Vampire's Slice of Life

Everything seemed crimson and bouncy through Lith's vision as a current traversed in his body.

Due to the Time element causing chaos within him, the blurry dot and the giant monster bird appeared to slow down considerably. Lith's thought process hadn't.

This moment was the closest Lith had ever been to feeling true death in his whole life. If the blurry dot descended and hit him, it was game over.

Lith's body heated up, his thought process accelerated; heart pumped blood aggressively and adrenaline spread everywhere, causing his pupils to dilate.

Lith's vision turned clear, albeit still being crimson. He properly saw the figures of the slowed down blurry dot and the monster bird.

The dot was actually a black dragonfly, around which lightning crackled. Despite the slow down, its wings still seemed blurry due to their rapid fluttering.

In the face of death, despite being chaotic, the Time element came in a clutch and provided Lith a boost for a few seconds.

In full throttle, Lith used his spiritual power to will the Destruction and Space element. A faint magenta-colored glow formed around him.

However, right in the next instance, Lith's pupil shrieked as the Time element brought a complete opposite effect.

Less than a time it takes to blink, the monster bird and dragonfly were right in front of his eyes, staring at him menacingly.

Lith's vision turned dark and…

BOOOOOOM!

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Alea screamed from the spectating area, violently beating the invisible barrier.

Tears streamed down her face as she watched the monster bird and dragonfly attack the area Lith was at.

Lilith and Agalea did not come to comfort Alea. Their eyes were glued at the scene, a frown forming on their beautiful faces.

Dust covered their visions, but a second later, Lilith and Agalea felt a spatial fluctuation occur at a distance from the site of impact.

Agalea stared at it while Lilith sighed in relief.

She placed her palm on Alea's shoulder and pulled her in her embrace, patting her back.

"Calm down, Lith's okay," said Lilith to the crying Alea.

Alea blinked momentarily as she heard that and struggled in Lilith's embrace, trying to turn around and see the situation once again.

Lilith didn't hold her back and let her do so.

Alea could only see dust for a while, but as it partially cleared, she could see Lith's figure, coughing aggressively and spewing blood in a corner of the arena.

"Little cousin!" Alea exclaimed and jumped. "He's alive!"

Tears continued to trickle down her face as she said that, but this time they were of relief and not sadness.

Agalea sighed in relief and went to comfort her daughter. It did not suit her ever-jolly Alea to show tears like that and be sad.

The turmoil these ladies were going through, Lith had no way of knowing as all around him, there was the arena ground, stretching boundlessly.

At the last moment, due to using most of his spiritual power, he was able to cast a destructive barrier made of Destruction around himself. However, he would've been swept in the impact had the Space elements not pulled him away.

Smartly, Lith had made a destructive as well as fleeing move in one go.

Had he not done so, the consequences would've been dire.

Lith would be swept in the explosion and killed if he didn't move, or if he simply moved without attacking, that dragonfly would've found him easily and killed him.

The excess usage of spiritual power hurt his soul and body. The blood coughing was a result of that.

Thankfully, after the dust cleared, Lith could see the monster bird's grotesque corpse. Its head was smashed into meat paste while the rest of its body was disfigured badly.

The flames had been extinguished, and maybe as a consequence, its body was turning paler with each passing second.

As for the dragonfly, Lith couldn't see it, but there were no danger bells ringing in his mind, so he assumed it was dead.

Sighing in relief, Lith felt the tribulation was over, until…

Rumble!

The dark tribulations clouds were still there in the sky, rumbling loudly.

Lith clicked his tongue and focused on healing himself and replenishing his spiritual power.

He took out a translated pill containing a hint of blue from his ring and gulped it. A cool sensation ran throughout his body and Lith's spiritual power accelerated its recovery rate.

There were pills that could replenish the spiritual power, but those weren't good as the spiritual power was something not made from one's own soul, body, and magic core.

Nobody preferred them either, hence they weren't available at the higher ranks.

As Lith was recovering, he noticed that there hadn't been anything else that appeared. He was still in the midst of tribulation, but it was strange to see no acid rain or sizzling liquid fall on him.

Shaking his head, Lith focused on the recovery in a few minutes, his spiritual power had been fully restored.

Lith now focused on untangling the Time element that was causing problems to his vision. He may have gotten lucky with the time being slowed down previously, but he was sure it was totally random and chances of it happening again were extremely low.

A few moments later.

Lith was almost done with the untangling. Only one strand was left. He quickly finished it and was about to focus on another elemental energy when…

Rumble…

Thunder roared in the sky and looking up, a blood red portal seemed to have formed in the sky.

Out of it, a hundred metres tall golem, rivaling even the Giants of this world, slowly descended down from it.

Lith raised his eyebrows in surprise. 'So that's how it is. A creature would appear after I'm done untangling one element. That's good to know—'

Another golem descended down. It was pitch black and half the size of the previous golem.

Lith squinted his eyes and faintly saw another golem descend down, even smaller than the one before it.

Lith sighed and shook his head. 'Is this even a King Rank tribulation at this point? The damn world is playing—no, toying with me with all these summons.'

Lith could only curse and get back to fighting. At least he understood one thing: a new creature won't descend unless he finished untangling an elemental energy.

With that in mind, Lith went ahead to kill the golem and see if what he was thinking was true or not.

It turned out to be true.

Killing the golems took a lot of effort, but they were much easier to defeat than before as Lith had more elemental energies to work with.

The snowball effect was real and worked wonders.

As Lith sat on a pile of rocks and dust, which were the dead golems, he took his sweet time and let his spiritual power replenish first.

Then, he began with the untangling and this time untangled the Earth energy which was causing a lot of trouble.

As expected, the clouds rumbled again, and a portal opened up. Out of it appeared a tall, elf-like creature holding a staff.

It was followed by an army of the same species.

Fighting them proved to be a challenge, but with so many elemental energies to work with and being energized from the rest, Lith beat them up too.

He didn't kill them though. They seemed sentient and could communicate. Their language was not something he knew, but on the verge of death and tormented brutally, Lith could guess what they were trying to say.

There were suppression seals in his space ring and using them, he grouped these guys and threw them at a side. They shouldn't interfere with the incoming summons and the seal on them could only be broken by a Supreme Rank or above.

This was a King Rank tribulation, there weren't going to be someone of Supreme Rank prowess.

Just like that, with each untangling of an element, there appeared powerful creatures.

Some came in a group, some alone. Some were mindless while some sentient.

As Lith untangled more of his elemental energies and recovered, the summons didn't pose him any threat, even if they were grouped together by the other ones.

Thus, Lith decided to capture them instead of killing them. They could be killed anytime, so he might as well see what these things were and study them.

From the spectators' side, Lilith, Agalea, and Alea had happy and relieved expressions.

They almost had a heart attack before, but it was all good now.

Lilith planned to intervene and her motherly instincts were screaming at her to go rescue her child, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay in place. It was challenging, but she managed.

Intervention in the external tribulation was not good. It could pose a lot of problems later on and may even stunt one's growth. This was damnable and hateful, but nothing could be done about it. Nature was too annoying sometimes.

They continued to watch and Lilith could feel Lith finish untangling his last element, which was Life.

Thunder rumbled and a bright portal opened up.

Lilith watched curiously as to what the last creature would be.

As the creature descended down, Lilith raised her eyebrows in surprise as it seemed to be a normal looking…

"Human?" Alea called out.

Lilith scoffed at the tribulation being so stupid, however, as she turned to look at Lith, he was frozen stuck in place, his eyes widening like saucers and his hair standing on their ends.

'Huh?' Lilith didn't understand this reaction from her son.

Lith in the meanwhile, as he looked at the human descend down, felt his entire body tremble.

Continue chills went down his spine and with a shaking hand, he covered his mouth and said softly, "That's… h-how is that… possible?"