FAMILY ABOVE ALL: BATTLING AGAINST GODS

A white blur streaked around buildings at such an astonishing speed that even a powerful Red-core mage would have trouble keeping up with it.

In just a short breath, Arlo's group had already covered a region of two kilometers, despite the buildings blocking their paths.

Just when Arlo and the others became relieved at the thought that they would reach their goal in but a few minutes with the speed at which they were moving, Stefan's expression suddenly changed.

Despite  Arlo, Arianne, Roy, and the others only seeing the surrounding scene flash past them, Stefan could follow Joe's movement quite easily. In fact, even Khan could see his surroundings clearly, while Ella who had an affinity with Lightning could just barely make out her surroundings.

Barely a minute after their journey, a few figures moving in small groups started appearing in their paths. At first, Joe was able to move past them before they could even sense his presence, a maelstrom of wind left behind in his wake.

But soon after, the situation changed. More powerful figures who seemed to be touring the area in search of vampires started appearing on their way.

Just as Joe turned round a corner with a flash of bright light, an unbearable heat crashed into his massive scaly face, as his white reptilian pupils trembled at the sight of the gigantic spear made from fire that seemed to have been thrown at him even before he appeared.

Without a doubt, this was not an attack he could take head-on.

"Stop!" Stefan shouted in anger, as he swung his arm out, causing a long thick chain to burst out at a speed that even outmatched the speed at which Joe was moving.

No matter what, Joe was still at the peak of the master realm. Despite having a great affinity for light laws, and his bloodline allowing him to move at incredible speed, due to the great constraint from his cultivation, he could only move twice as fast as the speed of sound at the moment and hadn't reached the realm of his mother who was able to move at a fraction of the speed of light.

Yet despite that, his powerful bloodline and his talent as a god tier allowed him to outmatch even those that are higher than him by almost two great realms in speed.

The black chain thrown by Stefan moved and coiled forward like a flood dragon before piercing through the fifty-meter-long fire spear easily like knife through a butter, the spear erupting into a conflagration of flames, as the black chain continued uninterrupted and moved at almost light speed to wrap around the hand of the attacker. Before the man who had launched a surprise attack to stop Joe could even realize it, the black chain had coiled around his right hand like a serpent.

With a slight tug, Stefan screamed in anger, the emotions he had barely been suppressing erupting completely:

"Get over here!"

The man didn't even have a second to react before his body was yanked forward at a speed that broke the sound barrier, with sonic waves spreading out into the surroundings.

In just a second after Stefan's command, the man's pupils trembled when he saw himself flash before the former, and before he could even blink his eyes, a fist covered by a crimson gauntlet covered his vision.

With a bang, his head exploded into a bloody mist, the residue force sending what remained of his body flying soon after.

While all this sounded long to describe, from the moment the fire spear arrived before Joe to Stefan killing the enemy with his fist, barely three breaths had passed.

Arlo, Arianne, Ella, and even Khan who belatedly sensed the danger due to their sharp senses paled, but before they could even react, Stefan had already dealt with the threat.

Arlo gasped softly as he gazed at Stefan with a dumbfounded look. Even Arianne and the others shared the same expressions.

They could judge from the aura that still covered them that the middle-aged man who had surprise attacked them was far more powerful than a Red-core mage and was definitely in the Orange-core realm if not at its peak, yet Stefan who was only a first-level Orange-core mage had insta-killed him before the other party could even react.

How powerful!

Domineering!

Stefan ignored the look of astonishment and admiration the others were throwing at him, and instead spread out his spiritual sense, causing a deep frown to appear on his face.

"This has gotten more difficult..."

Just when the others were wondering why he said that despite his jaw-dropping display of strength, their expressions quickly changed when they felt many auras rush in their directions.

Before Arlo could even urge Joe to run, twenty figures flashed before them, directly blocking their path.

The elder of the red Wyverns who had left Cassian's side after entering the minor world led the twenty figures as he grabbed a bottle filled with blood.

"I don't why he even gave me this thing. In the end, it was useless..." he grumbled as he threw the bottle on the ground, causing it to break and the blood it contained to splash around. If it wasn't for the conflagration of flames that rose to the sky a few seconds ago, he wouldn't have located Arlo's group.

Arlo's face turned pale when his dragon eyes showed him the amount of mana coursing through the body of the man standing before them. To Arlo's horror, the density of the man's mana was at least a hundred times higher than Stefan's.

"A Yellow-core mage..." Stefan muttered as he walked to the forefront of the group and stood at the very edge of Joe's massive head. A deafening silence ensued as a palpitating pressure built up.

Arianne and the others paled as they could tell the situation they were in. The worst was that it felt as if they didn't have any chance of survival, as in just the few breaths of time both parties stared at each other, more figures arrived in the skies.

The initial number of twenty had already turned into eighty and the number was steadily increasing the more time they wasted.

In fact, Arianne and Arlo who could use their divine sense could feel the presence they had been running from was fast approaching, which didn't bode well for them.

Of course, Stefan could also sense it.

He could tell that the others were delaying and buying time for their comrades to arrive. What Stefan didn't know was that the red-haired elder secretly felt surprised, which is why he hadn't given an order for his group to attack.

He could see the corpse splattered on the wall of a nearby building and from the aura emanating from it, he could tell the dead man was a peak Orange core mage, yet he couldn't even last ten breaths before they arrived.

He wasn't scared of Stefan's group but still decided to increase his chances and wait for the others to come.

Likewise, he also didn't know that Stefan was using this opportunity to converse telepathically with the juniors around him, despite their situation worsening every breath.

"Beast boy, I will create a path for you to run." He said telepathically to Joe who couldn't answer due to his lack of spiritual energy. Thankfully Arianne answered for him.

"No! Big brother, I am not leaving without you..."

Arianne's already pale face seemed to worsen as she gazed at the back of her brother with a look of fear.

"Arianne..."

"No, don't say anything. I refuse to leave you."

"Sister..."

"No!"

Arianne moved, intending to hug her brother, but was held back by a small but firm hand.

Turning back, the sides of Arianne's eyes glistened with tears, as her beautiful face now turned pale gazed at one of the few persons she had recently come to find important.

"Arlo?"

Arlo's heart wrenched as he gazed at the tears that slowly spilled down Arianne's face.

"Why...why are you holding me?"

Her question stung his heart greatly, a suffocating feeling engulfing his body. Yet, he didn't reply and merely locked eyes with her with a grave expression on his face.

"No-dont tell me...you too..." Her silent cries soon turned into choked sobs, "Th-That is my brother...my brother..."

Despite the pleading edge in her voice and the sorrowful look on her face, Arlo's grip didn't slacken and instead grew firmer.

"Thank you..."

At the same time that Arianne continued to beg him to let her go, Stefan's grateful voice suddenly resounded in his mind.

"I will leave her to you."

Arlo didn't reply and merely nodded in his direction. Seeing their quick exchange, Arianne could tell they were communicating, causing her to throw herself into Arlo's embrace and cry her eyes out.

"Isn't that the vampire princess? To think her cries would sound so pleasing to the ears!"

"Hahahaha! Don't tell me you have a thing for young ones?"

"Eh?"

The surrounding corrupted snickered and mocked Arianne and Stefan. Within this short time, their number had already increased to more than a thousand. So they already saw Stefan's group as fish on a chopping block.

Suddenly...

Stefan who had remained still for almost a minute slowly floated to the sky, his eyes fixed on the red-haired elder.

"I will leave the ones on the ground to you." He said to no one in particular.

The red-haired Elder raised an eyebrow as he gazed at the about three hundred Corrupted who couldn't fly and were on the ground, showing that they had yet to break into the true stages of cultivation, before glancing at Arlo's small group on the 40-meter-long green snake. Soon after, he shifted his eyes back on the flying Stefan and couldn't help but question:

"You don't think you can escape us, do you?"

Stefan looked at the red-haired elder who was as strong as a Count, the leader of a vampire clan, before studying the over five Hundred figures surrounding him in the air, and covering any gap he could use to escape.

"Escape?" He chuckled before flashing an evil smile, "I am going to kill you! All of you!"

A stunned look appeared on the red-haired elder and the surrounding enemies' faces before a bout of uncontrollable laughter soon erupted.

"Hahahaha!"

"Is he serious? He will kill us all?"

"Maybe we scared him silly..."

Words of mockery along with laughter echoed out, and even the red-haired elder couldn't help but shake his head in disdain.

However, while his enemies were laughing and making jest of his words, Stefan merely gazed at them, as his anger began to bubble, causing his eyes to shine with a crimson glow.

His Grandmother...

His Parents...

His Principals and Elders...

His friends and mates...

His people...

Some were dead, while the status of others, he couldn't confirm. Hiding within the minor world to protect Khan, Ella, and his sister had filled him with a sense of shame and anger, yet he bore through it and persevered.

But who would have thought the other party wouldn't be satisfied with killing those on the outside and would stoop so low as to invade the minor world to kill the vampire's younger generation?

He had had enough!

"You are all courting death!"

Stefan's angry voice pierced through the laughter and jeering of the surrounding hundreds of enemies, causing the great majority of them to keep quiet.

The eyes of the red-haired elder instantly narrowed at Stefan, and while he couldn't see Stefan's spiritual energy he could still feel it with his sharp senses. And it was because he could feel it that he could tell that Stefan had surprisingly instantly covered the surrounding thirty kilometers with his spiritual energy, engulfing him and every member of his group in it.

"That is enough! Attack him!"

Despite not knowing why their boss suddenly gave that order, the corrupted obeyed instantly and launched varying attacks at Stefan's lonely figure.

A Kaleidoscope of lights filled the skies as hundreds of attacks made from different laws surrounded Stefan.

"BROTHER!"

Arianne's anxious voice pierced through the sky from below, as she watched her brother besieged from every direction by hundreds of mages with a minimum cultivation of the Red-core realm.

As he watched the attacks flying towards him, and at the same time that his will spread out with him at the center to cover the region filled with his spiritual energy, Stefan's soft voice drifted into the ears of his sister and those around him.

"Do not worry sister, something like this cannot kill me!"

Using his will as a medium, Stefan's body burst out with dark essence as he controlled the surrounding darkness laws to manifest his domain.

"CHAINS OF TARTARUS!"

Silence engulfed the world, as gigantic chains tens of thousands of meters long and tens of meters thick instantly manifested, their numbers quickly surpassing a thousand, before reaching an astonishing number of a hundred thousand. Yet, they showed no impression of stopping soon. The black chains twisted and turned around themselves like flood dragons as they covered the skies, destroying all the attacks thrown at Stefan and even coiling around the bodies of a third of those in the skies.

Looking at the corrupted who were gazing at him with a lost look on their faces, the sides of Stefan's mouth rose to form an evil spine-chilling smile.

"Didn't I tell you, you will die?"

Before anyone could react, the chains coiled around almost two hundred Corrupted tightened abruptly, causing bloody flowers to bloom in the dark skies. At the same time, thousands of chains twisted around themselves before lunging at the still stupefied corrupted, their tips shining with a dark ominous light that matched perfectly with their master's evil smile.