The forest of Avarros was no place for nobility after dusk. But Prince Adric
Vladimir, third-born of House Dracaria, had long since ceased to consider
himself noble. Not when he ran for his life, gasping, clawing at branches,
stumbling through mud and ash with the frantic, animal terror of prey.
The night air was thick, not just with fog but with something far worse—a presence.
It pressed down from the treetops and coiled like a serpent
around his legs. Even the moonlight feared to enter the woods this night. It
pulsed blood-red behind the clouds, casting the forest in a hue that whispered
of slaughter.
His boots slipped over twisted roots slick with moss. Every heartbeat
thundered in his skull. Behind him, the sound of leaves—not rustling,
not the wind.
Adric whimpered and pushed himself harder, lungs burning, robes tearing. He
had heard the tales of the Fiend of Dark. The devil's abomination. The
Outcast. Deva-El. During the last war, the armies were terrified at
him. They talked of him as a mad man that tear and break through bones like dry
twigs. They called him a monster, a Fiend. Some went far as saying he was the
devil.
He had laughed at the stories. Who wouldn't? A blindfolded, masked
phantom who could split men without touching them? Who moved with no sound, who killed without cruelty—because cruelty would suggest feeling?
He had laughed,
because to him, all that one can fear to that extent is the Blue blooded Draec.
Now he no longer laughed.
Now he ran, and the forest bent around the will of his hunter.
It wasn't the steps that gave him away. There were none. No crunch of
leaves, no snap of twigs. Only silence.
Too much silence.
The animals had fled. The owls no longer cried. Even the insects had gone
still. The forest was dead but for Adric's ragged breath and the aura
chasing him like a plague.
It clawed at his spine, pierced his bones, pulsed in the ground beneath his feet. Not merely a presence. A force.
Something malevolent, something foul and unspoken. A regal darkness so suffocating, it turned the very air heavy, poisonous, sacred.
The Fiend did not chase, He descended.
He was the darkness that swallowed torches, the scream that froze before it
escaped. And his aura—his aura was agony.
Adric could feel it invading his mind, dredging up his darkest memories: As
a Royal Draec, a Prince among vampires. Although he is a halfling, not as
formidable as his pure blooded brothers, but he was shocked of how terrified he
is right now his mind turned into a mess, One by one, memories flashed through
his mind until he was sobbing, half-blind with terror.
And still, the Fiend came.
Adric burst into a clearing and dared a glance over his shoulder. Nothing.
That was worse.
He tripped, scraped his palms on cold stone, and scrambled to his feet just
as something shifted in the mist. A ripple—like smoke parting around a figure.
Then he saw it.
Him.
Standing impossibly still at the edge of the trees.
Tall. Dressed in flowing dark robes that didn't ripple in the wind, as if
the air itself obeyed him. A cloak of shadows wrapped around him like loyal
hounds.
His face—gods—his face was hidden.
A mask of dull, almost metallic dark silver covered the lower half of his face, cold and unreflective like the blade of an ancient
sword. His eyes were covered with a deep black blindfold, yet
Adric felt them on him, saw them in his soul.
And above it all—his hair, cascading past his shoulders
like ink brushed with fire—a deep, red-burgundy, like wine
turned to blood under moonlight.
He stood as if carved from the bones of night. And still, he did not speak.
He did not move.
Adric felt his knees buckle.
He turned and ran again, sobbing now. Not even princely tears—just the
choked panic of a man who knew he would die.
Adric was no weakling. He was a Draec, a pureblood vampire nearing his first
century. His speed had been honed across decades. His strength sung in legends
whispered in the halls of Dracaria. But tonight—none of it mattered.
Against the Darkling Prince, against the Fiend—his century
of power crumbled like ash.
He was reduced to a frightened boy in the woods, running from the embodiment
of fear itself.
The trees grew tighter. Branches clawed at his skin, tearing through velvet
and flesh. Blood warmed his legs. His breath turned to steam.
He heard it again—not footsteps, but presence. Closer now.
Pushing past reality like a blade through silk.
And then came a struck, hard and firm as the great mount velmon. Right on his face.
He collapsed at a frozen stream, his limbs refusing to obey. He crawled
forward on his elbows, whispering prayers, curses, screams. He felt the
temperature drop.
The trees fell deathly silent.
And then, behind him—
A breath.
So soft. So close.
He turned slowly. His mouth opened but no sound came out.
The fiend stood not a pace behind him.
The silver mask caught no light. The blindfold wrapped perfectly, cleanly.
No hair out of place. His hands gloved, his posture regal. No sword drawn. No
weapon visible. Just a towering figure of authority so absolute, Adric felt
like a child before a god.
The Fiend leaned forward.
His voice was a whisper laced in the screams of a thousand dead:
"Run."
Adric screamed and scrambled up, slipping in the stream, falling face-first,
drinking mud. He barely noticed the blood on his tongue, or the ice soaking
into his bones.
Behind him—nothing. No splash. No pursuit.
Just that silence.
He crawled like an infant. Reached the other side. Dragged himself beneath
the roots of a gnarled tree.
His eyes wide. His heart crashing.
Waiting.
Then—
A whisper of breath.
A cool finger brushed his neck.
The last thing Adric saw before he was struck down was the faintest curl of
silver metal by his cheek.
And a voice, barely more than thought:
"Blood must be paid, with blood."
Then dark— wave like tentacles slide around his body and found their way to his torso, hands and around his neck. Holding him in place.
Then the sound of breaking bones and agonizing screams tore from Adric's mouth.
His breath — uneven and shaking. He could feel every bone in his body crushing and breaking like dried twigs.
His eyes wide as they bleed red blood. His mouth oozing blood.
He knew. He knew he was a dead man. The last sound he heard was the stretch of his neck before it was severed from his body.
Then nothing but darkness. As his body dropped to the forest flow. His head resting not far away from his corpse.
Somewhere deep within the haunted woods, where the corpses of vampires scattered
and silence reigned supreme, the Fiend stood—watching. The stream behind him
whispered as though trying to flee his presence. Then, several dark figures stepped into his presence.
" Your highness, what next".
The wind did not stir his cloak. The forest held its breath. He uttered no
words but his aura spoke.
The fiend —Devi-El turned slowly, disappearing into the mist like smoke folding into the atmosphere.