Chapter 38: The Southern Range [5]
Chapter 38 (As Promised for Meeting the Power Stone Requirement! Enjoy!)
......
Seris stepped forward.
Her scythe was already in her hand, the crimson blade catching what little light reached the cave interior.
"Everyone. His target is Alden. Priority is keeping Alden out of Vincent’s reach."
Alden crouched slightly. "What do you mean? I’m not a kid—"
"Stay quiet and stay back, idiot."
His eyebrow went up.
’She’s treating me like a child right now?’
He didn’t move.
From three directions simultaneously, Nicholas, Roselle, and Leon moved in. Clean angles. They’d cut off Vincent’s exits without anyone giving the signal.
Vincent watched them come.
He smiled.
"As for you three."
His hand raised. The Helion Core pulsed in his grip. Golden energy flooded through his body.
"I prepared for this."
BOOM!
The mana that erupted from him wasn’t like anything Alden had seen from a human, it hit the cave air and split into golden threads that reached outward and grabbed. Nicholas, Roselle, and Leon were seized mid-stride and hauled backward like the air itself had grabbed them by the collar.
"WHAT—?"
"UGH—"
All three crashed through the cave entrance and kept going. Over the edge. Down the mountain slope, bodies tumbling through the snow, voices dropping with the distance.
"Don’t worry about us, Senior Seris!"
Nicholas’s voice, growing fainter.
"I’ll make sure everyone’s alive! Handle things on your end—!" His voice eventually vanished into the distance.
Alden clicked his tongue.
’Shit... It’ll be difficult with those three out of the fight.’
His eyes moved to Vincent.
’So it’s just Seris and me now.’
"If it weren’t for this astonishing vampire blood..." Vincent continued.
Alden’s attention snapped back to Vincent’s face.
"...I wouldn’t have been able to hold the Core while remaining functional." His skin was changing.
Dark veins spread outward from his neck and jaw like cracks in old stone. His pupils had sharpened into thin crimson slits. His teeth had lengthened. The mana around him moved differently.
Alden froze.
’He’s become Demi-vampire? He joined them?’
"What is all this about, Vincent."
Seris’s voice had changed. The composure was still there but something underneath it had gone cold.
Her grip on the scythe shifted.
"Your orders were to steal the Core and report back to Father." Her eyes hadn’t moved from him. "What exactly are you doing?"
The cave went quiet for one second.
Alden turned to look at her back.
"...This was a plan?"
She didn’t answer.
He stared at the back of her head. One twist after another left Alden completely stunned.
’Of course it was.’ The pieces landed one by one. ’The way she acted strangely after the dragon fight. The way she kept positioning herself. She wasn’t watching out of curiosity.’
He clicked his tongue.
’None of this is what I wrote. But I should have expected this from her of all people.’
Vincent laughed. It came out warm and apologetic and completely wrong.
"I apologize, Lady Seris."
His eyes moved past her to Alden.
"But that one seems to know considerably more than he should. And now that he’s witnessed my transformation and heard us speak openly about—" He gestured between himself and Seris. "—about what we are."
His killing intent surfaced all at once.
"He’ll take it straight to the Academy. Your father’s plans will be exposed before they’ve begun." His grip on the Core tightened. "So don’t you think we should remove him now, before this rat ruins everything?"
Alden took one careful step backward.
’I knew it. I knew staying near her was going bring troubles to me.’
He looked at Seris’s back.
’I guess I have to be prepared for the worst now.’ Alden got into a defensive stance.
Seris raised her scythe. The blade pointed at Vincent.
"How dare you think about killing my snack."
Alden frowned.
’...Snack?’
Vincent tilted his head. His expression had gone somewhere between confused and offended.
"You’re standing against me for this, Lady Seris?"
"Did you misunderstand something?" The crimson aura that had been sitting quiet around her scythe started moving. "I said he’s mine." Her eyes sharpened by a fraction. "Which means the decision of what happens to him belongs to me."
Vincent’s expression darkened.
"Then I’ll have to kill you both."
His mana erupted from him in a single pulse. The ground under his feet cracked from the force of it.
"I’ll tell His Highness you betrayed us. Though—" His smirk had a particular quality. "I doubt they’ll mourn you very much."
He vanished.
WHOOSH!
Alden’s eyes caught the motion a half-second too late. Prediction fired—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Prediction Activated]
Incoming Attack
Target: Seris — Neck
Direction: Front-Right
Time to Impact: 0.8 seconds
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Seris had already moved.
She stepped in directly into the attack, closing the distance instead of retreating from it.
CLANG!
Her scythe caught his sword at the point where the swing had the least force, blade against blade, the collision sending a shockwave through the cavern that dusted snow from the ceiling.
Vincent twisted his sword. Trying to slide it down the scythe’s edge, compromise her guard, find the gap.
Seris rotated her wrist.
The scythe moved with it, catching his blade against the inner curve and wrenching it sideways. Vincent’s footing shifted.
She stepped forward.
The crimson aura running along her scythe’s shaft intensified. She dropped the angle and swung low, close to the ground, aimed at his legs.
Vincent jumped, missing the blade by barely an inch.
She was already rotating with the swing’s momentum, bringing the weapon up in a rising arc as he was coming down.
He crossed his sword in front of himself.
CLANG!
The collision launched him. He flew several meters, landed, boots carving two deep parallel grooves through the snow and frozen dirt before he caught himself.
Seris hadn’t moved from where the last exchange ended. Scythe at her side. Eyes on him, waiting.
Vincent straightened slowly.
The grin came back. "I underestimated you."
"You always have." She lowered her stance. "That’s your oldest problem."
His sword came up.
Her scythe shifted.
The next exchange was a half-second away when something erupted from behind her.
[Breath: Ice — Activated]
A lance of ice the size of a person tore through the cave between them at full speed. Both of them leapt in opposite directions. The spear hit the ground and shattered on impact, frozen air billowing outward in every direction, the crash echoing off every wall.
"What was that?" Vincent landed and looked at the damage.
Seris turned.
Her expression, for just a second, showed something that was almost exasperation.
’Why does this idiot never stay back when told.’
Alden walked through the cloud of frozen air.
"Kill me, huh, Professor?"
The pale-white formation was already rotating beside him. A familiar shape stepped through it before it finished closing.
"Awoo!"
Pyrion moved to Alden’s left. Flames danced around its ears and up its tail, the white fire throwing warm light against the ice crystals still hanging in the cave air. Its crimson eyes found Vincent and didn’t move.
Alden rolled his shoulders. Then his neck.
Crack.
Crack.
He looked at Vincent.
"It looks like you’ve underestimated me too."
Three different energies started gathering around his hand simultaneously. They didn’t mix cleanly, each one pulling in a different direction, pressing against each other, building toward something that didn’t have a precedent in anything he’d tried before.
Vincent’s eyes narrowed on Alden. "What’s that?"
Alden’s lips curved.
"So." His eyes settled. "I’ll remind you who you’re actually dealing with."
[Breath: Ice — Activated]
[Breath: Thunder — Activated]
[Breath: Fire — Activated]