Summoner Sovereign

No…his real name was Yi Tai, and he was one of the princes of a vampire clan that had been eventually subsumed into the Crimson Blood Demonic Night Clan. Striding firmly and determinedly at the front of many bishounen vampires who were aesthetically designed to make fangirls squeal, he led his posse through grand double doors and into a large hall that was intricately designed for the fallen n.o.bility of the vampire clans.

Pausing at the front of what resembled a throne, he placed his hand on his chest and lowered his head respectfully. Following their leader"s cue, the entire group of bishounen vampires also placed their hands over their chests and bowed their heads, their eyes closed. If one did not see them walk into the throne room earlier, they would have mistaken the very still crowd of kneeling figures for finely carved sculptures, their pale skin remisicent of marble or alabaster.

"Greetings to you, sir."

For a prince to show so much respect and speak so humbly, the other party must be quite the remarkable individual. A king, or perhaps even a G.o.d. Indifferent to how his revered status mattered little before the being before him, Yi Tai continued reporting.

"Saint Teresa Academy will be vulnerable this evening. We can attack them at sunset. The barrier of silver crosses in the northern side has been destroyed. We can enter from there." Pausing to take a breath, Yi Tai resumed his report. Evidently he was unaware that I had fixed the the barrier of silver crosses shortly after Nan Gong Ji Yan tried to sabotage it. What, you thought I was spying on her for nothing? "On top of that, the members of Guang Zhi Yi Sect have taken the drug, which will impair their fighting capability. Our biggest threat has been effectively neutralized."

"You mean the biggest threat to us young ones, right?" A smile crossed the face of the person who Yi Tai was reporting to. He was the beggar from earlier, his radiant smile concealed under the black, seemingly filthy cloak that he wore to disguise himself. "But even so, there remains the elite students – the ones who represented Saint Teresa Academy during the tournament. What of Kureha Franklin, Eliza Franklin, Lute Dragoon, Miura La Noir, Kufa van Peer, Rossetti Picket and the others?"

"Kureha Franklin and Eliza Franklin have left on a mission. I do not think the others will pose much of a threat, what with their leader and her cousin missing. The only person we should worry about is Lute Dragoon."

"You can leave that Mary Sue to me." The supposed beggar chuckled, aware that only a Mary Sue could beat another Mary Sue. And he was much more of a bishounen Mary Sue than any Mary Sue that a h.o.r.n.y teenage Indonesian whose brain had been dominated by hormones could conjure. He chuckled. "We"ll leave Teresa Taylor, the teachers and the veterans to my father and the adults. We young ones have been a.s.signed to attack only the students."

"Yes, of course, sir. I was only referring to the biggest threats among the students, not counting the representatives. I thought they would leave with the Franklin cousins, but it appeared that my intelligence was wrong. I have already punished my agent thoroughly for that error, of course." Yi Tai kept his head lowered. "Apart from the Guang Zhi Yi Sect, I don"t think the other students are strong enough to withstand our attack."

"Well done."

Taking off his hood and cloak, the beggar revealed himself to be a dazzling, handsome young man with long, dark blue hair that flowed just past his shoulders. He was none other than the crown prince of the Crimson Blood Demonic Night Clan, Fan Le Lao.

"Sir, I heard that you"ve already visited that school?"

Fan Le Lao smiled at Xu Wu Cheng"s question. "Of course I did. Whenever Father chooses a place for drinking human blood, I always disguise myself as a beggar. I enjoy such games. I"ve always been fascinated by the transformations such as the switch between the rich and the poor, which reminds me of what happened when I was a child."

Looking up, Fan Le Lao gazed nostalgically at the crescent moon, which had taken on an eerie, blood-red color. Wait, wasn"t it still day? Oh no, it was just a painting. It had to be a painting. Otherwise it made no sense chronologically, since they were supposed to attack at sunset, but the moon was already somehow out!

Was the manhua artist delirious when cooking up this nonsensical story?!

Fortunately, there wasn"t much time to dwell on the inconsistency or the manhua artist"s laziness (did n.o.body bother to check if the dialogue matched the background, setting or story?) because Fan Le Lao chose that moment to speak up again. He turned his back on his young followers, acting all dramatic.

"Ah, right. There"s a girl named Zhao Yan. I want her to be alive."

"Yes." As Xu Wu Cheng acknowledged his order, a smile crept across Fan Le Lao"s face.

"Kill everyone else. Make sure no one survives. Send the order out – we will bath Saint Teresa Academy in blood tonight."

"Understood, sir."

*

"Are you serious?"

As I expected, my friends didn"t seem to believe me. Rossetti Picket crossed her arms and glared at me, her expression incredulous. Miura La Noir seemed as if she didn"t know whether she should be laughing. Kufa Van Peer, on the other hand, shrugged nonchalantly.

"Yes, I am. There will be an attack tonight. h.e.l.l, the Guang Zhi Yi Sect has already prepared for it!"

"Then why aren"t they here?" Miura asked, amused.

That was a good question. I had invited them over, but they refused to come. Yi Shen and Kai Lin trusted me even less than they did Ji Yan, and that was saying something.

By the way, the moon was no longer out, and somehow the sun was back up in the blue skies. Seriously, I didn"t understand what was going on anymore. If you were going to launch the attack at sunset, the moon shouldn"t be out in the night sky. Either the writer and manhua artist were not in sync, or if they were one and the same person, there was no proper editing process where someone actually checked for consistency.

That aside, I was glad that the sun was back up, but that only meant we had a few hours before the real attack was launched. I had to quickly persuade my friends that I wasn"t delusional or they would die along with the rest. Furthermore, I couldn"t fight all the vampires on my own.

"Have you told the teachers?" Kufa asked. I nodded.

"But they don"t believe me."

"Of course they wouldn"t." Rossetti snorted. "Xu Wu Cheng a vampire? Are you serious? And Nan Gong Ji Yan is pretty famous throughout the school, you know? She"s like, super popular! Do you think anyone will believe you if you tell them that she"s a servant to vampires?"

"She"s not that kind of girl," Miura agreed. She shrugged when I turned to her. "Sorry, Richard, but as much as I like you, I know Ji Yan for a lot longer. It"s simply unbelievable that she will do something like that."

Despite her flaws, Ji Yan was quite the sociable person. Everyone had bought into her nice girl image. She had been building up that façade for so long that everyone"s impression that she was a good person had taken root strongly in their psyches.

"But what if there"s a chance that Richard is telling the truth? That Ji Yan really betrayed everyone in the school and vampires are about to attack the school?"

"Not you too, Kufa…" Rossetti was burying her face in her palm. "Are you seriously buying into tis nonsense? Ji Yan isn"t that kind of person."

"Perhaps, but what if that"s what she wanted us to think, and she has been fooling us all this while?" Kufa raised a finger. "And don"t forget, we have the Holy Supper tonight. All high school students are supposed to stay back in school for tonight, to attend the Holy Supper at nine, a couple of hours after sunset. This is too much of a coincidence, don"t you think? What if vampires really intend to attack us at this time?"

Both Rossetti and Miura exchanged uncomfortable glances.

"I"m not asking you guys to go attack Ji Yan and Xu Wu Cheng right now," I told them. "I know it"s difficult to believe, and it achieves nothing right now. But if there really is a vampire a.s.sault coming, we need to take precautions. What"s the worst that can happen? If n.o.body attacks, we don"t have to fight. At most, people will just laugh at us for being paranoid. No one gets hurt. But if I am correct, the vampires will come and slaughter all of us!"

"That"s…" Rossetti trailed off.

"Please! At the very least, take precautions! We need to be ready! Be on a war footing!"

"I"m with Richard on this." Kufa nodded and placed a hand on the hilt of his katana. "It"s better to be ready and have nothing happen than be caught with our pants down when the attack really happens."

"Well, if you put it that way…" Miura sighed.

"But what should we do?" Rossetti asked, frowning. "Both Kureha and Eliza aren"t around. They are away on a mission. That"s a significant portion of our fighting strength gone right there."

"In return, we have Richard right here." Kufa grinned and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Don"t forget that he"s the one who defeated both of them, as well as Miura and me."

"That"s true," Rossetti admitted. "And there"s also Headmistress Taylor and the teachers. If worst comes to worst, I"m sure they will do something about it."

"Headmistress Taylor?" I asked with an arched eyebrow. "How powerful is she?"

"Oh…she"s the most powerful headmistress in the history of Saint Teresa Academy." Kufa"s grin grew. "If you turn out to be right, you might get the chance to see her fight. And then you will see why."

"I look forward to it." I prayed that Teresa Taylor wouldn"t get caught off guard and ended up slain before she had the chance to display her power. But the three Saint Teresa Academy students before me seemed to know something about her that I didn"t. They held absolute confidence in her.

"So how do we do this?" Miura asked, folding her arms. "Even if the three of us believe you, I doubt we"ll be able to rope the others to our side. What can the four of us do on our own?"

"Yeah," I conceded the point bitterly. "But I do know that they will attack from the north. That was where Ji Yan sabotaged the silver crosses…"

I trailed off when I caught sight of Rossetti and Miura"s stares. Sighing, I shook my head.

"Look, I know you don"t believe me, but I saw what I saw and heard what I heard. I even have the recordings."

"Yeah, we saw." Kufa waved my words away. Earlier, I had shown them the video recording on my gla.s.ses, but the girls didn"t believe their eyes.

"It had to be doctored!" Rossetti had exclaimed. I guess there was no convincing her, at least not now.

"Okay, whatever the case, the vampires will attack from the north, right? So we should be on a lookout for them there."

"We"ll believe you for now." Miura sighed. "Before the Holy Supper, we"ll just meet up in the north and then sound the warning when the vampires show up. If what you say is true, even the school staff can"t deny the reality of a horde of bloodthirsty monsters scrabbling at our gates."

"How ironic that the Holy Supper might potentially end up being a night of slaughter." Kufa shook his head as he said ominously. "I pray that you"re wrong, Richard, because…if you"re right, we may find it difficult to escape death tonight."

"I know," I replied quietly. "Believe me, I wish I am wrong. But this way…at least the four of us will have a chance of survival."

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