Hitomi couldn’t find the words to describe the monster that stood in front of her now. He clearly wasn’t the same as before.

“Looks like you powered up a bit…” she uttered

“A bit? Kukuku... What part of this... is a bit?” he asked before moving at supersonic speed.

Hitomi quickly used shadow movement to change locations but even that wasn’t enough to completely elude Drake as he quickly closed in on her, no matter how far she moved. However, despite his speed, hitomi  still kept narrowly avoiding his attacks... much to his annoyance.

“Tch… You are beginning to annoy me…” he declared

“Funny… I feel the same way, Nya.” She uttered as she avoided his next attack.

Drake lost patience and began to move faster and faster until finally, “Caught you.” He uttered, but just his hand caught Hitomi by the neck, she simply vanished before his very eyes.

“Did she teleport? No... It was more likely that what I have been chasing was an illusion...” he uttered before being attacked from behind. He narrowly avoided the blade that aimed for his back before glaring at a smiling Hitomi.

“I missed? I must be getting rusty, Nya.”

‘How!?... How did she manage to get the drop on me? I felt nothing… It was almost as if she wasn’t even there? Wait! Even now, I can't feel anything from the person in front of me… Don’t tell me…' he thought before turning around and finding Hitomi attacking him. 

He quickly dogged to the side, only to scream in pain as an attack came from behind again.

‘She is behind me again? How is this possible?’

“Your movements are too predictable.”

 “Eh?”

“I can tell exactly where you are going long before you even get there.” She said with a smirk.

‘What does that mean?’ he ponder before coming to a logical conclusion. 'These illusions are meant to lure me into positions where she can attack from my blind spots.’

“Tch… If you think simple illusions and sneak attacks are going to be enough to stop me, then you are a fool!” Drake yelled as he quickly healed himself.

“Simple illusions! You call this simple?” Hitomi replied before one by one, illusions of her appeared on the battlefield.

Drake couldn’t hold his surprise as he was now surrounded by an army of Hitomi illusions.

“Can you find the real me?” the Hitomi illusions all spoke before rushing him. 

'Tch… How annoying, however, finding the real one should be easy enough. Even now I can hear it… The sound of her heartbeat among the illusions. There she is… fufufu… now, all I need to do is ignore the rest and let her come close… No… That might alert her. I need to act like I am unaware of here presence.’ He thought.

As the first Hitomi illusion came close he launched an attack while screaming for Hitomi to reveal her true self. He was going to lead her into a false sense of success with her illusions, before striking at her as she came near him. However, something unexpected happened.

He felt something as he landed an attack on the illusion, which surprised him. There should have been no feedback from his attack but he clearly felt that he hit something.

‘Was I wrong? Did I hit the real one by accident’ he thought before a second illusion landed a hit on him. 'What is going here? I felt no presence from the one who attack me and yet I took damage...'

Fearing the worst, Drake decided to treat all the illusions as real threats and began to dodge and attack each illusion. Each time he landed a physical hit, he could feel feedback from the illusions he was fighting.

‘Is this an illusion? Or did she somehow clone herself? That can’t be right… Apart from the physical sensation, I feel nothing else from these illusions… It doesn’t make any sense.’ He thought 

This was indeed a real puzzle and one that had to be solved in order to win this battle. Drake knew that, but his mind couldn’t come up with an explanation as to why these illusions had some sort of physical presence.

In the end, he abounded all attempts at finding the answer and responded to the situation with pure force.

He activated his skill and opened his mouth as massive amounts of mana gathered in a bright ball in front of him. The bright ball grew bigger and bigger until…

< Vampire King - Blaze Roar!!! >

He unleashed his skill on the Hitomi illusions in front of him before doing a 360-degree turn to eliminate the others as well.

Loud explosions occurred all around Drake, as steam escaped from his mouth while he took deep breaths.

The < Vampire King – Blaze Roar!!! > is a cheap imitation of the < Demonic Ray > Ermengarde used earlier in terms of power and range, nevertheless it is still a very powerful attack.

‘Did that do it? I don’t sense her presence anywhere… In that case, I should go help lady Ermengarde…’ Just as he was thinking that, a chill ran down his spine… or to be more accurate, it was a cold sensation from the tip of a dagger.

Drake yelled in pain, as he made some distance between him and Hitomi.

“How are you still alive?” he asked with a glare

“Don’t you have more important problems to deal with?” She asked while pointing at his feet.

“What!?” Drake replied as he saw six Hitomi illusions, holding his feet down. He was unable to move from that spot, which surprised him. 

With his new power, he should have been strong enough to blow away the Hitomi illusions with one kick. That was his opinion and yet, he couldn’t move his feet even an inch.

He raised his fist to attack but was grabbed from either side.

“You annoying little… Ahhh…” he screamed as his wings were ripped off his back.

“Can’t have you flying away.” Hitomi, who was now standing in front of him uttered.

“Don’t fuck with me!” he yelled back, as he instantly regenerated his wings.

“Hmm… Looks like that regeneration ability of yours is going to cause me problems.”

Her casual remark made Drake even angrier, “I kill you… Do you hear me? I will kill you.”

“Not if I kill you first,” Hitomi replied, before removing the illusions she had cast on the dead demon bodies.

It was then that Drake realized what was happening.

‘She made the dead demons look like her and controlled them to attack me?’

Because Drake had drained the blood from their bodies there was no means for him to sense them.

As a vampire king, his sense of smell was only powerful in cases of blood. Things like body odor eluded him completely. 

It was a weakness he didn’t even know that he had and because of that, he felt even more humiliated at the fact he didn’t see through Hitomi’s trick.

‘She is making me look like some kind of fool.’ He thought

He was so infuriated that he didn’t even ask himself how she managed to escape his < Vampire King – Blaze Roar!!! > or why he was struggling to free himself.

Hitomi after sensing that Drake was about to unleash a powerful attack, used her <shadow movement> to hide in the shadow that was created behind Drake as the bright mana ball expanded. The shadow was so big that she was even able to take some of the demon corpses alone with her. After she captured him, she removed the illusions on the demons in order to distract him from the fact that she had used her <shadow lock> skill on him.

If Drake had heard this… He would have probably been even more enraged and embarrassed by the fact that she used his own attack against him, and was now manipulating by him.

Meanwhile, Hitomi who was oblivious to Drake's emotional state had finished making preparations on how to kill him, “Looks like I have no other choice but to use this method. If I had a sword, I could have just cut you into many pieces, over and over until you were unable to regenerate anymore but I don’t think I will be able to pull it off with my daggers.”

“What are you saying, you bitch!?” Drake yelled as he struggled to move. With his rage as a driving force, he slowly began to move only to have Hitomi land a hit on him with her dagger.

She pierced his heart but Drake didn’t let out a scream. He simply glared at her before speaking, “You think that will be enough to kill me!?”

“No… but I just need to slow you down, Nya.” She uttered before pulling out the dagger and dashing off at high speed.

Drake couldn’t understand her reasoning and foolishly believed that she was running out of fear of him.

‘Has she run out of mana? Did she realize that she can’t beat my regeneration ability? In any case, I won’t let it end like this… No matter how much she begs, I will not stop until I repay her for this humiliation ten… No! A hundredfold. I will quickly regenerate my heart and break free from here and haunt her down!’ he thought before screaming at the fleeing Hitomi, “That’s right! You better run, you bitch!”

Meanwhile, onboard a spirit ship, Duchess Rania who had been given temporary command of the spirit planes because Eve was currently in battle received a report.

“Ma’am, I have a request from ghosting commander Hitomi for an aerial bombardment of the following coordinates.”

“What type of Bombardment?”

“Scorch the Earth, Ma’am”

“Understood… Have all spirit ship cannons prepare to fire on those coordinates. Have the spirit planes match our attack.”

The spirit planes would have been more than enough to handle this request, however, the duchess didn’t want to miss the chance of having her ships test their ability to provide bombardment support from the sea.

She didn’t even realize just what a cruel fate she had unleashed on Drake.

“Preparations are complete Ma’am”

“Fire!” she commanded

“Yes, Ma’am”

Drake had regenerated his heart and began to break free from his confinement when he felt a massive amount of mana heading his way. He looked to the sky as the bombardment approached him.

He now realized why Hitomi had run away. She getting out of range of this attack… An attack that she had probably called for.

“That bitch…” he spoke before the bombardment hit.

It was so powerful that it caused a small earthquake and left a crater.

Hitomi didn’t even need to look behind to confirm Drake's death, everything at the point of impact was reduced to ash.

“Hmm… wonder how the others are doing, Nya.” She mumbled as she went about killing more demons.