"Director!" An employee rushed into Lysander's office. "A tier-four original demon has appeared!"

"What?!" Lysander rushed out of his office. "Give me the details!"

"The distress call came from Simon. They evacuated all the unconscious guards, but a recruit was left to face the demon."

"How many reinforcements were sent?" Lysander asked as they arrived at the dispatch lobby.

"Four teams are on their way. The Snowmoon team responded as well."

"How long until they arrive at the scene?"

"Approximately half an hour, sir."

"A recruit won't last that long against a tier-four demon."

------

Original demons are ranked based on tiers. The higher the tier, the stronger the demon. Several factors could determine the tier of a demon, but the main one is the amount of demonic power they radiate.

A tier-one demon is already considered a threat to a whole city. The amount of damage a tier-four could do was unthinkable. But Alex didn't give a shit about all that.

Alex crashed through several walls after getting hit by a wave of blood magic. A moment later, his death knight was sent flying as well.

"You think getting hit by blood will kill me?" Alex got up.

The attacks from the vampire weren't exactly lethal, but they had a considerable amount of power behind them.

"Master, the vampire is yet to complete their form," the lich informed him. "We must end this immediately."

"Blow it up then," Alex instructed.

"As you command," the lich charged the vampire, aiming for the same suicidal attack it used on the werewolf.

"Insolence!" the vampire shouted as it sent a wave of blood to push back the lich.

The werewolf intercepted the attack and was sent flying through the wall and crashed outside the mansion. When the lich was about to reach the vampire, it got trapped in a blood tornado.

"I'm sick of fucking getting thrown around by you demons!" Alex yelled as he suddenly jumped on the vampire's back and stabbed in the shoulder.

"Filthy mongrel!" the vampire yelled as it attempted to bite Alex, but he managed to lean out of the way and stabbed the vampire in its left eye.

The vampire began thrashing around, hitting the ceiling and the walls as it tried to get rid of Alex.

"Anytime now!" Alex yelled as he endured the impacts.

The lich used the binding curse to pull the vampire down. The death knight stabbed its great sword into the vampire's chest as Alex got off, impaling the vampire to the ground.

"For my liege!" the lich shouted as it detonated itself.

Alex didn't account for the improved power explosion and was sent flying through the wall. "If I had a nickel for every time I crashed through a wall..." Alex muttered as he got up. "Go check," he ordered the death knight.

A moment later, pieces of the death knight were sent flying across the room. "You will pay human," a giant humanoid-bat monster stepped out of the smoke.

"Seriously? These motherfuckers have phases now?" Alex grumbled as his werewolf leaped out of nowhere and tried clawing the monster. But the bat monster literally bit the werewolf's head off. "Sheesh..."

The monster raised its hand towards Alex, and then the blood from his wounds bound him like chains.

"I will make your death painful, human," the vampire stated as it approached Alex.

"Not the first time I've heard that one," Alex replied. "Are you sure you aren't just too weak to kill me immediately?"

The monster's face twisted in anger. "I'm going to enjoy this," the vampire said as it raised its claws to end Alex's life.

A bullet suddenly hit the vampire's head. Simon's hands trembled as he held up the gun. The vampire ignored him and turned back to Alex to be surprised to see a great sword heading towards their head. It managed to avoid the attack and saw Alex covered in black bone armor.

"Should have killed me when you had the chance," Alex smirked as he charged.

"It changes nothing, human," the vampire said as it dodged the slash and punched Alex in the side. It avoided another swing before landing a backhand to Alex's head. "I'm faster," the vampire landed a left hook. "I'm stronger," he slammed both hands down on Alex's back. "I'm superior!" the vampire yelled as it used black magic to create blood spears in the air.

Simon began firing bullets but still did no damage to the vampire.

"Vermin," the vampire said in annoyance before firing one of the blood spears and impaling Simon in the chest.

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

Alex's eyes widened as he watched Simon fall to the ground. "Motherfucker!" Alex yelled in anger.

"As I said," a blood spear stabbed him in the leg. "I will kill you slowly."

"I'll do the same," Alex responded as he swung the great sword from the ground, slicing halfway through the vampire's left foot.

The vampire stumbled, but two spears shot down on each of Alex's shoulders. Alex gritted his teeth as the spears were embedded into his body.

When another spear was about to stab him, an arrow destroyed it. Alex turned his head enough to look for the source of the arrow and found a group of four women. One of them was already in the process of trying to heal Simon, while the rest were ready to fight.

"More vermin," the vampire spoke.

Alex tried his best to stay conscious but it hardly mattered when his vision was turning red. As his vision faded, Alex saw the battle begin.

-------

"How was the situation handled?" Lysander asked as he arrived at the scene.

"There were no casualties, sir, and all the hostages have already been taken to hospitals."

"Snowmoon arrived just in time then," Lysander stated.

"No, sir. They arrived quite late. The lack of casualties was because of the recruit that held off the vampire," the agent informed. "He prioritized evacuation, and resulted in only two people being injured."

"What are their conditions?"

"The recruit is still being treated, while the other is already in a stable condition."

"Keep me updated on their condition."

"Understood!"

-------

Alex woke up once again in a familiar place. He sat up and noticed that he was wrapped in bandages. "... figures," Alex sighed as he looked around.

He was certain he was in the infirmary, but it seemed he was in a more private room, likely due to the severity of his injuries.

"Look who decided to wake up," Cristina said as she entered the room.

"How long was I out?"

"Five days," Cristina revealed. "It took a while to patch you up. If they hadn't dealt with the vampire immediately, you could have died."

Alex sighed. "In the end, I needed to be saved."

"You saved many lives that day as well."

Alex hardly cared about that part. All he cared about was being too weak to finish things himself.

"Don't look so depressed. You're just a recruit. Even experienced hunters would have failed in that situation," Cristina tried to comfort him.

"How's Simon?" Alex asked.

"He's fine. He got discharged yesterday."

Alex nodded. "When can I go?"

"After we do some more check-ups. It would help if you still rested here for a while," Cristine stated. "You got impaled multiple times after all."

Alex just nodded again. After Cristina performed a check-up on him, she left the room. A while later, the door opened to reveal Simon in a wheelchair.

"How are you doing?" Simon asked.

"Alive."

Simon didn't know how to respond to that. "I guess this should be a good time to teach you about Aether allocation."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Why only now?"

"Well, this is your first battle that didn't result in you getting a core," Simon replied. "Every time you get a core, it starts at stage one, but you absorbed every core from the demons you defeated, so the Aether you got from defeating them was partially retained instead."

"Alright," Alex spoke. "How does it work?"

"This time, you actually need to meditate."

Alex groaned.

------

"Does anyone want to tell me how a vampire appeared out of nowhere without anyone knowing?" Lorena said in annoyance.

"The area was under the ownership of one of the seven deadly sins. We couldn't act recklessly."

"Thousands of people could have died!" Lorena yelled. "If that guy wasn't there, every guard could have died!"

"The vampire awakened because he found the room," one of the agents tried to argue.

"So you wanted the vampire to awaken later in a more powerful state?" Lorena glared at the agent.

Her anger continued to increase as they kept giving her excuses for their failure.

"Calm down."

Lorena turned to see her grandmother, Leonora. "You think their actions were acceptable?"

"I do not. I will make sure the people responsible would be punished," Leonora stated. "But I have to remind you that this base isn't your playground."

Lorena gritted her teeth and left. As she rushed down the hallway, she ran into her team member, Akemi, the frontline of her team.

"Everything alright, boss?" Akemi asked.

"Yes," Lorena rubbed her forehead. "Just frustrated."

"Politics was never your strength," Akemi shrugged. "Carol is waiting in the cafeteria, and Sam still hasn't returned from the task you gave her."

"I just told her to inform the recruit about the gathering of necromancers," Lorena mentioned.

"That still sounds creepy, boss."

"There are only a few necromancers in the organization, and it's the hardest skill tree to grow. He'll need all the help he can get."

"The other recruits said he's more of a frontline," Akemi mentioned. "They kept commenting about how he keeps beating them up."

"It's not hard to beat up spoiled brats," Lorena replied. "All the other recruits are the heirs to their families, so they hardly faced a real challenge."

"Maybe the kid will show us something interesting," Akemi said.

"Maybe," Lorena agreed.

------

Alex kept grumbling as he floated in the middle of a dark void. In front of him were two giant spheres. The smaller one of the two had the symbol of the left side of a man and the right side of an unrecognizable monster. The sphere itself was a yellowish color. The larger one was purple and had the symbol of a reaper.

"I guess those are supposed to be my cores," Alex muttered. "Simon said to just hold out my hand and picture myself pouring something into it."

Alex did what he was instructed, and a few seconds later, a golden mist came out of his hand and headed toward the yellow core.

Once there was no more mist coming out, Alex put down his hand. "I'm done," he muttered.

His eyes opened, and he was finally back to the outside world. The lights were off, and the only thing Alex could hear was the sound of the machine monitoring his vitals.

He summoned his werewolf. It had noticeable changes, so he simply undid the summoning and laid back down. "The fuck am I supposed to do now?" Alex grumbled, and as if to answer his question, someone knocked on the door.

A woman with short black hair entered the room. "You're the new necromancer," she said in a bored tone.

"Do I know you?" Alex replied.

"I was the archer that saved you."

"Thanks."

The woman's eyes twitched. "Our captain is a necromancer as well. She told me to tell you about the gathering."

"What's that?"

"Find out yourself," she said before leaving.

Alex's eyes twitched.

"Bitch."