With more caution, he observed the intruder. Soon, he began to understand as the monster's large claws easily cut through weapons and armor.

This... This is no ordinary vampire! Not even a Wanderer Vampire... he swallowed hard, hoping to wake up from that nightmare. A Transformed Vampire!!

It was once known as a Second-Degree Vampire, but that didn’t mean the creature had graduated from higher education. Well, in a way, it had.

Above the Indulgent and Wanderer Vampires, and in some cases even surpassing the Descendants, the Transformed Vampire was the type that had received blood from one of the Four Originals, which generally caused a total loss of self-control.

GYAAARGH!!

This fact was more than evident in that living sample. It had no trace of consciousness. Each strike mimicked the wolf whose body had been taken over, scratching like a cub still learning to hunt, with the difference of being as strong as ten grown men.

"PRINCE VAST! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!!"

The desperate Emilia pulled him by the arm, but he refused to take his eyes off the vampire for even a second, as did his master.

The young man, in turn, made a decision. Seeing the soldiers trained by the kingdom with such effort made him realize something he had known to be true since he could remember.

"Step back, Emilia!" He broke free from the girl's arms and jumped over the railing.

The forced but light landing was followed by a sudden and powerful twisting of his bones — a restrained cry of pain at the end. However, such suffering converted into a white light around at least five soldiers in front of him. If they had been gravely injured before, now they felt in the prime of their youth.

"This ability..." The one speaking looked back. "Prince Vast! Do not come any closer!!"

"Silence!!"

The soldier saw only a blur pass by, realizing moments later that the spear he had been holding disappeared.

"PRINCE!!" All those who were supposed to protect him called for his return upon seeing him advance against the vampire, but no voice would reach him anymore.

The Transformed attacked with a brutal and tedious scratch, so straight that architects would be amazed, but this was a battle, so...

"Die, vermin!!" Vast pierced the creature's neck with the spear. "I don’t need the curse to take you down!"

The [Mutter] did not apply to what Vast wielded as a weapon, which is why the warriors classified him as something similar to the Monks from fantastic tales. But, given the effects of his curse, using this combat style would be quite foolish.

To prove to himself and others that he was strong enough to leave the castle alone, he would defeat that vampire and gain his father's permission to...

The sound of something hard gripping the metal. His eyes widened to make sure he was still seeing reality.

Gurh! This guy... How?

Even though the spear pierced his neck, the Vampire grabbed the metal shaft without even being able to see it. Then, he pushed it against Vast with such ease that the others would laugh if they weren't allies.

"Damn it! Let go of that!!"

He obviously didn’t obey, taking the prince's weapon with a single and powerful pull.

Vast thought about reacting, but any damage he tried to inflict with his fists ran the risk of healing all the wounds inflicted on the creature. It was strange to think this way, but curses were far from following the standard logic that governed the universe.

GURYAAAH!! The creature roared to nothing one last time, its eyes that didn’t even work roamed the hall and, after finding something interesting, resulted in a wide, rotten smile. The body leaned at an angle like a true lancer and, before anyone could react, the weapon was thrown.

The object tore through the stifling air of the hall, bringing a momentary freshness along with the unmistakable scent of death.

The reason for the smell wasn’t due to the scattered corpses, but the path taken by the spear. Meticulously calculated to hit the person who appeared to be the most fragile in the place, perhaps merely due to the lust it felt for violence against the weak.

Still on the second floor, Emilia had a short gasp before being hit squarely — probably didn’t even see what struck her — being dragged by the brutal force of the spear.

The sound of a wall being destroyed along with the emergence of a cloud of dust dominated the corridor into which she vanished.

Time stopped for a brief second for Vast, who could only scream: "EMILIA!!"

Literally, a brief second, because in the next, what should have been the Vampire's knee fell directly on his head.

His body flew across the hall, drowning in spasms of pain with each collision against the floor. If scratches would appear on a normal person, Vast gained open wounds thanks to his curse. The good side was that the distance he gained from the Vampire caused the healing to work on the soldiers.

"Bring reinforcements! We need more people to take down this abomination!!"

The guard's pleas would go unanswered. The Vampire jumped into the midst of the crowd, practically stepping on Vast, scattering them immediately.

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No matter how hard they tried, there was nothing they could do. The wound caused by the spear had already closed, and the creature's thirst had become so great that each person there felt their own blood trying to escape their veins, wanting to fly away from that predator.

"Pro-Protect the King!" proclaimed who must have been the leader of the guard.

Vast, still conscious, knew what this meant. The Vampire was right above him, drooling a mixture of saliva with something that smelled like sludge.

Damn it, this won’t end like this…!! If his mouth could still move, he would thank the soldiers.

It might sound strange, but they made the right choice by abandoning him. They had seen that it would be impossible to save him and, therefore, decided to prioritize the life of the one with the highest chance of survival. From his perspective as the future King, that was a very wise decision.

He saw perfectly. The Vampire looked down at him and opened its mouth, slowly approaching its fangs to his neck.

I still have… to visit the Conqueror's Tower!!

The fangs reached his flesh, penetrating with some difficulty. Both were now inside him, and the blood that ran to his brain to keep him alive began to escape through those invasive needles.

In his mind, he called for Emilia, wishing he could see her one last time, regardless of the state she was in now. To do so, he used the strength he had left at the moment to move all the blood still in his body to his arm, managing to grip the enemy's neck.

And I couldn’t even properly confess. I’m not a gentleman, I’m just a coward.

His face was turned towards the balcony, with a hopeful look of seeing his beloved appear with a gentle smile to comfort him, but that didn’t happen. Instead, he felt a warm drop fall on his cheek, followed by another and another.

The liquid ran down to his mouth, and even though it was already full of the same content, he recognized the taste of his own blood mixed with the Vampire's.

Huh!? His murmur brought him back to reality. The fangs no longer sank into his neck, and, to everyone's surprise, the next screams didn’t come from any injured person.

UGYYAAARRH!!!

The Vampire writhed desperately, like an animal trapped by a cruel trap that didn’t kill instantly. But, in this case, seeing such agony filled the human hearts with satisfaction.

"He’s… feeling real pain?" asked one of the guards.

His colleagues doubted, but there was no way to question it; it was simply a fact. The Vampire tried at all costs to clean its tongue, using its dirty hands for such and only worsening the situation with the scratches it caused on the organ.

What the…! Vast watched the scene for a few seconds, only then realizing the chance he had been given.

He quickly searched around and found a sword. He raised it like a well-trained soldier and leapt without further hesitation against the creature!

S

L

A

S

H

!!

And a thump made everyone see the Vampire's head falling to the ground, separated from the body by a perfect cut.

Everyone panted heavily, astonished by the quick turn of events. Only after what seemed like a whole minute did the first voice — the leader of the soldiers — echo to break the silence.

"We won... WE WON! The Vampire was defeated!!"

OHHHHHHH

The roars of glory took over the hall. Thanks to the healing generated by Vast's curse, no soldier ended up dying, although they had some wounds that would need treatment.

"Congratulations on the victory, Prince Vast!" said the squad leader as he approached. "We wouldn’t have succeeded without Your Highness."

The prince didn’t react, even though the situation of the guards speaking to him was jaw-dropping. Of all the things he could do at that moment — collapsing from exhaustion being one of them — Vast reached the second floor in a single leap. To the others, his figure had simply vanished, such was his speed.

He ran through the corridor, hurried and apprehensive. There was no trace of blood, nor any sign of a living presence in the silence that tore at his ears.

"EMILIA!!" No answer. He called countless times until he reached the end of the corridor.

He faced the dust cloud, the smell of crumbled stone destroying his senses. After facing such a cloud, the end of the corridor revealed a new window, an unsettling view of the gray sky of Von Legurn. With such a hole, it was unlikely that the spear had stopped upon colliding with the wall, even so, Vast forced himself to look down.

Nothing, only the remnants of the wall scattered everywhere. No matter how desperately he searched, the prince was unable to find a single sign of his beloved's presence.

He hurried back to the hall, driven by blind hope. Only the guards remained there, motionless until his figure appeared, as if they ceased to exist when away from him.

"Prince Vast, can you help us with this!?"

He was ready to shout at them. His mind tangled in a forest of thorns, throbbing with each frustrated attempt to find plausible answers. However, without giving him a second to process everything, the world threw another headache at him.

The guards were pointing at what had been the Transformed.

"I-Is that…!!"

The soldier was as shocked as anyone. That Transformed, or what should have been its corpse, evaporated into a mist. This was common for those creatures after their death, but the problem lay in what remained of that putrid smoke.

From the whitish ashes, the figure of a man emerged. He had no fangs, pointed ears, or anything that identified him as a humanoid vampire. Furthermore, the simple crest on his shirt indicated what he was a part of — a detail worth remembering.

One of the guards approached, dumbfounded.

"Is that... a nobleman of the realm? How? So he was a vampire infiltrator?"

Vast felt an immense urge to curse. It was so obvious, and yet he hadn't noticed. He wondered if it was due to ignorance, lack of preparation, or something else entirely. He just wanted to believe it was pure ignorance of the obvious fact.

"Not just of the realm," he said, waiting for a follow-up that never came.

Vampires didn't adhere to human laws; after all, they were well above them. They often toyed with others' feelings and didn't care about ruining a political meeting with highly classified information just for fun. This seemed to be one of those moments.

It's not just the crest. This guy must be playing dumb… he clenched his fists tightly, and a healing aura surrounded the soldier for a brief moment. Emilia, I'm sorry for doubting you, even if just a little.

The sword. The symbol of such a blade was marked on the man's skin on the side of his neck, just below the vampire bite mark.

The bow and arrow, a long-range weapon, symbolized the Kingdom of Von Legurn, while those of medium and short range were used by factions within the kingdom — or rather, by the noble families.

Every dubious piece that was part of Vast's childish puzzle found a perfect fit, corrupting the utopian pieces to turn them into pieces of pure reality.

Traitors! was all he could think.

No one else was capable of sensing auras in that place, or at least they shouldn't have been. If not, for what other reason would people have stopped celebrating the victory and focused on the prince? Simple, because of the intense atmosphere surrounding him.

If a Cursed One had the presence of a pack of ten wolves, Vast now equated himself with a shoal of twenty sharks that had mastered the art of walking on dry land. He displayed his fangs and gnashed them without fear of showing the hatred that was imprisoned within him with the chains of disbelief.

Now, those chains had been broken.

"I'm going..." It was what he said after long sighs. He wasn't calm yet, but he was definitely human, no matter the doubts of those present.

"Going?" some asked. "What do you mean, Prince Vast?"

He laughed, but no one saw or heard it.

"I'm going. To protect those below me..." He raised his head, gazing at the large hole in the ceiling caused by the vampire's devastating entry.

"Tomorrow morning, I will depart..." He turned to his spectators, looking beyond what their eyes could see. He had made his decision.

"...to the Conqueror's Tower!"