“The liberation of humanity sped up at an astonishing rate with the new orders and the increasing number of Titans.

Stars were liberated and gated until hundreds of systems and dozens of new worlds were in the empire's fold.

Breakthroughs in nanotechnology and AI allowed for self-contained nanoclusters to be set up at the fringes of a system. These would monitor and operate the gateways that led back to Sol as well as assist the local populace with anything from medical aid to construction.

With human lifespans reaching what, in effect, was immortality, our population grew to proportions that, if left unchecked, would overwhelm our resources unless the expansion for new territory continued.

What had once been a gamble to liberate our enslaved family was now part of the tools the empire utilized to keep the populace happy.

In the halls of Mount Olympus, the Magi were preparing a proposal that would solve the problems faced by the ever-increasing human population.

These were still considered minor issues in the great palace of the Emperor.

For most of humanity, this became a time of plenty, a time to pursue wants and dreams. Everything was provided, and nothing was denied to the citizens of the empire.

The dawn of a golden age was on the horizon.”

- Elistar Iscariot, Grand Magister during the second Kingfisher dynasty.

Sliding forward, I brought my sword up and across to the sound of a clang ringing across the grounds as I continued the upward momentum, pushing my opponent's sword out of guard for a swift downward stroke at my enemy's gorget.

It would have worked, too, if not for an armored boot hitting me in the shin, pulverizing my barrier but barely touching my armored leg.

Stepping back, I saluted my opponent, and we removed our helmets.

“If you remembered to cover with your shield where your sword didn't protect, you would have hit me on the follow up thrust. I expect better tomorrow, Alucard. Dismissed!”

I was doubly annoyed because he was right. The hit on the gorget would have pushed his upper body back far enough that I could have sent the tip of my sword against a vulnerable opening in his helmet.

Not that I thought that would have actually harmed him, but most opponents would not have survived, even if they were in the first rank of Awakening or not.

Second rankers were a different matter, but I had a completely different strategy when dealing with them. Run as fast as I could and pray they grew bored with chasing me.

Giving a final salute to Sir. Michael, I said.

“Yes, Sir!”

Before turning around and making my way to the training ground armory, while it fits well enough, it still chafed in some less-than-desirable places. The armor was on loan from the guild, so I had to deliver the practice equipment before exiting the private training grounds.

I was supposed to meet up with Mira in an hour, so it left me some time to clean up and spend some time being introspective or meditating, depending on my mood.

Quickly stripping down and rinsing, I would still need a proper bath before eating, but at least I only smelled like ass now and not the entire asshole. I almost ran across the main training grounds to the armory.

Not looking, I entered the building and almost ran into someone coming the other way.

“Alucard! You bitch! You did that on purpose.”

Ah, great, dumb, dumb and dumber. Reaching down to give Baxter a hand up, I wasn't surprised that he ignored it. He got up on his own while Duncan and Lester stood watching with beady eyes and open mouths. I sometimes wonder if all that went on their heads were “Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in…”

“How are you holding up Baxter? Still, trouble walking, I see.”

“I swear one of these days I'm gonna stand over you and smile as everything you care about burns, You piece of shit.”

“Now, now. That's not very nice. Why don't you three go play with each other like you usually do? Can't be Baxter's Bashers without doing some bashing, and you look like you need some special attention from your two special friends. It's a great bonding experience, and I hear it always turns your frown upside down.”

Yeah, I should probably stop antagonizing him, but he got so easily offended about the stupidest thing. It probably didn't help that he thought I was his competition for Mira's affection.

Storming past me with his two party members at heel, he said.

“Screw you.”

I already knew this would end badly for them one of these days. He had already taken things too far a few weeks ago when one of my six voidlings informed me that a drunken Baxter had come across Mira while she was heading back to the inn and was being less than gentlemanly.

One of his then four teammates, there had been two more back then, tried getting him to leave her be by sort of talking him out of it. I believe the words he said were, “This ain't in out in the countryside, man. Catch the bitch later.”

Baxter was a big guy, and he was a fighter. Mira is not big, and she is not primarily a fighter. Baxter had four friends who would step in despite their seemingly adverse reaction to his actions so far.

I was not happy as I was jumping from roof to roof on my way there. I was less happy when I arrived and saw Mira struggling to breathe while being held by the throat against the wall by one of Baxter's hands while the other one was going places it had no right to be.

Activating the rituals Controlled Fall, Darkness and Celerity at the same time.

Landing in the cloud of complete darkness, where no light could pierce, I went straight for Baxter. His friends would have to keep screaming at each other in confusion for a few more seconds.

With Celerity active, I moved among them like a ghost and in less than a minute, I activated Jump and was on my way back to the inn.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I don't know what Mira did to Baxter or his friends when I canceled the Darkness ritual, but I know I only went for kidneys and the extremities, making sure to tenderize the former and break the latter where I found it fitting.

Even after having spent most of their money on healing, the five members of Baxter Bashers were seen halting and sitting gingerly for a week. I found the lack of sympathy from other teams interesting. Some teams with all female members or a majority of female members were actively antagonistic towards the Bashers.

While Mira hadn't told anyone about what happened, the city guard that had come upon the scene of her taking her pound of flesh, or kicking on flesh as it were, quickly came to the bottom of the matter, and with other hunters stopping to spectate the free entertainment. The tale spread.

Baxter, being the son of minor nobility, may not have to face any legal repercussions, but there was more than one team that decided that their free time was best spent making the Baxter Basher's life miserable.

That Mira, to my ongoing and continuous astonishment, apparently was someone people enjoyed talking and spending time with, but it didn't help the Bashers one bit. Mira's star rose as the Baxter Bashers fell even lower.

It hit an all-time low when they finally lost two members of their team on their latest contract to stop an undead infestation in the warehouse district. Sadly, I could only summon six voidlings at a time, or they would all have died.

No one seemed to suspect I was involved in any of it, and I doubt most of them knew Mira was on the same team as me, so I was quite happy with the outcome. Even if Mira kept casting me suspicious looks when she came back to the inn the night the Bashers got bashed.

Maybe I should have raved and acted along more, but I doubt that really would have helped since Mira knew me too well at this point.

I did know I would have Baxter killed or kill him myself eventually when his usefulness to Mira ended. He had harmed one of mine. That was not allowed.

Despite Sir. Michael Poins' best attempts, I doubt I would ever become a true knight. Oh, I could fake it with the best of them, but I found myself to be a bit more pragmatic and certainly a lot more vindictive than the codes of chivalry demanded.

Having delivered my practice armor to the clerk, I headed to book a meditation room, as they were called. In reality, it was a room that gave the option of partial to complete sensory deprivation. The first time I tried it, I felt like I had come home.

On my way, I recalled the first time I had met Sir. Michael. It was during my second week here, and I was struggling, not with the sparring but with an unforeseen issue. The trouble I realized was that when you had a body that healed several times what was normal, putting on muscle was only a matter of eating enough and glancing at anything that resembled exercising.

I started starving myself and buying clothes that were too large, but it was only a matter of time before someone started taking notice. That would just not do. I was, for all intents and purposes, not one of the Awakened.

It was during a particularly boring set of cuts and thrusts that I not only remembered from other lifetimes but also learned as a child in this body that Sir. Michael had walked past the training grounds, and as I was trying to make the sequence of moves look more difficult than it was, he had walked up and dragged me off the grounds.

I would normally have objected vehemently to that, but this was Sir. Michael Poins. My great-grandfather had grown up hearing tales of the knight's exploits, so in an uncommon moment of clarity and self-preservation, I decided to shut my yapper until he was done with doing whatever he had planned to do with me and prayed I would survive it.

When he unceremoniously dumped me on one of the benches away from everyone else and asked.

“What is this fool's game you are playing at, boy?”

Feeling like a deer coming face to face with a pack of hounds, I tried to gather my thoughts, preparing to act stupid. That was until I looked the knight in his steel gray eyes and I knew, he knew, and now he knew I knew.

What was I supposed to do? I was supposed to lie to the greatest knight of the lands, and by that, I mean all the kingdoms, republics, imperial lands, and so on. The mere presence he exuded was enough to make my rank one awakening go whimper in a corner.

So I told him, I told him everything, and when I was done, I felt like I wanted to throw up. His only reaction was to keep looking at me for a while before he said.

“Aunt Justin? You're Lukas and Anna's son?”

I don't know how he knew my parent's name, but there it was, and at my nod of confirmation, he grunted and said almost to himself.

“So the Nachtwald finally managed to breed forth an Awakened.”

Tapping a finger against his chin, he seemed lost in thought for a moment before he focused those predatory eyes on me again and said.

“Foolishness. Come, boy. There is no time to sit around here gaping. I don't have all day.”

With that, I was dragged away again into a smaller walled courtyard, and my road to truly understanding pain, despair and exhaustion began.

Chuckling to myself at how weak I had been, and probably still was, I closed the bolt on the door and sat down on the gray stone floor. In front of me was a dial and some gems that were embedded in the floor.

Setting the timer, I chose the gem for full sensory deprivation, and it didn't take me long to get a clear picture of my spirit's body. It was strange how ordinary it felt to be tinkering with my spirit body to achieve the maximum amount of energy generation and power output without burning myself out. It would only improve as my power grew.

The sad part was it only took Sir Michael a day to explain to me how things worked as an Awakened. I had no idea why this wasn't put in easy-to-read manuals, but it would probably have saved a lot of people from doing dumb stuff.

My sparrow egg was now more chicken egg-sized, and it not only granted me better control over my attempts at drawing rituals, but it helped clean up the parts of stolen power I got from creatures and offset some of the issues my domain brought on when I opened myself to much to its power.

I could also hold six rituals in my book, but the next level of rituals was still locked away in the book.

What I did notice was that the stronger my spirit became, the more control I had over the rituals I could use, and I could put a lot more power into a ritual once I had used it for a while.

Sadly, this seemed to reset once I switched out a ritual, so I had to start from scratch every time I decided on a different load out of rituals.

I was still not fully able to draw the rituals by hand without the book. Not those which I had saved in my book, but the rest of them in free hand, but I was slowly getting there. My memory was becoming better as the months went by, so it was just not my body that improved.

Done with the necessities, I settled down and just let my mind wander until the alarm went off. It was almost as good as sleeping, which I needed less and less of, but I still immensely enjoyed the few times I could allow myself to sleep through a full night.

Too many things have been happening in the city lately. Creatures that hadn't been seen before came up from the sewers.

Cultists either raised the dead to attack the living or, even worse, the ones that started summoning demons. From my understanding, it wasn't just in Murktown; all the kingdoms, cities, and people were at a boiling point.

I had even seen a group of citizens watching a sermon by one of the unwelcome gods a few days ago, and when the city guard finally made it, they had been attacked by the crazed mob. It was a mess.

While no gods were banned, there were a few that had so little in common with humanity or were actively seeking to destroy it that it was frowned upon to give them worship. No temples were allowed on civilized land that allowed for the worship of these deities.

The Hunters guild had even sent out a general recall, making those who were out in the forest or countryside go to the nearest city and try to help the local guards. The earls, viscounts and barons were pretty much left to keep the peace of the king's road by themselves. It was not something I thought most of them were prepared to do

.

Snapping out of my place of peace as all my senses returned at once, I headed over to the hospital. Mira would be done for the day soon, and since none of my voidlings had reported anything, we could maybe even have a nice dinner and relax for once.

Who knows, Fang may even behave. A man can dream, can't he?

With the increased activity and attacks inside the city, even the guild hospital was full. It was like walking into a battlefield. The smell of blood, shit, piss, sweat and antiseptics mixed into an unholy concoction that belonged in the demon realm or wherever demons came from.

How the staff managed to get anything done without throwing up every second

breath was beyond me. My increased senses only made it worse, and I almost fled, but I sadly knew that I, as everyone else in here, would eventually grow accustomed to it.

Taking a couple of minutes at the entrance, I steeled my nerves and continued into the realm of blood and gore.

Most of the treatment was done by the mundane. Awakened healers were so rare I doubt any of them would ever set foot in a place like this, but the Awakened alchemists and artificers made potions and tools that bordered on miraculous. They were just extremely expensive.

Walking by someone having their mangled leg amputated while their screaming children and crying spouse stood watching the procedure right there in the hallway because they could not afford the expense of a healing potion certainly made me think I might not have it so bad.

I don't know why I did it. It might be the blasted Sir Michael rubbing off on me, but I got the doctor's attention and handed her gold while nodding towards the guy about to lose what was probably his only way of making a living. Then I fled, cursing myself for being so damn weak.

I found Mira over in the burn ward, wrapping some poor soul in bandages. Blasted, I hated this, and I couldn't understand how she took it so well. How did any of the people here manage it?

Standing to the side so I wasn't in the way of anything. I watched her go from patient to patient, working swiftly and with confidence, all the while chatting with those who could and leaving smiles in her wake.

I realized she was meant for this; this was something she truly wanted and enjoyed, and it showed in the care and detail that she did everything with. She may still think she was a Hunter, but I had never seen her this passionate about any contract.

After what felt like an hour but was probably more like twenty minutes, she finally seemed to realize what time it was because she packed up and said her goodbyes in short order.

Spotting me, she waved as she came over and said while giving me a hug.

“Alucard, you ready to head home? Gods, you stink. Are the beginner classes that difficult? I can't remember them being that hard.”

Yeah, the hugging was new. I tried to stop it, but somehow, during the weeks since the Baxter Bashers incident, she decided that she liked hugging, and I was apparently the cursed…I mean the honored one. At least she was a tiny bit nicer in general now.

“Yeah, it's pretty rough, but I'll manage. Just got to keep at it and not quit. I was allowed to practice with an actual sword today, though, so that was fun.”

“Well, some people just take to things slower, don't mean they will turn out worse. It's good that you're learning the basics properly. Goblins and rattlings ain't the worst we could run into out there, especially with how the city has been. It's a damn shit show everywhere.”

“Yeah, the basics are important. I need to wash up some more before dinner. Let's head home.”

Halfway dragging Mira since she kept stopping to talk to everyone, we finally made it out.

What in the blazes is that…