Hey Amigos, friends, tomodachi, yuujins...

So very cool update. 

I'm working on the editing process now of the next book release. This means its very soon. Possibly before the end of May for the next book release. I'm also very excited about this, because I put a LOT of work into this thing. And it has a very unique cool plot that's unlike some of my other stories, but still got some of the key positive traits of before. This also has different things that I haven't had in some of the other stories. Case in point; this next release will have some elements of tower defense rpg traits in it. And I haven't done one of those before. At least it will have some tower defense traits in by the second book. I can't remember of hand where that starts, but I think that's near still in book 1, or in book 2. Forgot which.

Anyway its fun to just create stuff and have fun with it. 

Website is not done. But the content management system is. And it doesn't have a views clicker counter thing yet. 

www.litrpgheaven.com will be the site, but don't go there now because there's literally nothing there yet. And so there's nothing to see. But that will be the domain name. If you go there now you'll be disappointed. And its basically just got test dummy stuff up that means nothing that the website builder was playing with etc. 

Thank you very much for your support and friendship.

Also, it wouldn't be bad for some of you to look at food storage if you are in North America, Europe, or other troubled areas. It looks like there's a lot of things going wrong with supply chain systems right now. I wouldn't want you guys to be caught in problems. So I urge you to be careful and do what's prudent and take care of yourselves and your families. 

 

 

 

Chapter 181

 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out…

I keep trying to flex my muscles and exercise my body. I mix up meditation with various types of exercise while trying to stay on my feet. I am flexing the muscles in my feet while clenching my toes, fingers, and hands while going through the movements. It’s partly that I’m afraid to touch this disease ridden prison’s floor.

I catch glimpses of cockroaches occasionally but they are somehow afraid of the vampire smell and avoid our cell but swamp the other cells. There’s the coughing of diseased inmates all around us in the cell block area, mostly faint but consistent. The halls are dim with the only light being given to the guards while they patrol. We’re thankful for [night vision], a trait from the demon genes, me for mine, and her for hers.

Nothing is working. No matter how hard I try, I can’t do anything about the shackles as I try different exercises and also go about testing the strength of the metal bond. I keep shaking at them but they are solid. I tried also seeing if there were things I could bang them against, until I remembered the prison guards patrol this hall.

I’ve even rubbed the skin on my wrists, and my wrists themselves completely sore from the last few days of trying to figure out how to get the shackles off. At one point I’d even resorted to the plan of having Mallory break my thumbs to try to squeeze my hand out but then I realized there was a safe catch mechanism that would have prevented that from working as well. And there was also the risk that Mallory would lose control of herself when breaking my thumbs, being able to smell my injuries and therefore blood by effect.

“You are kind of interesting and entertaining aren’t you?” Mallory said. She looks like she’s relaxing and sleeping except for those evil red eyes that glare at me. They glare at pretty much everything though, so it doesn’t mean she’s mad at me. In fact, she might be putting up a front of toughness because of the whole boss and prince candidate thing.

“I don’t think I am. Why do you think that?” I stopped and said.

“Well you still haven’t given up, but there’s very clearly no way out. Even as a strong vampire I can’t get through the thick metal bars of this cage. Also did you notice the bars on our cage are thicker than the other cages? And yet you still want to try to get out?” she asked while pointing to the front.

“You’re right. This cage was modified recently to hold stronger predators,” I noted.

“Yeah. I don’t know if I should be insulted or happy that they flatter us,” she said.

Then it got quiet after that. None of us feel like talking.

I need to get out of here. You aren’t truly ever safe with a vampire. And even though she does sort of have the loli-ism thing going with nice big boobs I can’t let that undermine my guard. And I have to keep working at the shackles.

For now I ignored her.

I’m concerned anything I say to her may subtle like, give away the fact that I feel trapped and helpless before her. I don’t want her to think that way for fear of how it may change her loyalty.

But then…

“Don’t you think you are just using up a lot of energy?” Mallory said a minute later while I’m still messing with the mana inhibiting shackles, that are preventing me from using spells.

“What makes you think that?” I said.

“Well you could just pass the time peacefully for now. We have as much time as we want don’t we?” she said.

“Well it’s true I’ve wanted a vacation for a while now,” I said.

“Me too! And to think I get to vacation with a prince. Only special people would get that,” she said excitedly with glee.

OK, she must have some odd fantasies. It is pretty normal for a nice looking girl to fantasize about being with a prince, but not while in a prison cell together.

“I’ve been thinking about this the wrong way! I get you all to myself this way!” she squealed again, like a younger girl.

She’s not young though. I can’t let me guard down.

…

I didn’t know how to respond to that.

She’s smiling a bit too big while involved in some deep mental fantasy of hers as she paces the room. “…to share a room with the prince. Oh am I your first girl? Oh wait, there were those others huh? I guess it’s not bad that I don’t get to take your virginity but still I can have you together with just the two of us. With a prince candidate like yourself, I shouldn’t be jealous. Plus, you are a real gentleman compared to the others! A prince would have many girls huh? Actually I wonder how many you have. In terms of our alone time together, that’s more than the other girls probably get,” she cackled.

“I do really think you are a nice girl but we need to get out of here,” I said.

“Right. But are you sure about that? After you get out you will be forced to have a job again, and earn money, wasting away your life just to keep up with the other rats on rents and things that expire,” she droned on.

She kind of had a point about things that expire and are done away with huh?

I then had to listen to a bit of complaining about keeping up with the Jones’ kind of stuff. I guess vampires are pretty competitive, and she’s tired of it.

“I wonder how though…even though it’s nice to have a vacation the dwarves still will try to kill us soon though. Dang it…that really messes up my fantasies,” Mallory said while pacing the room again and sounding a bit crazy like Doppel-chan again.

“You remember the other prisoners told us that they don’t keep anyone here longer than a year, and definitely not longer than two years. And those were best case scenarios and strong luck probably,” I said.

“Yeah I am aware of that. We eventually need to find a way out but we need to pace ourselves and save our stamina. If you are always running around with no stamina you will lose. I’ve seen it in lots of fights, stamina is the key to victory usually; but you need to save the bulk of your strength for when they send us to the arena also,” she said carefully.

The reminder about stamina is helpful actually. She has a good point there. I also haven’t had to break out of prisons before so this is a new experience for me.

“You think that will happen soon?” I said.

We both knew it would happen. But how soon was the real question. Would they kill us fast for thinking we are a threat that needs to be dealt with quickly? Or will their perception of us being a threat make them take their time to prepare a more adequate trap later? I’m curious what vehicle and means the dwarves will use though. Just saying arena prisoner killings doesn’t tell you what else they put in the arena either, if that’s the method they choose to use.

“Yep. Any day now,” she said with a musical tone.

“And you think they’ll give us a hard fight?” I said.

She seemed to be bored but she had good thinking skills. “Honestly, I had considered not helping you. But some of the arena fights here are team based. Plus you are such a Bossly prince! So if I let you suffer and get weak then if it’s a two person death match then I’ll be in trouble and they wouldn’t compensate me since I’m dangerous in any unfairness. And it is expected that all the matches will be death matches. So there you have it. I can’t go against you yet, but don’t worry I will have time to later,” she said. She has her innocent look back on that loli face again, but I’m not sure how long it will last.

“So you admit you have your own motives,” I confirmed.

“Well as a demon prince you actually are the boss. But I do plan to take your throne from you soon. In a demon realm only the strong rule and those that aren’t strong serve them. I’m supposed to be serving you since you are kind of strong but trying to figure out my own position too. Vampires don’t really …you know we get this anguish thing if our boss is weak. It drives us crazy. But if the prince is strong, we won’t feel tempted,” she shrugged.

“But I can’t do that while I’m in danger myself,” she sighed.

She’s got her legs crossed. Her face scrunched up. She looks annoyed.

This isn’t my first good look at Mallory since being thrown in the cell together. Previously she’d looked away a lot in her efforts to curb her desires to snack on me.

She’s dressed like she was trying to blend in with the dwarves in a way. But her good looks are pushing the image too much because you can’t hide a pretty and innocent girly face like that with a thin body so easy and her vampire genes have made her face and body twist into something perfectly flawless to help her lure prey to their doom. She’s probably had to put forth like zero effort in finding blood bags to snack on too, with those looks. She’s not quite to the level of Sunghee in terms of appeal, but very close. And not yet close to the monstrous Asakura’s level either. But with the innocence that the vampire girl fakes and with her thinness it makes up for it in other ways. Even high human beauty can compete with vampire seduction levels and vice versa?

And that’s not counting how wonderful her big bust droop does with how it hangs down.

That’s all pretty amazing about her, but it might only be trouble later when they compete if this goes anywhere. And is her allegiance temporary or long term? It sounds like I have to do something else though for it to be permanent or I could…well not wake up one day.

From what I’d seen of the vampires fighting in the dream state it does seem that most of them do have ‘amplified’ looks, like Mallory. It would be too hard to incorporate more than one vampire together on my team though. Even taking in Mallory is still questionable at this point.

Like just now she’d been flip flopping over the prince fantasy and another fantasy of taking my place. So there’s a chance her mind is a bit rattled too. I wonder if it’s the vampire genes that rattle the minds? Or maybe its just so much temptation? I’d heard stories often about madness being a bit of an inherited trait with vampires when they got older.

At some point too, I’d missed that she’d somehow lost her shoes. She’d nearly lost an arm before we were captured too, come to think of it with a narrow miss that surely would have took it clean off by one of the other vampires.

I shake that out of my mind.

Was that from when we first grabbed that she’d lost her shoes?

Awkward…

I’m someone that is kind of like a dream summoner in a way. I can’t coordinate with my allies with these mana restrains so I feel helpless, because of the shackles. If I try to force a spell through I may end up killing myself by using all my mana trying to overpower the mana leach part of the bracelets.

If I try to go to sleep, the more I do the more risk from Mallory. That could be game over. And because of that even if I could pull my equipment from the summon equipment box spell if I did, it could be bad to help Mallory. If I bargain with Mallory, she’ll possibly think I’m weak and that I’m not needed or that it’s time for her to press her advantage.

She’s a creature that respects strength. That could be game over. If I wait for me or Mallory to get too hungry and our demon parts take over that could be game over too, since Mallory is physically much more powerful than I am. Also a game over…

Wait for malnutrition, definitely game over in an agonizing way.

Wait for disease to hit us from the unclean prison then also like you guessed; game over.

What will happen if they send us to the arena? Will they let me use magic then? If they don’t that’s game over. But if they do then they would have some way of restraining me again to prevent a magic escape. They would have taken care of criminal mages in the past.

That …may be the key to figuring out how to get out of this.

“Hey, Mallory have you ever been here before?” I asked.

“Nah, not to this prison specifically really. I thought it might be a good place for a nap. But I don’t like getting locked up when I don’t have the keys. Getting locked up with a lover doesn’t sound bad though. This is just a vacation yeah? I do hope they feed us though. I get grouchy when I’m not fed,” she said with a yawn.

What does that mean? So she’s been in other prisons?

“Well you know I’m a mage. We need to know everything the guards know about containing mage prisoners. If we don’t find out we’ll be here forever,” I said.

“Hmm, but is that really good for me? I mean like this I can make a demon prince do what I want right?” she has one eye opened looking at me while looking sleepy. She’s lazily on her side with one arm propping up her head. At least for now she’s too lazy to follow through.

Are all vampires lazy?

Or wait, is this a test? She could be trying to test if she can intimidate or control me by pushing buttons.

Crap.

I need to be careful.

I then found out that, she’s not into making deals. Especially when I’m not in control. Having her discover she has leverage right now is really bad too.

I forget she was the head of that other vampire coven that was rivals with the other. Of course she’d expect a deal that is way in her favor. And she’d also be tempted to be in charge, because she’s had a taste of what being in power over her vampire coven is like.

But that would make me weak in other ways.

I need to think this through again. I have to surprise her by being able to out think of things she can’t in a world that she’s a native of, and I’m not, in order to win.

I am fortunate that I think some of the pheromone is still getting through. But this may be because the mana in it mixes with biology and isn’t only 100% mana ONLY. This is my one chance to keep her help, to exploit it.

“Suit yourself. But don’t expect me to sweeten the deal. I have more to offer than you can imagine. And you are being stubborn. You will later wish you’d taken my deal,” I said.

It’s risky but I have to make sure she sees that I will hold to my word and not give in; that there will be consequences and not empty promises. Otherwise she would walk right over me. If the vampire girl thinks she can control me then I’d have no chance of being able to use her in even team environments once she’d become spoiled.

I’m not a fan of spoiled girls either.

“Brat,” she replied.

I didn’t want to make her mad but I have to be careful and proceed smoothly. I kind of pushed it a bit more than necessary but a little to show I was serious is necessary too. This means it will be a waiting game, even though it’s extremely stressful. And that stress is amplified by the fact that right now she has the upper hand. It’s also a signal that Mallory really isn’t on my team. She wants to be bought and paid for basic survival of her own self.

Mallory will be my first opponent, I realized. I will have to somehow pull one over her if I’m going to get out alive.

My physical skills won’t be up to her level.

So I really need to find a way to get access to my power again.

What should I do?

The mana inhibiting shackles are the focus of my hatred a few more hours with no success.

The hours continue of waiting, in which I don’t dare sleep keep happening. I think the showdown between myself and Mallory will be soon.

She stares at me.

I stare back.

She’s starting to look annoyed.

We rest the day peacefully while I try to get the shackles off.

It still doesn’t work.

Ironically the prison guards force an interaction.

The guards rattle the bars on all the cages on their way here. Somehow they end up stopping at our cell.

Is it weird that they put us together or purposely trying to get us to kill each other first?

Yeah, probably the latter…

“It’s your lucky day. You two are going on a date,” the lead guard said. The other guards chuckle with an eerie laughter that’s definitely sadistic in tone.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said.

“But dates are good,” she said, assuring me.

“I’m sure this isn’t a date though,” she added right after that.

They bruise us both up before taking us with them.

I noticed there are other prisoners in shackles as they lead us towards the exit. Nor do they take the shackles off. So if we’re going to the arena this could be pretty bad if I’m defenseless.

“No please! I want to stay! Please!” one of the other prisoners starts screaming. It’s obvious from the way the guy is reacting that it’s very bad to go wherever they are taking us. The other prisoners react the same way so it’s not one isolated opinion.

Others start crying and whining too.

Wherever we’re going can’t be good and everyone’s panic intensifies, plus they are taking us down the opposite tunnel they brought us in from to a strange unmarked heavy set of double doors. The wailing continues as they keep pleading for their lives and admitting their crimes, some of which were pretty awful.

That’s odd. We did learn that the prison tunnels do connect directly with the arena center gathering point where the combatants fight.

What will they do here?

We found ourselves being lined up in pairs.

It wasn’t long now till we’d start.

But I’m curious. At the other end each pair is fighting what looks like other vampires?

“What is this?” I whispered.

“They intend to make me fight my own surviving coven members to the death to have us eliminate each other. It’s to cement disloyalty and disunity by turning us against each other in a free for all,” she said.

“Damn,” I said.

“Yeah damn is right. I can beat them one on one. But with this many and in a free for all who knows what will happen,” she said.

“So this is why you didn’t try to off me earlier huh?” I said.

“Yeah pretty much, though you are nice looking. So having you alive and weak is good if you end up on my opponent’s team since you can’t cast spells. And if you are on my team there’s a chance you are more likely to help me than another sneaky vampire that wants my leadership spot, waiting to stab me in the back. Having people below you is good if they can be controlled. So with either end, I’ve thought this out and I win. It’s a situation that I’m sticking to where either way I get what I want. And if you survive then I can save this setup for next time. Anytime I survive I win, because I have to put me first even if you are the prince. These bars are just a minor setback,” Mallory concluded.

I didn’t respond.

“If you are good and survive I might let you be my hug pillow at night though,” she added.

I think she actually means blood bag rather than hug pillow.

But it seems there’s a method to her madness.

Not too long afterwards we’re marched to the arena by dwarven guards, with a ton of other prisoners also here. And the stadium part of the arena, which is out of reach of us is swarming with dwarves that are sitting there almost like they are at Wrigley Field to watch a ball game. There’s even sales dwarves going around in the stands selling treats and snacks for those that are watching us.

“Pay attention,” Mallory warned me.

After they line us up they explain the rules of the team paired duel challenge. Naturally not all team pairs have to be killed but the first side to score 3 points wins. And you score 1 point by killing a pair of convicts, with each side having 5 sets of 2. With each side having ten people total that means each side could potentially earn 5 points, not just 3, or 1. Or if everyone dies on one side then that’s game over for them automatically too for obvious reasons but there’s a time limit too.

But there’s no guarantee there’s a reward for getting all 5 points. And it would be foolish for prison guards to trust convicts if those convicts really deserved it. And it’s scary too in that if you win your own duel, if the other team members don’t win theirs then you can still lose and be executed that way too.

The dwarves are smart by trying to get us to hurt each other instead of them doing it. And any survivors will be psychologically ingrained into the concept into not trusting others who had killed teammates before. They also separate each side by placing the pairs in a row formation facing each other.

X X X X X

O O O O O

And we’re the middle pair at the very center. It’s the worst place to be since it means we could be attacked by any of the opposing three positions potentially. And it would require the highest defense to survive. It also guarantees that we won’t be able to avoid the combat.

Crap.

This is majorly bad!

Then the bell gong rings to start.

“The other team has six vampires, and four humans. We have 1 vampire, 1 mage, and eight humans. Looks like they plan to have this be a fixed match because I was a vampire leader,” Mallory said.

“How did you get to be the leader again?” I asked.

“Well it’s no secret, that vampires will always target hot girls for recruitment. The original vampire masters were guys of course and they all want harems of those same hot girls they recruited. Eventually it gets too big for them to control, and or, one of them gets killed and then we break away and form our own groups. So my number just came up at the right time from surviving more than my sisters. Girl vampires like other girls because the tendency or guys to want to dominate us is pretty high too. So you will always find vampires with a high gender percentage leaning towards girl majorities,” Mallory shrugged nonchalantly, still smiling with her innocent loli face.

The other team rushes us with hungry and feverish looking facial expressions . Foolishly all six vampires went to Mallory first with all their teeth and claws out showing themselves as the horrific demons they are, and while recognizing her as a threat. Although one of them immediately killed some of the humans, making them flee for their lives towards the wrong end of the arena. The enemy vampire group, I think believed that they’d have to team up to match Mallory’s greater strength if they still wanted to live through it, thus all of them are coming at her at once and even ignoring me. This also proves she’s not a newborn vampire either; but probably she’s been around for hundreds of years hiding and moving around.

She intercepts the first by ducking under its first clawed swipe aimed at her head and hitting it so hard in the chest it bounced back like ten feet, with its chest caved in as it’s spitting up blood and vomiting it too. There’s also vast amount of blood spray on the arena sand, since rib cages aren’t meant to bend backwards and inwards in that particular way. Then somehow she managed to rip the heart out of the second one before it’d gotten close to her, leaving me with a stunned expression on my face.

The body of the second attacking demon falls to the ground and is in complete shock as it looks at its rib cage and sees its heart is missing. Then it panics and begins to cry before its skin started to turn gray and dissolve with the rest of its body, as its convulsing in seizures and dust at the same time.

She’s really strong to rip through someone’s ribcage like that. Is that the power of a combat seasoned vampire? And can she repeat blows like that or was it some kind of pulse that would eat up her stamina?

Mallory is scary.

With a screech yell she somehow paralyzed two others some kind of sonic fear amplification. Somehow I resisted it but only because I have demon genes too.

They are reaching for her…and completely ignoring me. For me I have to use Mallory as a shield since I still have the shackles on. I’m currently behind her staying close, but not close enough for her to mix me up as a target, for now at least.

Somehow I don’t know how I manage to survive, but I did. But truthfully it was only because they were using their heads to think they needed to work together to take down the boss vampire, that she is.

And somehow I took the risk and forced a minor weak spell through the sliver of power I felt in the mana shackles. I managed to cast a runic shielding on Mallory, just barely. But as soon as I let it out I almost passed out because I feel so weakened now. I’d originally thought I couldn’t but if I’m going to die anyway, death by vampire butcher flaying sounded bad enough that I’d given into the risk.

The enemy vamps’ arms crash into the barrier and are puncturing holes in it while she fights them off. Somehow I’ve saved her life and she knows it. I think it even pissed her off, judging by the expressions on her face as she fights.

I catch a brief glimpse of some kind of low sweep kick that would only work with vampire anatomy as she knocks the two back.

“Run!” she yelled at me. Already the normal humans on both sides are dying fast, proving only monsters survive in this world.

This is confusing too. I can’t tell if she’s on my side or wants to replace me. Her wanting me to save myself and run implies she doesn’t want me dead, but her wording before we got here conflicts with her previous statements too.

So lightheaded…somehow I stay on my fight. The spell I’d done had messed with my mana and my body status, leaving me frighteningly drained in the worst possible way, almost like someone might feel doing through dialysis. It hurt to even stand up even.

But she did something unexpected. “Eat that. Then you’ll be strong. Do it!”

She tossed me the bleeding vampire heart that’s still pulsing. It rolled between my feet and I somehow find it captivating and interesting. As a mage I can feel the mana and power seeping out of a vampire heart, along with all the blood.

I can’t believe what I’m holding in my hands. This is…a vampire heart. If I eat it then…

Somehow I feel anguish. I don’t want this to be my only way out. And if I eat this I’ll no longer be able to control my impulses.

Screw that! I know what will happen if I do! I don’t want to become a demon! If I have anymore demon in me than I already have I will be ruled over my lust and whatever the vampiric abilities corrupt me with. I don’t want to lose control.

The other vamps are still trying to force Mallory back, knowing she’s stronger than they are. For the moment they ignore me but they won’t ignore me forever. To fight her they’ve also tried to be on opposite sides of her so that she has to lower her guard in one direction or the other. They force her to relentlessly face them and both sides are testily looking for openings with feints, jabs, and sneaky side pincer movements. Then they jump back at the last minute when she turns to try to face one of them, and then it starts all over again with her blocking most of their attacks by the skin of her teeth. Mallory counters and has a good ability to block and deflect. It looks like she’s done this before but her eyes are still wide with alarm, not underestimating her opponents and it can’t be easy for her to face several of them like this.

The dwarves didn’t realize that there is this option of me becoming a vampire by eating one’s heart. Some of them look dismayed, not having predicted that Mallory might turn me in the middle of a fight. And if she does then I might be beyond their limits of control. And a bunch of them are rallying extra guards just in case we try to get out somehow.

But they are confused when I reject it. I’m confused too, and hope my current choices don’t kill me later on.

I heard something like a gross snap just now and looked back up.

Mallory is fighting the two vampires in front of her, and a third has its arm broken and mangled badly while the one she kicked is still stunned.

The fellow with the mangled arm was the snapping sound I think.

Then one of them snapped one of Mallory’s arms, leaving it sick looking, bent, and crooked from how it’d swiped her through a hole in my runic shielding. This is also evidence I’ve saved her life since the runic shielding had deflected many similar types of blows like that until now.

How did I manage that spell? I shouldn’t have been able to.

My mana couldn’t handle anymore spell work forced through the shackles, but I did save her and that in turn saved me because those other vamps know they need every single one of them to face her and even then many of them will die. I’m surprised it worked.

My mana is at 4 or 5% remaining though I think. So if I try another spell I will die from mana insolvency. In the past Fox had warned me about this, several times. That means that the shackle siphons about 95 percent or so of mana in a spell wasting it entirely and drawing off a ton of the rest while letting the rest through. No matter what the spell is it basically does a mana trap of multiplying the mana activation energy many required to cast each spell, many times ; that’s how it works! And rather than blocking a spell outright the shackles just makes a spell so mana heavy that it’s uncastable in the same way floating steel or iron bricks on water wouldn’t work. So if I have that much mana left it means it had eaten a lot. It also means I can’t do another spell since overcoming the resistance has chewed threw virtually everything in my tank.

So the thin sliver of power going through the shackles wasn’t a defect in the shackles after all, but rather it was an enticing trap to get mages that don’t have a big enough power pool to kill themselves by trying to use a spell against the small sliver of power they felt and then having the shackles rip so much power out of them by their power draw amplifying traits that the shackles’ mana bleeding and amplfication trait kills them in one shot. In effect it would be like a mana version of a vacuum like force sucking energy out so fast its like puncturing a body. It probably would have exploded my mana heart too and left a significant crater in the arena with mine and Mallory’s bodies. The only thing left would have been the blackened crater with only having some bones and splattered tomato paste and intestines left in said crater too. Only in my case they hadn’t anticipated that I would have a power pool big enough to just barely handle their trap.

This was what the dwarves had planned all along. And I can see some of their leaders giving me mixed and puzzled expressions, rather than looking at Mallory.

This also confirmed my thinking process about this trap.

So in other words…if normally a spell used 2% of mana, then with the shackles on it would use like 40 to 45 times that or more in percent form. I’m lucky to be alive. That was incredibly, really stupid but we’re alive. But I’d been desperate. I’m just really lucky I’d had so much practice with runic shielding and such a huge mana pool that I’d managed its cost to go down a lot recently, in conjunction with the power pool gains I’d received.

There’s a gasp among the dwarves as they realize what I did; one of them finally figured it out and is telling the others and pointing at me as a significant threat. They are on their feet shouting and pointing at both of us while they…I think they are asking for reinforcements for the arena. The guards and some of the crowd are murmuring and fearful. But they don’t stop the fight. I can see head dwarves talking to prison management already while pointing at me.

That’s seriously bad. They will just think up another way to kill us sooner than normal because we pulled off something nobody else has done before.

Even Mallory was surprised as she kept fighting, but not looking back. Her defensive blocks are really amazing, when it’s so hard to even see the other vampires quick blurred strikes.

“H-how did you do that? You should be dead right now after casting that shielding spell on me. I’ve been around mages enough to know how that works and what those shackles do,” she said in shocked tones.

Somehow she kicked another vampire team member away sending it flying back from a gut strike that left a hole in its chest, broke another one’s leg, and then broke the neck of another within a very short period of time. This is the power of a veteran centuries old vampire with real physical combat skills.

Some of the dwarves are booing. Then the boos start to get even louder as they realize we’re going to live through their trap. Apparently they’d put money on her death in a wager I suspect, plus they hate us. Or some of them had intended for her to die with their connection to prison management here.

We were shocked again when the other vampires started getting up while she’s battling the last one. Their bones had healed within a minute of being knocked down except for the guy with the broken neck. I guess that kills them because he can’t get back up. Or he’s dead, I don’t know which.

There are no other humans left alive either and some of them had combat experience so I’m feeling pretty scared while Mallory fights for both of us. They didn’t want to die so they ran to the other side of the arena at the beginning of the fight, not wanting to mess with vamps; so in the end the guards killed them for being cowards, near the other arena entrance area.

The fight ends quickly.

The guards counted it our loss when there weren’t any humans left but they signaled the victory bell for the other team late to try to get rid of the vampires.

The other team stares at Mallory, who is licking the blood that’s covering herself. It’s kind of gross, but she is a demon and they do that sort of thing, so she can’t help her nature. Somehow vampire saliva is supposed to be sterile too so she has her own self cleaning hygiene system right? This is gross…Somehow also the other team had torn her shirt up, leaving her topless with her nice hefty balloons hanging down heavily from that thin slender body.

They’d probably tried to use it as an opening.

Being a vampire, and obsessed with blood Mallory doesn’t care how she looks but seems to just enjoy slurping up all the blood until the dwarven guards used some kind of magic stun rods to drag her back to our cell, but they are so scared of her they don’t want to mess with her even though she’s naked from the waist up. She’s also enough of a predator that she’s more animal than human. It’s bizarre seeing it.

The dwarven guards are freaked out by what she did, so normally they should be turned on by someone as hot as Mallory being mostly topless but their self preservation and how she’s drinking blood like a starved pig has really made them afraid to even go near her.

They are also disappointed that we survived. I can see it on their faces.

But their system has rules. They can’t just kill us when it was already determined that we’d fight to the death in the arena.

Of course that just means, we’ll be back for another round later at some point.

They also stunned me to bring us back and don’t trust us to go back normally. So right after that I was stunned to be sent back, but I’m surprised when I woke up that they hadn’t killed us yet. It’s presumably because they made a killing on the arena seats that they’d sold admittance for.

Mallory is weird as hell. But somehow this worked out, leaving me shocked.

I guess she won’t try to eat me since she’s getting her fix right? Or will she? Maybe she’ll be even more turned on since the smell of blood is fresh to her, and my pheromones will be in her system.

Its hard to predict what will happen right now. So I fear the worst. I’m right to fear her as an apex predator too.

Somehow we’re both languishing back in our cell again. The dwarves didn’t kill us yet but I’m sure they are thinking of a new trap for us that will also get them some money.

I have to rest. I try to fight it but that mana draw was so big that it’s weakened me a lot. My eyes are dimming. I force myself awake again after an hour of resisting it. I resisted again an hour after that. I’m lucky that my mana regeneration rate is still pretty good since I’m not too fatigued or malnourished yet. I can feel my mana core trying to pump harder to get back all the energy I’d lost earlier.

The fatigue intensifies as I try to stay up the whole night.

I fell, but then recovered as I realized I’d been so tired I’d almost passed out.

How long can I resist staying awake with Mallory still here?

She’s regarding me with an intense expression. She also hasn’t spoken with me since we got back from the arena. And like before her predator traits are overcoming and twisting her personality again.

That’s a bad sign.

Time continues to erode while we glare at each other. I think we both know this can’t last with both of us in the same cell. Vampires are just too intelligent but too impossible to control even themselves.

Without realizing at some point I realized I was on the floor sitting with my knees by my chin.

I have to …stay awake…somehow.

The hours tick by.

But when I wake up she’s standing above me still uncaring about her livid state of bloodlust. As she stands over me her boobs are over my face. Her torn and shredded shirt has no buttons left on it and is missing sections. She doesn’t seem to be aware of it. The demon side of her is out an in control more than her common sense.

“You look….delicious enough to eat,” she said.

With no warning, she bit down hard on my shoulder.

Oh shit.

I thought she would fight it and resist more.

Game over.