Azura often came to regret his confidence, this was definitely 1 of those times. Canis had been the one to decide the conversation was over, and he had been given no choice but to defend himself. Unfortunately defending himself was proving to be no easy task. The vampire wasn’t even using magic, or at least none that he was able to pick up. Either way Canis was fast, faster than Elismera, and maybe even faster than Kaiser. No, given that Canis definitely wasn’t going all out it was safe to say the vampire was definitely faster than Kaiser. Even using lightning to enhance his speed enchantments he was barely keeping up.
“I suppose you're not terrible, for your age even this level is commendable no?” He grit his teeth. Still he didn’t allow Canis’ goading to take him off balance. Unfortunately off balance or not, it was quite clear he was no match for his opponent. Thankfully his opponent didn’t want him dead, which was probably the only reason he hadn’t lost yet. He had thrown some of his more powerful lightning spells at his opponent, only to have them waved off with no visible damage.
“Not everyone turns themselves into a bloodthirsty monster for power, so sorry if my abilities are a bit lacking.” He was stalling, they both probably knew that. If he could get his opponent angry he might have a slim chance, but even if not if he kept the vampire here for long enough then he’d win anyway. As if to show him how futile his plans were, Canis rushed forward faster than he could react and grabbed his arm.
It was at the look of sheer rage in his opponents eyes did he realize that perhaps he had made a mistake. “It seems your studies weren’t as complete as I hoped.” The cold anger seeped into The vampire's voice, deepening it. He could escape the grip if it came to it, but if the man wanted to talk he’d jump on that chance.
“That’s certainly true, it's been almost 200 hundred years since the last known vampire was slain, so forgive me for thinking it a subject not worth studying further.” Especially given that he was the type who would certainly take interest in that kind of power boost. He was surprised when the vampire's grip loosened slightly, but he appreciated the return of blood flow to his hand.
“It’s certainly true that most vampires turned themselves, but they based their research and transformation on a pre-existing condition. The original vampires were a cult of worshipers to Bahamut, a demon-god of blood. Bahamut gave them what he considered a ‘boon.’ Those were the first vampires, and they possessed the ability to turn others into vampires if certain conditions were met. It was 1 of those very worshippers who turned me into the monster you see before you.”
HIs eyes widened. It was no wonder his opponent was so strong, Canis had probably been alive for centuries. “Why haven’t you gone to a cursebreaker if you hate being a vampire so much?” At least that’s what it sounded like to him, the sheer distaste Canis had when he had said boon left him confident the man didn’t want to be a vampire.
“If only it were that simple. Unfortunately unlike the transformation mages had figured out to gain our power, the original curse is ingrained into our very being. Removing it would kill me. At least if done naturally, with the book of origin I can simply make it so I was never turned.” Ahh so that was why. That helped him connect a few pieces. The group was so willing to sacrifice the royal family and stability in the kingdom because if they succeeded they believed they could undo all the wrongs anyway.
“That’s not how it works you know? If you change the past, the future changes as well. Obviously you wouldn’t be alive now if you hadn’t been cursed in the first place, so it will kill you anyway.” It’s true there were other ways to extend your life, but few that were mastered before a mage left their prime.
“Admitting to its existence now are you?” A deflection? He hadn’t expected that. For the most part Canis had been fairly forthcoming so far, so why defect now of all times? He couldn’t think of any reason that how he’d survive would be more important to hide than the intention to change history.
“Admitting I have a good chunk of experience with time magic actually. If I wanted to create alternate timelines it’s already something well within my ability to go back and stop you from turning. Of course that wouldn’t help you here.” Actually turning back time that far was of course well beyond his ability, but traveling to the spot in spacetime it happened was indeed achievable.
“Is that so? Quite an achievement, but I have no need for a solution that won’t help this me.” He sighed, that was fair. In all honesty he tended to agree which is why he had never gone back to save his brother. There wasn’t really a point if nothing changed in this reality.
“Understandable, but surely we can reach some kind of accord. Even if the book does exist, there is no guarantee you’ll be able to use it whether you destroy the seals or not. Either way this fight is pointless. I can’t beat you, and since you think I have the book you can’t kill me, or you wouldn’t be able to find it.” Frankly the man probably wouldn’t be able to kill him anyway thanks to the part of his core in the spirit world, but the vampire could definitely make him take some time to properly reform, so he felt it best not to escalate things further.
“Perhaps I can't kill you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take you out of commission for a while.” Too aggressive, Canis wanted something from him. The vampire seemed content to wait on the book, so that didn’t seem likely. Should he play along? It was hard to say without any information to make a guess.
“I suppose that’s true, but you would gain nothing from it.” I’ve already figured out how you were getting bombs into the castle, and countering it is something easily done. Your attempt to kill the royal family is a failure, and a direct attack while possible would certainly lead to your death.
“Perhaps for now, but I have time, and more allies than you know. Of course the goal wasn’t really to kill the royal family, and there are other ways to cause a big enough distraction. Though admittedly most of them are quite distasteful.” Well that certainly wasn’t good. The only kind of distraction that would take all the guards away from important locations was war, and a big one at that.
“Don’t you think that’s a tad extreme? Your curse is difficult no doubt about it, but it can be worked around. Isn’t destruction on that scale too extreme?” He hoped this was another bluff, because if the vampire had enough resources at his disposal to start a war for a distraction then that meant he had enormous financial backing.Which in many ways was far more frightening than his power.
“Perhaps, but if extreme is what we need, then that is what we’ll do. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I’m the leader of this group, but I’m merely one of the generals. Each of us has a wish to change the past, and so we all work to the resurrection and acquisition of the book of origin” He grit his teeth. Everyone had things they wanted to change, but that didn’t give them the right to hurt countless others. More concerning was that someone this strong wasn’t even the leader.
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What could he do? Canis was leagues above him, and he didn’t have anything ready that would take him down. It was 1 thing when he would win if he could so much as scratch his opponent, and quite another when he actually had to beat them. “Let’s say you’re right about all this stuff, what's to stop me from simply erasing your existence the second the book is unsealed?” In this case it worked in his favor that they knew he had the book. This way they’d have to get the book from him before they did anything else.
“The book has to be placed on each temple’s altar first to regain the power that was sealed away. We’ll simply stop you from getting it to the altars, and then once we’ve taken it from you we can finish unsealing it.” That complicated things a little, but alternatively it meant that they could take all 5 temples, and it wouldn’t do them any good without the book. Alternatively it also meant that they only really needed to protect 1 of the temples. That is assuming he took all this at face value.
“Ok so lets say you get access to all the temples that still doesn’t mean you could get the book from me. Even if I had it I’m not stupid enough to carry something like that with me. So even if you’re far stronger than me the book would still be beyond your grasp.” That was both his greatest strength, and greatest weakness here. When they inevitably decided his friends were easier targets things would get messy, a convenient hiding spot or not. His friends wouldn’t be willing to spend all their time in the armory.
“The human mind can only take so much pain and suffering before it breaks. Given time you will give us the book just to stop the pain. Even if you don’t break, your tricks are known to us. Including that subspace of yours. The Armory was it?” His blood ran cold. There was no doubt about it now, the people that knew about the armory could be counted on his hands with fingers left over. There was a traitor in their midst, one of the friends he trusted dearly was selling them out to the enemy.
“Why would you reveal your hand to me?” Revealing the presence of a traitor was an odd mistake to make at this juncture. Especially given that whoever was doing it was doing an incredible job hiding themselves. Even knowing for sure there was one wasn’t helping him narrow it down.
“I have no idea what you mean, I wasn’t the one who was gathering that information.” So Canis was undermining another member in his group. That was a small mercy at least the group wasn’t completely consolidated. That meant there would be contentions to take advantage of. “I suppose I’ve had my fun for now. I’ll leave the royal family for the time being, but before I go, you may call us Genesis. No need to let the royal family come up with some ridiculous name for us.” Just like that the vampire vanished.
He punched the ground in front of him hard enough to crater it. He had been toyed with, the small ‘fight’ if one could call that exchange of blows a fight had merely been to gauge his strength, and Canis had deemed him not a threat. It grated on him immensely even knowing that if he had been judged dangerous he probably would have had his body obliterated at the very least. Still none of that even held a candle to the searing rage caused by him learning that one of his confidants was a traitor. It took a lot for him to open up to someone, and to have that trust repaid in blood enraged him to no end.
He grit his teeth as mana flew wildly around him in the empty space. He let the rage wash over him knowing that he’d have to be calm before he could go back to the castle. There was at least 1 thing that Canis hadn’t counted on though. Giving away the traitor wouldn’t lower the standing of whoever planted them. After all, the best way to fool your enemies was to fool your allies. He wasn’t sure how yet, but he would slaughter Genesis. Ice started creeping out from below his feet as lightning crackled around him aggressively. So for the first time in a while he let loose.
***
Azura stepped back into the castle having calmed down from his earlier outburst. Thankfully it didn’t take long to find the prince. Xander was waiting for him in one of the training rooms. It was their usual meeting spot given that it had everything you needed to keep a meeting private, which was always important when the things you said could affect an entire kingdom.
“Were you able to catch the assassin?” He sighed, it galled him to fail a mission as important as this, but at least Canis said he’d lay off the attempts, for now at least. He’d also amp up the castle’s security measures, they were strong currently, but also basic so easy enough to work around.
“I caught up to him, but it turned out it was a vampire, and one centuries old at that.” Thankfully everyone had a cap that their magical power couldn’t naturally breach, that limit meant that even ancient beings weren’t unkillable if you took the right approach. Still he was nowhere near his cap yet, and his opponent was his superior by a good margin.
Xander winced. “What could a being like that possibly need a distraction that big for?” He debated whether to tell his friends the truth or not. Frankly aside from wasting some of the best nights of the kingdom he doubted any security the temples had wouldn’t be enough, and given the assassination attempts he doubted they could afford to guard them more heavily. Still if they were being guarded the kingdom knew they were important, so it would be worth telling them just to gather more information about the situation.
“Well he’s certainly not aiming low I’ll tell you that.” He made the light joke as a way to stall why he decided how much he should say. Xander would pick up on it no doubt, having known him for years there was no way Xander would miss such an obvious move. “On a more serious note, what do you know about the book of origin?” He didn’t miss Xander’s face tighten. So they really did know about it, color him surprised.
“Is that what they’re after? The book?” If only. If they were just trying for the book, manipulating them would be easy, but they had a lot to take care of before they needed the book. Still the fact the prince seemed more worried than confused meant that the royal family knew a lot more about the book than he had.
“Not yet, the one I fought said they were hoping to get into some temples across the continent.” Xander’s expression darkened further. He had never seen the prince get so pale, and Xander was shaking visibly. “He said they go by Genesis, and as far as I can tell their goal is to make some minor changes in history in hopes of improving their lives.” If he was honest he had lost interest in the motives of the now named Genesis. They had planted someone to get close to him, no rather that person was probably just supposed to locate the book. It was likely pure coincidence that they had ended up as one of his friends, but they sold him out nonetheless.
“How could they possibly know about the temples? They are one of the best kept secrets in the entire kingdom. No it doesn’t matter how they know right now, what does matter is how we deal with this issue. The knights aren’t going to be enough on their own, so we need another option.” That was true, unfortunately when you started talking about mages that had been around for centuries it typically came down to them disappearing to do who knows what. That was why the top 10 mages list only ever included active mages. As such he wouldn’t be surprised if Canis was someone on the same level as his father.
“I can set up defenses to try and make it more difficult at least, but there is most likely ancient magic currently guarding the temples that far outstrips any additions I make.” He still hoped to set up defenses of his own though. The more energy they expended getting to the temple the less likely it was they’d actually be able to get what they wanted inside of it. Still it felt like in the long run it would inevitably be futile. Canis made it sound like there were several people in Genesis of at least roughly the same skill as himself, and that meant the odds of them being stopped by even the highest order of defenses were slim.
“I appreciate that, but it won’t be enough. We’re going to have to hire powerful independent mages.” He sighed reluctantly. He didn’t disagree, but it wasn’t like people like his father would be willing to sit around and wait until they are attacked. Even Cynthia’s mother wasn’t likely to agree to that plan of action, and she was by far the most amicable of the top 10. “This can only end poorly.” For once, he really wished he could disagree with the prince.