บท 24: Nelo’s Venting

'Oh…so that's how she uses her runes.'

The silver-haired man, Jamie thought to himself as he watched the girl's rune-casting methods which were slightly different from normal.

'She's using them like normal support magic, but they're even more potent than those spells…'

While he was analysing her abilities, the other four had jumped into the swarm of monsters, with weapons drawn, at least for those whose weapons could be drawn.

Nelo who was armed with a pair of gauntlets that was covered in a small icy mist cloud, ducked to avoid the club of an orc, before delivering a right straight punch to the creature's torso.

Upon contact, the icy aura on his gauntlet spread to the creature's body, penetrating its tough flesh and freezing its innards slightly.

{GUHOAARR!!}

The creature didn't even know whether to roar in anger or pain and ended up doing a mix of the two whilst trying to turn its body to catch Nelo.

Unfortunately, it was not as fast as the three high orcs Davina had killed earlier, so the time it took to do so was already more than enough for Nelo to get around it and deliver another punch to the point between its neck and back.

**CRACK!

{GARRGGHHH!!}

This time the creature's brain wasn't so confused as the pain of having its thoracic spine destroyed and Nelo's icy energy infusing his body was not something it could be confused about.

The creature's corpse hadn't even dropped onto the ground yet but the young vampire had already moved on to his next target, using his left arm to parry the monster's club strike before punching forward with his right fist encased in ice.

As he had used more energy than before, the damage was greater, and a single hit to the face was enough for the frigid energy to permeate through its skin and freeze its brain over.

{KAAAKKK!!}

Nelo's gaze snapped upwards as soon as he heard that sound, right before he sidestepped to the right to avoid the scaled flaming talons of the hippogriff that tried to grab his head.

He then coated his entire left arm in ice and stretched it out to grab the leg of the hippogriff that was about to fly away after having missed its target.

With a grip that the creature tried breaking out of unsuccessfully, Nelo pulled its body out of its flight path and slammed its body into that of another hippogriff that was charging towards him from the right.

**BAMMMM!!!!

The two winged monsters collided with each other mid-air and crashed on the ground, shattering the asphalt floor and digging up a sizable crater.

However, the boy was not done as just as they were trying to reorient themselves, the boy flicked his fingers and half a dozen ice vines with serrated edges burst out from the earth and ensared the two creatures.

The vines then pierced through their feathers and the flesh underneath, before dragging through them and tearing their flesh.

{KAAA-!}

**BOOOMM!!

Their screams were cut off as Nelo's fist met their foreheads, cracking their skulls and scattering blood and brain matter everywhere.

With the two level 250 monsters dead, before they could even showcase a hint of their power, the vampire boy continued forward, aiming for a pair of giant wolves next.

Both wolves had flaming tails and from the glints in their eyes, they clearly were not aware of the boy's icy fists.

The wolves channelled their energy into their tails, turning them into a blazing whip of fire—an ability that earned them their names as Whip Wolves.

With incredible force, they swung the whips forward, releasing searing flames upon impact with the ground in an attempt to intimidate Nelo.

Sadly, this was pointless as just before they could fully retract their tails, Nelo grabbed onto them and with strength that the wolves did not expect, he pulled on the tails, inadvertently causing the wolves' bodies to flip over.

Without hesitation, he gave his gauntlets spike ice tips with a sharpness that put some high-quality S-rank swords to shame.

As for what he did with these; he simply punched the chests of the wolves, the sharp tips piercing through their bodies completely.

He then proceeded to increase the lengths of the spikes, enabling them to burrow deep enough to pierce the wolves' hearts.

Leaving his second pair of monsters as corpses on the floor, the boy continued forward, his icy elemental fists striking out and pummelling the monsters to death.

Very few monsters were able to survive multiple serious strikes to their vitals from the Vampire, and he kept killing away as if he was venting.

Even so, the place that drew attention the most was not the trail of corpses he had left in his wake, but the heaps of charred bodies that swirled together in a bright red flaming tornado that pulled all eyes towards it.

"You're making a scene, David."

"It's impossible to take them all out without doing so, you know?"

The twins who were responsible for this had this light-hearted interaction with each other as they watched the monsters writhe in agony from the searing flames and lightning tendrils swirling around them in the tornado.

Just as David replied to his younger sister, multiple enraged roars rang out in the distance, followed by the sounds of collapsing buildings as the leaders of the monster packs they had just annihilated barrelled over, with more of their subordinate monsters in tow.

"Ready for another one?"

"Nahh. I'm going to use my sword. Summon your spear too."

As Davina spoke, her energy coalesced into the form of a blood-red lightning orb in front of her, which she then clasped in between her palms.

"Fulgora."

She pulled her palms apart a moment later after muttering that command word, and along with them was a black metal blade, its edges pulsating with blood-red lightning that seemed to flicker like a malevolent flame.

Her fingers wrapped around the hilt, which was adorned with a crystalline pommel that crackled with energy.

Seeing this, David only shrugged silently and summoned his spear, Infernova, and twirled it around on his fingers.

'To think Evangelista gave her Fulgora…she must really like this descendant of hers.'

That line of thought passed through Jamie's mind, unbeknownst to the vampire girl who had summoned her blade's sheath and hung it at her waist.

"Let's go."

The moment she spoke, she had already kicked off the ground, her body engulfed in trails of crimson lightning that enabled her to attain speeds far removed from other grandmasters on her level.

David trailed right behind her, his spear encircled by a ribbon of similarly coloured flames, and the two of them charged into the swarm of incoming monsters together.

"Lightning Cutter."