Roswald found himself in a difficult position. He didn’t know what to do, and the issue of the situation felt heavy on his shoulders. The thought of gathering a group to fight the dragon seemed like the most logical course of action. After all, it wasn’t something he could face alone.

  Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that leaving me behind, especially now, would be a pretty cowardly act. It wasn’t just about strategy; or about loyalty and courage. For the first time in a long while, Roswald felt truly in a bind, torn between his sense of duty to protect his people and help someone that helped him.

  “I don’t need your help. You can leave.”

  “... As much as I want to, I need to make sure that if you have a chance to escape, you will. I was the one who brought you here, after all.”

  “Try to not get too sentimental.”

  I left Glacien and Alissandra at the entrance of the labyrinth. If I manage to kill the beast, they will be able to get their new classes, too. Roswald followed me, even though he wasn’t sure of what he could do.

  Before long, I took five giant bolts made of bones and then filled their interior with my blood. I had to drop a lot of it, so it didn’t take long for me to feel dizzy.

  ‘Grumble.’

  I thought that this was just my imagination making me think that I was too hungry thanks to using a lot of my blood, but soon Roswald looked at me with suspicion in his eyes.

  “... Have you done something like this before?”

  “Nope. I never fought something like this… I fought bigger things, but I didn’t win in the end.”

  “What are you planning to do with those things?”

  “Wait and see.”

  “How can I help you if you don’t tell me of your plans?”

  “You had your chances to show your skill, but you avoided that until the very end, so I can’t count on you.”

  The giant bolts could be used as arrows, so I aligned them in front of me. Given how much blood I had used, even a minor bleeding would knock me down, so I couldn’t mess up. I used Poison Tipped Bolt and then they began to emit that dark glow. I sighed and then began to focus, since the beast shouldn’t take too long to come.

  I touched each one of the bolts and then used the enchantments that would decrease the defenses of the Frost Wyvern further. Thanks to my focus, the enchantments at the expert rank. It was enough to decrease the endurance of the target by 160 for a full minute.

  I checked my belt and confirmed that everything was in position… if the worst comes to the worst, I will become food for the Frost Wyvern, but that my body should give the creature the worst stomach ache from its life, so I didn’t have to worry about everyone else, if I feel that this won’t be enough, I can use my last resort.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t want to die yet…’

  The tremors got stronger, shaking the labyrinth to its core. Cracks spread across the ceiling, and large chunks of stone and ice began to crash down around us. My heart pounded in my chest as I dodged a falling slab…

  For a brief second, I froze, staring at the chaos unfolding. It hit me like a cold wave. I wanted to live. Truly, deeply, desperately, I wanted to survive this. I had been taking some insane risks, bleeding myself dry and pushing past every limit, but now, as death loomed closer than ever, the raw desire to keep going passed through me.

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  Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was selfish. But even here, I couldn’t let go of the thought that there was still so much left for me to do. That wasn’t without its cost, though. I knew what I had prepared, the contingencies I had set in place. And if it came to it—if survival meant choosing between two evils, I might have to take the worst of them. The idea made me shiver… maybe I couldn’t any longer negate my nature…

  Roswald grabbed his knives and then assumed his fighting stance while looking at the beast charging at us. Even now he couldn’t believe that he was standing still while the final guardian of a demonic tier labyrinth was charging at him.

  “Hey, Regulus!”

  “Savage Shot will be more effective the closer the target is. Aside from that…”

  My vision started to get red, and then I activated my other skills. I felt my muscles starting to be ripped apart, but I endured the pain and kept activating the skills until the beast was ten meters away from me. This time, the monster didn’t open its mouth since it learned its lesson… it just charged, but I wasn’t going to do the same trick again.

  I shot the first bolt in the middle of the forehead of the monster… the first bolt hit and pierced through the scales in the monster’s forehead and even pierced the flesh a bit, making the monster slow down thanks to the impact. The bolt was destroyed thanks to the impact, but that only made things easier for me since I could aim for the same spot once again.

  I was blasted while keeping my shooting stance, Roswald began to dash with Shadow Step as well, but soon he looked over his shoulder and saw the giant monster enraged charging once again… blood was falling on its face, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

  I fired the next arrows in a quick succession and soon the forehead of the monster began to crack, but soon the shadows on the wings spread to the forehead to give the beast some extra defense.

  ‘Fucking Wraith…’

  The dual antidefense effects weren’t working enough to deal with the monster, now it was even more impossible. Still, that didn’t stop me from unleashing the final arrows on the same spot. The sound of bones cracking soon echoed as the bolts fell apart, but soon it was my turn when the beast finally reached me.

  Everything got dark for a moment as I felt my body being crushed by something giant… the pain was what woke me up and soon I saw one of the eyes of the beast staring at me, filled with rage. Before long, the Frost Wyvern tried to crush me against the ceiling by raising its head, but I used my arms to move down the face of the monster and avoid that.

  Soon, the beast tried to reverse and then tried to smash me against the ground, but I climbed the face of the monster. When I tried to use my legs, I felt a sharp pain coming from below… they were out of commission.

  I looked over my shoulder and then saw Roswald running for his life wondering if I would have the chance to escape and if he would have the chance to do anything to help… the monster kept charging, so if he was planning to do something, he would have to take some risks.

  I wasn’t planning to take any more risks… but then I could see the blood of the dragon spreading around and even falling on my face. I didn’t even have to use Blood Siphon. Just a single movement and I would be able to recover a lot to be able to fight again… using my mouth would be even more effective. Who knows what would happen when a vampire drinks the blood of a dragon?

  Still, I knew that once I did that, I could no longer stop… I choose the harder path instead.

  Before the monster had the chance to try to smash me against the ceiling again, I used my arm’s strength to propel myself forward the forehead of the monster. My impulse and the movement of the monster almost made me reach the back of the monster, but at the last moment, I put my hand on the wound of the monster.

  “This will hurt me too, so don’t feel too bad.”

  My arm pierced the wound as deeply as it could and then I used Crimson Burst… from all the spores in my body, blood flew in all directions like needles. My vision went dark, but soon I felt the beast suddenly stop moving. A direct attack like that made a lot of my blood enter the wound of the beast… its pure flesh began to suffer the effects of my blood, before I could faint, I used the skill again and then this time, I was knocked out for good.

  … …

  When Roswald realized what was going on, he stopped moving and then turned around. He saw Regulus collapsing with his back on the icy floor like a stringless puppet. At the same time, Frost Wyvern began to shake its head up and down from one side to the other… its face was practically melting for some reason and that made the beast feel terrible pain.

  Roswald used that chance to use Shadow Step and then grab Regulus and put him on his shoulder, but before he could escape, he furrowed his eyebrows when he saw the blood of the dragon almost being pulled by Regulus’ body.

  ‘Is this his magic doing this? But I never heard of vampires being able to do this while they are unconscious.’

  The Frost Wyvern kept thrashing around violently, so Roswald decided to leave and not take any chances. Once he put a good distance between them and the Frost Wyvern, he stopped to check Regulus’ condition. Much to his surprise, despite suffering a direct attack, he only had a few broken ribs and his legs were broken as well, but his skin was pretty dry and pale after using his blood that much.