FAMILY ABOVE ALL: BATTLING AGAINST GODS

The once great and mighty capital city of the northern continent was now a place of ruin. As rivers of blood flowed unrestrained on the ground, the sounds of vampires clashing with undead permeated the area.

No matter what, the vampires were a superior race, and even the feared undead in a normal situation would have no chance against them. But what about a situation where millions of undead suddenly besieged the vampires, outnumbering them thousands of times? Not to mention if they were further caught off-guard?

The vampires simply stood no chance.

Heads rolled on the ground with every swing of the mighty swords wielded by the Skeleton Knights. Covered in mysterious black armor releasing an aura of death, with their eye sockets radiating wisps of crimson lights, the Skeleton Knights charged towards more formidable vampires, assisted by spells by Skeleton mages, and a barrage of arrows by Skeleton archers.

Quickly, the thousands of vampires in Nightingale diminished to a measly hundred, while the number of undead barely decreased, as they raised more skeletons into their ranks from the fallen corpses.

And at the center of such a losing battle was King Nathan kneeling in front of a grotesque behemoth, standing hundreds of meters high, with only an eye on its head.

The Behemoth, Greed, raised its right hand, sending it down as if trying to swat an ant. King Nathan stared at death approaching with an unconcerned look on his face. Some might think that he was already resigned to death if they couldn't see the angry glints flashing within his eyes.

Watching his people killed before him filled King Nathan's heart with anger. He had lost three Counts, three mighty pillars of their race in but a moment of carelessness. Having seen that the Counts who were among the strongest in their race stood no chance against this Abomination, he had sent the last Count with him to deal with the army of undead, to whittle down their numbers. But who would have thought that the spread-out undead killing unrestrainedly would suddenly concentrate all their efforts on the Count?

Besieged by tens of millions of Undead, even the peak Orange-core Count didn't last a minute before succumbing to death. Each Undead was as powerful as a peak Red-core powerhouse after all. What was the concept of millions of Undead with the cultivation of the Red-core realm and above?

King Nathan doubted such a force was wielded by a single power in the universe, further reminding him of how terrifying the Lord of Corruption was. Even in his absence, just a part of his forces was enough to send a mighty race like the vampires into a state of despair.

As these thoughts passed through his mind, and as Greed's arm fell like a guillotine, King Nathan thought about his master who had accepted him despite the protectors and the noble vampire's refusal...

He thought about his wife, whom he had grown up with and had wished to share the rest of his eternal life with...

He thought about his son whom he had unknowingly passed a horrible fate of being shunned by their race to...

He thought about his daughter who filled his heart with pride, another Vampire Progenitor in the making, no less than Scarlett...

'I am sorry. But it seems I will leave first.' The sides of his mouth curved slightly upward into a rueful smile, as Greed's hand smashed into him.

However...

A figure suddenly flashed beside him before the moment of impact, two massive fleshy wings folded gracefully above him to shield him from death's claw.

BAM!

RUMBLE!

Greed's massive hand crashed into the wings, but the wings didn't falter in the slightest as they held steadfast like Mount Tai.

The shockwaves from the impact of their collision spread outwards sending all the debris of the destroyed buildings, rocks, and the pool of blood around them flying.

But that wasn't all.

"Die!"

King Nathan would never forget the voice he so hated to hear, a voice that always sent a feeling of irritation across his body any time they drifted into his ears.

Lord Cromwell arrived before them, and as he roared out, he released his will field, causing a massive hand thousands of times larger than even the titanic figure of Greed, to fall from the skies.

Greed, caught off-guard, couldn't react as a monstrous hand spanning tens of kilometers fell from the sky at light speed and squashed his grotesque body into meat paste.

Just as the massive monstrous hand started disappearing, the folded wings above King Nathan were retracted.

"Lord Holden!" King Nathan breathed in relief as he watched the old man holding a black cane stand beside him.

Lord Holden nodded at him before shifting his eyes to the bloody gore of what remained of Greed's body. He watched as wisps of evil energy emerged from the massive meat paste and soon after, the deformed flesh started enlarging. Quickly the figure of a titanic figure was being reformed.

"What?!" Lord Cromwell screamed in shock, "It still isn't dead?"

Lord Holden quickly tapped his cane on the ground twice, successfully garnering the attention of the figures who appeared before him.

"Lady Ashley and Lady Evangeline, please take care of the army of undead." Lord Holden said after a quick but careful thought.

Evangeline nodded as she joined her Clan's ancestor and charged towards the millions of undead.

As she moved forward, her spatial ring shone with a golden light, and soon after thousands of different weapons flew out of it. Soon, the weapons reached an astonishing amount of a million, which made one wonder if she only filled her storage space with weapons.

Evangeline's will spread out before spanning a region of tens of kilometers with her at the center. Using her will as a medium, her mana erupted from her body as she actively controlled the darkness laws within her will field to materialize into several dark hands. In but a second, a million hands surrounded Evangeline, and as her spiritual energy spread out to cover the same distance as her will, she watched as the scattered undead charged toward her to besiege her like they had done to the previous Count.

However, who was Evangeline?

Even Scarlett had to acknowledge her as a formidable figure and a fearsome foe on the battlefield. In fact, aside from Scarlett, Evangeline was the second figure among the vampires who had the highest quantity of spiritual energy, something her clan was unique for. With indifferent eyes, Evangeline watched the millions of undead charging towards her like an unending swarm of densely clustered locusts, and as she put the unmatched analytical abilities of their clan to use, each dark hand flew towards a particular weapon hovering around her before grabbing it.

Then millions of streaks flew across the sky, signifying the start of a slaughter.

Thousands of heads of skeletons rolled across the grounds every second and in but a few seconds, that number combined to form a million. The undead seeing that they couldn't even close the distance to Evangeline, started attacking from afar. The long-range undead, the mages, and archers launched several spells and arrows from afar, but before their attacks could even reach Evangeline, the dark hands holding shields suddenly moved in front of her before gracefully combining to form a massive wall of metal that successfully protected her from the rain of attacks. The dark hands-wielding weapons suddenly lunged forward before killing the Skeleton mages and Archers. Spears continuously stabbed, slashed, and thrust as if controlled by master experts.

Swords swung in every direction as they drew graceful arcs across the air. Due to the Undead being skeletons and lacking blood, bones flew across the skies with their every movement.

Despite being a slaughter, the sight was so beautiful to behold. The scene looked like the gathering of countless weapon experts laying waste to a swarm of locusts. Alas, there was nobody to witness it, as the others on the battlefield were preoccupied with their tasks.

Unlike Evangeline, Lord Ashley merely summoned hundreds of thousands of sharp needles before expertly controlling them to kill the undead. Despite being a powerful figure in her own right, her performance couldn't help but look lackluster compared to Evangeline.

On the other side, Lord Holden together with Lord Cromwell and the other Lords attacked Greed together. But despite them having the advantage in numbers, they were still being suppressed by the lonely abomination.

King Nathan who had retreated to the back finally realized that Greed had not taken him seriously in their previous clash.

Three pairs of arms erupted from the sides of Greed's body and together with his previous pair, the eight massive hands smashed around, destroying all before them and creating shockwaves that blasted all objects around them into the distance. Every time the hands landed on the ground, massive craters hundreds of meters wide and tens of meters deep would form. The battlefield had been thoroughly destroyed and deformed by Greed's unmatched physical strength.

But that wasn't all.

Three dark haloes rotating with a 'zing' sound surrounded him and every time the Lords tried to take advantage of his massive build to close the distance between them, the rotating haloes would abruptly expand, before cutting into their flesh and severing their body parts.

Like this, the lords were not able to draw near.

Seconds trickled into minutes, and soon after the minutes turned into hours.

'We can't continue like this!' The bloodied Lord Holden thought as he watched the abomination before him. As the vanguard of the group, he was the one who suffered the most injuries. Now that his energy was reaching rock bottom, he couldn't afford to regenerate and heal his wounds and had no choice but to suppress the healing ability of his bloodline.

Just when Lord Holden was having a headache about how to subdue Greed, a massive arrow that resembled a javelin instantly split the air into two as it smashed into Greed's single eye.

"ROOAR!" Despite not having any mouth, Greed released a painful cry, which was the first sound it made since the battle started.

The Lords couldn't help but look in the direction the arrow had come from, and there they saw Evangeline standing far in the distance on top of the only building that was still standing, with a bow in her hand.

Her suit was soaked with sweat, which caused it to hug her body more tightly than usual, and made her plentiful figure more pronounced.

Despite not having any injury on her body, Evangeline still panted for breath as her face shone with tiredness.

It was only then that Lord Holden. and the others realized that the hundreds of millions of undead had been taken care of.

'What a scary brat.' A look of fear appeared on Lord Cromwell's face as he stared at Evangeline who nocked another massive arrow to her heavy bow. Unlike her Clan leader who had collapsed some distance away with her body covered in blood, Evangeline still seemed to have a bit of fight left in her.

Before Greed's eye could heal completely, another arrow shot towards him at light speed.

The arrow arced around its raised hands and even moved past the spinning haloes to dig into his eyes once more, this time the force enough to drill into its brain and blast a hole out of the back of its head. This time, Greed couldn't even release a cry of pain, as even for it, having its brain blasted into bloody mist was a fatal wound.

"Now!" Lord Holden shouted.

They couldn't lose this opportunity Evangeline had created. All the Vampire Lords erupted with their full might.

A Lord's body exploded into a terrifying swarm of a million bats, and soon after, the bats opened their mouths to release crimson beams of light that covered the sky and flew towards the stumbling Greed...

Once again, a monstrous hand spanning several kilometers in size fell from the skies at light speed...

Two massive wings connected the skies to the earth, and as the wings swung forward, they resembled sharp blades of light that split the air apart, causing several tiny cracks in space to form around them, as they lunged at Greed...

All the remaining lords erupted with their full might, and none of them doubted that their combined attacks would fail to kill the abomination before them.

Alas, what they wished for might not be what fate has in plan...

As their attacks moved forward with world-shaking might, the vampire's mind suddenly jolted as a terrifying primal roar shook their consciousness.

"ROOOOOOOOOOAR!"

It was a deafening roar filled with pain, sorrow, anguish, and most importantly anger.

'Arianne?'

A name appeared within the minds of the vampire Lords and Evangeline.

It seemed something bad had happened to their Princess, sending the Lords and even Evangeline into a panic.

Arianne was their future and they couldn't allow anything to happen to her. Not to mention that their primary task as Protectors was even to protect Scarlett's family. But none of them thought the prince and Princess would be in danger as they were still in the minor world, and there was an elder as strong as a protector protecting the formation needed to enter it.

In the moment that Arianne's roar shook their minds, their attacks faltered for a split second.

While a split second might sound long, to experts such as them, a split second could decide life and death.

Greed who had still been underestimating his opponent's and had suffered for it, didn't miss this moment. Its head healed instantly and without hesitation, it erupted with its full power. The three haloes rotating around it expanded and destroyed the attacks they could take down while at the same time...

A horizontal crack appeared on Greed's face just below his massive single eye. The crack soon widened and opened enough to reach Greed's bosom. Such a sight was simply harrowing, as Greed was hundreds of meters high, meaning that his mouth had widened to occupy at least half of its size.

A terrifying suction force erupted from within the bottomless abyss of its mouth and soon after, the remaining attacks thrown at it were sucked into it before the Lords soon followed.

Evangeline who was farther away from Greed than the others was also subjected to this suction force, but was able to resist it due to the distance.

Just as she moved to save the Lords, Lord Holden and the other's voice shook her mind.

"Go! Go save the princess! Go!"

A look of hesitation flashed on Evangeline's face for a split second, before her expression hardened. Soon after, she turned into a streak of black light that disappeared into the distance.

'Survive.'

She could only transmit her will to her Elders and make use of her remaining reserve of energy to move at her fastest speed.

Her destination?

The Minor World.

*****

AN: The first volume, Awakening(Two months) is soon coming to an end. Thanks tp all those who are following the novel.