After a few moments, its transformation ended. To their surprise, it underwent a huge change!

The bony undead king grew flesh, which was then covered with pale white skin. His long hair turned into a lustrous white while a pair of eyes with red irises looked at the three of them silently.

His tattered robe became brand new, making one think that he went back in time.

Clearly, he became a-

""Vampire."" 

Shiro and Kuroneko commented at the same time.

"Isn't this upgrade too much?" Shinji asked. Since he knew about the Dead Apostles as well as the Ancestor-levels, he knew how hard it is to fight one.

"Maybe." He silently returned the gaze that the vampire elf, no, the blood elf sent.

"I... am tired of being trampled like this."

Suddenly, he spoke with a raspy voice.

"Those who ridicule me will..."

In a split second, he disappeared from his spot. Then, he appeared right in front of Shino, with his lance being pointed straight at her face.

Clang-!

Fortunately, Kal'tsit was there to block the blow. The blood elf retreated a few steps before clashing with them once more, when daggers flew at it. 

Shinji soon followed by throwing his ice spear with a javelin throw, which surprised him as it managed to pierce through its stomach. However, this wasn't a big deal out of him as he pulled it out and threw it back at Shinji.

If not for his connection to his weapon, Shinji would've been harmed by his own weapon just like his future servant.

"What insane recovery..." Shiro muttered as he saw the blood elf's HP bar recovering at an extremely fast pace. 

"So this is his true strength. The previous appearance is nothing but a facade."

Kuroneko pointed out this certain aspect of this boss. Its power earlier is nothing but a fraction of it. That's the main reason why they easily defeated the first two stages of his.

It's not that he's weak, but only by triggering the last stage would you see its real power, the boss whom is at level 70!

"You're right. If we can't deal high damage in one go, he'll just heal." 

"All of our ultimate moves, then?" 

Shiro only nodded to Shinji's question before dashing straight to the blood elf. He parried one of its attack before shouting, "<<Switch>>!"

Kal'tsit, who is already ready at that time, rushed at it, completing the requirements for the <<Shooting Star>> sword skill. At a quick pace, she immediately stabbed his heart. 

Moreover, Monst3r soon followed by blasting a laser straight at his head.

To end it, Shiro executed <<Vertical Arc>> to his back, creating a V-shaped cut on his torso. 

Blue grids appeared all over his body, indicating that it suffered enough wounds. In real life, it would be an extremely fatal wound, even for a Dead Apostle.

After all, his heart and brain were already destroyed.

Sadly, this is a game.

Swooosh-! Swooosh-!

Swooosh-! Swooosh-!

Dark red spikes rose from the ground, forcing them to separate from the blood elf. Though, they didn't manage to come out unscathed.

Kal'tsit has some few holes in her right arm while Shiro has a hole in his chest. This left them with less than 10% of their HP, turning their HP gauge to red.

Strange enough, the two maintained their calm expressions, as if this level of pain couldn't faze them. 

"This feels... strange."

"It's not the same as a wound in real life."

The two drank some HP Potions and continued their conversation, all the while they watched the blood elf act around with a heart and head missing.

"It's still alive."

"Quite illogical, but this is a game." He only shrugged his shoulders in response to Kal'tsit. 

Shino tried to attack it using a charged arrow, but it could only bring its total HP down to 60%. Meanwhile, more spikes came out of the ground when Kuroneko and Shinji tried to come close to it.

They could only helplessly watch it regenerate quickly as a result. Soon enough, his head and heart grew once more while his HP went back to 90% before the recovery slowed down.

"Foolish humans..! This could never kill me!"

"Wha-?! You... You plagiarist!"

Kuroneko retorted back at him, to which he only stared back at her. 

"That are my lines! Stop using it, you Vlad wannabe!"

"Pffft!"

Shiro couldn't help but laugh at that retort of hers. With him being a vampire who uses blood-like spikes, it did have a semblance to the servant in the Orleans Singularity.

The blood elf could only stare at her confusedly. 

Meanwhile, Cardinal who was watching this behind the scenes could understand her a little. After all, there is such a system in SAO, in which it copies from some myths on Earth before creating it into a quest.

Psssh! Psssh! Psssh!

The blood elf drew his bow and sent out three blood-red arrows at once, which is all aimed at Kuroneko. Even though he couldn't understand her, he could tell that she's ridiculing him.

"You dared to single me out..!" She shouted as she dodged two of them while slashing her dagger straight at the remaining arrow. 

Shiro took this time to send out the strategy that he thought of to the Chat Group.

Shiro: "Since his recovery slows down at some point every time we injure him, we'll need to..."

*****

Clang-! Clang-!

Boom-! Boom-!

Bam-! Crack-!

With every opportunity that they have, they parried the blood elf king before reducing his HP slightly. Each of them tried to use a minimal amount of skills, unlike before.

Still, they were forced to use more since his HP becomes harder to reduce the lower it gets due to his continuous rapid healing. However, its HP recovery became slower every time it reaches the threshold of 10%.

His insane recovery earlier could only be brought up to 50% while it slows down every time it goes up beyond that.

The price that they have to pay for this is fatigue. Right now, sweat beads fell down their foreheads as they gasped for air.

Due to this, they even made some mistakes, such as when Shinji misstepped and got his left arm cut off. Just like Kuroneko, he felt the full brunt of it.

Though, he managed to handle it better even without a cheat like [Thought Acceleration].

A few minutes had already passed from that. This time, the boss' insane regen could only be brought up at 45% before slowing down gradually.

"Now! <<Switch>>!"

Hearing this, Kal'tsit knew that it is time and parried his lance once more. Since he changed weapons between a lance and a bow randomly, they had to wait until he switches back to his "parry-able" weapon. Plus, it also helped that this is a game since it could only mean one thing - his movements are limited.

No matter how complicated his attacks are, it wouldn't matter much to them if it would only be repeated all over again.

Shiro switched with her position as he started using <<Meteor Strike>> to tackle him. Once he stepped back a few times, Kuroneko swiftly appeared behind him and tried beheading him at once using <<Eviscerate>>, a dagger sword skill that would only activate once the dagger is positioned at the target's neck.

She didn't manage to fully separate his head in the end, albeit she still made a huge dent to his HP. As soon as it went down to less than 35%, she escaped from his vicinity.

Not letting this opening go, Shinji stabbed his heart once more from behind. 

Shino and Monstr launched their long-ranged attacks continuously, depleting its HP to less than 10%. When they stopped, Shiro rushed in, making the flowers under [Enhance Armament] fall down straight at the blood elf's face.

8%... 7%... 5%...

He tried to counterattack, but it was all for naught considering the weight of those golden osmanthus flowers. Taking out his [Intrinsic Reaper], Shiro used up his remaining MP and blasted its head off at point-blank range.

Bam-!

Bzzzt-!

Sparks of lightning crackled in the air before disappearing, a testament of his mana bullet's powerful concentrated attack.

0%.

His headless body plopped on the ground before disappearing as fragmented blue lights...

*****

Fact #20: While the other countries of Terra are warring and fighting against literal Cthulhu abominations, Yan (the counterpart of China) are too busy fighting against gods, with their Emperor making some deal with a powerful god named Sui and all sorts of stuff. The former slaughtered those so-called gods (which is the equivalent of mountain gods in eastern culture) to become the sole true god (back to the Divine Investiture, I guess). Meanwhile, the latter is currently split into twelve different fragments (who is actually forced by the emperor to split for unknown reasons). Though, they can still warp reality based on China's twelve arts (Go, Wine, Calligraphy, blacksmithing, etc)...