Darius let out a pained grunt as he felt the conjured blade pierce his stomach, he could feel it cutting through his intestines in several places as it pushed deep inside him. Slowly the blade retracted before darting back to Arthur’s side like a loyal dog. Again Arthur raised his right hand and thrusted it forwards and the conjured blade followed, a third and fourth strike followed until blood was pouring from the vampire’s wounds staining his expensive clothes and pooling on the ground.

Through this humiliation and in pain Darius struggled against the conjured tendrils to try and escape and stop the horrible spell, but for each failed attempt he was struck again and his strength further faded. By the time a minute had passed and the first of the conjured tendrils had faded Darius had already lost the strength to fight against Arthur.

When the last tendril was gone Darius was left alone standing in the middle of a puddle of his own blood. He tried to walk towards Arthur with shaking legs, the weight of his body almost too much to bear with all the blood he had lost. The best he could manage was a walk even a drunken child could easily surpass.

In a desperate act for even the smallest possibility of survival Darius reached out with his right arm while his left held onto the mangled flesh that was once his stomach, the natural healing ability that vampires had was not enough to heal such a wound fast enough.

Arthur barley even reacted to the actions of Darius at this point, instead he chose to bring his right arm all the way to his left side with the conjured weapon following. When Darius stopped to look only then did he notice he was within the reach of the conjured weapon. He stood as straight as he could and looked the young mage in the eye. To his surprise he didn’t see anger, disgust, or fear that he was so accustomed to see in the eyes of those who stood against him. Instead he saw defiance, defiance to all the evil in the world should it show its face to him. He could see that Arthur didn’t hate him, he just saw him as a danger to the world that needs to be stopped, deep down in his soul where he had long forgotten his humanity Darius could respect that view of the world.

With one swift swing of his arm Arthur sliced off the self proclaimed vampire lord’s head, it fell to the ground with the remainder of the body following close behind it. When the deed was finally done Arthur dropped to his knees, the sheer amount of mana he used in just a minute to conjure all of those earth vines easily used up half of his mana reserves. Add the tier three spell and he was just about ready to lay down for the night.

/- - - - - -\

+ 300 Exp

\- - - - - -/

The cultists who had watched the whole fight play out didn’t know what to do, they had just watched their master die at the hands of a mortal mage that he told them was a lesser being simply because he was human. They could take the opportunity to enact revenge for their master, but what for? Killing him wouldn’t bring their Lord Darius back, but this very outcome proved everything that they were taught by him was wrong. It was a dilemma that wasn’t easily resolved and as such they started speaking amongst themselves.

“We need to enact revenge for our master!” Some shouted at their fellow cultists.

“We should take a moment and consider our options.” Others said trying to calm everyone.

Most didn’t say anything at all. The shock of the loss they just suffered was more than enough to stop them from doing anything drastic for quite some time.

While the cultists spoke amongst themselves the paladins led by the high paladin Aulus Gallus entered through the three doorways and sounded the cultists preventing them from doing anything drastic. Some tried to fight back using the basic magic they had been taught but their efforts were quickly stopped by a combination of their allied cultists and the paladins who were keeping their eyes out for anything suspicious.

Titia who had been following Arthur from behind and had been hiding within the room just in case dispelled her invisibility and ran up to Arthur to make certain that he was alright. She dropped to her knees and sat next to him checking his face and arms to see if had any injuries, thankfully he didn’t but his hands were still in pain from absorbing all that force behind those attacks.

“Do you need a healing potion?” Titia asked as she picked up Arthur’s bag and reached inside for a potion.

“Yeah, that would probably be a real help.” Arthur replied through pained breaths as he reached into the bag and slowly brought out one of his potions.

He held out the bottle towards Titia so she could remove the cork that kept the light glowing liquid from spilling out. With the last of his remaining strength and willpower Arthur brought the bottle to his lips and tipped it upwards, the potion flowed into his mouth and he quickly swallowed. In a matter of seconds he could already feel the weak healing magic starting to work, a small tingling flowed down his arms and the rattling pain he was feeling ever so slowly started to fade away.

“Do you think you could help me over to a chair or something?” Arthur looked to Titia as he asked. Titia nodded and helped him to his feet while holding him up with his arm over her shoulder. Suddenly a set of footsteps could be heard and someone else took Arthur's other arm and helped carry him, both Titia and Arthur looked over to see a young paladin with noticeably less adorned armor helping.

“Sorry if I am surprising you two, but you looked like you needed help.” The young paladin spoke, he sounded no older than eighteen to the two mages.

“It's alright, I think Titia was having a bit of difficulty carrying me on her own anyways.” Arthur quickly replied. Titia didn’t say anything but her far heavier breathing implied that Arthur’s assessment was correct.

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The trio walked into the next room and stopped at the nearest bench they could find in a hallway to allow Arthur to sit. The bench was old and worn but showed that it was likely a very nice piece of furniture at one point in time, they slowly eased Arthur down onto it and he leaned back against the wall once he was sitting.

“My arms feel like they are broken.” Arthur complained as he let them simply lay at his sides.

“Yeah well maybe you shouldn’t have fought a vampire with a melee weapon if you didn’t want to feel that way. I thought you were a mage, use your spells more often.” Titia pointed her finger in Arthur’s face as she scolded him for his bad decision.

“Well I think you did well considering this was your very first fight against a proper vampire.” The young paladin piped up. Both Arthur and Titia looked up to see he had removed his helmet and held it with his left hand as he continued speaking. “Most of the specific details regarding how to fight against vampires and just how powerful they can be are hidden from the public to avoid people desiring vampirism. There is a certain appeal to raw power to some people that was displayed just minutes ago, things would be so much worse if that was common information.”

Arthur looked at the young paladin with a bit of surprise which was followed by understanding. It made sense that such information would be kept away from the general populace, if they knew that they could acquire such power from simply being a vampire it was almost certain that somebody would go looking for vampires. The people that would do that would either be killed by the vampire or turned into one of their blood spawn, both of which would be issues to deal with.

Titia scoffed at the statement, she clearly didn’t agree but she didn’t say anything. Arthur looked at Titia with some confusion from this reaction but also kept quiet.

“Oh and by the way my name is Bromia just in case either of you were wondering.”

********

Bromia stayed for a few more minutes before he had to leave. The paladins were taking the cultists as prisoners to the dungeons of the city, but shortly after he left a familiar paladin arrived to speak with Arthur.

Stomping his foot down and raising his right hand to where his heart was, the high paladin Aulus Gallus gave the salute to Arthur who looked up with a mixture of surprise and happiness to see the high paladin again.

“Good evening sir mage, I am the high paladin Aulus of the circle of fire. I would like to thank you for helping us with the situation and offer my congratulations for killing the vampire on your own.” Aulus smiled and removed his helmet as he spoke which helped remove the stiff feeling of order and power that he gave off, it helped him feel more human.

“Thank you for your words of support sir paladin, but I think I was very lucky with that fight. Odds are I would have died if I was fighting that monster alone, my arms can attest to that.” Arthur gestured towards his arms with his head to illustrate his point.

“Do you require any healing? I am rather skilled with divine magic and Solarius shares his knowledge of the healing arts with those who follow him.”

“Yes, that would be nice. My own skill in restoration magic is rather lacking at the moment, I think that will be one of the first things I will do once I recover.”

With his permission Aulus started a short and simple chant that Arthur didn’t recognize, when he was done his hands started to glow with a soft golden light. He placed his hands upon Arthur’s forearms where the injuries were and Arthur let out a soft sigh as he felt his injuries mending. It felt like his bones were itching as the pain slowly faded into mere memory, when the high paladin was done the pain Arthur felt was easily half as intense as he was experiencing before.

“There, that should help with the pain considerably. If you need more healing speak with another of my paladins as I will be rather busy with the cultists for the time being.” With that Aulus left the hallway leaving Arthur and Titia alone on an old bench in an old mansion. For a while the two just sat there relaxing before the long walk back to the living space Arthur was renting, Arthur closed his eyes as he did so, almost falling asleep several times.

********

Eight o’clock rolled around and Arthur awoke with deep bags under his eyes, slowly he sat up from his bed and looked out the window. He could see the sunlight on the street below and hear the people in the streets below, they sounded far happier and calmer than they had been several days prior when the rumors of the vampires and assassins were making their way through the city. Now as Arthur stuck his head outside the window he could hear people muttering to their close friends about how the vampires were slain.

For a minute Arthur stayed there basking in the glory that he helped all the people below him, they were happy and they were safe all because he chose to do the right thing. His arms were still a little nub from the blows he took, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of satisfaction he was feeling at this moment.

Suddenly from behind the door someone knocked rather loudly. “Sir, it is morning now. I recommend you wake up sooner rather than later.” The loud voice of Eric boomed from the other side of the door.

“I am already awake Eric. No need to yell so loud.” Arthur shouted back, though he was rather constrained compared to Eric who seemingly shouted at the top of his lungs.

With nothing stopping his morning routine Arthur dressed himself in his alchemist attire and picked up his bag before stepping outside the door.

Outside he found both Eric and Titia waiting for him, Titia looked rather annoyed and embarrassed with Eric while he looked unaware of her feelings towards him.

Before Arthur even had a chance to lock the door behind him Titia started speaking. “I am sorry to bother you so early in the morning sir, but captain Dio has requested you meet with her as soon as possible. She wants to discuss what happened last night with the vampire threat in person in the western district barracks, her secretary is expecting us.”

Arthur groaned slightly at the mention of speaking with the captain before having his breakfast, but given that she was a very important person in the city it was best not to keep her waiting for very long. So with that the trio left for the western distinct barracks rather than a nice place to have breakfast.

The walk wasn’t much longer than what would have been needed to walk to the mages guild but the wait to enter the building was nonexistent in comparison. The secretary took the trio and brought them right to the captain's office before opening the door and bringing them inside and announcing their arrival.

“There you are Arthur, please take a seat.” Captain Dio gestured towards the chair on the opposite side of the desk as she turned back to look through documents on her desk. Only when she was done did she turn back and address Arthur.

“First thing on the agenda is a congratulations my good sir. You defeated a whole group of vampires on your own, not all at once, but still rather impressive for someone such as yourself.” Captain Dio seemed rather happy with the situation. She was even smiling which Arthur had only even seen her do when he was doing a good job and impressing her.