Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

"Nobody's here…" Looking around the sacrilegious place, Aria as well as the rest of the party was left dumbfounded.

There was no vampire lord hiding in the depths, instead in his place was a human hanging from the ceiling. After trying to calm him down, Raven tried to ask him a few questions, but the horrified man rushed out screaming through the cramped hallway.

"You sure we shouldn't follow him?" Asked Mel, her eyes focused on Raven.

"I doubt an insane person would give a confession, but you're free to chase after him if you want," rising from the ground, Raven turned to face her, but as expected, quickly looking away Mel showed no intention to chase after the man.

"So what the hell are we even doing here if the vampire lord isn't here?" A bit irked by all the waiting, especially with that cold metal chastity around his dick, Amedith wanted this thing to be over with so he could try and free himself from it.

"We have running blood in these engravings, that's proof enough that someone's hiding," her eyes still focused on the blood sigil on the ground, Erika tried to decipher their meaning, but just couldn't get it even though it felt like she was at the cusp of finding its nature. "Regardless, he could be trying to revive a general to the demon lord for all we know, the least we can do is destroy thi–"

The sudden dropping of a stack of books behind the encasing bookshelves forced Erika to abruptly end her sentence. Turning their gaze to the sound, everyone took out their weapons and slowly began encircling around the shelf. However, even as they stood right before the books that had been dropped, they didn't find anyone, at least not until Mino's nose caught a hint of monstrous bloodlust.

Smelling a hunger the same as hers, her eyes widened with horror. Frantically looking around she tried to spy the vampire lord, but failing still, she decided to scream out in warning instead.

"He's invisib–AGH!" Cutting her words short, a sharp dagger stabbed her belly from the side.

"Mino!" Being the first one to notice the wound, Raven jumped forward. Wrapping his hands around her falling body, he leaped back with hastened reflexes. "Amedith! Forward!"

With no time to waste, the hero jumped forward with a conjured shield of holy light in one hand and his blade in the other. Following up beside him, Aria knocked the shelves with her fist so the group wasn't back into a corner.

"Show her to me," taking Mino in her hand from Raven, Erika slowly let her body down to the floor and began healing her with holy magic. Watching her take out a mana potion and quickly downing it before continuing the spell, Raven was disoriented just for a moment. Being bumped in the shoulder by Mel, however, he was quickly pulled out of that dazed state.

"FUCK THAT BASTARD!" To everyone's surprise, Mino growled at her assailant even though she was obviously suffering from some form of paralyzing poison from the dagger.

"Oi, you're the leader, focus," pulling his attention back, Mel stared into Raven's eyes. "How do we take down this invisible bastard?"

"Damn it…" Looking to the front with Amedith and Aria standing guard, Raven knew he would have prepared better for an invisible vampire. It also didn't help that the vampire was trying to break through the hero's shield by assaulting it from random directions at irregular intervals.

'The shield is cracking up…' Being in the corner kind of helped the group as it gave the vampire limited angles to attack from. But if it kept going, the shield was bound to break and the one thing the hero wasn't known for was his endurance with mana to conjure another one right after. 'What the hell am I supposed to–'

Feeling the hilt of the golden blade at the end of his thumb, something clicked inside his head. The blood on the blade was coated in a layer, turning its iron glow into a crimson red.

"We need something that would stick to him, some form of liquid!" With just a glance at Mel, Raven knew she had exactly what they wanted, and she seemed to recognize it too, although her expression was instantly fouled on the mere mention of it.

"You'll owe a lot once this is over!" Shutting her eyes with those words, she began moving forward. "Amedith, Aria, get back…I'll handle this, you guys make sure to take him down once I'm done."

"What?! No!" Shielding yet another blow from the barrage of daggers, Amedith looked back from over his shoulder at Mel slowly approaching him.

"You heard the new boss," grabbing him by the shoulders, Aria squeezed him tight and leaped back before the hero even had the chance to resist and stand his ground.

The next thing he knew, a trail of sizzling green clouds roused from under Mel's shut eyelids. Walking forward, she stretched her arm forward and was instantly stabbed in the arm by a thrown dagger. However, keeping still, she took a deep breath before opening her eyes.

"Cage of thorn!" The moment she yelled out the spell, a collection of luminous magic circles surrounded the empty space before her. What came next were iron-like thorns inching closer and closer toward each other until they conformed into a cage.

"GRHH!" Hearing the invisible vampire squealing as one of the thorns stabbed into his body, Mel quickly jumped behind Amedith to let him take care of the rest.

"He's bleeding, get him before the magi–" Just as she'd expected, the spell's power didn't last long once she'd broken her concentration. Turning into sparkling dust, the thorn disappeared completely. Though the bleeding wound from the vampire lord now easily gave away his position.

'Only a matter of time now…' Letting Amedith take the lead, Raven moved up behind him to support through attacks while the hero stayed on defense.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL! YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!" Being wounded for the very first time in a decade, the invisible vampire lord had gone mad. Throwing all caution to the wind, he assaulted the group from all possible directions, but as long as Amedith's shield stood, nothing could hit them no matter where the attack came from.

Deflected by the mystic forces of the shield despite being far away from it, he grew tired as time went on, and finally, he stood bleeding in a corner and panting.

"Cage!" Conjuring a cage made of pure dark, Raven imprisoned the vampire lord in a more solid prison than Mel's thorns.

Had he not tired himself from the rampant assaults, he might've been strong enough to break through, but with a deep wound in his belly, and all his energy knocked out, he couldn't even hold onto his invisibility.

Moving up close to the shambling vampire lord, Raven looked him in the eye and whispered.

"You're gonna answer some questions," taking out the golden blade, Raven stabbed him through the chest to pin him to the wall. "And then you're gonna die."