Axel trudged forward, keeping his head low and hidden under his black cloak. Wintertime was approaching in Estia, and even as a half-undead, the Dhampyre still felt the freezing cold stabbing into his body and biting into his bones. He grimaced as his fangs started to ache, reminding him that he had not drunk in three days. Unlike humans, vampires could endure the pain of hunger longer. A lot longer, with some benign drinkers feeding only one or two times a year. Nevertheless, all vampires were equally reviled by humans and that put the Republic of Zorne under the slings and stones of scorn too, since Estia had long suspected its longtime neighbour of harbouring less-than-human creatures within its high dark walls. However, this was only a suspicion. A rumour passed in the dim light of bars by men who had drunk more than they should.

Axel cared little for that. Don't trust rumours, said Axel's commanding officer to the yound soldiers, terrified at the prospect of meeting blood-drinkers on the field. He fell that day, that crimson-stained, hellish day, to the nightborn inhumans of that black country. Rumours? The entire place was crawling with them. Of course, the majority of the population were normal, if slightly dark-minded, humans, but they were only kept around as food for the hellspawn that was the aristocracy. Few were "gifted" with immortality, as the Man put it once to him, poking in his intestines with a red-hot rod.

A gift, though Axel bitterly. What kind of gift is this, where I have to hide from everyone for fear of being scorned, when the very sunlight stings my skin, and I have to survive by killing? What sick mind would call this shithole of a life a gift?

In the few weeks since the betrayal of Christine, Axel had wandered around the Greenmaw. Under the pretence of leading him to Flerschdorf, the traitorous little girl had led him deeper into the forest, and he was now utterly lost. Axel still felt a pain in his chest whenever he thought of her, unable to feel anything but grief as her face before her death swam up in his mind.

He hated that. Hated that he let an enemy so close to him that she hurt him inside as well as outside. Well, never again, Axel thought.

For from now on, everyone was an enemy. The world itself was an enemy. Axel decided that he would never love anything, since loving had only brought him pain. It wracked his heart every day, the thought of betrayal and the memories of lies.

He had always been spat on, mocked, turned away by everyone. His parents, who threw him out when he was seven on the steps of that orphanage because they didn't have money or time for him. The orphanage was hardly better. The heads were hard, pinched people that would rather spend their grant from the King on them selves than on feeding the children. The children, turned tough and merciless by such uncaring upbringing. Every one of them ridiculed Axel in one way or another. For being too short, for being too weak, for being deficient in one way or another. And Karl. The arrogant little brat that convinced him that at least someone in that hell-hole was his friend, then stepped up and pissed on him from above with the rest of the children. It eventually got so bad that Axel enlisted in the army, the only job available to a parentless rat like him, to escape that forbidding place. But these experiences hurt Axel, not broke him. The Man had been the catalyst. His desire to cause pain to others for enjoyment both confused and disgusted Axel. A being that simply existed to take from others was a being better off dead. From him, Axel realised that true evil, black and spiteful, existed in the world. And finally, Christine. Her face still haunted Axel at night. For what, he did not know, but the experience of her betrayal broke him. Eventually, all broken things mend, but there are cracks and dips and the thing doesn't fit together like before. This was what Axel had become: an amalgamation of crushed pieces so haphazard and thrown-together that he didn't even know himself anymore.

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Didn't even know what he wanted.

Was going back to Estia really good for him?

Death seemed like bliss compared to the cold hardship of life.

However, Axel believed that life existed for a reason: to live. And as long as his heart beated, no matter what he became, he was going to, to spite the world itself if nothing else. His heart was a shell of what he became, stony and unfeeling, for it neede to be, lest it get torn apart again. The only thing in his chest was a flame of black rage, enough to burn down the entire world. And burn down Pandorus it would, if it had to.

But only if it had to. No matter what Axel was, at heart, he still could understand that mindless killing only devolves one down a path into madness. A path he was unwilling to take. No matter what.

Axel started to feel hungry. It was time to feed.

Tassel, capital city of Estia.

Magus Ashenborne stared up into the ceiling of his room, giving his eyes a much-needed break. On his table was a flat sheet of paper, scrawled with a large magic circle. The paper fizzed and smoked, a reaction to the usage of the arcane power coursing through the symbols on it.

"Apprentice Arcanist Magus!"

The young man turned around to see his superior, Arcanist Endel. "Yes, sir?"

"Any luck?"

"Can't find her, sir, lost track once her tag was damaged couple of weeks ago, but I was able to trace an unexplained mana source somewhere deep in the Greenmaw. It's huge, high-Mesos level. It must have been hidden for the past few months or weeks."

"The Greenmaw, huh? Looks like we've got something. A powerful, rogue mage in the woods."

"But sir?"

"Yes?"

"The signature's mana emission is different from an Estian mage's, or arcanist's. It's a different type, one that doesn't shape mana like our doctrine does."

"And that means?"

"Wait a second, sir." Magus placed his hands on the circle and concentrated again. Deep hues of yellow, and purple, and green, of every colour really, swirling and shifting, crackled across the paper. It caught fire and was quickly being devoured by the hungry, arcane flames. Abruptly, the arcanist withdrew his hands.

"It's thaumaturgy, sir. Blood Arts. And we don't have the manaprint in our logs." Magus gestured to a thick leatherbound red tome.

"A vampire, huh? Probably downed Adelfrost. How strong must he be?"

Magus felt a surge of rage, even though he never met the girl. She was only fifteen or sixteen. What infernal creature could kill someone like her. Although she was a hunter, she was just doing her job.

"Good job on that magnificent search spell, kid. I'm going to alert the Hunters at Flerschdorf. They can take an airship to his location. You'll be the attached navigator arcanist. Your clearance level will be upgraded to Nu to Lambda-level, but only for this mission, as you will be expected to lead sometimes as a navigator."

Magus swelled with pride. "Yes sir."

The Tassel Arcanist Third Division was a nice place to work.

The Greenmaw

Axel drank deeply from the two-horn, acutely aware that in the massive effort to take down the great beast, he had emitted an extremely powerful mana signature. People will come searching. Vampire hunters and vampires themselves.

Axel stood up and quickly walked away from the kill, having quenched his thirst and satisfied his hunger. He had made up his mind. He would get to Flerschdorf. Even if he had to cut down a thousand men. He would go home, to Tassel.

No matter what.