The Extra's Rise-Chapter 468: Vampire Elder (1)

Striking first was always better than waiting to be attacked.

As such, when the rumbling began, I attacked first instead of waiting.

My blade flashed forward in a perfect arc, aiming for the vampire elder mid-descent. But Elder Lazarus twisted in the air with impossible grace, evading my strike entirely. For all my training, the gap between us was clear—a wounded academy student against an Ascendant-rank vampire wasn’t a fair fight by any measure.

"Arthur!" Lucifer shouted, already moving to intercept Bishop Vale, who had floated down on currents of dark miasma. "The others—"

The chamber shuddered violently, ancient dust raining from the ceiling. A deafening crack split the air as the floor beneath us began to fracture, the stone groaning under centuries of pressure suddenly released.

"Go!" I called to Rachel and the rest, gesturing toward the hidden passage Deia had discovered. "We’ll hold them!"

Confusion erupted as everyone tried to move at once. The priests lunged toward our retreating friends while Vale and the vampire elder focused on Lucifer and me. The rapidly deteriorating floor complicated everything, forcing all of us to constantly readjust our footing.

"This way!" Seraphina called from the passage entrance, trying to organize an orderly retreat.

The vampire elder moved—faster than most eyes could track—but I was ready. Not because I could match his speed, but because I’d spent time training to fight enemies stronger and faster than myself under Art. My blade met his clawed hand in a shower of sparks, the impact sending tremors up my already weakened arm.

Beside me, Lucifer engaged Bishop Vale, golden light from his blade illuminating the ancient chamber in flashes as they exchanged blows. The miasma surrounding Vale pulsed with malevolent energy, each tendril seeking to corrupt whatever it touched.

Another violent tremor rocked the chamber. A massive crack raced across the floor, separating us from the others. Rachel reached out across the widening gap, her expression desperate.

"Arthur! Lucifer!"

"Keep going!" Lucifer shouted back, barely deflecting one of Vale’s attacks. "We’ll find another way!"

The last thing I saw before the floor gave way completely was Cecilia physically dragging Rachel toward the passage, determination etched on her face. Then everything tilted sideways as the section of floor beneath Lucifer and me collapsed entirely.

We fell, along with Elder Lazarus and Bishop Vale, into the darkness below. The vampire elder’s eyes gleamed with predatory interest as we plummeted into yet another hidden chamber beneath the Palace.

"The boy has teeth," he purred as we landed hard on ancient stone. "How delightful."

Lucifer and I exchanged a glance. It was short, sharp, and said everything that needed saying without the need for words.

Keep it solo. No tag-teaming. No messy two-on-twos. Just us, one each, and may the gods be slightly less cruel than usual.

Made sense. If the Elder and Bishop Vale were paired up, then they probably had years of tight synchronisation backing them. Like a deadly rhythm section. Lucifer and I? Well, we were more of a jazz duet—talented, yes, but just liable to hit each other with friendly fire as hit the enemy.

And the stakes weren’t exactly small.

They were Ascendant-rank. Lazarus, the Elder, at mid. Vale, a step behind him.

Lucifer and I? High Integration. Strong, yes. But in the food chain of power, we were still very much the sort of thing that got eaten by the kind of beings who didn’t chew.

’Arthur.’

Luna’s voice returned in my head like a gentle pulse, slipping back into my thoughts after the haze Alyssara had left behind.

’You can beat him.’

I wanted to laugh. Not the funny kind. The sort you do when the stress piles up just high enough that it knocks your common sense over like a badly balanced tower of chairs.

Because Lazarus—the Elder—was stronger than Bishop Vale. And Bishop Vale had beaten me even when he was exhausted and I was half-possessed, semi-buffed, and fully desperate.

And yet—

No.

No, this wasn’t the same.

I wasn’t the same.

My fingers tightened around the hilt. My breath slowed.

Then, I lit it all up.

Lucent Harmony.

Soul Resonance.

Mythic Body. Soul Vision.

Seraphim’s Embrace. Erebus’s Crimson Bone Armour.

Wings of Seraphim.

Each ability slotted into place like parts of a machine powering up. Light and darkness surged around me, divided cleanly by a membrane of space-enhanced aura—my own version of caution tape. Keep the Purelight and Deepdark apart, or I’d end up nuking myself before the fight even started.

And then I moved.

I blurred forward, sword in hand, streaking toward Lazarus with a trail of wind and lightning crackling behind me. The hum of my aura fractured the air.

Lazarus didn’t flinch. He just raised his hand—coated in night-drenched astral energy—and met my blade.

It bounced off like I’d hit a wall of solid myth.

But I didn’t stop.

My wings twisted, caught me, rebalanced me mid-air.

Momentum intact.

I flowed into movement. Tempest Dance Technique, brought to life through instinct more than thought. My feet barely touched the ground before I spun back in, blade flickering.

Lazarus responded with a lazy wave, and lances of blood bloomed around him like flowers that wanted to murder me.

Luna appeared beside me, chibi-sized and glowing, her tiny hands conjuring a shield of Purelight. It caught most of the blood lances. The ones it didn’t, I shattered mid-swing.

Momentum built.

Tempest Dance wasn’t just footwork anymore. I’d taken it beyond.

With my current mastery, I could layer it. Blend it. Fold in other techniques like a chef on a deadline.

So I did.

Arthur’s original sword art—the one he taught me years ago. The one that wasn’t flashy or legendary, but was sharp. Honest. True.

My sword became two. Then four. Then ten.

Then twenty.

Then a hundred.

Blades fell like hail in a thunderstorm, each strike trailing aura sharpened by the combined influence of Purelight and Deepdark. Lazarus’s crimson eyes narrowed, and I caught a flicker of surprise.

I kept going.

Thrust into slash.

Slash into downward arc.

Downward into upward sweep.

No pause. No hesitation.

A stream became a waterfall.

The waterfall swelled into a river.

The river roared into the sea.

The sea spread, deep and unrelenting, until it swallowed the edges of what I could feel.

And finally, I crossed that invisible threshold. The moment when instinct and intention merged and the blade stopped being something I held.

It became me.

The ocean surged.

The sword in my hand wasn’t a weapon anymore. It was motion. It was sound. It was a pressure system wrapped in steel.

At the height of it—my Grade 5 sword art, pushed to its brink—I crashed down on Lazarus again.

Strike after strike rained onto his hands.

His night-forged astral energy strained.

And, slowly, it began to crack.

I felt it—not just saw it, felt it—Lazarus starting to lose ground. Not by much. Not a dramatic stumble or anything, but there was pressure now. My sword was no longer just being blocked; it was pushing him, carving out a margin, forcing him back inch by inch like a glacier wearing down stone.

His eyes narrowed. The calm cracked.

Then came the light.

It wasn’t blinding—just sharp enough to snap everything into clarity. A flicker, not a flare. But enough to mean one thing: he was done holding back.

Clang!

The sound rang out like someone had smacked the universe with a tuning fork. My blade jolted to a halt in mid-air, not because I’d stopped swinging, but because something else stopped it.

A grin slipped onto my face before I could help it.

"So," I said, "you’re finally done playing dress-up."

He didn’t reply, but he didn’t need to. His flushed face and twitching jaw said it for him. Anger. And beneath it, frustration—like he’d just realised he couldn’t keep fencing with shadows and expect to win.

The thing in his hand wasn’t just a weapon. It was a statement.

A navy blue spear, gleaming with a sheen that wasn’t quite metallic, wasn’t quite ethereal, but sat somewhere in between like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to exist in one reality or several. Night-wrapped astral energy pulsed along its shaft and shimmered off the tip like heat haze.

Then it started to beat.