Alexia

Not long after I get the wave of notifications and messages from the System, I feel my phone ringing. And when I pull it out, I find one message and call after another building up. Making me hesitant to even answer a single one.

Too many people.

I look through them, ignoring the vast majority of the calls until I find Alara’s call and answer that one.

“You saw it?” she asks right away without any hesitation at all.

I almost nod my head in response out of habit, only to remember this is a phone call and answer out loud, “Yes. I did. I’ll be heading over to check things out now.”

“Got it,” she replies again before saying, “I’ll watch out for The Retreat while you’re gone,” and hanging up without another word.

I put my phone away, ignoring the other calls and messages I’m getting from pretty much any leader of importance in the entire Dimensional Block. Then I begin teleporting through the skies in the direction of the intruding Dimensional Leader and Champion. Which I can sense thanks to my Legendary Feat, Dimensional Conqueror.

Most likely, this battle won’t take very long. But I do need to be careful. After all, the Lord of Vampires is known for how difficult it is to kill him.

Now, whether or not he is still like that, I’m not sure.

Regardless, it’s best to be careful.

I continue teleporting across the Block until I reach the Dimensional Wall leading to one of the neighboring dimensions. A wall on the volcanic side of our merged block and not the sky world side. At which point I find a large army of vampires and thralls entering the block through some sort of portal.

So without any hesitation, I unleash my aura and stop hiding my presence. Making every last one of them freeze in place.

Of the bunch, only a single vampire gives me any feeling of wariness amongst them. The highest level of the others is around level seven hundred after all, and there are only a few around that level amongst them.

But the one my eyes rather quickly lock on is different.

He’s just a couple dozen levels below me.

And, more importantly, he’s Class S.

I can just instinctively feel it in my bones somehow. That he is, without a doubt, Class S.

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A Class S vampire.

My eyes narrow ever so slightly at the rather arrogant and smug expression on the man’s face as he slowly floats up towards me. But I don’t say a word.

Guess he must’ve gotten old enough that he advanced. Something a lot of people were speculating may not even be possible, considering just how old the man is despite never reaching Class S until now.

“So you’re The Reaper,” Damien Black says with a smug look on his face. One that makes it pretty clear how he sees me. “You don’t look like much.” He turns around to face the tens of thousands of vampires and thrall beneath him as he asks, “Aren’t I right?!”

All of them shout and cheer, albeit with some of them looking like they don’t want to.

Hmm. Not all the vampire support him.

Makes sense considering that he went around turning an entire Dimensional Block into vampires.

Damien turns around again, and I meet his eyes directly for the first time.

Only for something… strange… to happen when I do.

I feel something like a shock run through my entire body, meanwhile one crash of thunder after another echoes around the cloudless skies. Then the Class S ancient vampire’s entire body is suddenly lit up in my vision with a faint red highlight.

And for some strange reason, I feel a strong urge to identify the man again.

{Damien Black – Ancient Vampire – Level 972} -|-|-|-|- {Target – Reaper Directive – Annihilate the Rule Breaker – Target broke the laws of nature and merged himself with a sliver of corruption to break past the bounds of Class A into Class S.}

I blink in surprise. Both at the new information for how he reached Class S, and at the fact that he’s a target of the System.

Unfortunately, the Architect left before I could get answers about the targets thing. But maybe this is why he didn’t bother answering that one before I could ask, like he did with the others.

Because I would know immediately upon meeting them that they’re a target. And I would understand what it is supposed to be for when I meet one.

A target is someone who has broken some sort of fundamental law of the universe. Possibly related to the Corruption at that.

I look at the man, no, the target for several seconds. Just studying anything I can about his body to see if I can understand the difference between him and a normal Class S. But I can’t figure anything out about him. And the red outline isn’t going away either.

Even when smoke or ash floats in-between us, blocking some of my vision, I can still see the red outline clearly.

As if it’s marking him no matter where he is. Making it so that I can always know where he is.

Which is convenient.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I might think you were interested,” Damien says, his smirk growing wider as he licks his lips. And when he does that, a single fang cuts his tongue and makes blood drip down from his mouth. “If only you weren’t necessary for my plans.”

I ignore the disgusting look on his face to instead watch the droplet of blood that falls to the ash-covered volcanic ground, where dozens of vampires literally leap at it to drink the droplets.

Gross.

Well, anyways, this guy is a target.

The corners of my lips quirk upwards ever so slightly as I turn my head up to look at the sky.

So, Quantum Ruler, doesn’t this mean I can do it? I can use my True Form against him since he's a target?

I get a strangely vague sense of confirmation. Like I’m correct.

Good.

I look down at Damien again without a shred of emotion on my face as I begin to float a bit higher in the air.

A frown appears on his face, and he asks, “What are you doing? Are you running away?” Then he clicks his tongue and goes on about my father or something. But I tune him out.

As I activate my True Form.

Shutting him up in an instant.