The moon over Verona was a sliver of polished bone, casting a long sharp shadows across the ancient cobblestones. Jay moved through the city like a ghost, his black coat fluttering in the cold wind as he moving from one building to another in the darkness of Verona using a simple enchantment magic. He had spent eight hours scouring the urban sprawl and the surrounding countryside, his senses dialed to their absolute limit, searching for the tell-tale rot of a Stray Devil's signature.
He found nothing.
The air in Italy was too clean, at least in a spiritual sense.
"I should have anticipated this," Jay thought, his breath hitching in a small cloud of frost. "Italy, especially the corridor between Rome and the Vatican, is the logistical and spiritual heart of the Church. Their purification barriers and active patrols of Exorcists make this a 'Holy Zone.' A Stray Devil would have to be either suicidal maniac or a god-tier entity to nest here. even if they are usually not right in head."
He leaned against a stone wall, his dark eyes scanning the empty street. And enjoying the night view of Verona alone in the middle of the night, this feeling, the moon on the sky, its supposed to be beautiful. But to him, it's just a reminiscing a nightmare fueled with blood and grief. He sat there, on top of the building for a couple minutes, seeping the hatred in his heart before planning his next move.
"If the prey won't come to the light, then let's go where the church influence aren't as big," he whispered.
He closed his eyes, visualizing the map of his journey from Romania to Italy. He recalled the dense, ancient forests of Hungary and the rural outskirts of the Balkan states. Some places where the Church's reach was thin and the old blood still ran deep but still remotely close to Verona as he didn't have the capacity in a very long distance without exhausting his Mana.
He tapped his heel. The purple flame of the Incinerate Anthem bloomed beneath him, instantly printing the complex spatial runes of a long-distance jump into the stone. The sheer speed of his activation would have made Glenda's head spin. It wasn't the work of a supposed novice magician, it was a super high-speed activation of complex spell.
"Teleportation."
The world folded. As Jay teleporteted from place to place that he had visited during his four days of journey to Verona. From Venice, to Zagreb, and then Ljubljana, he moving from city to city thousands miles away until the smell of central europe victorian stone building was replaced by the damp, heavy aroma of pine needles and stagnant lake water.
Jay materialized on a high ridge overlooking Lake Balaton in Hungary. The "Hungarian Sea" was a dark, obsidian expanse under the moonlight, surrounded by dense, suffocating forests.
Almost immediately, Jay felt it.
A violent, jagged surge of Mana ripped through the air, coming from a clearing about a mile to his north. It wasn't the chaotic, oily feel of a Devil nor the sterile cold power of a Magician. It was a clash between a cacophony of Holy power and something ancient, predatory, and metallic but still familiar.
Jay moved. He didn't run, instead he used localized spatial shifts, flickering from shadow to shadow with the efficiency of a predator. Within minutes, he was perched in the high branches of an ancient oak tree, his presence completely erased by meticulous mana-suppression.
Below him, the forest clearing had been turned into a slaughterhouse.
Around twelve Church Exorcists were engaged in a desperate, losing battle. Jay's eyes narrowed as he analyzed them. Most were teenagers, some of them looked no older than fourteen. They wore sleek, form-fitting tactical suits with a high-durability, white-and-blue spandex-like material reinforced with woven silver threads and protective sigils.
"'What is the Vatican thinking?' Jay thought, a flash of cynical humor crossing his mind. 'Sending children into the woods wearing high-tech spandex. It looks more like a low-budget superhero flick than a holy crusade. Sister Andrea used to talk about the dignity of the cloth... she'd have had a stroke seeing this.'
But beneath the lightheartedness, a cold anger simmered. He knew the rumors. He had read the forbidden archives in Glenda's library. The Heaven Faction and the Church's upper echelons often viewed human orphans as "expendable assets." They were "Project Kids", a standardized soldiers bred or trained for high-risk containment.
He bore no anger toward the children, nor toward most Exorcists in general. After all, Sister Andrea had once been one of them. But the higher-ups, the leaders of the Churches, the Popes, and even the Angels were another matter entirely. Bunch of filthy creatures rotted by a superiority complex and drunk on unchecked authority.
But the Exorcists were currently being systematically dismantled by a single figure.
The man was beautiful in a way that felt wrong, a doll-like face with skin the color of bleached parchment and hair as white as a fresh shroud. He wore a high-collared, Victorian-style coat that seemed to drink the moonlight. Every time he moved, he left a blurred trail of crimson afterimages.
"Not a Devil," Jay noted, his hazel eyes tracking the creature's speed, his appearance familiar, those red eyes still give him shivers even if he trying to deny it. "Vampire..."
The Feast of the Noble
"Is this truly the best the Cross can provide?" the Vampire laughed. His voice was melodic, carrying the chilling resonance of a flute played in a tomb. "I was promised a challenge, and I am given... appetizers."
"Shut up, monster!" a young male Exorcist screamed, lunging forward with a consecrated silver blade. His movements were fast, but driven by panic.
The Vampire didn't even draw a weapon. He simply pivoted on his heel, his white hair whipping through the air. In a blur of motion, he caught the boy's wrist, snapped the bone with a sickening crack, and pulled the boy flush against his chest.
"Too much adrenaline," the Vampire whispered into the boy's ear, his fangs extending, gleaming like polished ivory. "It makes the blood taste... bitter."
He bit down.
The boy's scream was cut short as the Vampire began to drain him. Jay watched from the trees, his pulse steady. He saw the Vampire's aura flare with every drop of blood consumed was being converted into raw physical power and accelerated regeneration. The Vampire wasn't just winning, he was leveling up mid-battle.
One by one, the Exorcists fell. The Vampire was toying with them, moving with an arrogance that only centuries of immortality could breed. He didn't kill them all instantly, he disabled them and drained them until they lost consciousness, then tossed them aside like empty juice boxes.
Finally, only two remained standing at the center of the clearing.
One was a girl with striking, long blue hair. Her tactical suit was shredded, revealing deep gashes across her shoulders and thighs, yet she held a massive, broadsword-style Holy Blade with white-knuckled intensity. Her eyes were burning with a terrifying, suicidal determination.
Beside her was a younger girl with chestnut hair and wide, violet eyes. She was trembling so violently that her rapier clattered against her greaves.
"Irina... get back," the blue-haired girl hissed, her voice rasping.
"But Xenovia... he's... he's stronger than the reports said. We need to retreat, we cannot win," the younger one sobbed.
"I won't leave them," Xenovia replied, stepping forward.
The Vampire wiped a smear of blood from his lip, his red eyes fixed on the blue-haired girl. "You. You have a delightful scent. High Holy potential. Your blood will be the vintage I save for the dawn."
Xenovia roared a raw, guttural sound and charged forward.
The clash was deafening. She swung the broadsword with a strength that defied her slim frame. Every strike sent a shockwave of Holy energy through the air, singing the grass. But she was unrefined. She swung with her heart, not her head.
"Amateur," Jay thought, watching from above. As amateur as he is right now in swordmanship, but Jay had witnessed how Sister Andrea wield a sword in her hand, battling against a far more stronger Vampire than this arrogant prick. He knew that even if Xenovia has glimpse of brilliance, she is still to raw.
The Vampire danced around her. He was laughing now, a high, mocking sound. "Such passion! Such waste!"
" Shut up, Manthar! "
Xenovia swung again, a horizontal cleave meant to take his head. The Vampire dropped into a low crouch, then lunged forward. As Xenovia tried to pivot to follow him, a stray gust of wind blew her long unkempt blue hair across her face.
In that microsecond, she was blind.
It was a fatal, tactical error.
The Vampire didn't miss the opening. He bypassed her blade, his hand shooting out like a viper to catch her by the throat. He lifted her off the ground, her boots dangling in the air. With his feet, he kicked her Holy Blade away as it spun through the air and thudded into the dirt fifty feet away.
"Weak. So much weakness. How do those filthy Churches even allow an inexperienced, amateur, green exorcist like you to hunt me? A high noble of the prestigious House of Manthar. Such insulting conduct," the vampire purred, his fingers tightening around her windpipe.
Xenovia clawed at his hand, her face turning a bruised purple. "Your little friends will die because you were too weak to protect them! Your mission is a failure. Your God is silent. And now, you will be my vessel."
He tilted her head back exposing her jugular.
The chestnut-haired girl screamed, tripping as she tried to reach her friend.
Jay felt a cold ripple of bloodlust stir in his chest. His hazel eyes sharpened, pupils narrowing into slits. He had seen enough. He had been waiting for this moment, he did not want to merely kill the bat.
He want to crush his ego, his pride, and everything he stands for, then burn the remnants in the purifying flame of the Incinerate Anthem.
The Vampire opened his mouth, his fangs inches from Xenovia's skin, when a sudden, blinding flash of white light erupted in his peripheral vision. It wasn't a Holy spell. It was a discharge of concentrated burst of light and heat. A magic.
The Vampire's supernatural instincts screamed. He dropped Xenovia and backflipped away, his boots skidding across the grass.
"Who's there?!" he shrieked, his red eyes darting toward the treeline. "Show yourself, pussy!"
He scanned the shadows, but he detected nothing. No mana signature, no heartbeat, no scent.
Suddenly, the Vampire felt a cold draft against the back of his neck. He spun around, his claws extended, but he only met empty air. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it, a gloved hand, seemingly detached from the world, reaching out from a shimmering rift in space toward the back of his throat.
He gasped, pushing his speed to its absolute limit. He managed to dodge by a fraction of an inch, the glove grazing the silk of his collar.
"That hand... it appeared out of nowhere!" the Vampire thought, his heart which has been long dead actually thumping with a phantom rhythm of fear.
"No movement, no sound... just a spatial rip?"
"Don't be a pussy and fight me!" the Vampire roared in Romanian, his composure crumbling into primal rage.
The two girls on the ground watched in stunned silence. Xenovia, gasping for air and clutching her bruised throat, looked toward the oak tree where the shadow had emerged.
A figure stepped out from behind the trunk, descending to the forest floor with a weightless grace. He wore a full black cloak, the heavy fabric seemingly woven from the darkness itself. The hood was pulled low, casting his face into an impenetrable shadow. His hands were clad in sleek black gloves.
It was Jay. He had donned the concealment cloak Glenda had given him. An artifact designed to mask a Magician's presence from even high-tier Devils.
Jay stood perfectly still. He didn't reach for a sword. He didn't draw a magic circle. He simply watched the Vampire with a terrifying, static focus. There is no sudden movement, no sudden breath, just a calm, standing man.
The Vampire hissed, crouching low. "So, the Church sent a fucking Magician to supervise the Exorcist huh? Isn't that funny hahaha. Imagine calling the practice of magic as a pagan rituals only to be assccociated themselves with it! Such a-"
"Shut the fuck up," Jay's voice came from the shadows of the hood with cold, flat, and devoid of any youthful tremor in a fluent Romanian.
The Vampire smile disappeared. Before he grinned, his ego returning as he realized his opponent was alone and physically smaller than him.
" Little man, I am a Noble of the House of Manthar. I have tasted the blood of kings and saints. What are you but a shadow in a blanket?"
Jay shifted his stance slightly, a tiny spark of purple fire dancing between his gloved fingers.
" Now, let's DANCE!!! " The Vampire exclaimed before he vanished.
To the human eye, he simply ceased to exist. To Jay, he was a crimson blur moving at very high speed. The Vampire circled Jay, trying to find an opening, his claws whistling through the air as he tested Jay's reflexes.
Jay didn't turn to follow him. He didn't need to. He closed his eyes and sensed the space displacement. Every time the Vampire moved, he created a rippled in space which is the trigger of one of Jay's spatial magic spell.
Domain of his own. The spell that created a spatial layer of fabrics around him, to detect and anticipate the movement of his enemy through the ripple their created to the said spatial layer of fabric he planted. Combined with Incinerate Anthem instantineous activation, it creates an almost sure hit effect.
T'here.'
Jay pivoted on a dime, his gloved hand catching the Vampire's wrist in mid-air using a simple enchantment magic in his hand. Though, Jay still felt a strain because his mastery of enchantment magics is severely behind his spatial magic.
The Vampire's eyes bulged. "Impossible!"
He didn't punch. He didn't kick. He activated a localized spatial anchor. The Vampire found himself frozen in place, his momentum suddenly hitting a brick wall of fixed space. Before the Vampire of house of Manthar could react, Jay's other hand shot forward, palm open.
SHRINGGG
A focused blast of light hit the Vampire in the chest, creating a blast that launched him backwards. The Noble screamed as the light ate through his reinforced coat and began to char his ancient flesh. Jay has learned that the biggest weakness of Vampire is sunlight, and light in general so blast of light magic is having almost the same effect as fire to humans.
It burns.
He retreated, smoke billowing from his torso, his regeneration struggling to keep up with the intense heat.
"Huh... Y-you! Who are you!" The Vampire screamed in anger as Jay felt the power within him is being multiplied by tenfolds.
But he didn't panic, his hazel eyes glowing beneath the hood. As he just stepped forward, nobody noticed but a flicker of purple flame blazing from his glove as he stare down the Vampire,
Jay then opened his mouth in a muttering voice which only the Vampire could heard,
"I am... Vengeance."