Chapter 475

Chapter 365 – Healing Sword

The bodyguard who was dragged into the room by the captain of the guard came back and started discussing something with the other bodyguards. Then, he actually led all the bodyguards into the room, including his partner.

Although Berlit could see his partner’s unwillingness on his face, there was nothing the latter could do about it.

Berlit didn’t know why his partner had brought everyone into the room, but avoiding the assassination target just as the operation was about to start clearly indicated that something was wrong!

“Did Jeffrey expose something…”

With a frown, Berlit muttered anxiously as he looked at the incident happening on the balcony in the distance. However, he couldn’t worry too much about his partner. After Jeffrey was forced to leave, Berlit had to complete the assassination mission alone.

Holding his rifle tightly, Berlit focused more intently on aiming. At that moment, he suddenly felt a disturbance in the air behind him, and a chill rose from the depths of his heart.

Perceiving the danger, Berlit immediately turned around to dodge, but he still failed to avoid the blow coming from behind. The sharp blade cut into his left shoulder, causing a clear sound as Berlit fell to the ground. He then quickly rolled to one side and spat out a large mouthful of bl**d.

“Cough… cough… When did the ambush happen…”

Clutching his wounded left shoulder, bl**d trickling from his mouth, Berlit stood up again. His gaze turned forward, looking at the figure that attacked him. He saw a white cloak fluttering in the cold wind and an unanimated white mask under the hood. The hand extending from within the cloak held a red gem sword, dripping with a little of his own bl**d.

‘Is this a white-robed swordsman concealing their identity? Why did they suddenly appear here…’

Looking at the figure before him, Berlit gritted his teeth and thought inwardly. He wasn’t too surprised how the opponent approached him silently because, with specific sigils, approaching unnoticed wasn’t difficult. The critical issue was how his location was discovered; he hadn’t sensed any “Lamp” detection. Why was he suddenly exposed!?

Berlit pondered anxiously. If not for the extraordinary item, a stone skin effect that activated upon being attacked, he would have lost his arm from the force of the last strike. Now, the only damage he suffered was extensive bleeding from the cut area.

“Who are you! Who do you belong to?”

After quickly injecting himself with a vial of red liquid to recover from his injuries, Berlit stood up and shouted at the assailant. The white-robed swordsman made no reply and charged towards Berlit with his sword.

Seeing the white-robed swordsman attack, Berlit immediately drew his own sword and engaged in combat. He had imbued his sword with the “Shadow” enchantment.

Tier 3 “Shadow,” Tier 2 “Cup,” along with the “Shadow” enchantment made this combination incredibly powerful in close combat. The speed was like a shadow, and strength easily shattered steel. A vampire’s close combat capabilities were considered top-tier among Tier 2 “White Chalk” extraordinary beings. Therefore, Berlit was not intimidated by the close combat with the swordsman.

From Berlit’s analysis, the white-robed swordsman displayed strength suggesting they were a “Cup” extraordinary being, slightly stronger than himself, at least Tier 2 “Cup.” However, they did not reach the exaggerated level of Tier 3 “Cup.” Thus, they likely used some sigils based on their inherent “Cup” power.

Since the opponent was not Tier 3 “Cup,” they could not be a werewolf or similar creature, and there were no signs of transformation. Furthermore, the opponent wasn’t a Holy War Knight given the lack of fire on the sword. After ruling out several formidable close-combat extraordinary professions, Berlit concluded that the opponent’s close combat abilities weren’t particularly fearsome, so he confidently engaged in battle.

As the countdown on the stage ended, dazzling fireworks exploded in the sky. Under the colorful illumination, the rooftop platform was filled with fleeting shadows, and the sharp sounds of sword clashes echoed continuously.

The true short-range combat began. After exchanging blows with the white-robed swordsman for several rounds, Berlit immediately noticed something amiss.

Firstly, Berlit found that although the white-robed swordsman’s speed was far inferior to his own, the opponent seemed to anticipate his attacks. No matter how unpredictable his strikes were, the opponent always managed to intercept them ahead of time. Although Berlit’s movements were swift, they were completely transparent to the opponent, who used minimal actions to block his fierce attacks with superior skill.

After a brief exchange, Berlit concluded that the opponent was a master swordsman whose skills far exceeded his own, capable of compensating for significant differences in attributes.

Secondly, even though Berlit had imbued his sword with the “Shadow” enchantment and the opponent repeatedly used their sword to block his attacks, the weapon never deteriorated due to the “Shadow” enchantment’s erosion. Berlit carefully observed the changes in the opponent’s weapon.

In Berlit’s attention, he saw that the opponent’s longsword, despite clashing with his own, was already cracking and covered in fissures, with many areas showing chipped edges.

Though heavily damaged, the sword did not break but continued to stubbornly resist the “Shadow” enchantment’s erosion, like a wounded beast refusing to fall, resilient and strong.

This was not a metaphor; it seemed genuinely so. Under Berlit’s observation, the cracks on the sword glowed bl**d-red, and flesh-like growths wriggled inside the ruptured wounds. The massive red gem on the hilt emitted a gentle red light, and Berlit sensed a strong “Cup” aura from the sword.

The sword was healing itself! It was using its “Cup” to heal! This sword was alive! No doubt about it!

The extraordinary living sword barely resisted the “Shadow” erosion, preventing Berlit from breaking through the opponent’s defenses by destroying their weapon.

An anomalous self-healing living weapon and extraordinary swordsmanship were the two challenging aspects of the white-robed swordsman, but neither was fatal. What truly troubled Berlit was another factor.

This factor came from his shoulder, increasingly intense pain and discomfort!

Yes, Berlit’s wound was hurting. The wound inflicted by the ambush still hurt, and the pain was intensifying, spreading further and beginning to affect his movements.

Originally, Berlit’s greatest advantage over the white-robed swordsman was speed. Tier 3 “Shadow” speed was terrifying. Though the swordsman’s superior swordsmanship could mitigate some attribute differences, the speed gap caused by Tier 3 “Shadow” was immense, beyond what even skill could compensate for. If Berlit had fought the swordsman with full attributes, the disparity would have been insurmountable.

However, due to severe discomfort from his injuries, Berlit couldn’t fully utilize his attributes. His Tier 3 “Shadow” advantage was completely wasted, thus preventing him from gaining the upper hand in the fight against the white-robed swordsman.

The worsening injuries hindered Berlit’s performance, but this also raised another issue. Before the fight, to counteract the impact of his injuries, Berlit had injected himself with a vial of bl**d to use his vampire ability to heal himself. Yet, this injection seemed ineffective; not only did his shoulder injury fail to heal, but it appeared to be worsening.

Why didn’t the bl**d vial work?

This question puzzled Berlit. Seizing an opportunity, he rapidly retreated several steps, pulled apart his left shoulder shirt after creating distance from the white-robed swordsman, and examined the wound. What he saw was shocking.

At that moment, on Berlit’s left shoulder, although there were no traces of the sword wound, instead, there were numerous nasty pus-filled bumps and tumors everywhere. Pus-filled sores and ruptured veins bulged beneath the skin, intertwining and bursting through, with pus flowing between the tumors. It was a disgusting sight.