My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible

Chapter 767: Fighting Lord Mortimer

Clone One walked out through the stone gates of the Hale estate and onto the moonlit street. Behind him, the carved wall and the quiet garden sat untouched under the pale silver light of the four moons.

Lord Mortimer stood a few steps from the wall, perfectly still. His high-collared crimson cloak hung straight down over his black armor, and his pale face was as hard as carved bone. His deep red eyes burned with old, cold fury as he watched the human step out.

Clone One walked right past him without stopping.

Mortimer turned his head and watched him go, then followed. Clone One led him down the long, empty street, away from the Hale walls, until the road opened into a wide stone square under the shadow of an arched bridge. Only then did he stop and turn around.

"You have courage for a stray," Mortimer said with a flat, cold voice that carried down the silent street. "Or perhaps you simply lack the sense to know what stands in front of you."

Clone One stood twenty paces away with his hands resting in his pockets. He looked the ancient vampire over, from his silver-streaked hair down to his heavy black boots, and he felt the dense pressure coiled tightly under that armor. The guards at the manor and the hunters in the canyon were nothing next to this. Mortimer had centuries of power behind him.

"I didn’t want to wreck Clara’s courtyard," Clone One said. "She was kind enough to give me dinner. I figured we could do this somewhere with a little more room."

Mortimer’s crimson eyes narrowed into thin slits. "You broke my gate. You butchered my hunter in front of my entire house. And now you speak to me as if we were two equals out for a stroll."

"Your hunter tried to take my head first," Clone One said with a small shrug. "If you keep wild dogs around a secret door, you shouldn’t be surprised when someone puts them down."

Mortimer’s pale fingers curled. "You will not leave this street alive, human. When I’m finished, there won’t be enough of you left to make ash."

Before the last word had even left his mouth, Mortimer vanished.

Whoosh!

The ancient vampire crossed twenty paces in less than a blink and appeared right in front of Clone One with his right hand driving forward like a spear, his stiff fingers aimed straight at Clone One’s throat.

Clone One tilted his head back half an inch.

The strike missed his skin by a hair. The rush of air behind it tore the collar of his robes and ripped the cloth down to his chest.

Clone One stepped inside Mortimer’s outstretched arm and drove a short, sharp palm strike into the center of his breastplate.

Boom!

A heavy wave of Primordial Essence burst against the black metal. The sound echoed down the empty street like a cannon shot and shattered the glass in the upper windows of the nearby buildings.

Mortimer skidded fifteen yards back across the square, his boots carving two deep white grooves into the black stone before he dug his heels in and stopped. A web of fine cracks spread across the center of his chest armor.

Mortimer looked down at his breastplate, then up at Clone One. The cold pride in his crimson eyes was gone, and in its place was sharp, careful shock.

"You are no ordinary human," Mortimer said in a low voice.

"Never said I was," Clone One said with a grin.

Mortimer straightened his back and threw his crimson cloak wide. Deep in his chest, an old pressure stirred awake. Thick, dark red mist began to pour out from under his armor and curled across the stones like heavy smoke. The air turned bitter cold, and frost crept along the stone walls.

"Let’s see how you handle this!" Mortimer roared.

He clapped his hands together. The red mist around him pulled tight into dozens of jagged crimson lances that hung in the air. With a sweep of his arm, Mortimer sent the whole volley screaming across the square.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

The lances tore through the air faster than arrows, leaving trails of dark red light behind them.

Clone One stood his ground. He raised his right hand and flicked his fingers outward.

A dozen thin crescent blades of white Primordial Essence appeared in front of him, spinning as they met the incoming lances head-on.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

White and crimson sparks burst across the square as the blades shattered the blood lances in midair. Shockwaves blasted outward, tearing loose stones out of the road and hurling them against the walls.

Before the dust from the clash could settle, Mortimer burst straight through the middle of it. His eyes glowed like hot coals, and a long, curved sword of dark, veined metal appeared in his hand.

He brought it down in a straight, overhead strike with the full weight of his centuries behind it.

Clone One crossed his forearms over his head and covered his skin in a tight layer of Primordial Essence.

Wham!

The sword struck his arms hard enough to drive his boots three inches into the solid stone. Cracks spread out from his heels, and the shockwave blew the dust off every roof within three hundred yards.

Mortimer pressed down hard, his fangs bared in a snarl as he poured everything he had into the blade to force Clone One to his knees.

Clone One held the blade steady, his feet planted in the cracked rock. He could feel the heavy, surging rhythm of Mortimer’s power pushing against his arms. Under the armor, the ancient blood inside Mortimer moved like a violent tide, pulsing out in fast, pounding waves.

Clone One closed his eyes for a split second and tuned himself to that rhythm.

The Law of Universal Consonance settled over his mind. He matched the pulse of Mortimer’s blood power and shifted his own essence until the two moved in perfect time.

"My turn," Clone One said.

He shifted his wrists a little and pushed upward.

Thrum!

The pulse ran straight up the dark sword and into Mortimer’s hands. The ancient vampire gasped as his own blood power turned wild inside him and slammed back into his chest.

Crack!

Mortimer’s black armor burst open at the shoulders and ribs. Black blood sprayed from his lips as he was blasted backward through the air and crashed through the stone wall of an empty warehouse fifty yards down the street.

Boom!

Dust and rubble poured down over the broken wall in a thick gray cloud.

The street went quiet again.

Clone One pulled his boots out of the cracked stone, brushed the dust off his sleeves, and walked down the street toward the ruined warehouse.

Halfway there, the pile of rubble shifted.

Crash!

Mortimer threw a heavy slab of stone off his chest and staggered to his feet in the dust. His crimson cloak hung in shreds, his black armor dangled in broken pieces, and black blood ran down his chin. He glared at Clone One through the settling dust with disbelief and humiliation burning in his crimson eyes.

He had lived for centuries. He had killed rival lords and ruled over thousands from his manor in the basin, and this unknown human in torn rags had broken him in less than five minutes.

Clone One stopped ten paces away and formed a single thin blade of white Primordial Essence between his fingers.

"You kept a secret door, and you sent your men to take my head," Clone One said quietly. "Then you threatened a house that showed me kindness. Give me one good reason not to turn you into ash right here."

Mortimer clenched his jaw so hard his fangs ground together. He looked at the glowing white blade in Clone One’s hand and felt the endless power behind it. If he lunged again, he would die before his feet left the ground.

Without a word, Mortimer turned his back. He burst into a blinding cloud of crimson smoke and launched himself high into the starless sky, fleeing toward the tall spires of the inner city as fast as he could go.

Clone One lowered his hand and let the white blade fade away. He watched the streak of red vanish over the distant rooftops, and a small smile touched the corner of his mouth.

He didn’t bother chasing him.

’Run all you want,’ he thought. ’I can leave this place on my own, but those humans can’t. I still need you alive to open that door for them.’

Far across the silent city, high on the towering black spires of the inner city, pale figures stepped out onto cold stone balconies under the four moons.

Word of the fight spread faster than anyone could run. Within minutes, messengers in dark uniforms were racing through the quiet streets and knocking on the heavy iron gates of the realm’s oldest houses.

A human had entered the sealed world, broken through the walls of Lord Mortimer’s manor, and beaten one of the great lords in open combat in the middle of the street. If a lone human could do that and walk away, the rule of the bloodlines over this realm meant nothing.

In the great houses across the city, cold crimson eyes turned toward the east as the noble families began to gather their forces.