Humans are nothing more than playthings for vampires, whether it's breeding or feeding, they do whatever they want with them, so it's no surprise that Marius Tepes decided to take the matter into his own hands. It was after the war that they changed... a little, which is why I'll need to find someone who can rule and change the ampores from the core.

Their father is an excellent choice...

Their strategy was simple: demonstrate the Vampires' greatness and superiority to all factions within the Khaos Brigade by displaying firsthand what would happen to an intruder in their territory by having Vampires take down the first targets, the girl wielding holy magic and the one with the dark looking fire.

Then proceed to the next one, capturing one of them if possible, and finally sweep the intruders one by one, with vampires in the lead.

However, things didn't go as planned. It was part of the plan for the thing that the mages were fighting and the rock moving one to last for a while, but... he didn't expect their plan to fail in the first step, against the two human womens...

Jalter had been fighting the vampires for a while now; fighting against numbers was her specialty, and she demonstrated it.

Since the Prana to cast her spells is not something that she needs to care about if she does things properly, Scathach trained her stamina.

Vampires, despite having a nature that made them resistant to her curses due to them being creatures of the night, couldn't do much against her, only lessening the damage a little.

Even if some managed to avoid her flames, they were impaled by a spear that came from the ground and left them hanging in the air, making it impossible for them to escape on their own, carefully going through their extremities and spine.

Their anguish, hatred, and fear served as living batteries for Jeanne's spells.

Seeing this, Marius Tepes decided to intervene since he can't let this go on because it will make them look weak in the eyes of other factions; for him, this is the perfect opportunity to show off.

But Jeanne reacted quickly; as soon as she saw the vampire clawing at her, she used the pole of her flag to block the attack and then slashed him with its tip, leaving a cut in his chest as she was sent flying by the impact, jumping to lessen a great part of it

Of course, Marius allowed it to happen because he wanted to show her how useless everything she did against him is, and he watched her reaction as his wound that would take a human weeks, if not months, to heal closed in less than a second.

"As you can see, it's pointless because I'm immortal, which you humans would never understand since, while you would die from simple bleeding, I wouldn't die even if my head was severed."

His arrogance was obvious, and in a way, he was correct in doing so because anyone would be unsettled after witnessing his regeneration... but not for Jalter...

Having an annoying Inky guy who can swap his body as much as he wants is something she has dealt with numerous times while training.

Even the body she is currently using is made in this way, and she has no doubt that he can grant her immortality, and even if he cannot, Scathach can...

What he is so proud of is nothing new to her; she is simply used to it.

So the next step in dealing with an arrogant idiot is...

"Ha! What's the big deal? Your attack was so weak that you could have managed to pass for a fanged punching bag, even my sister hits harder than you."

The mocking tone and the roll of eyes did the rest. 

This made him upset but not angry; getting angry over something like that would be beneath him; however, he may teach her a lesson if she is still alive after this...

Marius charged at Jalter once more, his strength enough to push her back and inflict minor wounds here and there, gradually pushing her into a corner.

He was no longer interested in finishing her, but in gradually tiring her out by not allowing her to rest and allowing her wounds to bleed her out.

And Jalter knew that, which is why, after receiving a wound on her arm, she decided to show a little more, because the idiot needed to be entertained in order for their plan to work...

She redirected his blows, but his sudden burst of strength forced her to take some of them, despite the fact that her smocking smile never left her face, much to Marius' chagrin.

The idiot never considered her having a plan; to him, she was nothing more than a monkey doing monkey things; an idiot who is unaware of the situation she is in.

"Do you believe your friends will come to your aid? You should forget about it; they are being surrounded as we speak, no one is coming for you"

But Jalter wasn't even paying attention to him because she heard another voice in her head, a familiar one which he interpreted as his plan working out...

'I need something from him, so keep him busy.'

'Fine~… But as a reward, I'd like a long kiss and possibly a massage...'

'Do you want a full-body one?'

'Of course it's full-body!' Would you pass up the opportunity to touch my body, you moron?'

'I'm not the only one who enjoys it, though...' You were moaning qui-'

Jalter changed her mocking smile into a frown and then anger as she casted a spell as Marius delighted in how easily humans could be manipulated...

"Die! You bastard!" Her cheeks were flushed, but... Was it rage, or was it something else?

Jalter left her fire to protect the 'humans,' forming a shield that no normal Vampire could wish to breach unless they wanted to be burned and cursed to death.

She was 'forced' to call the fire back to her because the situation demanded drastic measures.

Called after a certain redhead who loves ice cream...

" Come out! "

The cursed fire began to gather around her as the temperature rose and the ground melted under the heat, and from the ground a figure emerged with a shout and an explosion of flames.

Behind her appeared a giant and headless humanoid, its body made of obsidian with a spiked collar in place of its head, carrying a massive flaming sword..

" Laevatein! "

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I watched as Jalter evaded Marius' attacks; the idiot is so certain of his immortality that he doesn't even bother to defend...

While all of this was going on, I infiltrated the enemy base, using the girls as a cover as I captured and interrogated Vampires who might know where Valerie was.

It's not that difficult to do, even if they're only one room away from the rest of the Vampires, after I discovered a new way to fight after searching for a way to defeat Shishou.

A screaming and struggling vampire stands in front of me, attempting to shout for help from those in the next room, but his cries seem to vanish into thin air...

And it does; I transformed the vibration created by his cries and shouts into mana, which I then absorbed as hundreds of hands and claws grabbed the guy, effectively isolating him from the rest of the world for as long as I wanted.

I can manipulate any type of energy, whether it's simple kinetic energy or more supernatural ones like mana, and then make them a part of myself.

I'm hoping this is enough to beat Shishou in our next spar after all of this. It has its limitations and I'm just starting, but if I play my cards right, it should be enough to surprise her...

Well, that's how I found her, this guy was the last Vampire guarding the door that had Valerie locked.

She was sealed behind heavy doors and dozens of barriers, but I just manipulated the mana in those and made them go back to being inactive without triggering any alarm, all because I made myself appear 'friendly' in its eyes.

I then melted the doors and severed the chains in her body.

Regrettably, it appears that things moved faster than I anticipated... But it's not that late for her; it's just bothersome.

It is not difficult to heal her mind, but doing so safely would be difficult without at least one more piece of her sacred gear, so for the time being, I brought her into my Mindscape while I waited for Marius to leave an opening.

Especially since I need to ask her if she wants to get rid of it, but that's for another time; right now, I need to take that piece from Marius Tepes.

Normally, extracting it without killing him would be impossible, but thanks to the system and the fact that Valerie is the true owner, extracting the piece of the Sephirot Grail won't be a problem; I could have asked Shishou to do it, but I need it to be quick because I don't know who might be waiting for us...

On the way here, I also released King Tepes, Casper and Valerie's father, so he can take over the faction in the future, and I gave him some assistance in recovering and something so he can fight back.

Well… I hope that the new things I learned are enough to win against Shishou… I'm just starting when it comes to Energy manipulation but the things you can do with it are simply overwhelming.

Energy manipulation is truly cheating… Fire magic? I can manipulate the thermal energy and simply make it harmless or the mana itself to not work as intended, punches? I can transform the Kinetic energy into mana making people who punch me simply feed me more energy…

Shishou is someone who makes me feel conflicted… I don't really care about having her but at the same time I do, not only for how beautiful she is but also by the way she said that.

It's a proposal from her, and no matter how you look at it, it means she acknowledges me in some way, and I want to give her back some of the expectations she has for me, to show her that I can meet and exceed those expectations…

Of course, lust plays a big part; no man can resist someone doing that for him... She is absolutely stunning, with a charm and attitude that can be compared to others, and having my eyesight enhanced doesn't help, and she is well aware of it as well.

During our training, she even started wearing more revealing clothes... the same old purple bodysuit, but without the armorer part, which allowed her chest to move freely...

And don't even get me started on what happened after she got rid of that part that runs down from her back and covers her bottom...

It's difficult to resist having a woman do all of those things for you...

When Jeanne and Jalter found out about it, they did their own thing, causing my hormones to go even more crazy ...

I'm not going to count the number of times I've been stabbed because I was distracted during spars…

Damn Jeanne and her 'Beach' environment training...

Even Kuroka started to show me how she grew up in the right places, not for nothing she was one of the best girls on DxD.

At least Shirone and Orphis are quite innocent avd only love to play around

Sigh… I decided! I will win against Shishou and then go for the rest…  I'm not the only one going through puberty.

As I watched the fight against Marius Tepes, I considered the various ways I could put my newfound ability to use.

I would normally let the girls run around, but not now because I don't know what they might face if they stay there too long and there is also the fact that our enemies might go into hiding if we show too much strength, which complicates things...

There's also the fact that none of them pose a genuine threat to us, particularly Marius Tepes, who relies solely on the regeneration of the holy grail to fight; without it, he's just a coward and overpowered idiot like most members of long lived races who don't care about training and rely too much on their own innate strength...

So Jalter is being defensive and the idiot is simply playing around, while this would be enough to overwhelm any normal person due to him being unscatted of most of her attacks and then keep charging forward without care… that is not the case with her

Jalter is used to fighting Scathach, who can shower you with hundreds of spears and teleport to your side ready to strike; in comparison, Marius is child's play...

His spells are rendered ineffective, his superior stamina is wasted because Jalter knows how to conserve hers, and his strikes were deflected or parried by Jalter or the [Avatar] in her back, disrupting most of its strength while stopping his straight charges with their sword and flames.

But this didn't last long because Mudrock and Jeanne left the place a while ago, leaving only her and the painting that the mages had suppressed.

Soon, she was surrounded by hundreds of Vampires as Marius Tepes simply blocked her path in an attempt to exhaust her; they saw her as already captured prey...

Jalter's fire became dimmer and smaller as the Avatar on her back became sluggish and slower...

Her most recent struggle was casting a Cruel Sun... Because of how concentrated the fire was, the small sun melted and burned everything around it to ashes.

It may not be as powerful as the original, but it does fit the name 'cruel' because it is a sun that brings a night to the day due to its dark flames and light; even if they survive the fire, anyone who comes into contact with its light gets cursed, leaving them weakened or too damaged to continue fighting.

However, Marius used a grail fragment to protect himself from the majority of the damage.

As soon as she shot the small sun forward, I made my move as he was blinded by the dark light of the mini sun.

A giant hand appeared from the air and grabbed Tepes, the strength behind it was enough to crush most of his bones, and as I opened the hand and let him fall to the ground, before he could get his body back in place, I pushed my hand inside his back, but even with me thrusting my entire arm, it didn't come out from the other side.

He screamed, kicked, and tried to grab my hand to stop what he felt was happening deeper inside his body, much deeper inside, straight in his soul.

The pain of having one part of your soul ripped apart is not pleasant, and I make it even worse, and then, with a pull, the grail appeared in my hand as Marius spasmed and twitched with his eyes wide open and foam coming from his mouth...

But as soon as he fell, an invisible pressure enveloped the entire area, locking right into me, but I remained unfazed as I transformed a portion of that same pressure into energy for myself, while the remainder was eaten by [Asura's mist].

Good thing that Jalter already left so all I had to do is save the piece in the system and… leave.

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I need to train more, a lot more… to both impress Shishou and beat the enemies that may be coming…