“Motherfucker!” Caius screamed and powerfully swung the metal club around him before smashing it towards Johann.
Johann vanished with the red light and reappeared behind Caius with his deadly claws nearing his neck.
“Hmph!” Caius moved the club behind his back, blocked the deadly claws, and then countered with a horse kick to Johann’s abdomen.
“Ngh!” Johann coughed blood and flew straight into a brick wall that crumbled apart with the impact.
His limp body slid down the wreckage, leaving a streak of blood on the wall.
The crowd again exclaimed while watching in the House of Gambling.
First, Johann seemed to dominate the fight, but now he’s gravely injured!
“These injuries you inflicted upon me are going to cost you dearly.” Caius looked down at his waist and flexed his muscles.
The muscle fabric tightened around his wound, forcing the blood to slow its flow.
Johann rose to his feet from the wreckage and wiped the blood off his lips.
His eerie red eyes gleamed with a sinister determination.
As Caius and Johann faced each other, the air cracked with tension.
A little further away, Ambrose, Loralei, and the bearded woman, also known as Lulu the White Inquisitor, watched the scene silently.
But then Loralei broke the silence.
“Caius can slow down Johann. This is our chance!”
“Our horses are dead.” Lulu said and looked back where they came from and saw several other participants suffering from the onslaught of bounty hunters.
They also couldn’t advance.
“We can run, can’t we?” Loralei tapped her feet on the pavement several times and then suddenly lunged forward with crazy speed.
She immediately left Ambrose and Lulu behind.
“Damn, we can’t win her in a contest of speed!” Lulu screamed.
However, after further consideration, she turned her gaze to Ambrose and revealed her pearly white teeth.
‘Right, I don’t have to win. As long as I kill him, I get 19,999 silvers and have removed another potential threat.’
Ambrose covered his face as the wind produced by Caius’ club blew against him.
‘Those two are in a whole other league. I wonder if I can ever become that strong.’
“Hey, you.” Lulu caressed her beard and said. “We should get going.”
“Mm.” Ambrose nodded and began running after Loralei, who had a sizeable lead of five hundred meters.
As Johann witnessed several participants run by and take the lead, he felt an urgency to finish this fight. 𝑶𝐕𝐞𝗅xt.𝑐𝞸
“Haaa!” Caius ragingly smashed his club down, but Johann evaded each strike by a narrow margin.
‘Time to end this!’ Johann clapped his hands together, summoning several orbs of red light that swirled around him like moons around a planet.
Caius narrowed his eyes and put his metal club into a swinging stance as if he were a baseball player preparing to hit a home run.
“The Crimson Bombardment!” Johann screamed and hurled the orbs towards Caius with all his might.
“The Thunder Bazooka!” Caius screamed, and as the lightning swirled around his black metal club, he swung it and smashed it into the flying orbs.
Boom—a loud explosion shook the buildings and ground while a massive dust cloud shaped like a mushroom appeared.
Inside the mushroom cloud, lightning and red light raged, fighting for supremacy.
…
“Whoo… whoo…” Ambrose ran with the sound of an explosion echoing behind him.
He didn’t turn around to see it and focused his gaze on the far-away back of Loralei, who was en route to winning this whole thing.
‘Damn, I am slow.’ He thought with a wry smile.
However, one thing felt strange to him.
Lulu was running behind him as if she couldn’t run faster.
‘What is she planning?’ Ambrose wondered. ‘She managed to do amazing acrobatic feats, meaning she is definitely an athlete.
‘Yet, she can’t run past me? That is bullshit.
‘She is targeting me for some reason.’
Ambrose was tired of waiting for her to make the move.
He doubted he would be able to catch up on Loralei, making the chance of victory slim to none.
Thus, he planned to focus only on survival.
He grabbed the hilt of his Black Sword, still sheathed in his scabbard and took a deep breath.
Lulu’s expression turned cold, and she suddenly lunged forward and delivered a high kick, aimed at Ambrose’s neck.
She planned on breaking his neck with a quick strike!
Ambrose quickdrawed his sword and blocked the kick before it made contact with his neck.
“Tsk.” Lulu clicked her tongue. ‘He managed to draw the sword quicker than expected!’
Ambrose’s first-ever training was to draw his sword thousands of times.
It wasn’t the only time he was forced to do that.
Every day, for at least an hour, he worked to hone his unsheathing ability, and in the end, his quickdraw speed became much faster.
“May I ask why you are targeting me?” Ambrose asked and jumped away from her to increase the distance that favored him.
“Money!” Lulu replied and jumped high into the air.
She majestically spun around like a hurricane and then sent powerful kicks towards Ambrose.
“Haa!” Ambrose rapidly deflected all the kicks and wanted to slash through the legs, but she didn’t give him an opportunity to do that.
Her legs moved like lightning—deadly, quickly and with precision.
She continued her relentless assault, not even once giving Ambrose a chance to regain his footing.
He was completely on the receiving end, only able to block and dodge.
‘This is bad!’ Ambrose thought with a pale face and blocked another powerful kick that forced him to take a step backward.
He needed to come up with a plan quickly if he wanted to turn the tide of the fight.
‘I know how to fight against fellow swordsmen, but I don’t know what I am supposed to do against unarmed combatants.
‘The same problem is with spearmen. I am way too inexperienced!’
“Beautiful Spinning Death!”
Lulu suddenly began spinning around like a ballerina, and when her speed was high enough, she unleashed a devastating kick that landed on Ambrose’s black blade.
“Ugh!” Ambrose groaned and slid down several meters.
His black blade was perfectly fine, but his arms felt numb.
“Whoo!” Lulu stopped spinning and saw Ambrose struggling to lift his sword.
She revealed a cheeky grin. “You shouldn’t have blocked it!”
‘This attack… had a stun effect?’ Ambrose realized that he had made a mistake.
He quickly tried to shake off the numbness, but it was spreading like a disease that couldn’t be controlled.
In a matter of seconds, his body was completely paralyzed.
“Hehe.” Lulu pulled out several knives and licked her lips. “Another down~”
At that moment, a red light spread across the street, coating the surrounding area in an eerie glow.
Lulu’s eyes widened in shock, and she felt something approach her.
She quickly jumped backwards but lost her balance and fell onto the cold pavement.
“Ahh…” She looked down and wondered why she had lost her balance, as she had trained in the art of balance for years to improve her kicking prowess.
Even an earthquake wouldn’t be able to shake her.
However, when she looked down, her eyes widened in shock.
She was missing one of her legs!
From the red light, a bloodied Johann emerged with a twisted expression.
He soared across the street and saw Loralei running through the Street of Sex while windows showed naked prostitutes watching the race, with some even having sex on the side.
She only had the Street of Alcohol and Gambling left to win the whole race!
But then the eerie light caught up to her.
Loralei’s expression fell, and then black claws slashed through her head.
Her head flew high into the air, a shocked expression plastered on it.
The headless body collapsed on the ground.
“Argh!” Johann emerged from the red light and ran like a raging bull towards the finishing line.
In front of the House of Gambling, thousands of roaring spectators watched as the bloodied vampire reached the finishing line.
The announcer proudly declared. “The winner of the special Crescent Moon Death Race is Johann!”