“Can you distract them?” Ryzen asked.

“I mean yeah but there are at least like five of them. There is no way you can manage that all by yourself.” Jarek knew that Ryzen was strong but there was no way he was that strong. The guards of the lower districts were no joke.

“You don’t need to worry about me, I’ll take care of it. Just make sure you distract all five.” Ryzen said before disappearing into his shadow.

Jarek looked in astonishment at where Ryzen had just been and ultimately just chose to do what Ryzen asked with a groan. He dragged himself to the exit of the business district and keeled over in pain, making as much noise as possible.

“Oh, shit! Are you guys guards? Thank god, I was able to escape from that horrible vampire! But he got me damn good!” Jarek screamed, successfully capturing the attention of all five vampires.

“Hey, how the fuck did you get here, human?” one vampire asked with a dark smile on his face.

“Are you deaf? I told you I escaped from a rogue vampire! Please quickly take me back to the human settlement, I refuse to go back there!”

“Hold on, did you say a rogue vampire got you?” the vampires looked at each other and grimaced. “What do you know about this vampire?”

“Uh, he was…” Jarek said with a stutter, struggling to come up with something.

Right as he was formulating what he was going to say next, two vampires dropped to the floor. Before they could even turn around, another two were instantly killed.

“What the hell?” the last vampire said in astonishment. He had just watched four of his comrades die in an instant.

He turned towards Jarek who was also shocked at such a development and started sprinting towards him.

“What did you do, you freak!” the vampire screamed as he latched on to Jarek. He tried to fight back but the vampire’s grip was too strong.

Right before Jarek thought he was going to get torn to shreds, the vampire’s hold became incredibly loose until he just fell off him. Jarek noticed a deep cut in the back of the vampire, leading straight to his heart. Strangely, there was no weapon in sight that could have made such a cut.

“Are you alright?” a familiar voice snapped Jarek out of his thoughts and he looked up to see Ryzen who was somehow standing right in front of him.

“What the hell did you do?” Jarek asked in astonishment and fear. This level of strength wasn’t something a D tier was supposed to be able to do.

“I’ll explain to you later but we’re now on a strict time limit to get Samuel back. It won’t be long until someone realizes that we broke through here. I have a bit of a method to get to sector one quicker but I’ll need you to guide me there. Quickly now, take my hand.” Ryzen offered his hand to Jarek who hesitantly accepted it.

As soon as he did, Ryzen plunged them into his shadow. Jarek gasped but quickly understood his assignment. He pointed towards the route they needed to take and Ryzen would take them that way.

Unlike sector ten, there were many more vampires roaming the tunnels of sector two. It was clear that this area was much older and much more populated as a result of it. If it wasn’t for Ryzen, Jarek wasn’t sure he would have been able to get through here. Luckily, Ryzen’s strange ability made it look easy.

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It wasn’t long before Ryzen took them out of his shadow. The entrance to sector one was only a little farther down the tunnel they were in. They would have just gone right in but the doors to sector one were closed and Ryzen wasn’t sure he could go through solid walls.

There were a great number of guards roaming the tunnel and the checkpoint up ahead. Ryzen went full steam ahead past all the guards but Jarek started freaking out so Ryzen took them out of the shadow a little ways away from the checkpoint.

“Are you insane? You know there are tier B skills that are cast on the sector one checkpoint to prevent intruders.” Jarek said with a huff.

Ryzen hadn’t considered the fact that there could be further security measures but ultimately, he wasn’t too worried. His shadow guard skill hadn’t stated being limited by any tiers or such. Even if it was a bit arrogant, Ryzen figured he would be just fine.

“We’ll be fine, just let me do my thing,” Ryzen said calmly.

Jarek looked as if he wanted to blow a gasket but ultimately went with Ryzen’s plan. He grabbed onto Ryzen and went with him back into his shadow.

Ryzen easily went through the checkpoint between sectors one and two as if no guards or skills were there. Jarek gasped but Ryzen acted as if he didn’t do anything special. After moving a certain distance away from the checkpoint, Ryzen took them out of his shadow and they planned their next move.

“Do you know where they would be keeping Samuel if he was caught?” Ryzen asked.

Jarek shook his head causing Ryzen to sigh. It seemed like they came here in a panic more than anything. If Samuel wasn’t here then what were they to do?

“Well, if you don’t know that then we should just try to find where he usually would be. Do you know where that is?” Ryzen hoped that Jarek had at least a little bit of information. If he didn’t then this was already looking like a lost cause.

Thankfully, Jarek nodded his head and said, “Yeah, Samuel managed to become one of the servants of Xeruf. He is… Well, he was Venis’s underling. He was killed by some sort of intruder in the tenth sector. We don’t know what it is he was protecting but it must have been valuable enough to send him.”

Ryzen briefly recalled fighting someone named Xeruf before he found Enancia. He did seem stronger than the others but he didn’t have much time to show it. He was struck in the heart by his shadow daggers after all.

Jarek continued with, “After Xeruf died, we heard from Samuel that Venis was not happy. He drastically increased security in the first sector and investigated anyone close to Xeruf. We had all told Samuel to be careful but he claimed to have been good in that regard. Obviously, with his disappearance and the recent complications, we are worried he got ahead of himself.”

Ryzen nodded, fully understanding the situation now. He wasn’t sure what they would do if Samuel was missing but at least they had some place to start.

“Take us to wherever Samuel served Xeruf and let’s hope he is there. If not, then we will figure it out when it comes to that.” Ryzen said.

Jarek nodded and responded with, “That would be Xeruf’s mansion. He lived quite nicely here in sector one and Samuel was in charge of ensuring the mansion was constantly in order.”

After discussing where they were going, Jarek prepared himself for another shadow dive but Ryzen shook his head.

“I need to reserve my MP for emergencies. We will go on foot for now.” Ryzen still had plenty of MP for battles but he didn’t want to burn it in case of a prolonged battle. It would be a sad way to die, especially if he could have prevented it.

Jarek nodded, “That’s fine. I haven’t used much of my MP yet anyway. We can use my search and fade-out skills for now. That should keep us out of trouble.”

They proceeded to traverse through the tunnels, avoiding most vampires along the way. The ones they did have to pass by did not even give them a second glance showing that Jarek’s skill was working. Jarek had never been in sector one before but thankfully, Samuel had given the higher-ups of the Lightcloaks a simple map of it. This same map was what they were currently going off of.

As they explored sector one, Ryzen could tell that this was the oldest and most regal sector of Vampirneck. The walls were eloquently carved out featuring beautiful designs and patterns. The people all looked much healthier and stronger as well. Even the air had a different feeling to it, something Ryzen couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was clear they were in a privileged place.

Jarek stopped once they reached an opening that led to a large house with a gate surrounding its perimeter. It seemed that they had reached their destination.