"What?" Urien muttered, confusion and caution mixing in his voice. Vampires were supposed to be a secret. Even their name was buried beneath myths and legends.
For someone on the other side of the door to call them out by name meant only one thing.
An enemy.
As a Hierarch, his mind raced through the possibilities, trying to make sense of something that didn't add up.
I'm not in Arlcliff City anymore. I must have been teleported... By a mage? Only an Adept or higher could teleport me and my carriage, but leave the horses and coachmen behind. That means a Master-level mage. The only one we've provoked recently, or who even knows about us, is the same one who attacked the Nocturne. Could it be them? But how did they find me after I went undercover? Have they known all along who we are and where?
Urien's mind filled with questions without answers. Before he could think further, the friendly voice came again, followed by another knock.
"Hello, are you going to answer the door?"
Urien stayed silent. The quiet stretched for a moment before a low sigh echoed out.
"You know, I was going to make this fun, but if you're going to be boring... fine."
Urien barely had time to react before everything exploded. A deafening blast of pressure tore through the carriage, sending him flying. Pieces of wood shattered around him as he was thrown into the open sky.
"Huh!?" Urien gasped, struggling to keep his balance against the force pushing him through the air. Black fog leaked from his arms and legs—his vampiric true body forming around his limbs. Like puppets on strings, vampires controlled their bodies from inside, but their true forms could pull from outside, too. His true body pulled on these strings, fighting the blast's power and reducing his velocity. He crashed through the treetops, snapping branches beneath his feet before landing hard on the ground.
He slid until a jutting boulder stopped him.
What kind of spell was that? So much force... I couldn't fight it. It has to be that boy Magnus, the same mage who took out Austra. Now I'm the target.
A cold warning settled over Urien. They didn't know how Magnus had defeated Austra—his own power, help, or some magical artifice made to kill vampires—but it didn't matter. Without hesitation, Urien sent a message not only to every Hierarch but every vampire nearby. It included his location and a quick summary of what was happening.
But the moment the message went out, Urien's eyes snapped open wide. He looked up at the clear blue sky, squinting. Then he saw it: a faint ripple in the air.
A barrier.
Almost invisible, covering the whole area, and it had blocked his communication.
When did they even have time to set up a barrier that big? I'm completely-
Urien's thoughts were cut off as a glint caught his eye. It shimmered through the trees and underbrush, growing brighter every second. By the time he realized it was an attack, it was too late to use any complicated defense. He just raised a hand to block it. The impact was so strong that the ground behind him instantly sank.
His defense was simple. He wrapped the hand he'd held out in a dense form of his true body—a shield. Supporting it with his other hand, he braced as the attack kept coming.
The attack was just as straightforward. Raw mana, fired with such speed, it became an energy beam. When it hit Urien's shield, the beam shattered into fragments that exploded outward, tearing up the earth and trees around him.
Urien felt himself pushed back, forced to pour more of his true form's power into maintaining the shield.
How much mana do they have!?
It was insane. Whoever was attacking him had to be burning through their mana, firing such a brutal, unrefined blast. Yet then something even more shocking happened. The mana beam suddenly grew stronger, like water speeding up through a narrow pipe. What had been the width of an arm doubled... then tripled... then quadrupled. From above, the beam looked like a streak of black and white light cutting through the forest, shining brighter than the sun.
"It- It's too much!" Urien shouted as his figure blurred into streaks of light, swallowed by the beam. Breaking through his defense, the beam smashed into the boulder Urien had hit earlier. The collision triggered a massive explosion that echoed for kilometers. The ground shook as shockwaves of wind and mana rippled out in every direction. The gathered mana shattered, sending embers of magic lighting up the forest and sky.
Amid the chaos of debris, mana, and the spirits' suppression effect, two figures walked slowly through the forest. When the sunlight above shone on them, separating them from the shadows, it became apparent that it was Magnus with Niall trailing a step behind.
"Not bad for a shot over a quarter kilometer, wouldn't you say?" Magnus said, glancing back at Niall. He raised a finger still shimmering with mana particles, then blew them away. The particles vanished under the suppression effect.
"Very impressive, my Lord," Niall replied with a slight bow, his face calm and neutral.
Magnus rolled his eyes and smirked lazily.
"Ugh, you're so stiff. The last thing I need is another Basker. No offense, Basker."
[None taken, Master.]
Of course, Niall couldn't hear Magnus, which probably made him seem even more unstable to the vampire—or at least more unpredictable.
Magnus had already placed the mark of loyalty on Niall, though Niall hadn't really noticed it. When Magnus pulled him out of his storage ring, they'd been in an alleyway, and Niall was told not to resist, no matter what he felt. After that, he sensed something probing his mind, but unlike Basker, most people didn't have a clear mental form or the ability to see into their own minds the way Magnus could. All they had to rely on were feelings. So when Magnus ordered Niall not to resist, Basker easily gained access to the usually guarded main consciousness.
The mark itself was surprisingly simple to place. It was Magnus's first time entering another person's mind, but as soon as his mental form appeared there, it was like a piece of his mind embedded itself inside Niall's. If Niall had resisted, Magnus would have been pushed out, like oil separating from water. But since he didn't resist, Magnus could move freely through Niall's mindscape and even spread his influence. It was almost like everywhere Magnus went, he left a trace of himself, turning Niall's mind into a mix of his own and Magnus's.
Basker told him it was just what happened when two minds interacted without rejection. Wherever Magnus left his influence, he could control things with the Command Console almost as easily as in his own mind. Niall didn't even realize he had the mark. Its effect was that subtle. It created loyalty that felt natural and logical in Niall's own thoughts.
It reminded Magnus of the oaths Mia took. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, but considering Basker had once wanted to kill him—and given the number of bodies Niall must have left behind him during his history as a vampire—he figured it was a kind of retribution.
Still, none of that stopped Niall from noticing how strange Magnus was. When he was first set free in the alley, if Niall had to describe Magnus in one word, it would be solemn, like he was carrying a secret he'd never share.
But now, Magnus was playful—so much so that Niall felt like he was looking at a different person.
They soon stopped about a dozen meters from the shattered boulder where Magnus's last attack had landed. Even a blast like that wasn't enough to kill a vampire. Magnus could already see Urien's body regenerating after half of it had been torn away. His long black coat and shoulder capelet were mostly destroyed, along with the undercoat beneath. All that was left were his laced boots and matching black pants. Urien twitched on the ground, then slowly pushed himself up from the crater.
His expression wasn't surprised anymore. Instead, his eyes—well, eye, since the other was still healing—narrowed in on Magnus with focus.
Since Urien and the other Hierarchs already knew who he was, Magnus didn't bother with his usual mask. He wore casual modern clothes, which didn't really fit the situation. One hand in his trouser pocket, he raised the other and gave a wave.
As Urien fully stood, he spoke first.
"Magnus, I presume?"
Magnus nodded, his smirk shifting into a proud smile.
"Correct. Glad to hear my name's spreading around the... vampire community, I guess? I don't really know what you all call each other. Anyway, I'm hoping the news about me is getting around like a boogeyman story. I do plan on hunting you down, but if you want to pack up and leave Arlcliff City on your own, honestly, I wouldn't mind."
"Oh, trying to scare us off? So even you know you couldn't handle all of us." Urien's words had a teasing edge, trying to provoke Magnus, but also carried some truth—or at least what Urien believed was true. If Magnus wanted them out of Arlcliff City, making himself seem too dangerous to mess with would be the best tactic. Still, Urien felt confused. Everything about this Magnus—the person standing in front of him—felt off. He seemed like a regular person, and there were none of the usual signs on him that hinted he was a mage or a knight.
Yet somehow, Urien couldn't see the young man before him as human. He didn't breathe, but his body shifted in strange ways. His eyes seemed to look right through everything. Visually, he was too... perfect. Both sides of his face were perfectly symmetrical, with no blemishes. Even vampires, with their power to create bodies, couldn't pull off something so flawless.
Magnus hummed softly and began pacing.
"Eh… I wouldn't say scare. More like, I'd rather save myself the trouble. Honestly, it'd be easier if you all just attacked me at once. Then I could clean you all up at once, you know?" Both Urien and Niall were stunned. For Urien, it was the complete lack of hesitation. For Niall, it was Magnus claiming he could take on every Hierarch at once.
"Tch, you really think you could take all of us? Are you that deluded?" Urien scoffed, his body tensing as if ready to strike.
"Deluded? Pfft, no, no." Magnus waved a hand in front of his face, laughing off the claim.
Stopping his pacing, he looked Urien directly in the eyes and said, "It's just that my view of you all has changed. Before, you had some novelty—vampires, nightwalkers, living shadows that feast on the living. But now? You're just... big blood-sucking leeches that are annoyingly hard to kill. Actually, there's probably a better word for you…"
He snapped his fingers, thinking, then lit up like he'd had a sudden idea.
"Ah, that's it!" He said, pointing at Urien.
"Cockroaches. That's what you guys are like. So hard to kill, and squeezing into places you don't belong." Urien's expression froze, then twitched. In all his centuries, no human had ever dared mock him so openly.
It got worse when Magnus turned away from him and looked at Niall, adding, "But not you, of course, Niall. We're cool."
Niall honestly didn't know how to respond. Meanwhile, Urien, who'd been ignoring Niall until now, finally realized the person beside Magnus wasn't human at all, but a fellow vampire. And a Nightborn, no less.
No, wait... his signature was too strong to be a Nightborn, yet too unstable and weak to be a Hierarch.
That realization shifted Urien's expression from irritation to pure malice as he glared at Niall.
"Ah, I get it now... you're helping him find us, hunting us down, you filthy traitor! Serving a human—what a disgrace!" Niall had heard words like that plenty of times before, back when he helped Magnus gather nexuses from other vampires. But coming from a Hierarch—a being Nightborn were told to respect and revere above all else—it still made Niall lower his head.
"Forgive me, my Lord..." He kept using the title, but then Magnus stepped between Urien and Niall's gaze.
"Oh, don't scare the poor guy. You should actually commend him. Because when I'm done, he'll be the only proof you roaches ever existed in Arlcliff City." Magnus said this with an excited grin. He could already hear the background music rising, meaning he was preparing to attack. He'd just given Urien the trigger. As expected, Urien launched his strike—but Magnus noticed something odd: the spike in the music told him that the attack was coming from above, not from Urien himself.
"Oh?" Magnus looked toward a nearby tree just a few meters away. Halfway up the trunk, a strangely shaped shadow lingered. In the next moment, it shifted into a full three-dimensional form—another Urien. The clone rushed down towards Magnus with claws bared, moving at supersonic speeds far faster than sound itself. Urien looked surprised that Magnus had pinpointed the direction of the attack so easily after all the care he had taken hiding it, but he committed to the strike anyway.
Magnus reacted perfectly. Both hands shot out and caught the clone's wrists. A shockwave rolled across the area, shaking trees and sending leaves falling. Even Niall was forced to step back. As for Urien, though, he felt something strange—Magnus's body hadn't budged or even reacted to the attack's force. His strike had simply been stopped dead, and he couldn't move his wrists at all.
What is this?
As Urien questioned it in his mind, Magnus did so openly. He looked between Urien and the clone still standing near the crater, acting casually.
"Oh, you can make clones of yourself? But only control one at a time, it seems. Fascinating. Is that something all vampires can do? Austra didn't, so does that mean you're stronger than her? Or maybe she just didn't take me seriously enough?" Magnus's curious, amused tone only made Urien more annoyed.
He shouted back, furious.
"Damn, brat!" Urien snapped, his mouth opening wide to reveal his fangs. In the next instant, the energy of his true form leaked out from his head. It looked like a dark phantom—partially transparent—had appeared behind Urien's skull, forming a massive pair of fangs, big enough to rip a person in half and mimicking his teeth. As he bit down, his real fangs clamping shut, the phantom ones followed, tearing through the air.
But he didn't feel the softness of skin or squelch of flesh.
Suddenly, the grip on his wrists vanished, and he nearly fell forward as the phantom fangs dissolved back into his body. Magnus had disappeared, or at least, that's what Urien thought—until he heard Magnus's voice.
"Oh wow, clones and projections? Gotta admit, your use of your true form is way cooler than Austra's so far." The voice didn't come from behind, beside, or even far away. It was coming from right above him.
Niall, watching from a distance, stared in shock at Magnus. He was standing on Urien's back—one foot on his shoulder, the other near his lower back—with his hands tucked into his pockets.
"So... where exactly were you trying to bite me?" Magnus asked, looking down at Urien from above, who was still trying to process what had happened. Without waiting for an answer, Magnus chuckled and lifted the leg resting on Urien's shoulder. Then he slammed it down like a hammer, smashing Urien's body into the ground and shaking the earth beneath them.
Magnus glanced down before turning to Niall, who looked utterly baffled.
How could he have imagined a Hierarch could be so thoroughly outmatched? Niall knew Magnus had killed Austra—he'd said as much—but back then, he'd imagined it was at least a fair fight, not something so one-sided.
"So, can you do stuff like this?" Magnus asked, causing Niall to shake off his surprise and look at him.
"What?" Niall said, not quite following.
"Clones. Can you create clones like this guy?" Magnus asked, nodding toward Urien, still pinned under his foot.
"I- I believe so," Niall explained.
"But it takes a huge amount of energy to control a secondary body while still maintaining your original. Nightborn can't do it."
Magnus nodded, interested.
"Huh."
Just then, he felt Urien's body beneath him shrink and vanish. Looking down, he watched as the clone broke down into it's usual dark, hazy energy, returning to Urien's original body, which stirred back to life.
Magnus was about to say something when a loud snap cut him off. In an instant, his tibia bone shattered inward, and all the muscles, arteries, and flesh around it ruptured. There was a sickening pop as blood and tissue splattered onto the ground, tearing through his pants.
Urien, back in his original body, smiled cruelly at the mess Magnus's leg had become.
Fool, getting that close without thinking. Everyone knows mages keep their distance to avoid close-range attacks they can't react to.
His eyes trailed up to Magnus's face, expecting to see pain or panic.
Instead, he found curiosity—and a smile.
"Huh, it's like my leg exploded from the inside out. Now, how did you do that?" Magnus asked, lifting the damaged leg. The shattered section hung loosely by strands of muscle and flesh, like a wrung-out cloth. Blood poured down, staining the ground, but Magnus didn't seem to care.
"Hmm, did you manipulate density? No... even if the mana artifice can't detect changes at that micro-level, it didn't look like density shifted. No, it's more like something crushed my leg from the inside and made it bloom. Hmm... Oh, I see! Pressure manipulation! You can control pressure, just like Austra controlled perception. More specifically, you pressurize things, right? No wonder my body couldn't hold up. If you can bypass a knight's aura, you could kill even a Master-level by targeting their brain or heart." In a matter of seconds, Magnus figured out Urien's ability. He spoke casually as the two vampires watched, seeing his leg regenerate before their eyes.
The mangled limb twitched. Broken bone shards that had embedded in or been sent flying out of Magnus's body floated back and realigned, knitting back into place and fixing the lattice. Muscles bulged back, unraveling from their bloodless state as if suddenly alive again. Moments later, as the regeneration process finished, skin regrew over raw tissue, fading from pink back to Magnus's usual color.
Magnus tapped his leg on the ground.
"Good as new. Shame about the pants—I'll have to recreate them later. But never mind that." His gaze snapped up to Niall as he laughed, the sound cutting through the air. He stepped forward, arms slowly opening.
"That was impressive. I didn't kill you right away because I wanted to see your domain—but it's even more interesting than I thought. This is the perfect opportunity." He stopped, standing halfway between Urien and where he'd been seconds before.
"Come on," Magnus said, arms wide, like inviting a hug.
"What- what are you talking about? What are you?" Urien muttered, staring at him like he'd lost his mind.
Magnus tilted his head.
"Huh? What are you talking about? You already know my name. So stop wasting time."
His laugh echoed again, this time a giggle, his eyes wide with excitement.
"Use that ability on me again. Don't worry, I won't fight back. You can crush my legs, ribs, pressurize my heart, create bubbles in my veins, even shatter my spine if you want. Come on! This is your only chance to kill me. After this, I'm going to erase you. So really put some effort into it."
At that moment, shock or confusion didn't begin to describe Urien's feelings as he stared at Magnus's maniacal grin, a smile stretched unnervingly wide across his face.
"You're insane..." Urien said, as if realizing it for the first time.
Magnus paused.
"Huh? Insane? Yeah, I actually figured that out last night. That's why I had to turn my emotions off before coming here. But don't worry—I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll even modify my brain so I can't go insane in the future. But you don't have to worry about that. All you need to do is try to kill me!"