed her space power into the ice, creating a gravitational pull that held him back.

Alex sent his runes toward the trapped leg.

BANG!!!

Thepes tore himself free before they closed. Blood and broken ice scattered from his ankle.

He moved away from the next lotus instead of stepping on it.

"He’s adapting fast," Alex told Mingyue through his mind.

"I know. We need to kill him quickly. Do you have any idea?"

Alucard’s body was not normal. Even without doing anything else, they both knew that without destroying it down to the last cell, they had no chance of killing him.

Even then, it still wasn’t guaranteed.

Alex glanced toward the upper side of the chamber.

Dorian’s ghouls had held their position.

Selene remained near the living Sovereigns, turning aside anything that reached them.

Alex and Mingyue could concentrate on Thepes.

"Mingyue. Freeze him for a moment. I’ll keep his blood from spreading."

Her gaze passed over the runes gathering beside his hammer.

She moved to Thepes’s flank, leaving Alex room to finish the formation.

Thepes rushed him again.

Blood extended from his hands into long blades. One struck at Alex’s weapon while the other aimed below his ribs.

Alex blocked the first blade, but the second slipped past his guard and cut into his side.

Pain shot through him.

He moved with the blow to keep it from sinking deeper, then caught Thepes’s wrist with his free hand.

Runes spread beneath his fingers.

Thepes tried to turn his arm into loose blood. Green fire entered it before he could pull away.

Life force flowed into the cut in Alex’s side.

"ARGH!!! LET ME GO!"

Thepes roared and severed the burning section of his arm.

Alex released it at once, letting the flames consume the blood on the ground.

He was using the flames to learn the structure of Alucard’s body.

Thepes swung with his other arm, and Mingyue caught the strike on her sword.

Purple ice spread over the blood blade, holding its shape for the brief moment she needed to turn it aside.

BAM!!!

Her second sword pierced his shoulder.

Thepes forced his body forward, taking the wound to reach her. Alex’s hammer struck his knee before he could complete the step.

CRACK!

The leg folded.

Mingyue pulled her sword free and moved out of reach as Thepes hit the ground.

Blood spread beneath him, and his body began losing its solid shape.

Alex sent his prepared runes into the floor around the spreading blood.

Green fire rose along their lines, closing the path Thepes had chosen.

Alex kept a narrow gap open on his own side and stood in it with his hammer raised.

Thepes pulled himself together inside the circle. To leave through the gap, he would have to get past Alex.

He raised a hand.

Red light formed above his fingers, tracing the shape of one of Alex’s runes.

Alex felt the power gather and raised his hammer.

The shape was similar, but his method was outdated.

Alex had modified his rune power so many times that it had become much harder for others with rune mastery to counter him.

Thepes pushed the red mark toward him. Alex struck it with his hammer, and it burst into an uncontrolled spray of blood.

Thepes himself didn’t think much when using the ability.

Seeing a rune once had awakened the memories within his body and allowed him to use it. He was acting on instinct without any deep understanding of how it worked.

But that was only for now.

Alex shifted to the edge of the gap and let Mingyue pass him. He kept the opening clear while the fire rose around the rest of the circle.

Thepes rose to meet her, his damaged leg already repairing.

SWOOSH!!!

She cut toward his face. He raised an arm to block, and the purple edge turned down at the last moment.

Ice spread across his chest. He struck at her with his free hand, but Mingyue stepped aside without breaking contact.

The ice continued to spread.

Thepes began turning to blood again, but the frozen space held part of his body in place.

He forced more power into it, and cracks opened across the ice.

Alex followed her through the gap and raised his hammer.

Mingyue pulled her sword away as he brought it down against Thepes’s frozen chest.

BOOM!

The blow drove Thepes into the stone floor.

The floor broke beneath his back. Ice, blood, and fragments of old chains flew across the chamber.

Alex stopped at the edge of the shallow crater.

Mingyue stood on the opposite side with both swords ready. Neither of them lowered their guard.

They knew they had barely hurt Thepes.

With every clash, Alex had poured all his focus into understanding Thepes’s body and looking for a weakness.

But so far, he had only found one, and it was too risky.

Thepes tried to rise.

His arm gave way, and his body fell back into the broken stone. Blood ran from his mouth.

The red light beneath his skin flickered as his body began to repair itself.

Alex could still hear Thepes’s heart beating.

’Its core is made from Alucard’s artifact and the essence of the vampire race. This means I should be able to absorb him. The question is, who will win? Who will absorb whom?’

This was the only answer Alex had found.

Even with his newfound power system, he was still far from reaching the true Progenitor threshold.

He didn’t have any power strong enough to truly kill a being with a body at that level.

Thepes turned his head toward the dead bodies scattered around the pit.

His lips curled into a grin.

Every cell in his body told him what he needed to do, and he knew that as long as he followed those instincts, he would win.

Alex’s gaze narrowed.

If they kept fighting like this, the worst-case scenario was Thepes fully solidifying all the memories inside him.

That meant both Alex and Mingyue would have to fight the culmination of the vampire race’s power from the Golden Era.