Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 257: Frozen Howl
"They’re—what?!"
Davina exclaimed, her head snapping up at the golems that landed in Jamie’s direction, their focus seemingly fixed on him as he stood at the base of a tall tree, preparing to climb.
"The heck?"
Jamie muttered, raising a brow at the unexpected attention, but the golems gave no explanations as they swung their massive limbs at him while the elves’ arrows whistled through the air, aimed at the rest of the group to keep them at bay.
Jamie teleported to another tree to avoid the golems, but no sooner had his feet touched the snowy ground than the earth beneath him cracked open. A massive golem arm erupted from below, attempting to crush him.
Unfortunately for the golem, its attack passed harmlessly through Jamie as though he were a phantom.
Jamie teleported once more, but despite his evasive manoeuvres, the golems relentlessly pursued him, their single-minded determination making them oblivious to anything else.
’Maybe I shouldn’t have erased that assassin from existence before...’
It was clear that the elves had information about his previous actions and they were seeing him as the biggest threat here.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group was locked in combat with the elven warriors. Arrows rained down from the archers, while melee fighters clashed with blades and magic, keeping the adventurers too occupied to intervene.
Jamie saw this from a distance, sighing as the golems continued to focus on him.
"Well, this certainly kills the fun."
There was a hint of exasperation in his tone as he raised his left hand and mimed a finger gun. Without activating his Triad Gun skill, he shot a bullet of concentrated spatial energy.
The azure blue projectile tore through the air, striking one of the golems in the chest and ripped through it.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the point of contact as the bullet tore through the golem’s core, causing it to collapse into a heap of glittering ice.
But the bullet didn’t stop.
Mid-flight, it curved sharply, defying the laws of motion. It streaked through the chest of the second golem, blasting its core to smithereens before arcing again, carving a path through each remaining golem.
The constructs crumbled one by one, collapsing in bursts of snow and ice, reduced to inert rubble.
The bullet continued its deadly trajectory, spiralling upward before plummeting toward the backline.
It pierced through the line of elven archers, before streaking into the mages behind them. The spatial energy detonated among their ranks with a small explosion, flinging frost-clad bodies backwards and silencing their chants.
Naturally, the others noticed this explosion, and the three Vampires instantly turned in Jamie’s direction, catching sight of the suit-clad man casually climbing a tree.
He balanced himself on a branch and turned to them, his head tilted in confusion as he asked.
"Why’re you looking at me? Your enemies aren’t all dead, you know?"
His words snapped them all back into focus and they charged at the dumbfounded elven warriors, synchronising their attacks to effortlessly handle the remaining elves.
"4/10. You got distracted mid-battle."
Jamie called out his score from the tree, his legs crossed atop another branch as he began watching a shoujo drama on his phone.
Granted, his sudden intervention had caused the distraction, but in a more dangerous scenario, lapses like that could prove fatal. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
Below, Wanette’s gaze flickered briefly toward Jamie before she turned and made her way across the clearing toward the fallen elves.
Naturally, she drew attention, and the others immediately tried to caution her.
"Careful! There might still be more—"
Wanette acted like she didn’t hear them, heading towards the corpses.
Unlike the rest, Wanette hadn’t engaged with any melee combatants, which was why she’d noticed something unusual about the mages Jamie had killed.
’It doesn’t add up. He used spatial magic, and the explosion shredded every elf mage’s body into pieces.’
Her eyes drifted to the corpse in front of her—the only intact one among the shattered remains.
’But this one... this one wasn’t torn apart. Why?’
Wanette did not believe that this Epic Realm Ice elf was strong enough to withstand Jamie’s spatial power.
That left only one possibility.
’Selective Destruction. He purposely didn’t shred this one’s body...’
Just as she thought this, David and Davina caught up to her and asked what was wrong and she hesitated to answer.
How could she explain her suspicions when she didn’t fully understand them herself?
"Hold on..."
She opened her grimoire and flipped through it, searching for a particular spell. It took her nearly a minute to find it, and by that time, the rest of the group had gathered around her, curious about her actions.
Eryan opened his mouth to make a quip, but Davina cut him off with a glare sharp enough to freeze even the snow around them.
Wisely, Eryan stayed quiet, lest Davina behead him faster than his brain could compute, allowing Wanette the silence she needed.
She found the spell she was after and used it to scan the corpse in front of her. When she saw the results, her brow furrowed.
Without hesitation, she flipped the body of the elf over and ripped apart its robe, revealing an intricate magic circle carved into its back.
"Control Magic!"
"What?"
David let out a confused sound when he heard Wanette’s words.
"These ice elves were being controlled by someone else."
Just as she made this revelation, Jamie’s voice rang out from behind them.
"7/10."
They spun around, startled to find him standing right behind them. Unlike the three vampires, the rest of the group was visibly shaken as none of them had sensed him move, despite being alert for any more elves.
Before anyone could voice a question, the wind picked up suddenly and the distant sound of a horn echoed through the frozen landscape.
"...that’s not good."
David spoke as he summoned his spear again and Davina drew her sword, filling it with lightning as she responded.
"No kidding."
Seeing the two of them prepping for a fight, Jamie chuckled and spoke.
"I’m not gonna do anything still, but I’d give you advice. Don’t fight, just run."
With those words, Jamie disappeared, leaving the dumfounded twins who snapped their heads in the direction of the approaching presences.
Eryan frowned at Jamie’s words, drawing his sword instead of listening, showing his clear intent to fight.
It was then that a loud howl echoed across the land.
That one howl was followed by dozens of other howls, each set coming in twos.
Hearing those howls, Wanette’s eyes widened and she plastered a rune on her eyes to boost her vision, allowing her to see what was coming from afar, and the sight shocked her.
"Guys, we have to run."
"What do you mean r-!" **BA-BAAMM!
Eryan didn’t get to finish his sentence as Wanette didn’t have time for his bullshit. Her fists shot out in rapid succession, one to his chest, the other to his stomach. His eyes rolled back, and he crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut.
She hurled his unconscious body to one of his teammates and spoke again, this time, her words left no room for argument.
"We run. NOW!"
David and Davina didn’t need to be told a third time.
They unsummoned their weapons and turned tail, heading in the opposite direction from where Wanette was looking and the other adventurers, the majority of which had come to trust the Vampire trio more than their own leader didn’t hesitate to follow.
As they dashed through the snowy forest, one of them peeked over his shoulder to see exactly what was after them and the sight nearly made him trip.
The area behind them had been covered by a thick icy mist, and from the mist emerged two massive creatures.
Giant wolves, they were—each the size of a small house.
Their snow-white fur contrasted sharply with their shadowed claws and their glowing eyes locked onto the group.
Once again, the pair of wolves howled, and as if on cue, six more pairs emerged from the mist and joined the chase.
These were a rare breed of Ice Wolves that hunted in pairs and the more pairs were gathered under a leading pair, the stronger they became.
The frozen forest became a blur of white and shadow as the group sprinted for their lives. The howls of the Ice Wolves echoing behind them forced them to run as fast as they could, their breaths misting in the frigid air.
