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' This is not good Max, his breathing has stabilised, he isn't too shocked that we countered his attack and has taken the approach of a cautious man.

Looks like he is no longer underestimating you ' Drax said in Max's mind as Max returned vigilance with vigilance.

His troops had already been instructed that once he began engaging Dracula, they were to turn their focus towards the werewolf capital and leave Max to fight on his own.

As a result, the destroyers and the frigates had begun their descent into the planet, lighting up any small villages or far away cities that did not constitute the main capital and was not home to the church of cowards rebel forces.

Dracula watched them descend however he did nothing about it as he turned his full attention to Max while letting go of all the distractions.

" What happened eh? Not cursing anymore? Did you accidentally bite your tongue when I punched your jaw?" Max teased as he tried to mess with Dracula's state of mind once more, however, his words fell on deaf ears.

As a true primordial vampire, Dracula craved for a good fight and a tough opponent to beat as nothing felt as pleasurable to him than a hard fought victory.

His eyes started to shine blood red and his skin turned pale as a blood mist aura surrounded him signalling the start of the battle-form transformation as Max responded in kind by using [ Call Of The Sanguis ] and doing the same. Both of them were prime examples of what primordial vampires could achieve at their peak form, however, while Dracula looked like he did not have an ounce of melanin in his body and had tongue and pupils redder than strawberries, Max looked like he was a feral beast combined with a vampire with a slightly toned skin and pupils that stretched ever so slightly vertically making them oval instead of a circle.

Being a part dragon, Max had the benefit of having two hearts instead of one and had physical characteristics that made him look like a part beast which significantly distinguished his appearance from that of Dracula even though both of them looked like they were cut from the same cloth.

As Dracula carefully closed in on Max, using his sword skills to fight. Max responded by parrying his attacks as the two of them gauged the depths of each other's strengths through this exchange.

Both of them started at about 40% of their true strength, increasing the power behind each strike by about 5% up till they reached 80% output.

At 80% one could still maintain the facade of not breaking a sweat while reading their opponents emotion and while neither of them had the clear edge over the other, Dracula was being pushed back ever so slightly in a turn of events that greatly surprised him.

Max's swordsmanship was crude. It was basic and did not have the fluency and beauty of a refined martial art.

However, his swordsmanship was effective and difficult to find openings against.

In terms of superiority, he had the better knowledge and skills of the two swordsmen yet the deciding factor that was pushing him back was strength and agility.

Max was stronger and faster than him and although he could read Max's attacks like an open book, there was little he could do to avoid or stop them when he was being consistently outpowered. lightsnovel

If he had to guess, Max had at least 10,000 more points in strength and about 15,000 more in agility than Dracula did which seemed unfathomable to Dracula since there was an entire tier and a few hundred levels separating the two.

Usually the level deficit would be too much for any warrior to make up for, however, Max who was following the path of the perfect warrior had accumulated strength akin to a tier8 warrior at tier7 and hence had the confidence to face an opponent like Dracula head on.

The longer the duo fought the more intimidated Dracula became as it became clear to him that Max was stronger than even Regus Aurelius.

He had believed that the reason behind why Max spared him the day that Regus died was because he was scared of taking him on.

However, now he felt like Max had spared him that day for the same reason he had spared Regus the day he woke up, which was to have a good fight later.

" Hahahaha-, alright Max Rajput, I'll dance with you! " Dracula said as he increased his output to 100% while simultaneously preparing the spell [ Dark Dimension ] on the down low.

*********

( Meanwhile Rudra )

The queen had been tasked with monitoring Rudra and his family and intervening for the safety of their lives when and if necessary.

Rudra did not want his family to roam around with the universal queen being physically around them, so he had instructed the queen to only manifest herself in emergencies, however, after the Kremeth Jr and Kartikeya incident, Rudra had shifted that security to being permanent for all of his direct family.

He did not extend the same protection to Asiva, Anna, Max and junior because he was not sure if Max would appreciate it or not as all security deployments for Max's family were to be approved by Rudra personally before being sent through.

Today, as he was in his isolation training, the queen interrupted him and brought to his attention that Dracula was taking on Max as even though he was in the middle of an isolated session, Rudra momentarily dropped all that he was doing to focus on the fight.

Currently Max seemed to have the upper hand in the fight, however, the queen suggested that she be on standby in the background should Max need her help.

It was not an absurd security concern and Rudra did consider it momentarily before declining the queen's request and turning his focus back to his training.

As a man, Rudra knew that Max would not appreciate him interfering in his business and hence decided to stay out of it.