With a deep, guttural groan of relief, Avan dropped backwards onto the floor with his arms outstretched. The bumps and sharp stones under him just completely forgotten and declared null and void. His 18 spheres floated in a dome around him to protect him from all sides, while he simply caught his breath and reviewed what had just happened.
'Point one; what are ghouls doing down here? Judging by the bodies, sucked out victims of the vampires, and the ghouls are experiments gone wrong? Or does it have more to do with it being a byproduct of sucking the victims dry...?' Avan looked up at the blue glittering ceiling of the gigantic cave complex far above him and expelled his breath loudly from his mouth as he pondered. 'Point two; what was this descendant ghoul? Clearly master of his senses, intelligence in his eyes, and not raging, which is why he could somehow command the others? Or is there more to it than that? And who is this Xavier, and if he was a former vampire, how did he become a ghoul? An ambush in his own ranks? Was he unwanted? I just don't get it... Can I communicate with him somehow to find out more? Although he'll probably set up a trap at the first opportunity, I'll bet.'
"And those ghouls first of all.... Are holding out way too much. But why? Is it solely because of the higher level? It could be. It's not like I've had much experience fighting higher level ones so far. But this seems like a good opportunity!" Avan muttered softly.
'The head, like zombies, is probably the only weak point, right? Or is there some organ, or magical thing in them that is equally important? What do I know...'
'The celestial wire idea definitely worked great. My shield, on the other hand, was way too wide and cost me way too much mana. So, what if I put the shield just a few centimeters around me? That gives much less attack area, so less mana cost. But at the same time, they could then pounce on me and push down with their mass and body weight, which also costs more mana, right? Puuuuuh... So much to test all I don't know.'
"But the paper-thin wires definitely work. Head off, ghoul dead. What if I let two of the shapes at a time form a wire ring around me, and then make it spin really fast, like a wire saw. And that then into a dome around me at different heights. Then no opponent would be able to get through. And a single paper-thin barrier of two shapes should then be enough to keep projectiles or innards and body parts away from me. Huh..." He unconsciously switched back to whispering while his hand ran over his chin.
Supporting himself with both hands on the floor, he sat up again, glad that his shoes and gloves prevented him from feeling the spikes and grooves beneath him at all.
A mental twitch and his 14 forms lined up in 7 rings around him, very delicate and barely visible in their midnight black color, except for the occasional twinkling of the stars to be seen in them, and Avan himself encased himself with four of his forms in two different barriers, a gold glowing barrier covering him from all sides, and only a few centimeters below that a midnight black one, which should act as a second protection in case of projectiles.
This way, if the first barrier was not enough, it would hopefully greatly weaken the power of the projectile, and the second would then be able to stop it. At least that was Avan's plan.
The wiry rings around it hummed to life as they began to spin faster and faster, with Avan at the center, and soon there was only a barely audible multitude of hums to be heard. Taking a careful step forward, Avan exhaled again in relief as all his forms followed seamlessly, following him perfectly as the center point. One jump up, and he didn't hit his head anywhere, as his barriers knew immediately from his intention that he was moving and followed smoothly.
With a satisfied grin on his face, and prepared as best he could, Avan continued on his way in leisurely steps, while his gaze glided over the left wall of the cave, occasionally looking at all the sucked out corpses that littered the floor.

'I hope Jen, Patris and Dani are doing well. Linob will be fine, right? Should hurry through here. Really need to know what's going on.'
With careful steps and glowing a bit like a damn Christmas ball with all the paper-thin spinning celestial wires around him, he booted over and through the mounds of bodies that only increased with each step. Where before there were a few isolated withered bodies, now more and more bodies were piled on top of each other at the edge to his left and right, as if someone had cleared the center of the canyon.

Much to his surprise, it went on like this with slow steps for several minutes without any disturbances or nasty surprises, although Avan was tense enough, knowing that the special ghoul must be lying in wait somewhere. And maybe he wasn't even the only intelligent hunter down here waiting for him.
Jagged and cracked rocks greeted him menacingly from the right side, where he walked up onto the plateau, ready at any moment to tumble down the steep slope with all the debris and bury everything here at the bottom of the gorge beneath him. Meanwhile, a fairly straight stone wall led up to his left, interrupted only by the black dark holes and tunnel entrances that might lead anywhere.
Shadows danced across the surfaces, and if Avan had still been as jumpy as he was when he was on Earth, he would have been frightened every second and his heart would have jumped out of his chest long ago. But after his experiences with death, torture and other situations, his breathing was calm and his heartbeat was steady and normal.
'Rest in peace, Lea and Nick...' A thought that had plagued him so many times came up again as he thought of the two who had died indirectly at his hands. At least he told himself that their deaths were his own fault, and he didn't want to wash off the blood of the two and many others that had stuck to his hands.

"Another reason to keep at it. I don't want the same thing to happen to my current team." Avan muttered.
If his gut wasn't deceiving him, he should be about halfway down the gorge to the other end by now, and the width here was also the widest from the left wall to the steep right wall. 'Just under 30 meters', Avan estimated, his head slowly scanning the surroundings.
Just as he glanced back to see the distance he had covered, and as if this was the moment his pursuer had been waiting for, the piles of corpses moved all around.
The ghouls that crawled out from under the drained and bloodless corpses were anything but pretty to look at, and bore a damned resemblance to the lifeless bodies all around. The former nose showed only the two cartilaginous outgrowths, where otherwise always a nose should be, while the entire head showed only the least hair and even the eye sockets sat so deep that one could hardly recognize the light clambering red underneath. Two pointed elf-like ears on the sides made the conclusion, along with the serrated teeth in the mouth of the creatures.
The hands and feet turned into claws, as if someone had not visited his manicure and pedicure for a long time, and the entire body of the creatures was like zombies covered with wrinkled skin, whereas in some places this said skin even flaked off and showed rotten greenish flesh underneath.
The moaning and smacking of the rotten bodies rubbing against each other resulted in a cacophony of horror, but that didn't really bother Avan either as he stood there quietly waiting for the monsters. On the contrary, he had other thoughts running through his head, such as a mental map of the great cavern and how he could best advance to the fortress once he had crawled out of here. Just as he was thinking about it, standing there so semi-bored as to whether and what he would find at the mana crystal lake, a commanding cry came from further ahead to his right, and the other ghouls became strangely silent, just looking hungrily at Avan with renewed froth at the mouth.
Whereas he had been surprised at the first encounter, not knowing what his abilities could do against the ghouls, Avan was now quite sure he would have an easier time with his opponents, especially with the yet-to-be-tested new attack capabilities of his Akkalons forms buzzing around him.
The descendant of Xavier probably also heard the buzzing in the air, now that the other ghouls were silent for a moment after his announcement, and tilted his ugly head slightly to find out what was buzzing from his prey.
In contrast to the other ghouls, he had two longer red glowing fangs peeking out of his face, which confirmed to Avan that this must be a former vampire. Even though it was not clear how ghouls were created, he couldn't help but wonder why a vampire could become such a freak in the first place.

The descendant of Xavier probably didn't come up with the solution to his riddle himself, and hissed once, followed by another shrill scream, which promptly and immediately moved the other creatures to attack. Snarling, screeching, and hungry as they looked, the ghouls ran, sometimes even pushing each other, running headlong over fallen companions and dead bodies toward Avan, who still stood as still as the mountain in the surf.
It looked like a moving and wiggling mass of undead bodies, which wanted to break over Avan to bury him under and devour. In contrast to his first encounter with the creatures, there were clearly many more coming at him, if one took a look at the rotten wave of creatures. And also unlike before, the descendant of Xavier also joined his monsters and ran after them with ominously glowing red eyes, while a kind of greenish saliva flew and dripped from his mouth.
Avan marveled at the image of the onrushing creatures that would bury him from the front and sides in a few seconds if his defensive forms did not do their job.
Before he knew it, the first ghouls were already approaching, throwing and jumping at him.
Only to be torn to shreds with a howl and a crunch. Avan crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched his mana pool race up and down extremely fast, but remain steadily above 90%. His mana regeneration was also barely affected, but was becoming more and more taxed as ghoul after ghoul jumped and thrust into his sawing and cutting celestial wires.
The sounds of rotting flesh, sinew and bone sawing and slicing in all directions filled the canyon, while in Avan's immediate vicinity even the hungry screams of the creatures were drowned out. Scraps of the creatures' remains slapped against his inner shields from everywhere and slid down them without leaving any traces, while he himself took a few steps forward to climb the mountain of rotten remains and not soon be walled in on all sides by pieces of flesh.

The hundreds of ghouls continued to race thoughtlessly toward him, only making for a faster and faster growing pile that Avan had to climb in disgust to stay visible and not get buried.
He knew one thing for sure; he couldn't let this particular ghoul escape again this time, or there would be a possibility that he could alert the other vampires in some way. Avan didn't know if that was possible, but he didn't rule it out and certainly didn't want to take any chances. Former vampire and outcast or not, his own presence in this cave complex had to be kept under wraps as long as possible.
That's why he blanked out all the mindless ghouls around him who just threw themselves into his blender to be ground into paste, and looked the still approaching vampire ghoul in the eye.
He growled angrily and bared his jagged teeth when he saw Avan standing there so calm and untouched. The creatures around him grew fewer with each passing second, and it seemed to dawn on the Descendant that he had to take his chance while he could.
The ghoul then lit up red, and it intensified more and more, while a reddish mist of blood came out of its pores. The more blood mist that erupted, the more the descendant of Xavier himself seemed to dissolve, until only a heavy red glistening wet mist hung in the same place, only to immediately fly even faster towards Avan.
"Damn..." Avan just cursed as his mind quickly tried to assess whether the creature could penetrate his shield, but then breathed a sigh of relief when he checked the magical fabric in a split second and nothing but pure air was let through to breathe. His arms loosened and clenched into fists at his side, Avan concentrated fully on the blood-red mist that was creeping between the wires of his mana, almost as if it were afraid to touch them.
Somewhat frantic to try something new in the heat of battle, Avan undid his robe and gloves, not yet ready to sacrifice his shoes to wade barefoot in the putrid remains at his feet, and went about another experimental plan he had spun before.
The robe and gloves of celestial mana unraveled their interwoven threads until a web of mana was floating in the air in front of Avan, just outside his barriers, and there it spun ever thinner and finer.
He first experienced the current concept in the infirmary below the arena in Haipu, and his mana siphoning formed an invisible mist. He did the same again now, but with an extremely less dense version than pure mana allowed, and the few forms he used for this were also not suitable for becoming so dense.
The former threads now floated in front of him, and only a fraction of a second, not even a heartbeat, had passed. For the naked eye invisible mist, only strengthened by the midnight-black property of his mana, hung not a meter in front of him and waited for the almost completely pushed through blood-red mist that would soon collide with his own construct.
Not allowing the vampire ghoul any time for a "fair" fight, Avan mentally gave the order and his mist, with occasional glittering stars, pushed forward into the blood-red mist and began to attack the nanometer-sized blood drops.
A shrill and painful supernatural screech was the result of his attack, and Avan grinned with relief and satisfaction as he felt his mana in his sphere of influence belong to a higher order, annihilating and eradicating the organic and magical red mass drop by drop.
The vampire knew by now that his approach had been a big mistake and, panicked by the twitching mist, tried to retreat quickly, but found himself in a quandary.
Behind him were the still inhumanly fast rotating celestial wires and in front of him, between him and Avan, this black fog, which reminded of a clear night, enveloped him faster and faster.
Pushed back and caught between the two attacks, the creature shrieked and screamed louder and louder in panic, until its voice slowly broke and became quieter, until not even a whisper remained. The once red mist fell to the ground in lifeless drops of blood and joined the other remains of the ghouls, of which only a handful were left and which were also being torn to shreds.

When the last ghoul, and probably the last of these creatures for some time down here, finally went down, Avan looked around calmly and enjoyed the sudden silence that surrounded him.
The whole "battle", or rather slaughter as Avan called it in his mind, had gone on for several minutes, and apart from the multitude of system messages waiting for him, there was finally peace again.
Hundreds of messages wanted his attention, and he knew he should take care of them before he got into the next fight.

[Ghoul - 181] defeated!
Experience received.

[Ghoul - 179] defeated!
Experience received.

....

[Ghoul - 189] Defeated!
Experience obtained.

[Ghoul - 195 - Descendant of Xavier] Defeated!
For defeating an elite opponent, you will receive extra experience.
For defeating an opponent higher than yourself, you will receive extra experience.

Reading the kill messages, Avan instinctively knew, and remembered, that his two titles had provided extra service here. The extra 50% damage against undead and the extra damage on the first strike against a boss-like opponent had also counted here in the end, though he didn't know if just the attack on the first drop of blood counted as a "first attack" or if his own attacking mist itself counted as an entire attack.
Either way, a slightly bloodthirsty smile came across his lips, which immediately disappeared.
More system messages awaited him.

*Chime*
Congratulations! You have reached level 198!
You have been granted 40 free stat points for leveling up.

Not willing to let the opportunity pass again, Avan went straight to distributing his stat points. '10 levels in total, not bad at all... But killing hundreds of enemies. The level difference might make a lot of difference.'

Avan Leaf
Level: 198
Free Stat Points: 50
Element: Celestial
Class: [Silver] Dungeonarchitect (Human)
Subclass: [Silver] Healer of Akkalon

Stats
Strength: 150
Dexterity: 230
Vitality: 150
Intelligence: 310
Wisdom: 320
Spirit: 267

'50 points in wisdom? Is that wise? Screw it, the main thing is more mana and mana regeneration.'
And with that, he sank all of his 50 free stat points into Wisdom, bringing his total to 370.
Satisfied with that, and not willing to waste any more of his time, he looked around again and surveyed the mountain of dismembered corpses all around him, wrinkled his nose at the smell, and trudged on through the fleshy mass towards his actual destination. 'Fortunately, my healing can "cure" even nausea, haha' the thought flashed through his mind as he tuned out the wet squishy sound at his feet and the smells.