The trio's gazes locked on the massive wolf before them. The air between them felt alive, dense with killing intent, thick enough that even the dust seemed afraid to move.
"Do you truly think you can defeat us… S-ranks?" the wolf rumbled, his voice a growl that carried across the ruined plain like thunder rolling through stone.
"Almost an S-rank." Leo replied, lips curling into a faint, defiant smirk.
Ed's black eyes narrowed, then he threw back his head and laughed, a loud, vicious sound that made the ground tremble. "Let me show you what an almost S-rank really means."
He lifted his muzzle to the sky.
The howl that followed wasn't sound, it was devastation. Mana and wind exploded outward from him in a spiraling shockwave, tearing the earth like an erupting volcano. The blast rolled toward them, making the ground quake as the very air seemed to shatter.
Leo, Arthur, and Ryan threw up their hands at once, summoning every layer of defense they had.
Arthur's golden aura flared, and a radiant sphere of light formed around them, a dome that hummed under pressure. The wind howled against it like a hurricane trying to crush glass.
Cracks webbed through the ground, dust shot upward in violent bursts, and the dome itself trembled, groaning under the force of Ed's mana.
Then, finally, the howl ended. The air settled, heavy and still, like the moment after lightning strikes.
"All that…" Ryan said between breaths, a bead of sweat sliding down his temple, "…with just a howl?"
Arthur's eyes hardened. "Use everything you've got!" he barked, voice sharp as steel.
"Come forth," Ryan whispered a second later, his tone calm, almost serene.
Reality rippled. The air bent, folding in on itself like glass under pressure. Then buildings, entire structures of stone and wood, started to rise from nothing. Houses, towers, narrow streets, all appeared at impossible angles, overlapping, twisting in every direction. The world became a labyrinth of shifting illusions.
Ed didn't hesitate. With a snarl, he lunged at Arthur, so fast that even the air seemed to scream in his wake.
But the moment his claws were about to pierce Arthur's chest, his target vanished. Instead, his blow obliterated a building far away, shattering it into dust and debris.
Ed blinked, momentarily disoriented. The world spun, up was down, near was far, the horizon itself bent in impossible directions.
"In my domain," Ryan's voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere at once, "every direction you attack… is random."
Ed's growl deepened into a snarl of rage. He crouched low and then launched himself toward Ryan, but his claws struck another wall, scattering bricks and light instead of flesh.
"Then I just have to destroy it all together!"
His muscles swelled, veins pulsing with mana. He drew in a deep breath, preparing another howl.
But before he could unleash it, a spear of blinding light streaked through the distorted air, slamming into his face. At the same time, a crimson slash of blood followed, slicing across his jaw in a flash of red.
The explosion shook the illusions themselves.
When the smoke cleared, Ed's massive silhouette stood unmoved. His eyes blazed with fury, the wounds on his face already closing, leaving only faint scorch marks on his fur.
"Worms…" he growled, voice dripping with rage. Then, one by one, the tips of his black fur began to shimmer, first glowing faintly red, then igniting into roaring orange flame.
The scent of fire filled the air.
…
In the heart of the vampire city, where the air itself reeked of blood and mana, Luciana landed lightly on the cracked stone, her boots sending faint ripples of dust across the ground. The city around her was silent, every flicker of torchlight dimmed by the suffocating darkness of the Shadowland's eternal darkness.
Before her, in the middle of the crimson courtyard, stood her mother, Lecia Dimont, the matriarch of their cursed bloodline. Her long, black gown seemed woven from the night itself, and her blue eyes gleamed like twin shards of ice.
A few meters away, space twisted open with a shimmer of faint light. A door materialized out of thin air, and Elna and Edgarth stepped through, their forms solidifying as the door vanished behind them.
"Luciana," Lecia said calmly. Her voice carried a resonance that was neither loud nor soft, yet it filled the entire square.
Luciana's expression didn't waver. "Mother," she said, her lips curving into a small, defiant smile. "I came to kill you."
Lecia's gaze lingered on her daughter for a long moment, no emotion, no pity, no affection. Then the air began to hum. The stones beneath their feet vibrated as if answering a silent command. It wasn't a spell, it was pressure. Pure, crushing mana leaking from Lecia's body like the breath of a god.
"Do you think I won't hurt you because you are my daughter?" she asked. The words were simple, but they cracked through the air like thunder.
Luciana's smile widened and the shadows behind her began to stir. She tensed, ready to attack.
"Wait, Luciana," Edgarth warned sharply, stepping forward. "Do not underestimate her. We need to—"
He didn't finish.
A sudden wave of mana, dense and suffocating, rushed outward from Lecia. It struck like an invisible hammer, freezing every muscle in their bodies. For an instant, the world itself seemed to stop.
Then pain bloomed in their chests.
A phantom hand, cold and unseen, wrapped around their hearts and crushed.
Elna gasped and dropped to one knee, coughing violently. Edgarth clenched his teeth, his forehead beading with sweat as he struggled to break free. They knew it wasn't real, this wasn't physical pain. It was a killing intent so powerful it manifested as illusion, forcing their minds to believe they were dying.
Even as their vision blurred, Luciana stood unmoving in the storm.
Her eyes burned like frostfire as she glared at her mother. "Your daughter?" she hissed, her voice low and trembling, not with fear, but fury. "Do you even know the meaning of that word?"
For the first time, she unleashed everything she had suppressed.
Dark mana erupted around her in a violent surge. Her batlike wings spread wide, wreathed in tendrils of shadow that twisted and writhed like living smoke. The ground beneath her cracked, splintering into web-like fractures. Her blue eyes glowed brighter, searing through the haze, and her aura rose higher and higher until even the air vibrated.
Then she moved.
To mortal eyes, she vanished. A blur of shadow and wind. In the blink of an eye, she was upon Lecia. Their palms met with a thunderclap, Luciana's strike clashing against her mother's counter. The impact unleashed a shockwave that tore through the courtyard, scattering dust and sending waves of energy in every direction.
Elna disappeared into her own shadow, slipping into the darkness to flank.
Edgarth steadied himself, his fingers twitching as he began his domain. "Come forth," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of the energy.
All around them, space fractured, ribbons of light slicing open in midair. One by one, doors appeared, hundreds of them, turning the square into a maze of impossible geometry. Each door shimmered with a faint glow, ready to twist the battlefield itself into Edgarth's domain.
From behind Lecia, the shadows began to shift, rippling like living ink across the blood-stained stone.
A faint glimmer flashed in the dark, and Elna emerged soundlessly from within, her movements sharp and fluid as smoke. A dagger, wrapped in a swirling sheath of crimson blood, gleamed in her hand.
Lecia's eyes flicked toward her, but before she could react, Elna was already lunging forward, the dagger arcing toward her throat.
With a casual motion, barely more than a flick of her wrist, Lecia pushed Luciana back, sending her sliding several meters away. Then she turned, her figure blurring with speed too fast for human eyes, and caught Elna mid-strike by the neck.
The force kept Elna at bay. The vampire matriarch's grip was like iron—cold, unyielding, filled with centuries of power.
"What kind of vampire are you?" Lecia asked, her voice soft but edged like a blade. Her gaze locked on Elna's eyes, those unnatural crimson eyes that glowed faintly even in the dim light.
For a moment, Elna struggled, clawing at Lecia's wrist as blood trickled from her neck where the nails dug in. Then, she smiled.
Her body dissolved into thick, rolling smoke, slipping through Lecia's fingers like mist.
The real Elna appeared several meters away, stepping out of one of Edgarth's shimmering doors, her dagger still gleaming red.
Lecia's expression didn't change, but the air around her did. She raised her hand slowly, and the ground answered.
The stones beneath her cracked open, and blood surged out in violent waves, twisting upward into a spiraling storm. Within seconds, a tornado of blood, wide enough to engulf a building, roared to life. It tore across the courtyard toward Elna, a living vortex of red that devoured everything in its path.
The wind howled. The metallic scent of blood filled the air.
Elna didn't move. Her expression hardened, and she drew upon the two items of power she had. Mana surged through her like a flood, lighting the veins under her skin in a faint glow. The pressure around her spiked, enough to crack the ground at her feet.
She raised one hand, mirroring Lecia's motion.
A heartbeat later, another tornado formed, this one darker, more refined, blood intertwined with shadow. It met Lecia's head-on, and the collision split the sky open with a deafening roar.
The two vortexes devoured one another, exploding in a wave of scarlet mist that washed over the entire courtyard. The shockwave sent shards of broken stone and streaks of blood flying in every direction.
As the storm faded, Lecia's frown deepened. Her gaze lingered on Elna, studying her, not with rage, but with something closer to calculation.
It shouldn't have been possible. The spell required vast reserves of both mana and blood, far beyond what any A-rank vampires should be capable of. And yet, Elna stood unharmed, her dagger steady, her aura burning bright.
Lecia could feel it, this wasn't ordinary vampirism. The rhythm of her mana, the purity of her blood, the control in her casting, it was cleaner, sharper, almost divine.
Unbeknownst to her, Elna's strength came not only from the twin relics that pulsed faintly, but from something deeper, the blessing she carried from Leo's domain. The change that had purified her darkness now made her blood answer her will with perfect obedience.
And in this moment, facing one of the first vampires ever born, she felt no fear. Only resolve.
…
After launching countless attacks, Leo finally understood the truth of the battle, they were at a stalemate.
Even with Ryan's domain bending reality itself, keeping the S-rank's strikes from reaching them cleanly, their own blows barely scratched him. Ed Wilson, the beast, was simply too strong, his body like a fortress of muscle and mana. Every cut healed, every burn faded within seconds. Arthur's weapons, no matter how many he summoned from his domain, could only slow him.
And now, the shimmering distortion of Ryan's illusion began to waver. The edges of his domain flickered. The weight of holding an S-rank within it was too much.
Leo clenched his jaw. Floating high above the battlefield, his cloak of fog whipping around him, he raised one hand toward the sky. The entire Shadowland seemed to hold its breath.
Then, the world moved.
All the shadows in the wasteland, every fragment of darkness cast by broken ruins and dead trees, began to shift as if alive. They flowed toward Leo like rivers converging at a single point, then split and surged toward every member of his group.
The shadows coiled around them, snaking up their legs, their arms, their chests, until they sank directly into their bodies.
Leo gasped as the power took hold. His veins darkened, glowing faintly red beneath his skin. He could feel the raw force burning through his muscles. The pressure was immense, his mind felt stretched thin, and every heartbeat was a hammer striking his ribs.
But he held on.
Ryan was panting, sweat dripping from his forehead as his domain warped and twisted around him, buildings flickering in and out of existence. Arthur stood still, his sword glowing brighter than before, yet now that light had changed. Shadows curled along its edges, intertwining with the radiance like black veins in gold.
Light and darkness working as one.
For a moment, Ed Wilson hesitated, staring at them with suspicion. Then his lips curled into a savage grin. "You think that'll save you?"
In the next instant, he vanished.
The ground shattered where he'd stood, and in the blink of an eye he was in front of Arthur, his claw slicing down like a bolt of lightning.
But Arthur didn't flinch. He moved calmly, almost gracefully, raising his sword to meet the attack.
The clash rang out like thunder. The impact carved a crater beneath them, but the sword held.
Ed's eyes widened. His strength had never been stopped so cleanly before.
Arthur's eyes opened. They burned like molten gold and midnight flame. With a single motion, he twisted his sword, redirecting the wolf's claw upward, then stepped in and swung in a perfect arc.
The blade cut deep.
A line of crimson split across Ed's chest, and the giant wolf was thrown back through the air, slamming into the ground hard enough to leave a crater. Dust and blood filled the air.
Before he could even recover, Leo was already there, descending like a shadow from the sky.
"Did you really think we came unprepared?"
His voice echoed, layered with something inhuman. Leo's sword plunged straight into Ed's abdomen. The wolf snarled, but the words that followed froze even him.
"Blood Explosion."
A heartbeat later, it detonated.
A wave of blood and shadow burst outward in a perfect sphere, consuming everything it touched. The shockwave ripped through the land, cracking stone, and sending ripples of darkness spiraling into the distance.
And at its center, Leo stood motionless, his sword buried deep, eyes glowing crimson through the storm.