I Awakened The Ancient Vampire System

Chapter 162: Chapter 162: Cornering The Beast

Lucian rushed forward.

His Predator Form muscles coiled and exploded with terrifying force, each step cratering the ground beneath his feet. The crimson haze trailed behind him like a wake of blood mist. His claws gleamed obsidian in the dim light.

Hoffman raised his hand, light mana already gathering in his palm — but Lucian was faster.

"Mind Spike."

A lance of pure mental energy slammed into Hoffman’s consciousness. His hand flew to his head. "Argh—!" Pain lanced through his skull, his concentration shattering. The spell he was forming dissipated in a flash of harmless sparks.

Lucian closed the gap in a heartbeat. His clawed hand swept toward Hoffman’s throat — but Hoffman recovered faster than expected. A light barrier materialized between them just as the claws arrived.

KRRRAK!

The barrier shattered like glass beneath Lucian’s claws. Fragments of dissolved light scattered into the air. Hoffman’s eyes widened — his barrier, strong enough to block a Mid Grand Core Realm attack, had been torn apart by physical strength alone from a mid core realm kid.

From the air above, Ryan’s suit’s gauntlet cannons roared to life. A powerful ice blast screamed downward and struck Hoffman directly in the back. The impact cracked his Light Armor with a sharp CRAAAACK. The residue force slammed into his body, sending him stumbling forward.

"Gaaah—!" Hoffman screamed as cold bit through the fractures in his armor. Frost crept across the cracked plates.

Hoffman twisted, teeth bared. Two spears of condensed light materialized in his hands.

Lucian activated Crimson Vessel. His blood circulated at extreme pressure. A faint crimson sheen spread across his skin, hardening his body against incoming attacks.

Hoffman threw both spears simultaneously.

FWIIISH!

The first light spear struck Lucian’s shoulder. The Crimson Vessel resisted — but the sheer density of a Grand Core cultivator’s mana drove the spear through the defense. The tip of condensed light pierced Lucian’s shoulder and launched him backward. He crashed through the wall of a building with a BOOM, disappearing into a cloud of dust and debris.

The second spear streaked toward Ryan.

Ryan tried to dodge. The spear struck his right leg cleanly, punching through the suit’s armor and destroying one of his thrusters in a shower of sparks and hissing steam.

"AGHH—!" Ryan screamed. The suit’s systems flickered. Warning lights blazed across his visor. He immediately froze the injury with his ice mana, sealing the wound and preventing blood loss, but his mobility was halved.

Clara’s eyes blazed silver.

"LUNAR DOMAIN!"

A cold current erupted from her body in all directions. Frost spread across the ground in a thirty-meter radius, turning rubble into glittering ice sculptures. The temperature plummeted so fast that Hoffman’s breath crystallized in front of him. Frost began creeping up his hand, crawling toward his wrist, freezing the light mana in his palm.

Hoffman’s eyes narrowed. He channeled light mana to shatter the ice — but before he could, Rose moved.

She drew her chained dagger. The blade gleamed as she poured Force Amplification into it, the weapon humming with condensed kinetic energy. She whipped the chain forward. The dagger screamed through the air, amplified force trailing behind it like a comet’s tail — aimed directly at Hoffman’s frozen hand.

But Hoffman was a Mid Grand Core cultivator with a century of combat experience. Even with frost crawling up his arm, he reacted on pure instinct.

A burst of light exploded from his body. FWOOOM! The blast shattered the creeping ice, freed his hand, and intercepted the chained dagger simultaneously. The force and light collided in a shower of sparks and dissipated harmlessly.

Hoffman didn’t waste the opening.

He rushed Ryan with blinding speed.

Ryan saw him coming. His suit’s remaining thruster fired, trying to lift him out of reach — but with one thruster destroyed, his ascent was slow.

Hoffman reached him before he could escape. His hand closed around Ryan’s leg with crushing force. The suit’s armor cracked.

CRRRUNCH!

Hoffman squeezed. Ryan’s leg compressed inside the broken armor. Bone snapped. Ryan’s scream tore through the battlefield.

"RYAN!" Clara screamed.

Clara immediately fired a Void Star — a compressed orb of gravity that distorted the air around it. The orb screamed toward Hoffman.

Hoffman yanked Ryan’s body in front of him.

Clara’s silver eyes went wide with horror. Her SS-Rank Gravity Manipulation surged — she redirected the Void Star at the last possible moment. The orb veered sharply upward and detonated against a distant building, collapsing the entire structure in a thunderous craaaash.

Hoffman smirked. "That’s what I thought." He held Ryan up by his broken leg, Ryan’s face twisted in pain. "Now, give up — or I kill him."

BOOM!

Lucian appeared above Hoffman. Light Steps carried him out of the collapsed building in a flash. The wound in his shoulder had already closed — Eternal Regeneration knitting the tissue back together in seconds. He raised his hand toward the sky.

"Light Judgement!"

A sustained beam of concentrated radiance screamed downward from above, aimed directly at Hoffman’s position. The air itself ignited. The beam carved a trench of purified light through the atmosphere.

Hoffman’s head snapped up. His free hand fired a counterblast — a raw torrent of light mana that roared upward to meet Lucian’s attack.

The two beams collided. Then Hoffman’s blast tore through Lucian’s Light Judgement with contemptuous ease. The Grand Core power gap turned the clash into a one-sided affair.

Lucian immediately threw up multiple Light Shields in rapid succession. FWOOOM. The residue of Hoffman’s counterblast slammed into the first shield. It shattered. The second shield cracked and broke. The third held — barely — before dissolving.

The force pushed Lucian backward through the air, but he recovered. He dove toward Hoffman, claws extended, ready to strike.

Hoffman simply hurled Ryan’s body at him.

Ryan crashed into Lucian. The impact sent both of them tumbling across the rubble. Lucian caught Ryan, absorbing the impact with his own body, but the momentum drove them through a wall and into the interior of a collapsed building.

Before Hoffman could press the advantage, Clara struck.

"Gravity Blast!"

A concentrated sphere of distorted gravity detonated against Hoffman’s chest. BOOM! The impact launched him backward. He crashed through two standing walls, each one collapsing behind him in a cascade of brick and dust. His Light Armor cracked further — spider-web fractures spreading across his torso.

Meanwhile, inside the collapsed building, Lucian set Ryan down gently. His feral crimson eyes scanned Ryan’s injuries.

"Are you okay?" Lucian’s voice came out deep, rough, slightly distorted by the Predator Form’s influence.

Ryan grimaced through the pain. "I’m okay. Just... get that bastard."

Lucian tossed him a healing pill from his Shadow Storage. Ryan caught it with trembling fingers and swallowed it immediately. The pill’s energy began slowly knitting his bone back together.

Lucian stored Aethon into his Shadow Storage. His claws couldn’t grip the sword properly in Predator Form anyway. He flexed his clawed fingers and turned toward the gap in the wall where Hoffman had crashed.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

Predator Form Timer: 3:00 remaining.

Three minutes. His window was closing.

He activated Primordial Sight and launched towards Hoffman.

Through the dust and debris, Hoffman rose from the rubble. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead. His Light Armor was fractured across the chest, shoulders, and arms.

Hoffman chanted. A dense layer of light mana coated his entire body — a powerful reinforcement spell that boosted his speed, defense, and strength simultaneously. The armor’s cracks sealed partially. His aura intensified.

He launched forward.

The two collided in the center of the ruined street.

BOOM!

The impact cratered the ground beneath both of them. Hoffman’s reinforced light blade met Lucian’s claws. Sparks exploded — golden light against obsidian darkness. The shockwave flattened every standing structure within thirty meters.

Clara, Rose, and Ryan moved to support from the flanks.

Clara fired lunar ice spears from the left — crystalline shafts of Lunar energy that screamed through the air. Rose hurled Force blasts — concentrated waves of kinetic energy designed to cut off Hoffman’s escape routes.

Hoffman moved through the crossfire like a dancer. He shattered Rose’s Force blasts with casual light blasts. KRRRAK. He deflected Clara’s spears with sweeps of his blade. TING-TING-TING.

But every evasion created an opening.

Lucian exploited every single one. Primordial Sight tracked Hoffman’s mana flow, his muscle movements, his shifting center of gravity — predicting his position a fraction of a second before he arrived.

Hoffman dodged Clara’s spear — Lucian was already at his flank. SCHLIKT. Claws raked across his thigh. Blood sprayed.

Hoffman parried Ryan’s cannon blast — Lucian appeared behind him. SHLIKT. Claws tore through his back. Three parallel gashes opened across his Light Armor.

Hoffman raised his blade to counter — Lucian materialized above him. A downward stab with a clawed hand aimed at Hoffman’s skull. Hoffman caught Lucian’s wrist with both hands on his light blade, barely blocking. The impact drove his knees into the ground. CRAAACK.

Blood Manipulation surged. Lucian pulled blood from the wounds he’d already inflicted on Hoffman — the gashes on his thigh, his back, his chest. The blood twisted in midair, forming thin crimson needles that launched themselves at Hoffman’s face.

Hoffman released one hand from the blade block and fired a light blast to destroy the needles. FWOOOM. Most shattered. Two got through — one grazed his cheek, another buried itself in his shoulder. He grunted in pain.

The exchange was relentless. CLANG. SCHLIKT. CRAAACK. Each clash sent sparks and debris flying. The ground beneath them fractured and re-fractured, a web of craters within craters.

Hoffman’s light blade cracked further with every parry. The fractures spread from the center of the blade outward, golden light flickering through the breaks.

Clara, Rose, and Ryan could barely follow the fight anymore. The speed between Lucian and Hoffman had escalated beyond what Core Realm fighters could track. They saw flashes — silver and crimson, gold and white — explosions of debris, shockwaves of energy — but they could no longer intervene. The battlefield belonged to two fighters moving at a level they couldn’t touch.

Hoffman realized he was being cornered.

Lucian’s physical strength in Predator Form rivaled a B-Rank beast. Every strike pushed Hoffman backward. His Light Armor was disintegrating — pieces falling away with each exchange, revealing the bloodstained clothing beneath. His light blade was barely holding together.

He needed a decisive strike.

He waited for Lucian’s next attack. Lucian appeared at his flank — claws sweeping toward his ribs. Hoffman didn’t block. He took the hit.

SCHLIKT!

Lucian’s claws tore through Hoffman’s remaining Light Armor on his left side and raked across his ribs. Blood sprayed. Hoffman grunted through gritted teeth — but his other hand was already moving.

His light blade, cracked and flickering, drove forward in a straight thrust.

SHLIKT!

The broken blade pierced Lucian’s abdomen. The remaining energy in the weapon discharged on impact. Light erupted inside the wound. Lucian’s eyes went wide. Blood erupted from his mouth.

"Urghk—!"

His body jerked. The blade had gone deep. Light mana burned inside the wound, fighting his regeneration, preventing immediate healing.

Hoffman’s lips curled into a bloody smile. "Finally got you."

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