I have yet to meet trevor in the last couple of days. I honestly want to know what the fuck he is doing. I have yet to see the man since a while. The man does not wish to speak about the organization at all.

Anyway, it is not the time for me to think about this. I have a captain of the bloodheart to assassinate after all. Right now I am crouching at one of the corners near this guys base. Turns out there are not many captains in this gang. The merchants are not sure but there should be eight of them. So looks like this fight is going to be harder than I hoped.

Fighting him at his base might be a bad idea, but for now it is the only thing that I can fight him. Right now the problem is that there are no concrete idea on the position of the enemies bases.

Based on what I have understood from the merchants, all the captains have divided the city into multiple zones, each headed by a captain. I do not hit him in his house then I will have to hit him in another of these zones. I am quite sure in my limited time following him that the heart burner has no real combat ability or atleast is on par with me in terms of combat ability. That is why I am sitting here getting ready to attack the man.

Assassinations do tend to become a pain when you have to deal with reinforcements that can appear any second. Well, I have spent enough time here. I don't even know why I was wasting my time here.

It doesn't do anything but increase the chance of me getting caught. So I enter into the building. The building is not particularly large, so I am entering into the place without knowing the layout of the place.

That might cause a problem but not as much as you would think. There is only so much you can do with such a limited space.

Activating my sword though, that is a rush. The moment that I activate it, I can feel world in a sharper way. My sense of smell becomes sharper, my sight is able to pick things up even in near darkness. I can feel my throat becoming dry, as if I have not drunk water in the last couple of days. I can feel the heart beat of all the people that might become my victims in a way that cannot be explained using my enhanced senses.

It takes me a moment to ground myself back. The strengthening that the sword provides is not without it's costs. It makes me closer to a vampire in both a good way and a bad way. Let's just say it would not be a wise idea for me to drink blood. The side effects will be quite deadly.

Well, the place that I have entered into seems to be a bedroom for steves underlings. I can count four people plopped here in various States of drunkedness. Naturally, catching my enemy in such a defenceless state I go for the kill.

Within moments, my sword has slit the throats of all the men here. They did not even stir when the blade pierced their throat though. Just what the hell were they drinking.

I do not get to think much on this as I hear footsteps outside the room. Well this is going to be unsavoury. I quickly position myself on one of the beds, using one of the recently made corpses to cover myself. It should be enough to hide myself from an intial scanning.

That will be enough. The door opens and I see my future victim. She is a lady that did not seem to expect the soldiers to be dead. In her shock she just keeps staring at them.

Well, before the lady can react though I throw the victim at her. Being that close to flowing blood is very hard. Imagine piling food in front of a starving glutton.

Using the corpse as a cover, my sword plunges into the lady. I seem to have missed my strike though, as I was aiming for the ladies heart. I assume I must have pierced the lung. The lady takes her revenge though.

She stabs a knife right into my sword holding arms. As I press my sword deeper, she finally relents. Her hold on her sword finally loosens. There goes my element of stealth. I managed to get rid of half of the underlings, though that was not plan.

I can feel the vital mana of my swords victim flow into me. I can feel my thirst disappear, though it will return soon enough. This vital mana will flow into my side causing my injured flesh to knit itself. Well, I hope that the injury can be fixed in a minute or so. After that the sword won't be able to absorb anymore vital mana from its victims then.

It is not particularly fast, but it will have to do for now. Drinking blood would have better results, but the sword will be enough for now. Drinking blood is icky and then there are the side affects.

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For now though I look at the room I am in. It is a hallway, surrounded by rooms which make me think that this is their living quarters.

I am lost in my thoughts as an underling makes his ambush. Thankfully it is not Steve since I was genuinely distracted. He could have done fatal damage.

I take a sidestep and my sword plunges into the victims head. The vital mana is appreciated though. Looking at him, I am left to wonder why he even tried to hit me.

Well, any prospect of stealth that I had is lost. Thinking this I descend into the next floor and I finally understand what is going on. The next floor is a single massive room, at the center of which is a massive summoning circle at the center of which we have the man I wanted to hunt, Steve. Surrounding him in the cardinal directions are thr remaining four victims. The most disgusting thing is the pile of corpses that are present at the other end of room, presumably missing their hearts. Thankfully, the ritual does not seem to have ended as Steve is still chanting.

Summoning circles are a very esotoric branch of formation magic, one that is least used by us formation mages actually. Instead it is mostly used by warlocks, demon worshippers and so on. They mostly use it for the purposes of their rituals.

That sparks me into action. I really have shitty timing, though. I charge towards the circle as the remaining four bastards move to block me. I dodge the first bastard, while ducking and swiping at his legs.

I can't do much as the second person appears and swings his sword, which I block using my left hand. It leaves a massive gash on my hand, but I can already feel it healing. I reply with a strike to the neck.

I can see the man crumple as the third and fourth men also strike at me. This time I react a bit defensively as I block the third ones strike and dodge the fourth ones strike.

Right now the goal is to reach the magic circle. Can't let him summon reinforcements now, can i. That was my thought until the edge of the formation hit my face like a wall. The bastard had defensive formations.

"Well, what we're you expecting, you backstabbing bastard of the elder blood.", Steve spoke suddenly. "Did you think we would not have defenses ready for you."

Well, I do not make much of a policy of speaking to enemies.

That was good thing to as I would not have heard the swing of the blades of the bastard behind me. Might as well get rid of them soon enough. I will figure out this barrier issue soon enough. This barrier is a blessing for me since I don't need to fight the boss with the underlings.

A quick swipe and guy number three is dead and a few moments later guy number four is dead. I finally kill guy number one as well, not that there was much chance of him striking me, but one cannot take that risk when he is messing with formations.

Behind me, I can feel that Steve is gathering mana for something. Massive amounts of mana. Well, there goes my element of stealth completely. Such massive movement of mana is easily detectable. I would not be surprised if the enemy were to already making their way here. Except that it is a good thing. Who begins summoning a demon with the enemy in front of them.

Fuck, I quickly return to the barrier. It is an barrier of the spiritual kind. That is it prevents the passage of anything with a spirit. A summoning circle is after all not meant to stop anybody from entering, it is meant to stop somebody from leaving.

Why steve assumed this would protect him I do not know. Well, there is no bow here but I spy a couple of throwing knives on underling number three.

"What exactly are you trying to summon, my friend. If you spend that much mana for a demonic summoning, do you think that demon will even be able to survive for more than a few minutes.", I ask.

"What. Why would I be summoning a demon.", Steve suddenly stops. That over there is a lack of professionalism. You arent supposed to stop during a demonic summoning.

"Well, then who are you summoning.", I ask.

"It is the great lady of the flaming moon. She who will crush the tyrants that have invaded the divine mountain.", he replies.

Well, cult demons are the worst of the bunch. Thankfully I do not need to worry about him completing the chant. That is a serious deficiency of demon summoning especially for demons with a cult. I have a solid five minutes before he can complete his required chanting. Even more if he keeps stopping like that.

Well, time to find that grimoire. Strings of mana spread from my arms until I can finally feel a formation. It is in the above floor, right next to what I have to assume is steves room.

A minute later, With the grimoire safely in my hands, I descend to the next floor. Steve is still chanting, with an edge of desperation in his voice. I have to say that he must have not assumed the chants to be so long. Such unprofessionalism.

It is almost a pity to see the knife enter into his throat. It takes him a moment to die too. Well this entire trip has been pretty anti climatic if i am to be frank.

Well, I have no mercy for demonic cultivators. They can easily cause massacres you know, in their zeal to call their God up here. I have had to deal with quite a few too you know in my time in the legion.

And then the world became white. It took me a few seconds to realise the cause of this. The bastard has blown up the summoning circle. How I do not know, but demonic magicians have many methods to survive.

"Of which clan are you, you half converted grunt. Which elder has left his mutt on us.", Steve speaks, though his entire presence has changed. At moment I feel as if there is a sword on my neck looking at him.

"To which being am I speaking to.", I ask. Speaking to the creature reminds me of the commander and the presence he held. This is not going to be easy.

"What an untrained mutt, you think that you are qualified to ask that question. Which elder wastes a half converted mutt to piss me of", Steve speaks.

After this question was asked it suddenly felt like my heart had stopped working. I honestly do not know how I had escaped that building but I did so on pure instinct.

It took me distance from the building and a calm atmosphere to finally realise that the creature in front of me was not a demon, but a vampire.