Chapter 70: 4 Days left (2)
"Tsk." Acedia clicked her tongue when she looked over the kingdom walls of Transilvania.
Beyond the kingdom walls, there were thousands of undead trying to invade Transilvania.
While the general spell 'Call of the Undead' was a tier 10 necromancer magic, vampires naturally possessed it when they passed that tier.
Although their process of using that magic was a little different, the effects were the same.
As such, every single dead person that the vampire had sunk its teeth into will turn into a vampire by the activation of the spell.
She wondered how long they had prepared this attack, as the number of undead that they had stored numbered around thousands.
"Lady Acedia! Our troops are asking for your help!"
"There are just too many!"
"The citizens are in a panic!"
Panic spread throughout some of her subordinates as they ran around the kingdom, trying to evacuate the citizens.
Outside of the kingdom, adventurers, knights, and mages were trying to fight against the undead, defending Transilvania with their life.
Usually, the undead weren't strong, but this time there were just way too many of them.
The screams of help from her side echoed through the battlefield, yelling for help and somebody to save them, as the smell of the air was tainted with the iron scent of blood.
"Tell them to retreat!" Turning around, she ordered her subordinates. "I can't cast any magic if my own allies are in the way!"
"Yes, Ma am!"
Gritting her teeth, she narrowed her eyes, raising her arm in a finger pistol.
"Water bullet!"
Although she couldn't use any area of effect spells, she could still at least try to support them from here.
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
"Kieeeek!"
"Kreuuuhhk!"
"Kiiaahk!"
One by one, her powerful water bullets blew away the bodies of the undead, but it still wasn't enough.
While there were only a few hundred of them, the undead numbered multiple thousands.
"These Idiots," Acedia muttered under her breath while sniping undead from above the kingdom walls. "If they had just waited as I told them to..."
During the night, the vampires went out of their way to ambush them.
While Acedia had already expected that they would probably do something similar to that sooner or later, she grew too relaxed and let down her guard.
The only attack or try to gain information that they did in the last month was the incident with the blood raven.
As such, the troops in Transilvania and her too gradually grew comfortable, thinking that maybe the vampires really were waiting for the blood moon to arrive to start their attack.
Thus, on one of the nights, four days before the blood moon, the vampires launched an ambush.
There was no vampire to be seen anywhere on the battlefield, so Acedia guessed that they either had a goal for the attack or just wanted to weaken their troops before the arrival of the blood moon.
Of course, Acedia had told everyone to stay on guard, as the vampires could launch an ambush on any day, but they didn't listen to her.
Even after the attack had already started, they didn't listen and just rushed into battle, fully relying on their instincts.
"And now they're asking for help...what a bunch of morons."
Biting her lips, she released a bitter laugh, finding the irony of the situation to be amusing in a sad way.
It was their own fault for not listening to her orders, after all.
Enhancing her sight with mana, Acedia looked into the battlefield, skimming over it to check the current situation.
"...It's looking bad..."
Her troops were getting massacred left and right by the undead, getting overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.
"If only he was here..."
'And again, I'm thinking about him...'
Releasing a quiet chuckle, she shook her head.
Even in such a situation, her thoughts always kept drifting to him.
Although she had no time for such thoughts, Acedia just couldn't help but resort to the thought of him as a way to calm herself down in a moment of stress.
'I wonder how he is doing right now...'
For a split second, a faint smile appeared on her face, before vanishing, as she snapped back to reality.
She had to concentrate.
Taking a deep breath, she cleared her mind, blending everything that didn't matter as of that moment out.
"Alright," she told herself with closed eyes, relaxing her body. "...let's do this."
There is no way that she would crumble in such a situation. She wasn't the head of the mage tower for no reason, after all.
"Lady Acedia! Our troops have successfully retreated!"
The voice of one of her subordinates called out to her, telling her that there wasn't anyone of her people on the battlefield as of now.
'Perfect timing.'
That's good.
She can go all out now.
Smirking, she raised both of her arms, forcing her mana into the atmosphere.
Her mana gathered over her head, transforming into purple droplets of water before it gained mass, turning into a gigantic ball of purple water.
As the purple ball of water reached a size that rivaled the size of a small sea, she tore her purple eyes open, as they flashed in shining violet color.
"Rain of chaos."
As her calm voice resounded through the battlefield, her magic reacted immediately, shooting into the sky and clearing all the grey clouds above.
"What the...?"
"Is that the power of the witch of chaos?"
Voices came from down below, admiring the spectacle that was unfolding in front of her eyes.
In the sky, a ring of purple water formed, circling around at an overwhelming speed before it collapsed into itself, splitting its own form into of thousands of droplets.
Just like the rain, the purple water drops fell to the ground.
BOOM—! BOOM—! BOOM—!
"Kueehk!"
"Kiaaahk!"
The screams of the undead filled the bloody battlefield, as the purple rain fell to the ground.
However, different from raindrops, the purple drops fell to the ground like hard steel, exploding by contact with anything they touched.
The chaos water's cursed energy exploded in a small radius, blowing the bodies of the undead away and spreading the curse around like a deadly virus, infecting every single one of the undead in a matter of seconds.
Thump—! Thud—!
Slowly and one by one, the destroyed bodies of the undead fell to the ground, collapsing like a bag of potatoes, before disappearing in black ink.
And then...
Silence.
Nobody said anything and just silently stared at the woman, who just massacred an enemy that the combined forces of hundreds of mages, adventurers, and knights couldn't beat.
In the heads of everybody, only a single thought appeared in their mind.
'So that's the power of a tier 12 mage...'
Snap—
Acedia, who was unaware of the thoughts of everyone present, dispersed her magic with a nonchalant snap before turning her head around.
Although she just decimated the enemy, her facial expression seemed conflicted as she walked down the stairs of the kingdom walls.
Everybody was still silent, and the only sounds that reverberated through the whole kingdom were her footsteps.
Tap— Tap— Tap—
"..."
The usual bubbly Acedia was quiet as she walked down the stairs, her face carrying a solemn expression.
"...You did well!"
One of the mages said, trying to lift up the atmosphere.
While they may have lost a few of their troops, a majority of them were still alive due to Acedia's interference, which was certainly a reason to celebrate for him.
"Yes, you were amazing!"
"The witch of chaos is really as great as everyone says."
Soon others also joined in, cheering and laughing to celebrate their victory in the battle.
However, they were soon interrupted by Acedia's cold voice.
"Silence."
She glared at her own troops, suppressing her own anger.
"There's nothing to celebrate. They were only some undeads, and you still struggled to beat them. Moreover, you neglected my orders and many of you died because of that stupid decision. While I know that many of you don't belong to the mage tower, the emperor still gave all the authority on this mission to me."
"..."
Nobody said anything, as Acedia paused.
"And you still chose to ignore my orders."
Her voice carried a sharp tone, almost like she was hissing at them, as her eyes grow cold.
"Many of the deaths were deaths due to incompetency."
Of course, the people weren't happy about her honest opinion, and thus, naturally complained.
"Hey! Watch your tongue!"
"Yeah, you didn't do anything to help us!"
Whooom—!
With only a little release of her mana, she managed to silence all of them at once.
"Shut up. You're giving me a headache."
Massaging her temples, she went past her troops and let out a deep sigh.
While the negligence of her orders was a bad thing, it wasn't the reason why Acedia was acting so irritated right now.
It was because of her intuition.
Since the beginning of the battle, her intuition told her that something was wrong.
As Acedia just thought that it was because of the ambush, she didn't give it any further thought.
However, the battle had ended, but the weird feeling was still there.
'What could it be?'
Staring at the ground, she tried to recall all the important events that had happened in the weeks she had been stationed at Transilvania.
As there weren't many of them, it was quite easy to narrow them down to one major thing that had happened.
The blood raven spied on them.
One of the abilities of a vampire was blood manipulation, so an animal made of blood that transmitted information to its master wasn't unheard of.
The only reason why Acedia had noticed it in the first place was that her intuition suddenly kicked off, notifying her of the vampire's creation.
Acedia killed it immediately, but she wasn't sure how long the vampires had been eavesdropping on them.
"If I was on the vampire side, what would I've done in such a situation..." Stroking her chin, she furrowed her eyebrows thoughtfully.
'The only useful information that they could've gotten was that the empire's troops were stationed in Transilvania to stop the rampage on the day of the blood moon...'
As Acedia walked, she wasn't aware of her surroundings, thus getting lost in the kingdom.
'This ambush was just way too easy to beat...they wouldn't use only that much manpower, if they know that I am here, right?'
While she wasn't one to boast, she could confidently say that even the vampires should know about her power, as she was quite famous in the arcane society.
Passing by the teleportation circle, which was located in a warehouse near the adventurer's guild, she suddenly stopped as her intuition warned her that there was something weird there.
"Here...?"
Trusting her devil's intuition, she approached it and took a peek inside the warehouse.
Looking inside the warehouse, her eyes widened as she spotted what her intuition was trying to tell her.
Around the teleportation circle, multiple blood creatures of vampires were sitting around, rapidly turning their heads to them, as she entered the warehouse.
"Kiieeek!"
Pierce—!
With a single motion of her hand, she conjured water needles that quickly impaled the creatures before entering the warehouse.
The creatures weren't the thing that shocked her.
'I should've realized this sooner...'
Why would the vampires launch such an attack on Transilvania a few days before the blood moon, when they know that the main force of the empire was located there?
"Right... their goal wasn't Transilvania in the first place..."
When they had learned about Acedia's existence in Transilvania, they had probably devised a plan to avoid her at first.
Vampires gain power the more blood they drink, so with enough time, they hoped to overpower Acedia.
And as the empire's head of the mage tower was in Transilvania, in the eyes of the vampires, the empire was basically a large gathering of prey.
Acedia's eyes grow eyes grew dull, as she looked at the destroyed teleportation circle.
Creating a new teleportation circle would take a little more than a week, so it wasn't an option to try to create a new one in time.
That's right.
The vampire's goal wasn't Transilvania anymore.
It is the empire.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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stone