Kaedros sniffed again, carefully sorting through the chaotic blend of scents. Vann's trail was faint, twisted, mixed with others.
"Where exactly are you going, Vann?"
He had to double back several times—Vann's path zigzagged erratically, overlapping with countless others—but Kaedros held the thread. He pressed forward, passing through street after street until he found himself in the filthier part of town.
The buildings here were smaller, older, crumbling. This was clearly the lower district of Solmere populated mostly by the poor ordinary humans.
"What's a high-ranking member of the Celestial Order doing in a place like this?" Kaedros muttered.
Loud voices echoed through the narrow streets. People staggered between buildings, cups in hand, laughing and shouting for more cheap drink. Kaedros slowed, watching from the shadows as though he were some distant god observing insects.
"Let me extend my sense."
With a breath, Kaedros activated a sensory technique, a technique cast purely from mental force. No mana was involved, only intense mental focus. The range of his awareness stretched, overlaying the entire street.
It was a power that was Initiate to him as a Dragon.
Every sound. Every breath. Every heartbeat. He felt it.
Two drunken men traded lazy punches before one collapsed, snoring where he fell.
"Fools," Kaedros muttered.
Three buildings over, a man trailed a woman out of an inn. In the alley, they quickly shed their clothes and began mating with impatient, primal groans. Kaedros tilted his head, watching silently.
He knew reproduction on a factual level, but not the context of pleasure. His girlfriend in his past life hadn't let him do it and she still cheated on him.
In the Draconic City, survival had taken precedence over curiosity and he didn't give much thought to how Dragons do it.
The woman's moan rose sharply before both fell into frantic motion, rubbing, grunting, mouths touching.
Are they... eating each other?
He looked down at himself, frowning. "Fascinating... why am I getting hot and solid?"
He shook his head. "Humans have such odd bodies. Dragons are very different—bigger too."
From another street, a tall woman carved into a man with a short blade, grinning like a child in a blood-soaked game as she chopped him into bits of bloody meat.
Kaedros might have smiled too. So much meat... wasted.
He reeled his awareness back. He'd seen enough for one night. He focused and then he followed Vann's trail deeper into the town, until the architecture began to shift—buildings grew larger, better maintained. Patrols lingered nearby.
"So this is where you're staying, Vann," Kaedros whispered from the shadows, observing the building from across the street.
It was like an inn, but grander, thick walls, fine woodwork, guarded by armored Ascendants at the entrance. He checked his remaining power.
The mana In his core should be more than enough.
Though his runt curse suppressed potential, his Noble Dragon bloodline still granted overwhelming superiority compared to the average Ascendants of the same rank.
With a quiet thought, Kaedros began crafting a technique, using his preferred method, mental formation, arranging patterns in the mind and fueling them with mana.
The spell took shape, and shadows curled toward him, wrapping his form in pure darkness until he vanished from view, completely blended with his surroundings.
He stepped forward, cloaked by illusion, walking straight past the guards who thankfully lacked any illusion-piercing perception. Circling the structure, he spotted an open window on the upper floor, his destination.
Kaedros climbed with precision, using the building's railing and metalwork as footholds. When he reached the balcony, he dispelled the illusion and silently slipped inside.
The scent hit him instantly, iron-rich and heavy. A smell he was more than familiar with.
Blood.
Kaedros froze.
"Who stole my hunt?" he whispered, eyes narrowing as he took in the sight of Vann slumped near the bed, hands pressed tightly against his bleeding stomach.
Vann looked up, eyes wide in panic and pain. He gasped in surprise "You...!"
The room was in chaos, clothes, papers, shattered vials strewn across the floor. Vann's robe was soaked in red.
"Are you... part of them too?" Vann asked, his voice weak and cracking.
"Part of who?" Kaedros frowned, confused.
"You're... not with them?" Vann coughed, blood flecking his lips. "You're here for... the Dragons?"
Dragons? Kaedros narrowed his gaze. Could it be... just what is going on?
"What about Dragons?" he asked cautiously.
"You shouldn't trust them... The Celestial Order."
Kaedros snorted. "Spare me. Do I look like someone who wants to join your rotting cult? I came for your head, but it seems someone beat me to it."
He clenched his fists.
He had planned to drag this man into madness. Torture him slowly. Peel him apart piece by piece. But that had been stolen from him.
Vann stared at him, mind fogged with pain and confusion. "Please... help me..."
Kaedros looked down at him in disgust. "You're already poisoned. Even if you weren't, I wouldn't. You deserve more than death."
He raised his hand and cast another spell, this one a spinning disc of light. It sliced cleanly through the air, cleaving through Vann's skull mid-scream.
Blood and brain splashed against the wall as Kaedros stepped back to avoid the spray.
Even with all of that, the sound in the room was muffled.
So that's what happened. A silence spell, probably laid by the first attacker, was still active in the room. No sound had escaped. That explained the silent guards below.
Just as usual, mana flowed into him, wasted as usual.
Kaedros climbed out the window, disappearing into the night.
Disappointment clung to him like a second skin.
Another wasted hunt.