Strax observed the formation of the four cultivators, his eyes gleaming with malicious amusent. A mischievous smile curved his lips as he cracked his neck, completely unbothered. The tension in the air was palpable, but he was not the least bit concerned.
"Oh, so the leader doesn't want to play alone. Calls in his friends for help? How cute," he said, his tone contemptuous, but his gaze sharp, cutting like blades. "Cut the crap and co at already."
He didn't give them ti to think. In a lightning-fast move, Strax disappeared from their sight, reappearing in front of the hooded leader. Before the man could react, Strax delivered a kick so powerful that it sent the leader crashing into the wall, creating a crater on impact. The leader lay there, motionless, but Strax didn't give ti for a celebration.
He spun around, his eyes locking onto the other three with ruthless coldness. The sounds of battle filled the air — the clash of tal, the crackle of energy, screams, all blending into a frenzy of destruction. His eyes glowed crimson, and his energy surged like a wave, enveloping him.
Before him, one of the cultivators — a tall, muscular man with fists engulfed in black flas — charged with a punch so heavy that the ground trembled. Strax barely had ti to dodge, leaping to the side, but the heat wave still struck him, tearing the air with intense fury.
"Interesting," Strax murmured, his voice laced with provocation. "But you're not going to catch so easily."
In the blink of an eye, he appeared before the man, punching with absolute power. The impact reverberated through the corridor, sending sparks and flas flying, but the man blocked with an arm wrapped in energy. The shockwave caused the wall behind them to shatter.
"You'll need more than that," the man growled, stepping back and attempting a quick counterattack.
Strax smiled, his eyes turning more predatory. He dodged the punch and advanced, attacking with a series of fast and calculated strikes. Each of his movents was like a shadow, flowing and shifting every second, not giving the cultivator a chance to regroup.
But then, from the side, a blade of ice sliced through the air, and Strax had to leap back. The woman, with an aura so cold it seed to freeze everything around her, stood there, her ice blade shimring in the light of the flas. The blade sliced through his cloak and made a superficial cut on his skin. He laughed, feeling the coldness of the blade, but his expression quickly grew fiercer.
"Cold and sharp... this is going to be interesting," he teased, stepping back to reassess the situation.
On the other side, the other woman stood focused. She raised her hands and released an explosion of golden energy, forming a barrier around her, sealing off any attempt to attack. The pressure of the energy created a field that nearly distorted the air around her.
"Don't think you can escape from us," she said, her voice threatening like thunder about to crash.
Strax observed her for a mont, analyzing the new battle configuration. The power balance between them was strangely perfect, as if sothing connected them, allowing for flawless coordination. They were preparing for a combined attack, a massive pressure that he couldn't simply ignore.
"Seriously?" Strax grinned sideways, his eyes glowing. "I was starting to wonder when you'd finally… reveal what you're really planning."
Before he could advance, a wave of energy rippled through the room, making the ground tremble. Strax raised his hand, blocking the pressure, but he felt the distortion in the energy around him. Sothing was changing, and reality around him seed to bend.
The four cultivators suddenly dispersed, not in retreat, but in a calculated dance, preparing their next move. Strax paused for a mont, his eyes sharpening even further as he watched their movents. They were more united than ever, and he could no longer ignore what was about to happen.
And it was at that mont that sothing strange happened. In the midst of the battle, a subtle movent caught his attention. A thief, soone trying to move unnoticed, stealing sothing in the shadows. The pressure of the battle distracted him, but he knew he couldn't let it slip by.
Strax imdiately turned, his senses sharpened, picking up the movent. Without hesitation, he ran toward the source of the stealth, ready to stop any kind of theft. But, to his surprise, what the thief was taking was… an obsidian statuette. An artifact seemingly without value, irrelevant even to the Vampire King himself.
He paused for a mont, watching the thief disappear into the darkness. What the hell was going on? This was so trivial that even the Vampire King wouldn't notice its absence. But Strax couldn't shake the feeling that it was part of a bigger plan, a distraction for sothing deeper, sothing he still didn't understand.
"Impossible," Strax thought, his eyes narrowing as he watched the obsidian statuette. "Why would they want this piece of junk?"
The artifact was in the thief's hands — a simple obsidian statuette. Nothing that caught the eye. It didn't have any special glow, no visible magical aura. It was just a chunk of dark stone, without real value, without power… just trash. He felt a chill of frustration, but also curiosity. The energy around the statuette seed… different. But not in a way he could easily identify. Sothing was out of place.
He focused his energy, attempting to read the artifact with his supernatural sight, but nothing seed to connect. "Nothing." He furrowed his brow. "This thing is just… junk."
And yet, sothing inside him told him he couldn't simply ignore it. Strax knew that, with the level of skills and control over his opponents, he couldn't have been fooled so easily. The statuette had so purpose, even if it was hidden. He felt a pull in his mind, as if reality around him was trying to distort — which, in itself, was a sign that sothing was wrong.
Strax advanced, his eyes still locked on the object as he made quick calculations. Why would the cult waste ti and effort stealing sothing like that? And why now? It couldn't be a simple distraction. He had felt their power growing, as if they were preparing for sothing big, and now… this? An artifact that seed to have no value? This didn't make sense.
"This isn't about the artifact," Strax muttered to himself, his voice full of skepticism. "It's about what it represents."
Strax surged forward with the speed of lightning, ready to take down the thief and resolve this strange situation once and for all. He was determined to understand what lay behind this useless artifact, but just as he was about to reach it, a sudden pressure took over the air around him.
Suddenly, an invisible barrier ford in front of him, blocking his advance with crushing force. Strax stopped abruptly, his eyes narrowing. He stretched out his hand to touch it, but the wall felt impenetrable. There was nothing there, but the pressure was real — like a solid wall of pure energy.
He looked at the main thief, who was at the center of the chaos. The man was smiling, but not triumphantly. It was a cold, malevolent smile, as if he was waiting for sothing. Strax watched him, and, with precision, read the enemy's lips: "Die."
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In the next mont, Strax felt the pressure intensify, but it wasn't just the invisible wall. The ground beneath his feet started to give way, and he realized the threat in the last second. A hidden power was being activated, and he barely had ti to react before a crushing force began pulling him into the earth.
With a roar of anger, Strax used his blood manipulation ability to free himself from the impending pressure. He unleashed his energy, creating a blood power explosion that pushed the earth away from his feet and made the pressure dissipate montarily. But he knew he didn't have ti to waste. The real danger was coming.
He ran toward his wives, the only people who could be in imdiate danger. Using his blood manipulation with mastery, he ford a defense do around them, an impenetrable layer of solidified blood. But it wasn't enough. To reinforce it further, he invoked his ice manipulation, creating layers of crystal ice that intertwined with the blood, forming a double barrier, nearly unbreakable.
"Stay inside!" Strax shouted, his voice full of urgency and authority.
Before they could respond, everything around them exploded.
The sound of the explosion was deafening. The ground shook violently, the castle walls shattered like glass breaking under an imnse impact. The air was filled with dust, debris, and stone fragnts flying in all directions, as the entire castle seed to collapse in a wave of relentless destruction.
Strax lurched forward with the force of the blast, his feet ripped from the ground, but he didn't lose focus. The blood and ice wall he had ford around his wives heroically withstood the impact, but he could feel the pressure increasing, the very structure of the castle giving way under the weight of the explosion.
"No!" Strax scread internally, his fists clenching as he used all his strength to keep the defense barrier intact. The energy he had invested in blood and ice manipulation was now being pushed to its limit. "It can't fall now!"
With a supernatural effort, he amplified the energy of both elents. The solidified blood hardened even further, and the ice expanded into complex layers, reinforcing the structure of the barrier. The explosion still reverberated everywhere, but the protection around his wives remained solid, withstanding the chaos.
Inside, they were protected, but Strax felt every grain of dust and every fragnt scraping against the defensive layer. The entire castle was crumbling around them, stone columns and walls collapsing in a sea of rubble. He looked around, his eyes searching for the source of the destruction.
On the horizon, the main thief's smile, that damned smile, was still there. Even with the castle collapsing, the man didn't seem concerned. He stood still, his eyes fixed on Strax, as if satisfied with the destruction he had caused.
Then... he vanished.
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