We descended through the frigid mountain mist, touching down smoothly on the jagged, dark stone of the Lulu range.
This place was practically my second home by now… or at least my third time conducting high-stakes tactical sweeps here. The first time was when I had tracked down Don Anthony's high-ranking apprentice, Luke Granhart, at the locked-down Dodorant Citadel. The second time was during the tail-end of the war when I was hunting down Vanessa Katt, the wife of that Immoral Knights commander.
And now, here I was for a third time… not to dismantle a syndicate or hunt a knight, but to save a core member of my big brother's party.
"Dammit, Eirene... I can't see a single thing down there," Patricia muttered, unmounting from my back and squinting into the pitch-black abyss of the mountain crags.
The wind howled through the narrow rock passes, and without a torch, the absolute darkness was blinding to human eyes.
"Don't worry about it," I replied lazily, adjusting my dark sleeves.
Being a hybrid vampire had its perks. My vision shifted effortlessly, painting the absolute darkness into vivid, thermal heat signatures. The cold, black stone faded into deep blues and purples, while life signatures glowed with vibrant warmth. At first, all I picked up were small mountain game… wild goats and roosting eagles glowing in soft, flickering orange across the cliffs.
I kicked off the rocky ledge, flapping my massive crimson blood wings to gain swift vertical momentum. I ascended higher, sweeping my thermal gaze across the higher altitude grids.
Then, my eye locked onto a sharp anomaly.
High up near the jagged peak, two distinct heat signatures cut through the cold air. One was a human form, completely limp and glowing a faint, fading orange… unconscious.
The other was dynamic, fast, and airborne, radiating a harsh, unnatural heat matrix with a massive pair of dark, leather-like wings. It was moving at high speed, flying straight away from the mountain ridge and carrying the helpless, unconscious body of Catherine in its claws.
"Found them, and the bastard's carrying our target."
I froze, the cold mountain wind whipping around us, as the thermal outline of the winged beast slammed into the rocky ledge below.
My index finger brushed the cold, polished metal of my inventory ring… a spatial vault I hadn't opened or drawn from in an entire year, ever since my life had shifted to raising tiny Cliff in peace.
But the muscle memory of a lethal asset never truly leaves. With a swift mental command, dark mana flickered across my hand, and the familiar, reassuring weight of my favorite customized weapon materialized into my grip.
The Death Chant Tommy Gun… a heavy, drum-fed monster of a firearm that I had affectionately named Don't Ask?. Attached permanently to its under-barrel was the wicked, dark-violet bayonet forged directly from the dismantled metal of the legendary Demon Valkyrie Longsword. Even now, the blade hummed faintly with its dormant passive attributes: Lifeline, which slashed target healing by seventy percent, and Mist Blade, capable of phasing through solid armor as if it were air.
Because the weapon was a Death Chant construct, it fed directly on my blood, converting my energy into heavy, crimson-glowing rounds.
"Buckle up," I muttered to Patricia, my single eye narrowing as I raised the heavy drum-barrel.
My pregnancy and months of domestic life with Cliff had undeniably dulled my sharpest edge. My sight was true, but my steady combat posture wasn't quite what it used to be during my bloodier operational days. I squeezed the trigger. The Tommy gun roared with a rhythmic, deafening THUD-THUD-THUD, spitting a burst of lethal crimson blood-bullets through the dark.
I missed a clean kill-shot to the head, but two heavy rounds tore directly through the creature's left wing-joint.
The beast shrieked… a raw, metallic sound… and plummeted violently out of the sky, tumbling down the rocky crag along with the unconscious body of Catherine. They crashed hard against a high mountain plateau, stone shattering beneath the impact.
"What was that?! Did you hit them?!" Patricia shouted over the roaring wind, completely blind in the mountain darkness as I snapped my wings forward and descended sharply toward the crash site.
We touched down silently on the moonlit ledge. The pale light of the moon broke through the heavy cloud cover just enough to cast long, eerie shadows across the plateau. I dropped Patricia off my back, and she immediately drew her rapier with a sharp SCHWING, dropping into a low, defensive paladin stance, her eyes scanning the dim shadows nervously.
Catherine lay a few yards away in the gravel, unmoving but breathing.
And then, the winged creature began to move.
Despite having one of its wings ripped to shreds by my blood-bullets, it didn't stay down. It didn't even bleed properly. With sickening, wet cracks of snapping bone and reknitting flesh, the monster pushed itself up from the shattered rock as if the lethal impact had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
It stood tall, its massive, disfigured muscular frame expanding under blueish, mutated skin. Blood-red eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and a monstrous, twisted face contorted into an unsettlingly familiar sneer.
My heart cold-dropped into my stomach. My thermal vision, my memory, and the horrific physical features aligned instantly. It was the exact grotesque, virus-mutated form from my past… the mad scientist who had consumed his own altered ancient virus after White pierced his heart at Castle Libra in Town Allure.
The monster stretched his remaining wing, his crimson eyes locking dead onto me with twisted, terrifying recognition.
"Roxy… We meet again."
I didn't answer him right away. My eyes remained cold, locked onto the creature standing on the moonlit ledge.
"Edrie," I said softly, the name tasting like ash on my tongue.
Without taking his eyes off me, Edrie reached down and callously grabbed Catherine by her collar, dragging her limp body across the gravel before shoving her aside toward my feet like a piece of discarded meat.
"A useless healer, trash."
While Patricia cautiously stepped forward to shield Catherine's unconscious form, I casually tapped the barrel of my Death Chant Tommy gun. Blood manipulation flickered across my skin, flowing directly into the drum as the weapon reloaded itself with a ominous, heavy metallic CLACK.
"Well, well, Roxy, You've made it quite far, haven't you? Back then, you were just a pathetic little girl playing hero alongside White." Edrie purred, his grotesque, blueish muscles twitching as his blood-red eyes swept over my winged form.
He chuckled… a deep, wet sound that echoed off the mountain crags.
"You destroyed my Bronze Coin Guild, You killed my prize apprentice, Dominik… a man I personally trained. You shattered my entire network in Town Tata, and you destroyed my future. But after my transformation... after I drank that liquor, faked my death, and evolved beyond weak human limitations, I moved on. I joined forces with the demons."
Patricia held her rapier steady, her teeth gritted as she listened, but I didn't break my gaze.
"And as I worked alongside them, they offered me an ascension. A seat among the Archdemons… the Archdemon of Pride… once I fulfill one simple request."
"And what request is that?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm as I held Don't Ask? pointed squarely at his chest.
Edrie's twisted face split into a wide, manic grin.
"To hunt down and slaughter every last mage responsible for the hero summoning… because even the demons fear the summoned heroes… and to infect this entire city with my glorious, perfected virus."
"Damn you, what city?"
Edrie threw his head back and laughed… a loud, screeching sound that echoed off the cold rock face. "It's obvious, isn't it? Lulu City!"
Patricia's breath hitched violently beside me.
"After I snatched that little healer from under your noses, I made a little pitstop at the central agricultural warehouses. I laced the city's entire main grain supply… every storehouse packed with wheat and flour… with my perfected Ancient Virus."
"You monster… That's… there are thousands of innocent people down there!" Patricia gasped, her hand trembling as her grip on her rapier tightened until her knuckles turned white.
"Tens of thousands, and every single soul who bakes a loaf of bread, eats a bowl of porridge, or buys a pastry tomorrow morning will feel it crawling through their veins. No cure. No reversal. Bloodborne airborne spores spreading from the very grain they eat. Even your kind, Roxy… even arrogant little vampires… aren't immune to my plague. They will tear each other apart, transformed into pure, mindless beasts who know nothing but violence!" Edrie corrected with sickly pride, his blood-red eyes gleaming in the dark.
I adjusted my grip on Don't Ask?, feeling the cold rage burning in my chest alongside the heavy weight of my blood-bullets.
"You think the demons will just give you a seat at their table for turning a human city into a slaughterhouse?"
"They will give me whatever I demand! Humanity is weak! They crawl in the dirt, begging gods for heroes to save them! But I... I am the architect of the next evolutionary stage! Once Lulu City falls to the plague and the mages who summoned the hero are slaughtered in the chaos, the realm will witness true perfection. I will rise above both humans and demons as the Archdemon of Pride!"