The spell Solomon had cast to shield her had faded. Rain, driven by the howling wind, lashed at her face so harshly she could barely keep her eyes open. Wanda wiped the water from her eyes, struggling to steady herself on the slick, quaking ground. She knew she couldn't afford to show weakness—not when the leather-skinned monster with jet-black claws before her would seize any opportunity to kill her.
She barely managed to stand. Pain seared through her knees, nearly locking her legs, and the gash on her palm made precise, intricate casting gestures nearly impossible. Ever since James Boone had shifted from a spellcaster's duel to brutal melee, her only hope of surviving his lightning-fast strikes was to rely entirely on her magic. Her pistol was useless. The dagger at her waist? No better. And the only thing that could truly pierce a vampire's hide—a silver stake—was still embedded in the creature's claw.
She couldn't track Boone's movements with her eyes. She had to rely on something far more primal—her enhanced senses and the arcane instincts honed through relentless training.
Every magical gift manifested through physiological phenomena. Even the village witches of old were said to go mad only after glimpsing things mortals were never meant to see. Those signs—unnatural intuition, intellectual brilliance—were all symptoms of that deep connection between the soul, the mind, and the body. Wanda knew this. She had studied it.
She closed her eyes and sank into the silver plane.
The Aether wind brushed her cheek. She smelled the vampire's fear. She could hear the roiling chaos in his mind. Boone's unguarded thoughts—disordered, depraved, revolting—poured into her like sewage. It was enough to make even a trained sorcerer seize and babble madly. The black whispers that had been prodding at her now surged, almost smothering her mind. But Wanda had been well-trained. She locked her thoughts in a vise, her spirit pressing deeper.
The vampire's corrupted magical presence loomed like a rotting whale stranded on a shore—bloated, grotesque, obvious. It wasn't hard to find.
She made a simple gesture. In less than a heartbeat, crimson energy enveloped the dagger at her waist. Wanda was an exceptional student, and she remembered clearly what Solomon had said about improvisation during combat. She even recalled a joke he made about the Soviet MiG-25 jet: "As long as it's got enough thrust, even a brick can fly." His lesson? Even the simplest spell, fueled with enough magic, could become a deadly weapon.
This dagger was her MiG-25.
She didn't need to touch it. With her will alone, she launched the blade like an arrow. First it slit Boone's throat, then slammed the shaking silver stake deeper into his claw. While the vampire was writhing in pain, the dagger surged forward like a hammer, driving itself into his skull. The force lifted him from the ground and hurled him across the island's jagged rocks, peeling his cracked scalp open and exposing a rotting brain.
The vampire screamed and rose again. For a normal human, the damage would be fatal. For him, it was just difficult to recover. He ripped the smoking stake from his hand, pulled the blade from between his eyes, and staggered to his feet, mouth full of rainwater and filth.
Cornered, desperate, Boone charged.
Wanda took a deep breath and moved through another casting gesture. Then she stood still—completely still—as if frozen, like someone caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. The vampire's speed made him impossible to follow, but she wasn't paralyzed by fear. She'd been staring death in the face since childhood. In war-torn Sokovia, she'd danced with death more times than she could count.
And now, her mind pierced Boone's.
In that moment, she saw the truth buried in his festering soul—dark stone stained with blood, rotting homes beneath winter snow, the faces of terrified victims drenched in gore. She saw the blasphemous tome, its pages crawling with mad glyphs, the summoning of endless grey-white worms, of slime, of storms. And she saw what lay beyond the ritual—it was not Boone leading the sacrifice. It was someone else. She and Solomon had been manipulated. They were pieces in a much larger game.
She had to warn her teacher.
But first, she had to survive.
She held her ground, locking herself between the vampire and the lighthouse. She sank deeper into his mind.
Boone reached out with his claw.
He could already feel her throat—warm, soft, pulsing blood just under her skin. One squeeze. Just one. He could snap her neck like a flower stem. A sick smile curled across his disfigured face. He knew he had her. His fingers were around her throat.
Then came the sound.
A shriek of explosive force as chaotic energy surged between the rocks. The bindings of energy wrapped the undead like a straitjacket. Had there been witches present, they would have recognized the spell—a summoning shackle unique to their kind.
Wanda had never studied it.
Boone thought he had her, thought he had her neck in his claws—but the truth was otherwise. He froze, staring in horror at Wanda's calm eyes. His hand was still an inch from her skin. He couldn't move.
"Got you," she said.
The black claw dissolved into energy. All the courage Boone had scraped together vanished. Wanda smiled like a predator savoring the moment her prey realized it was over. That smile shattered Boone's mind.
"You've never even seen a proper illusion before, have you, you poor little leech?"
She beckoned.
The silver stake, soaked in black blood, ripped free of the stone and drove straight into Boone's exposed brain. Steam hissed from the wound as she summoned the bindings tighter, letting them crush his ribs, grind his bones with agonizing precision. Again and again she pulled the stake free and drove it back in, angling it differently each time. Tar-thick blood burst from Boone's bulging eyes.
She watched him wail. And as he died—howling, shrieking, pleading—something inside her purred.
She tasted the sweetness of his suffering and death like nectar.
And she didn't even realize it.
Then, suddenly, the earthquake stopped.
It was as if Boone's death had triggered something.
"How do you feel?"
"…Wonderful." The words slipped out of Wanda's mouth before she could stop them, like her tongue had betrayed her. A bolt of danger prickled down her spine. She whirled around, eyes wide with panic. But the fear faded just as quickly.
Something had been inside her, something alien—but now it had recoiled, pulling its barbed tendrils back from her soul like it had touched a natural predator. Wanda dropped the vampire and the polluted stake, heart racing.
"Teacher! Listen to me—this isn't over!"
"I know," Solomon replied. He didn't mention what she had just gone through. It wasn't the right time. Instead, he lifted a yellowed, aged manuscript. "This is what I found in the lighthouse—on the keeper's desk." The man's throat had been perforated with countless pinpricks. He'd been food—nothing more.
"It's a fragment of Edward Kelley's translation. No wonder the ritual was flawed. Boone never even had the correct spell to summon the Worm. Someone else was guiding him."
"Mm…" Wanda wiped her mouth, trying to will away the lingering thirst for the blood that soaked her hands.
"Are you alright? Hurt?" Solomon handed her a vial. "Pull back the fabric before you apply this. Otherwise, it'll heal into the cloth."
"I'm fine! Really!" Wanda waved him off and nudged the stake out of Boone's skull with her boot. She forced herself upright, pushed past the burning scrapes and that strange, nagging hunger for more. She turned away, quickly licking a raindrop from her lips, praying her teacher hadn't noticed.
At some point, Solomon had pushed back the rain entirely. Her hair and clothes had quietly dried.
"What now?" she asked, her voice steadier than she felt. "How do we find the one behind all this?"
"If I'm right," Solomon said, his gaze heavy with implication, "that person's already gotten what they wanted. This sacrifice… was just a bonus."
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Fairy Tail: Igneel's Eldest Son (Chapter 256)
I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 336)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 542)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 924)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1284)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1289)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1316)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1402)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld! (Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 660)
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