FAMILY ABOVE ALL: BATTLING AGAINST GODS

'I can't continue like this...' Lord Cromwell concluded as the distance between him and Evangeline increased, contrary to what he wished to accomplish. What infuriated him the most was the serene look in Evangeline's eyes as if she wasn't doing much.

Gritting his teeth, and fueled by his anger, Lord Cromwell stomped on the ground and launched forward with all his might. He didn't bother trying to move away from the arrow's path as he could tell they were being controlled by his attacker's spiritual energy.

With his pure strength, his body cut a path in the rain of arrows, and in just two breaths, he bridged the gap between them. He pulled his arms apart and launched his first attack, his fist thrown in a punch.

The sound barrier was easily shattered by his fist, and as if it had smashed space itself, his fist arrived before Evangeline's face.

Well, it should have arrived before her face.

Unlike Arlo's attack which was restrained within a limited area to create beams of compressed air, a massive air cannon shot out from Lord Cromwell's fist, pulverizing what remained of the auditorium, and continuing unrestrained. Several buildings fell, and before he knew it, a path several kilometers wide was formed before him, all the previous buildings standing in its way obliterated. The sound of explosions still resounded from far ahead from his attack, but Lord Cromwell ignored it...

'Where?'

'Where is she?'

He couldn't catch sight of Evangeline, but a split second later, the sound of sliced air came from above him.

'Up!" Lord Cromwell quickly raised his head at the same time he raised his hands to protect himself from the arriving attack.

'No!" his eyes widened when he didn't see the person he was expecting above him. Instead, he saw a bow held by a hand made from pure darkness, with another dark hand shooting an arrow from it.

Lord Cromwell's quickly raised defense protected him from the attack, but he wasn't happy...

That was because he could hear something moving below him...

'Damn it!'

A foot slammed into his lower jaw sending him flying up, but the two dark hands above him had already dismissed the bow and arrows in their grasp to attack him. Before he could even fly high, he was knocked back to the ground...

Lord Cromwell felt so angry...but he couldn't do anything.

His eyes widened when he saw several dark hands appear beside him and with fluid yet fast movement of an expert martial artist, they all attacked him.

'She can control all these dark hands? What a monster...' Evangeline's clan was supposed to be the weakest among the nine, as their ability were more oriented towards intelligence, high analytical, and thought processes. In other words, they could do several things at the same time, as if their minds were split into many pieces, each able to perform different tasks. While that sounded powerful and resourceful, the truth of the matter was that it didn't directly boost their combat strength, unlike other clans who could raise their strength, speed, and defense by several folds not to mention transform into swarms of bats that could independently launch attacks or even turn into a dark fog that could ignore all physical attacks.

It was for this reason that Evangeline had been looked down on despite being one of the three only figures with a god-tier talent in the entire vampire race.

But she has proven them wrong...

Dedicating her entire life to learning myriads of martial arts and mastering countless weapons, Evangeline turned out to be a pure monster in combat...

Evangeline appeared before him, also launching her own devastating attacks.

Left with no choice, Lord Cromwell ignored the several dark hands and focused all his attacks on Evangeline alone.

As if knowing that she couldn't compete with him in pure force, Evangeline twisted her body at unnatural angles and dodged all his attacks. It was as if she could already tell where his attacks would come from even before he executed them, and with short but quick movements, evaded all of them. And every time he thought he had caught her, she would twist her body as if they didn't contain any bone, and escape unscathed. Even though he was holding back his strength, the force from his missed attacks had already long decimated the surroundings. Thankfully, Lord Hayes had already taken the students to the sky, away from the devastating fight.

Lord Cromwell on the other hand was already covered in blood. The twelve dark hands surrounding him attacked relentlessly and while they didn't possess monstrous strength compared to their owner, the force behind their attacks couldn't be neglected either. Some of the hands hit him at the back of his head making him stagger forward, and giving Evangeline a chance to land an attack from the front.

She remained impassive and didn't seem to have broken a sweat, an amused smile dancing on her lips.

"Eh....is this all you can do Lord Cromwell!"

Peeved by her sudden remark, Lord Cromwell finally succumbed to his fury and roared atop his lungs:

"These are but mere tricks!"

'Before overwhelming power, they are all but useless.' he said the second sentence in his mind instead of voicing them, after all, he was the one on the losing end.

Fed up with the current flow of the battle, Lord Cromwell decided to finally go all out. He had been suppressing himself so as not to cause too much damage or hurt the students but now he didn't care any longer.

'Curse you, Hayes!' he felt stifled about why his friend continued to watch without interfering, and more angry that he hadn't even dismissed the students.

Was it fun watching him get beaten?

Dodging Evangeline's quick attacks, Lord Cromwell jumped back in time to escape from the barrage of attacks from the dark hands.

"Die!" He roared with red eyes, his will chaotically spreading out.

Lord Hayes's expression changed abruptly, and without any hesitation, he took the students away from the battlefield as they flew across the sky. Only Stefan remained in the sky with Arlo, Arianne, Ella, and Joe who had been zapped awake by the werewolf princess.

"We should go to. It's getting dangerous." Stefan voiced out.

But a succinct reply soon answered him.

"No."

Gazing at Arlo, a displeased look appeared on his face. He was already feeling conflicted about Arlo's previous actions and now his emotions were starting to lean towards the negative side.

"Brother..." Arianne grabbed him by the side, as she shook her head pleadingly.

Taking a deep breath, Stefan controlled his emotions and moved to the front of the group to protect them from stray attacks and the shockwaves of the terrifying fight below them.

Arlo ignored them. The only person in his sight at this moment was Evangeline.

.....

"Die!" Lord Cromwell roared out, his voice filled with anger, humiliation, and distraught.

As if responding to his will, the sky suddenly darkened. The black clouds rolled chaotically and soon after something massive seemed to move within them.

A monstrous hand, similar to Lord Cromwell's, soon pierced the sky, before covering an area of almost fifty kilometers, rendering Stefan speechless on how he was supposed to defend such an attack. The sky above him and behind him was covered by the dark inhuman hand, and it seemed like there was no area to escape to. In fact, Stefan doubted if the students Lord Hayes had quickly taken away would be safe too.

Is he trying to get us killed??

On the ground, Lord Cromwell's expression distorted as he glared at the unmoving Evangeline who had her head raised to the sky.

He suddenly felt a chill run down his back when he saw Evangeline lower her head and look at him. Her previous serene eyes were now boiling in anger, her face cold to the point of chilling.

How could Evangeline not tell that Arlo and the others were still behind her?

"You.are.courting.death." Her words were called one by one, her voice filled with murderous intent.

Before Lord Cromwell could react, Evangeline's will spread out, making it feel as if a mountain was pressing on his shoulders.

However, Lord Cromwell didn't care about the crushing force acting on him...

Instead, his mouth uncontrollably fell open when he saw the sight before him.

'Are you kidding me?'

Countless weapons emerged from Evangeline's spatial ring. It seemed the young girl had only filled her storage ring with weapons, but that wasn't what shocked Lord Cromwell.

As Evangeline's will continued to spread out, dark hands formed around her and before he knew it they blotted the sky, blocking his will attack from view.

There were hundreds...

Then thousands...

Then tens of thousands...

Tens of hundreds of thousands...

Before he knew it, a million dark hands covered a region of almost 80 kilometers, far surpassing his own field. The entire academy was covered in darkness.

The hands moved and with fluid movement, caught hold of the weapons that flew into the sky.

A million hands holding a weapon, ranging from swords to daggers, spears, maces, nunchakus, sabers, and many more.

His lips dry, Lord Cromwell's throat bobbed up and down.

"Wait..."

As if having the opposite effect, the countless dark hands moved, all falling in his direction.

Lord Cromwell belatedly realized that before his attack fell, he would be long dead from the charge of the million dark hands. What further surprised him was that the dark hands moved orderly, without colliding against one another, as if they were being controlled.

'Is she able to control all these hands? Mental...'

Even in the face of death, he couldn't help but marvel at his opponent's talent.

*Tap!* *Tap!* *Tap!* *Tap!*

The sound of metal colliding against the ground rang out and soon after a deep voice followed.

"Enough!"

Seeing the newcomer, Lord Cromwell couldn't help but sigh in relief.

Headmaster Holden appeared between the duo and commanded, his voice grave.

However, he was soon surprised to see that a million hands were still charging forth.

Furrowing his brows, Headmaster Holden's will surged forth.

A massive bat wing appeared before his right, connecting the sky to the ground and blocking the rain of dark hands.

Before the attack reached, the wing's flesh was soon covered by dark scale-like armor, adding more to its formidability and durability.

A million hands soon fell, but Headmaster Holden's face remained indifferent.

Until...

A shower of blood fell from the sky.

AN: I would like to hear your thoughts on the novel so far. Thanks to all those who are following the novel.