Alucard was baffled because others died before they blinked, but Eduard was different. Hein closed his eyes, and time began to slow down.
As time slowed, Hein Eduard darted toward Alucard and punched him in the stomach using the golden brass knuckles Ross had given him. The Dragon was hurled backward by the decisive blow, and time quickly returned to the normal chaotic pace of the fight. Blood Dragon, doubled over from the pain, looked up at Hein.
Quickly assessing the situation, he cut himself, drank his blood to numb the pain, and launched himself at the blue gentleman. He created blood daggers and struck Eduard rapidly. Each new attack came faster than the last. Hein blocked them, but soon he struggled to keep up.
'He's not letting me breathe.' Eduard thought, holding the attacks.
Hein couldn't match Alucard's incredible attack speed. Each block left a new wound, a fresh ribbon of blood. Eduard realised something chilling: Blood Dragon was toying with him, never striking a vital organ. "You bastard! Why are you playing with me?!"
Alucard paused, a sly grin on his lips. "You figured it out?" He gestured at Eduard's wounds. "Why waste a kill when I can squeeze every drop out of—?"
A slot machine suddenly flew at Alucard. He slashed the machine's screen with his dagger, and the weapon dissolved into blood and exploded the slot.
After it got blown up, Hein Eduard vanished, and a different body took his place, leaving Alucard furious. He shouted, "You coward! Don't hide or run from me!" Consumed by rage, he transformed into a bat and flew in pursuit of the blue gentleman.
Flying among the slot machines, Alucard shifted into a bat—his Hawaiian clothes shrank with his new form, and his shirt tore at the back as wings emerged. He soared through the air, searching for the blue gentleman. The Russian, while scouting, saw Hein Eduard behind a blackjack table.
He dashed down with his claws pointing at the enemy. Hein looked up, seeing the Blood Dragon rapidly approaching him, so he closed his eyes, slowing down time, giving him time to jump over the table, escaping the attack.
Alucard transformed into a human, daggers stabbed into the concrete floor where Hein Eduard was. He took out his weapons from the ground and swung them toward the blue gentleman. It got blocked, so the Dragon turned back into a bat. With his claws, he slashes at Eduard.
It was close for Hein Eduard to lose his head if he didn't slow down time by closing his eyes. Making the swing's speed so slow that it seemed time had stopped. The Ranker jumped backward, avoiding the attack.
"You are too quick, you are gonna waste my Flow at this rate." He snapped his fingers, and a system popped up in his view. Alucard was slowly flying toward him like he was under pressure in high gravity.
"System, how much until Flow is drained?"
Hein Eduard had a special ability that most flow users lacked, allowing him to flow how much energy his body held and which powers drained it most. It says his flow was about 70% gone; he needs to watch out for using that powerful ability.
"How long will it take for time resume?" Alucard flew toward him, distracting his attention toward the system. He easily avoided him, running farther away. He had 30 seconds left.
'Perfect.'
He snapped his finger, making the system vanish.
'I have enough time to do this.'
He grabs the revolver from his pocket, given to him by James Ross, and reloads it. He aimed at Alucard and pulled the trigger. Time went back to normal, and the bullet went through Dragon's bat wings, making a perfect hole, causing him to fall straight down. Alucard turned himself into blood to save himself.
He turned back human, angrily, "You will pay for make my flying worse."
Alucard couldn't fly well with one perfect wing and couldn't transform back into a bat. Frustrated, he slapped his hands together, summoning hands made of blood. They came from the ceiling, floor, and walls, in every direction in the area.
There was no escape for Hein, who had a few dodges, but he got caught by hands from the ceiling grabbing his legs while he was distracted by others. Then a few more grabbed his arms, lifting him into the air.
Hein Eduard was annoyed and tried to escape them, but they wouldn't budge. He was hanging upside down.
"You are a bitch, Alucard!" He said.
The Blood Dragon taunted Eduard, "I bet you can't use your ability while you're in that position." He smiled, "Oh, well." More hands piled up, where he couldn't breathe, "This is what you get for destroying my wings."
Eduard suddenly started giggling. Alucard raised an eyebrow and said, "Wow, I guess you didn't learn your lesson." He ordered the hands to squeeze him to death.
***
The blue gentleman couldn't breathe well, so he pulled a thin string from an invisible silver ring. He knew where it was because the string was visible but tiny. The ring became a bubble after he pulled it, settling on his head and giving him a chance to breathe in the tight space. Also, he took a remote from his pocket. Time was slowing down.
The hands tightened until they were so small that every bone in a person's body would be crushed! It dispersed after, dropping a crushed body onto the floor. The only thing that was still intact was the blue suit, crumpled, but recognisable.
Alucard was a little suspicious because Hein Eduard was an S-Rank craftsmith who kept many tools for fighting, and he remembered a similar incident from earlier. Because of that, the Dragon went closer to the body and noticed it wasn't the blue gentleman. He snapped his finger, summoning a dozen blood spikes into the air. His flow completely drained from that.
He threw the spikes at any hiding spot he thought Hein was hiding. After that, he flowed at the crumbled body and drank the blood, restoring his flow a little bit. The sharp objects shattered the pillars, sending the chunks into the slot machines. They vanished. Alucard started looking everywhere, the places the spikes didn't hit. He was closing in on Eduard without knowing. The A-rank investigator slowly looked up from the poker table.
Alucard saw him, "Found You!" The blue gentleman threw poker chips at the Russian man.
The Blood Dragon summoned his daggers, slashing the chips in half, then he changed the weapons into a deck that he threw at Hein. With clapping his hands together, they exploded. It broke the surrounding area.
"You are no-?!"
Before he could finish his sentence, Eduard, with brass knuckles, punched him in the stomach, throwing him through tables, machines, and pillars. Alucard cursed in Russian and stood up, shaking his head. Hein was walking toward him.
"Your tools are annoying." He looked at Eduard's face, "I will destroy everything until there's nothing left to help you!" He summoned his daggers back, throwing them. With a snap of his finger, it changed into a hand, then a spike.
'Oh, no, this is fast.'
Hein Eduard closed his eyes, slowing time down. He moved to the side, nearly avoiding it. But surprisingly, after time turned normal, a bat behind Eduard's back attacked him. Holding onto his neck.
"Get it off me," Hein said, trying to stop the bat from biting his neck.
"You were so focused on my blood powers that you forgot about my bats." He went closer to the blue gentleman and whispered, "This one collected so much blood that my flow would be restored fully."
"I give you a little secret." He absorbed the bat by touching it. "When a bat gets blood from many people and..." He started glowing, "When I absorb it, I become more powerful!" After finishing his speech with a punch, Hein Eduard went through the window.
The blue gentleman looked down and fell. "Shit, shit, shit!" He closed his eyes, slowing down time.
"I need to grab on somthing quick." He tried to move through the air, but his body wouldn't obey him, and even time slowed. He took out the remote control and pressed the red button.
In an instant, he teleported back to the building, which was two floors below the casino. Time resumed, and he went back to look at the window, seeing a Dragon Egg died on the ground.
"Sorry, it was between you and me." When Hein Eduard presses the remote, it switches places with an individual marked by the blue gentleman. The Ranker marked a few Eggs before Alucard caught them.
He called the system, and he had 30% flow left.
"I am dead!" He sat somewhere, "I don't know what to do? I have little flow, and Alucard became powerful with full flow."
He waited for Alucard to come to him. While sitting, he remembered his sister, 'I promised myself to find you, sis.' He cried, 'I am such a bad brother!'
Hein Eduard watched the window shatter, slowly revealing Alucard descending. He looked like a very different person after absorbing that special bat.
The Blood Dragon became a vampire, with black wings that let him descend. Alucard saw Hein, "You are not dead yet?" He opened his mouth, showing his sharp teeth, and flipped his wings, stretching his shirtless body. The Hawaiian shirt was torn after the transformation, revealing the six-pack and muscles he had gained.
"You give up?" He saw the blue gentleman's crying face, with his pitch-black eyes and red, glowing pupils.
"Good, makes my job easier."
Instantly, Alucard grabbed the remote control and threw it far from Eduard. He kicked the blue gentleman into the air and summoned a blood hand that gripped his legs, swinging him into the ground.
Eduard remembered his sister's words, "Hein, you should never give up hope when everything seems impossible, make it possible!" The voice snapped him out of it, and he remembered where he was, so he slowed down time, pulling the trigger on the revolver. He was supposed to die from the impact, but with the ability, despite his bones broken, he survived.
Alucard smiled, "Good job, you can now live for a few seconds."
The blue gentleman was on the floor, his body broken, and he couldn't escape from two big blood spikes forming in the air. Even if he stopped time, the second one would kill him!
"Good bye!" Alucard throws the spike toward the blue gentleman, Hein Eduard.
To be continued.