Sounds of fighting echoed across a cold and damp cavern chamber. In the middle, four vampires, divided in two sides, were fighting for dominance. It didn''t seem like the fight wouldst very long, however, as the fighters on one side were moving slower and more robotically than the other.


    In the corner was a heavy metal door leading to a bunker, but its passage was blocked by a bundle of root and nt growth. At the same time, on the left side of the cavern, a beautiful woman in a fantastical maid outfit was waving her shining hands over a fifth, clearly wounded vampire.


    Finally, closer the exit of the chamber, a sixth vampire was about to kill a raven-haired woman in Gothic dress. The woman didn''t seem to fear for her life, however. All that her eyes showed was frustrated irritation.


    "Did we fail?" Emily asked herself sadly as she watched the vampire inch closer to her throat as if in slow-motion, knowing she had no way to stop him in time. Soon, she and Emma would be teleported away, and the n would fail.


    Fortunately, it wasn''t to be.


    Just before the man reached her, the sound of something slicing through the air echoed, and a paper-thin golden disc moved in between the small remaining gap between Emily and her would-be attacker.


    As it turned out, Emma had not remained ignorant of what was happening while she healed Amelia and had paused her healing efforts to save her big sister for the second time that day.


    Time seemed to move at its normal pace again for the raven-haired woman. Her attacker crashed against the golden disc, which immediately shattered, but not before repelling the vampire. "Argh!" he roared and clutched his face as he stumbled backwards, his nose broken due to force by which he mmed into the disc.


    Meanwhile, Emily blinked in surprise, but quickly realized what happened, and grinned sadistically. "Ha! You failed!" she eximed, and reacted quickly to make the most of the situation.


    ''Considering the current situation, I won''t be able to enve this guy, which means I need to kill him quickly,'' Emily realized, as ten orbs of inky darkness started appearing around her.


    During her time in training, Emily had also managed to increase the number of orbs her first-ranked darkness spell could create, and the power of its corrosion.


    At this point, Emily was an extremely powerful second-ranked Arcanist. She may only have a single spell that she needed to use for both offense and defense, but it was an extremely versatile and powerful one.


    Unfortunately, their current close-quarters meant that even a rtively weaker Runebound vampire could get the upper hand on her if she didn''t dispatch him quickly. Luckily, that was exactly what Arcanist''s excelled in.


    Where Runebounds were masters of endurance and close-quartersbat, Arcanists were rulers of rangedbat and dealing as much damage as possible in as little time as possible.


    Thus, before the vampire fully recovered from his stumble, Emily turned all ten orbs into arrows of darkness and send them hurling towards her raging opponent.


    Still unable to properly defend or dodge, the arrows struck the vampire in several ces on his body and started devouring his flesh. The vampire screamed in pain, and tried to rid himself of the ck sludge clinging to his body to no avail.


    The power difference between him and Emily was simply too big. It wasn''t long before he keeled over.


    With this vampire''s death, Emily sighed in relief and focused on the remaining two uncontrolled enemybatants.


    She could kill them without much issue at this point, since they were being kept busy by her ves, but she wanted them under her control too. She needed overwhelming power to subdue the people inside that bunker and keep them under control.


    She couldn''t simply enve the entire bunker, after all. Her mind could never handle the strain of such an endeavor. Not to mention that they would be less capable of doing what she needed them to do.


    Luckily, Amelia had recovered with Emma''s help, and soon rejoined her fellow ves, skewing the battle more in their favor.


    Unfortunately, Emily''s magic was too destructive to help in subduing their enemies, so she was unable to help them.


    Fortunately, it was different for Emma.


    She couldn''t use her disc to yeet the vampires against the wall again, as that would rm the people inside the bunker, and they didn''t want to do with that yet, but she could use it to defend the ves in the same way she did with Emily earlier. Plus, she could heal them like she did with Amelia.


    And so it was, that no more than fifteen minutester, Frederik and his femalepanion were subdued and forced to the ground by their two formerrades.


    Emma looked happy to be done with the fighting, but also proud of her own aplishments today. She looked proudly at her elder sister, who was about to celebrate with her, but got interrupted by the defeated vampires.


    "Dammit!" Frederik cursed and coughed out some blood. "How have the others not heard us fighting yet?! Themander should havee out by now!"


    "That''s my bad," Emily shrugged casually. "I nted a silencing sigil before you guys arrived here. Had you paid a little more attention you would have noticed it, and easily dismantled it," she chuckled devilishly, waving her hands at the softly glowing lines on the ground.


    Before these vampires got here, Emily had created three sigils. The obfuscation sigil, the lightning chains sigil, and finally, the silencing sigil. It pushed her current knowledge of sigils to the limit, and they were far less powerful than Elora''s, but they did the job just fine.


    Well, mostly.


    "Fucking hell…" the still unnamed female vampire cursed and panted, her face pushed into the cold cavern floor by an enved Hendrik. "Should have figured… Who are you two?! And what did you do to the others?!"


    "There''s no need for either of you to worry about that," Emily grinned domineeringly. "All you have to do is obey, and pray for Liv''s forgiveness when the timees."


    "W— Wait, Liv?! That''s who you''re working for?! But she''s just a ghoul now!" Hendrik eximed.


    But Emily had no interest in continuing the conversation.


    So she ignored any further inquiries from these soon-to-be-ves, and wordlessly sealed their fates with a pitch ck magic circle.


    When it was done, she grabbed her head and groaned a little in pain, "Ugh… it''s a good thing that other guy died… I don''t think I can handle any more ves…"


    A concerned Emma quickly showed up by her side, "Big Em?! Are you alright?!" she asked, anxiously.


    "Yeah, yeah," Emily nodded, but still kept her eyes closed and rubbed her head. "I''m fine, just give me a second. I had far more ves back in London, but they were all first-rankers. Clearly, I can''t have too many ves of my own rank…"


    When the headache subsided, she turned to her sister and smiled brightly, before hugging her tightly, "Anyway, never mind that. We did it, little Em! And you were so amazing! Without you we would have failed!"


    "Hehehehe," Emma chuckled, blushed, and scratched her head. "You''re embarrassing me, big Em! I only helped, none of this would have been possible without you!"


    "Well, then I guess we can both take a little credit," Emily grinned and petted her little sister''s hair. "Now,e one! We need to find thismander and put this base under our control."


    Emma nodded rapidly in response, and dispelled the tangle of roots, branches and nts that had been covering the entrance. The path was now clear, but they weren''t nning on entering the bunker just yet.


    There was one more second-ranker inside. The most important one, in fact. But fighting him inside was a bad idea. First of all, they couldn''t risk this guy warning Sigurd through one of the ghouls, particrly Liv herself, and second of all, if any of the sigils used to control those ghouls got damaged, half their n would go up in smoke.


    So instead, they would lure him outside. And for that, they needed to make some noise.


    Thus, Emily removed the silencing sigil, and ordered Anders and Frederik to start fighting. Loudly.


    Soon, the sounds of fighting echoed across the chamber, and into the bunker.


    It wasn''t long before the inte next to the door began crackling again, and the voice of Lars, Sigurd''s second inmand, and themander of this base, came through. "What the hell is going out there, this time?! Is someone fighting?! I swear, if this is you again, Anders, I''ming out there to teach you a lesson myself!"


    From the moment the new vampires came to relieve Anders and Amelia, only about twenty minutes had passed, so Lars wasn''t too suspicious yet.


    ''Well, that''s convenient,'' Emily chuckled inwardly, before taking possession of Amelia again, and walking up to themunication device.


    "It''s Anders and Frederik, Sir," Emily answered through the inte through Amelia''s body. She used the same t, matter-of-fact tone as before, and had asked Amelia how she usually addressed this man. "I''m not sure what the problem is, to be honest. You might have toe out here…"