Wallachia, Eastern Europe.
A ten-year-old boy with pink eyes and platinum-blond hair ran under the night sky while dragging a girl who was nearly six years older than him, who had short blond hair and blood-red eyes.
"G-Gasper, J-Just leave me behind. I am slowing you down-"
"No! Those people will lock you away again! Valerie!"
Gasper Vladi, the Dhampir son of Lord Vladi of the Tepes Faction, ran with all his might as he dragged his childhood friend, Valerie Tepes, daughter of King Tepes of the Tepes faction of Vampires, with him across the land, intending to get away from their abusive home.
As long as Gasper could remember, he had always been shunned and belittled at every turn because of his half-human heritage.
His pure-blooded siblings hated him, his father was indifferent towards him, and his mother died after giving birth to him, which the servants and others in the Tepes faction claim was also because of him.
His only ray of light in this dark life was his childhood friend, Valerie, who was similarly isolated and hated because of her nature as a Dampire like Gasper, not to mention the fact that the Tepes Faction's tradition of being a male dominated clan made things even more difficult for her due to the absurd talents and power she was born with, which even supassed King Tepes's pure-blood children.
That is why, after suffering so long under the Tepes family, Gasper finally found the chance to run away from this place along with his friend, hoping to find a better life for themselves.
Originally, Valerie was only going to help Gasper escape since the two could not find a way to sneak her away from the family as well, since her monitoring and security were far stricter than a Dhampir like Gasper, who nobody cared about.
However, something happened in the past few months that threw both factions of the vampires into chaos.
Gasper and Valerie did not know the details of what happened, only that, somehow, many of the high-ranked members of both factions who were out in the world, accumulating wealth, power, and human followers for the factions had spontaneously died out of nowhere.
This resulted in the factions spreading their manpower across their territories and trying to find out what was going on outside.
This also meant that they did not have the time to focus on Valerie as much as they did in the past.
Taking this chance, Gasper finally managed to drag his friend away from the abusive place they called home for their short lives so far.
Unfortunately for the children, fate is a fickle thing.
As Gasper and Valerie finally crossed the formless barriers that covered the vast territories of the Tepes faction, a group of vampires emerged from the shadows of the trees, as if they were waiting for the two children.
Gasper and Valerie nearly collapsed as they saw the face of the leader of the group.
"..Trifas."
Trifas Manthar of the Manther house, part of the Tepes faction, sneered at the two Dhampirs.
"Well, well. Would you look at that? Looks like the information I got after I tortured your servants was right, Valerie. To think that you two would betray the clan like this. I wonder what King Tepes will do to your little friend after this?"
Valerie glared at Trifas as she pulled Gasper behind her, shielding him with her body.
"What do you want?"
"...Seriously? You are asking me that at this point?"
Manthar grinned with malice at the younger girl.
"There is nothing you two can offer me that could surpass whatever reward King Tepes will give me for getting rid of a disgrace to our clan like you."
Valerie bit her lips in fear.
In her memory, her so-called father had always been a cold and calculating individual who only cared about himself and the clan's reputation. It was because of this personality of his that she had been locked away in the Tepes faction's home for her entire life, isolated in her room where nobody was allowed to even know of her existence.
Just like Gasper saw her as the only light of his life, she, too, considered him the only family she had left in this world.
That is why she would do anything to protect him.
With a clumsy stance, Valerie shot towards Manthar, trying to attack him with all her power, which momentarily stunned the pure-blood in question because of how absurd the act was.
"Run! Gasper! I will hold them off-"
"Hold us off? How delusional."
The momentary shock wore off just as quickly, allowing Mather to easily take down Valerie, who had never been trained in her life and could not use her power properly.
Looking down at the teenager, Manthar grinned while his subordinates easily captured Gasper and tied him up completely.
Staring into Gasper's eyes, which were wide with fear and anger, Manthar had a sinister idea, which made his malicious grin widen even more.
"You know, Valerie, if you had run away by yourself, maybe you might have managed to escape by now. But, by picking up this runt with you, you have sealed your fate."
Picking up the girl by the throat, he turned her around and made her face Gasper.
"If you wanted someone as a body to warm your, there were many other options, right? But, no matter. Let's see if your precious friend can save you, hm?"
A chill shot down Valerie's spine as Manthar tilted her head to the side before tearing away her dress's upper part, exposing her neck to him.
Gasper struggled as he realized what Manthar was trying to do, but how could a ten-year-old child like him fight against fully grown pure-blooded vampires?
Similarly, Valerie had also realized what Manthar wanted to do.
The man wanted to drink her blood, fully draining her of the life-giving liquid, and kill her in a slow and painful way.
Realizing this, Valerie felt tears fall down her face. Yet, she still held a brittle smile as she was forced to stare at her only friend in this world.
"I-It's ok. Gasper. I-I'll be fine. Just go to sleep. Everything will be fine."
Gasper was not fooled by her words, and neither did her minor hypnosis affect him. It only made him struggle harder through his bonds as he felt a strange sensation in his eyes, and his desperation grew by the second.
Manthar, on the other hand, was relishing this sensation of power. The fact that he had had the power to decide the fate of a girl who was technically above him in status.
He felt like this was the most beautiful sensation he had ever had in his life.
'It is a shame that I do not have much time. If I had, maybe we could have had some more fun with her and the boy. I would have loved to see if the boy would break when my men and I were done having fun with his beloved friend-'
His thoughts came to a grinding halt as his expressions froze when he felt the powerful wards that he and every other vampire had received from their allies shatter, indicating that they were now on a tighter time limit than before.
The magical artifacts that protected them from the oppression of the heavenly system for a couple of hours a day had shattered, which meant that they only had a few minutes before they were incinerated by the Heavenly System.
Unfortunately for the vampire, before he could do anything, an oppressive and formless pressure descended from the sky, rendering the vampires incapable of even moving an inch.
"My Lord told me beforehand that your kind is dangerous and degenerated to the extreme. But I guess even he had failed to estimate the depths of your kind's darkness."
With great difficulty, Manthar and his goons managed to crane their necks to look above, only to feel pure terror consume them.
An armored angel with ten wings made of pure light floated in the air with his arms crossed. His very presence and power pressed down on the Vampires like a mountain.
Seraph Empyrean, the strongest Angel aside from the Four Archangels and his lord.
Under the gaze of this powerful angel, the vampires could not even utter a word as he slowly descended from the heavens.
On the other hand, Valerie took this chance to slowly crawl towards her friend while her attackers were busy.
Reaching Gasper, she freed the boy and hugged him to herself while staring up at the Angel with fear and awe.
As for the angel, his gaze from beneath his helm had never left the girl in question. As for the other vampires, he could not care less about them since they were not his target.
Manthar finally gathered all the courage that he could spare and tried to glare at the Angel.
"H-How dare you interfere-"
"[Shining Burst]"
The moment the 7th Tier spell was invoked, an explosion of pure light went off in the area, engulfing everyone.
Manthar and his goons were instantly vaporized, not even given the chance to scream before their bodies and souls were obliterated by the spell.
However, Valerie and Gasper did not even get a scratch despite being caught in the blast radius.
As the Angel descended from the sky, the fear that Valerie felt for the angel grew in intensity as he walked towards her, now understanding that she stood no chance against the being who could annihilate Manthar so easily when she was completely helpless against the vampire before.
What she did not know was that Seraph Empyrean did not have any intention of attacking her or Gasper.
The spell, Shining Burst, only harms those whose Karma value is in the negatives and scales up in intensity the lower the Karma value is. So, it made sense that the vampires, whose karma was so bad that they looked like black holes to the angel were annihilated so quickly by the spell.
The children, on the other hand, had no bad karma, so it was obvious that they would not be harmed by the spell.
Not to mention that Valeri was the angel's target from the very beginning.
Originally, Empyrean was going to infiltrate the Tepes Clan, take the Sephiroth Graal from the girl, and return to his lord as he was instructed.
However, after watching the interaction between the pure-blooded vampires and the children, the angel changed his plan.
Kneeling down to the frightened children, the angel slowly removed his helm, revealing a dark skinned man with a bald head and glowing amber eyes.
"Calm down, children born of man and beast. If I intended harm upon you two, then you would have long since perished by now."
Valerie remained silent, clutching Gasper tighter to her chest in fear. But, slowly, that fear was fading as the angel did nothing to harm her or her friend.
Finally, after gathering her courage, she spoke in a voice that was barely above that of a whisper.
"W-What do you want from us?"
The angel smiled at the girl. An action that somehow made her relax a little.
"Originally, I was going to take something from you that originally belonged to the heavens. But now, I wish to offer you two a chance at a better life."
The angel stood tall as he extended his hand to the children.
"I can take you away from here and bring you to a place where you will no longer be oppressed. No longer will you have to live in fear. You will be given all the basic necessities you need. However."
The intensity of the glow in his eyes grew as he spoke his next words.
"You will have to swear an oath that you are willing to leave behind the part of you that was born of the beasts of darkness. That you two would be willing to become fully human, giving up the dark powers that you have within you, and start anew as humans."
"What say you? Children born of Humanity and its Enemy? Are you willing to leave behind that dark nature of your bodies and embrace humanity fully?"
On that day, fate was once again changed, as Valerie and Gasper, after much deliberation, accepted the Angel's offer.
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Author Notes: The appearance of Seraph Empyrean was inspired by Tyrael from the Diablo game's cinematics.
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