The sudden betrayal by the newly resurrected dark creatures had clearly caught the Skeleton Reaper off guard.
However, though the situation had gone beyond his expectations, the Skeleton Reaper showed no signs of panic.
After all, if he had the ability to resurrect the dead, he naturally had the means to control them.
With a flick of the scythe in his hand, the charging bosses instantly began to vaporize. Screaming, they were drawn toward his weapon.
In just a few seconds, they were sucked into the blade and vanished without a trace.
In truth, what he had performed wasn't resurrection at all—it was more accurate to call it a summoning.
Any dark creature that had died would revive within the Gate of Darkness, where they would be eternally sealed.
Count Dracula and the others were no exception. From the moment the Gate of Darkness opened in this world, all dead dark beings here were fated to become part of what lay beyond it.
The Skeleton Reaper could summon them at will—and just as easily, he could retrieve them.
That was precisely why Count Dracula and the others, having died not long ago, had yet to fully reform their bodies or regain consciousness within the Gate.
Had they been fully revived within the Gate and realized the Reaper's true identity and power, even if Count Dracula had no choice but to surrender due to the bloodline pressure, the other bosses would never have dared to defy the Skeleton Reaper.
Because he truly held their lives and deaths in his hands.
Seeing that summoning the dead from this world was no longer effective, the Skeleton Reaper's eyes flashed with crimson light. He swept his scythe once more, and thick black mist surged behind him.
In the very next moment, black fog billowed outward—and from it poured an army of monsters. They surged like a tidal wave toward Qin Ming and the others, their forms grotesque and varied. Some of them were so alien that Qin Ming and the rest didn't even recognize them. Clearly, these were not native creatures.
The Gate of Darkness had fully opened. The Reaper was calling reinforcements.
Having finally escaped the seal of the Gate, the released monsters shrieked with madness, rampaging freely as they lunged at the living.
Seeing this, Zhao Honghua quickly pulled out her peachwood sword. Channeling her mana, she began summoning the Fire Phoenix to assist.
Angel and Kasamoto Eiri also drew their weapons, coordinating their attacks—one for ranged, the other for melee.
As for Qin Ming, his body instantly exploded into a cloud of blood mist. The mist split into countless hardened blood droplets, shooting straight toward the Skeleton Reaper.
Wherever the blood mist passed, monsters were torn to shreds—riddled with holes and falling to the ground in heaps.
And just as their corpses hit the ground, their blood was forcibly drawn out and merged into the swirling mist.
Watching the crimson haze flood toward him, the Skeleton Reaper's pupils contracted. His body swiftly floated backward.
Lacking legs, he flew with terrifying speed, and more importantly, his movements were erratic and ghostlike.
This led to a bizarre standoff—one chasing and the other fleeing—black mist ahead, blood mist behind. Neither could gain the upper hand.
But as it became clear that he couldn't pin down the Reaper, and with more and more monsters emerging from the fog, Qin Ming grit his teeth and finally gave up on killing the Skeleton Reaper head-on.
Instead, he reversed direction, his blood mist surging downward into the enemy horde.
He pierced straight through the chest of a werewolf, instantly reducing its body to a mangled mess full of gaping holes.
Qin Ming swiftly reformed into human shape, and with a sharp motion of his hand, he extracted the blood from the werewolf's corpse and condensed it into a spear.
He flung it with a snap of his wrist. Even before the spear reached its target, it shattered midair—causing a burst of bloodlight to flash. More than a dozen monsters were struck by the scattering fragments and sent flying, bodies tumbling and limbs flailing.
The moment this was done, Qin Ming once again exploded into a dance of blood mist—but even before he had fully vaporized, two flashes of cold light slashed at him from behind.
Two dark creatures had taken the opportunity to launch a sneak attack. Their weapons swung straight through the blood mist, but all they cut was air. For a moment, they managed to tear the mist apart, but in the next breath, it fused back together as if untouched.
Dodging the ambush, Qin Ming reformed behind them. In an instant, he grabbed the collars at the backs of their necks.
With a surge of power, he forcibly extracted massive amounts of blood from their bodies.
Both creatures began convulsing violently, and their once-bulky frames rapidly shriveled—within seconds, they were nothing but two dried-up corpses.
Qin Ming casually flung the corpses aside. Seeing more enemies closing in from all directions, he tugged at his battle robe and once again spun his body into a vaporous swirl.
This time, as he transformed into a cloud of blood mist, droplets of blood sprayed outward with his spinning motion.
The blood droplets shot in all directions, rapidly hardening midair. They struck with the power of shrapnel, blasting holes straight through any dark creature they hit!
In an instant, the air was filled with screams. Over thirty dark creatures collapsed all around him like harvested wheat—lifeless and still.
The bloodline ability of vampiric mist had one overwhelming strength: unpredictability. It was fluid, versatile, and granted terrifying mobility.
Combined with the unique effects of the Sound Nest battle suit, Qin Ming's combat power had easily doubled!
Ordinary groups of three to fifty monsters couldn't even get close to him.
While still in motion, the blood mist reformed again into Qin Ming's human form. With a flick of his robe, he raised his gaze once more toward the Skeleton Reaper.
On the other side, the Skeleton Reaper, watching as even such a massive wave of monsters couldn't subdue Qin Ming, immediately began escalating the assault.
As he swung his scythe, the spinning black fog behind him echoed with heavy footsteps.
The next moment, a towering minotaur emerged from the fog!
It was nearly five meters tall, clad in crude armor, and wielding a massive battle axe. It was clearly a BOSS-level monster!
Seeing that regular mobs couldn't defeat Qin Ming, the Skeleton Reaper had directly started summoning bosses!
And behind that struggling minotaur still pushing its way out of the fog, Qin Ming could vaguely make out the figures of other creatures—each one emanating the same powerful aura. All of them were BOSS-level as well!
Qin Ming's face darkened as he realized the Skeleton Reaper could summon bosses in batches.
Sure, after integrating his bloodline, Qin Ming had grown significantly stronger. Normal bosses weren't even a challenge to him anymore—he could kill them in seconds.
But that didn't mean he could withstand a full-scale siege by multiple bosses at once!
Realizing things were about to go south, Qin Ming immediately flung his hand out to unleash an explosive barrage, forcefully blasting back a second boss—a horse-headed monster—that was trying to crawl out of the fog.
Seeing this, the minotaur that had already emerged roared in fury, raised its massive axe—bigger than a full-grown human—and brought it down directly toward Qin Ming with a thunderous swing!
Hearing the wind whistle through the air, Qin Ming's body instantly turned crimson as he activated his mist form again.
He had only just finished turning into blood mist when the giant axe came crashing down from the front, slicing straight through the humanoid outline of the vaporous form—splitting it in two.
But before the minotaur could lift the embedded axe from the ground, the divided blood mist re-fused in the next second and rammed straight into the monster's body with a powerful impact!
(End of Chapter)