"What... just happened?"

I slowly regained my consciousness as I heard the sound of the Progenitor gasping in pain. I looked around at the others, who were all slowly pulling themselves up from the ground. It was a scene which looked almost no different from when I passed out.

The Progenitor was clasping his chest, obviously confused by what had just occured.

"Why... when did this happen...?"

Blood was gushing profusely out of his chest, staining his clothing, hands and quickly dripping onto the ground. His entire torso was being tainted by a dark red liquid. He appeared to be waiting for it to heal; however, that was never going to happen.

Quickly identifying the situation, Alicar got to his feet and dashed toward the Progenitor. He had insane amounts of composure, always being able to remember the task that was set for him. With his long silver blade, he engaged the vampire king once again.

Their swords clashed once again. However, the Progenitor was more lethargic than before. His movements were slow, more predictable, and more simple. Alicar was able to fight on even ground, not losing any space.

As the two of them fought, I drew [Mayuri-Luc-Ei]. It seemed that I had gained all of my strength back. Now that our entire group was back up, we all engaged the weakened Progenitor. He was being completely overwhelmed by all the different attacks. But most importantly, he was struggling due to the large wound on his chest.

With no way of healing it, he would gradually lose more and more blood. The wound was great enough so that it would become fatal after enough time. As the Progenitor began trying to fight back with more ferocity, I decided to take a step back and watch the battle from afar.'

My skill still wasn't enough to be able to fight properly with an opponent of his calibre. It was best for me to stay back and let the previous injury and my teammates wear him down.

Josh and Alicar were enough to keep him occupied.

"Drink my blood, Beelzebub."

Suddenly, the Progenitor began feeding more blood to his weapon. From what I could observe, it seemed that his weapon wasn't like the weapons of the other vampires. It seemed more closely related to our Demonic Weapons. As blood dripped from his arm to the blade, he jumped back and raised his sword.

"Choke them, Beelzebub."

What.

I can't... breathe.

That must have been his ability.Wait... how do I fight this...

I struggled to get air into my lungs, but it wasn't going in.

The others were also grasping their throats in pain.

I noticed a thick dark aura surrounding my neck. I scratched and scraped, but it wasn't going away.

Crap.

I'm going to pass out if I don't do anything.

I tried to speak.

Wait... I can't talk, either.

This was not good.

This must be the Progenitor's last resort; I saw that he was also on his knees, holding his chest in pain. If we managed to push through this, victory was in sight. The question was, how do we break out of his ability?

His ability didn't originate from a system so Mayuri wouldn't be able to do anything. I couldn't call out to her anyways.

Time was running out.

My body was starting to struggle.

I had no other thoughts. The only thing that I felt would work was to kill him. If he died, there was a good chance that his ability would disappear as well. I had no other choice, I had to make a gamble.

He was crouched on the ground, obviously running out of strength. Even with no oxygen going into my body, I still had enough energy to make one last push. Raising [Mayuri-Luc-Ei], I charged at the vampire. As my footsteps echoed through the cave, he lethargically looked up at me.

Raising his sword in defence, I began attacking him. As my blade travelled through the air, he managed to bring his sword to block my first attack.

It hurt.

I needed air.

I was running out of energy.

Again, I swung at him. Both of our movements were slow, like we were wading through molasses. However, I managed to connect with his body. He managed to divert the path of my blade with his hilt, causing me to only cut his shoulder. I needed to kill him, to cut off his head.

With all my remaining strength, I swung at his neck.

He tried as hard as he could to bring his blade up to block it. However, he had finally run out of strength. Too much blood had leaked out of his body. Slowly falling out of consciousness, I managed to make contact with his neck.

The blade slashed through the dense skin, piercing through, cutting into his flesh. I heaved as hard as I could, trying to cut it off. After a few seconds, I could feel all my strength leaving me. However, his head hit the ground with a thump.

I did it.

Suddenly, air rushed back into my lungs.

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

I needed air.

My lungs expanded and contracted like a balloon.

Was it over?

It was a refreshing feeling, the feeling of air entering back into my body.

Was it all over?

The Progenitor's head rolled around on the ground before coming to a standstill. Its features were completely lifeless, and its eyes were eerily open, but it was clear that all life had left him. I made my way closer before suddenly receiving a message.

[All Progenitors have been killed.]

[You were a [Significant] contributer to the process]

[As a result, you will obtain a [Legendary] prize for your contributions]

[All prizes will be distributed in the next few minutes]

[All Shadow Hunter Systems will be deactivated from now on]

[Remaining vampires lose their regenerative abilities]

So... I guess it was all done. Some of the other top-ranking humans must have killed the rest.