Year 1023 of the new calendar, Month of the Sun Day 14th

Hmm, it was around 1 am at the moment. Walking down the street, I eyed my next victim. That Mike kid - researching him was a pain - got away and was bailed out by someone out there, and he had been hiding away in that Academy ever since. I'm not stupid enough to attack a government-owned property, so prowling around for new victims it was. Remembering that kid made my blood boil, I still can't believe he managed to escape. What kind of divine luck was this?

I need to get rid of him as good as I can, and if I do, … oh the ritual is going to be perfect. I'll finally become a Baron and a powerful one at that. Alas, he was not around at the moment, he was hiding away in that Academy. I lurked through the streets of some poorer parts of the city, I went into a dark alleyway that ended in a dead-end. I climbed it up and went above it, going to a new street. The darkness was my home as a Sanguine, and this was simply the perfect environment. I clung to the wall of the apartment and climbed up to its roof.

Surveying the area, I could see some people out in the middle of the night. A drunk man staggered out of what looked to be a nightclub, perfect. I slinked down onto the ground and walked steadily to the entrance, The Devil's Playground was the name of the establishment. I could see that the bouncer outside the entrance was a low-ranking demon off the size of his small horns. In a small alleyway right near the club, I changed my appearance to a tall, handsome black haired man. Its facial structure was vastly different to the one I used to murder… that girl, her name escaped me at the moment.

Hmmm, if this place was a congregation of demons, then that would be perfect. I never hunted a demon before, and new prey is always fun. I wasn't in the mood for a challenge at the moment, though, that kid's escape still annoyed me, and venting my anger was for the best. Then, I walked up and bribed the bouncer with 7 pounds, he nodded and opened the door for me. The red lights hit me instantly, but I got used to them quite quickly and scanned the area. Beyond the light show, dancing, and alcohol, I could see a low-ranked blue-skinned demon in the corner.

She was slowly sipping down water, from what I could tell, and looked to be lonely. Good, this should be the perfect target, I walked up and started to secrete a certain smell from my body. I could control it perfectly, and while it could permeate slowly as a way to seduce an entire room. Controlling it so that it only hits the nose of a single person would make me seem irresistible, and it worked perfectly. I looked once again at the - now blushing - demon.

She is a servant of the Asha family, from the looks of it, if memory serves me correctly. Her blue-tinted skin was nice to look at, she had some blue scales on certain parts of her body and a thin, reptilian tail trailed behind her. Her horns were tiny, befitting that of a low-rank, and she looked to be young for a demon. Likely only a few decades old, her eyes were a bright yellow color, and she had some scales around her eyes. I smiled at her, my scent was now maximized, and she looked at me with rapture.

I took her hand without a word, she accepted easily, and I led her outside from the back door. After we were outside, I started walking and flipped a coin once. It landed heads, the head of the current ruler of Iabrun - George VI. I flipped it once again, it landed tails. She looked at me with a peculiar look, but nevertheless still followed me. We were close to an alleyway, I smiled and flipped the coin once again, it landed heads. The next flip landed tails, it was 2-2 so far. I flipped the coin for the final time, and it landed on the ground with the head of George VI looking at me.

She asked me, “What's the meaning of the coin flips?” with a tilted head, her smooth voice was pleasing to the ear. We were right near the alley now, and I answered her with a smile, “They decide the fate of your death. You got lucky.” She looked at me with a waning smile, “Wh-What do y-”

She couldn't finish that sentence, I stuck my knife straight into her heart. Some blood spurted from her mouth, her eyes were bloodshot, and looked at me with shock before turning faint and glazed, a sign of death. I dragged her corpse into the alleyway and flipped a coin, it seems it was her lucky day as it landed on heads again. No desecration of this corpse, then. This little coin, and fate, decided my every action.

It landed tails in the morning, meaning I would go on a hunt. It landed heads more than tails on the walk here, meaning she gets a quick and relatively painless death. If it was tails, death would be a sweet release compared to what I would do to her. Everyone that got tails begged me to kill them, their sweet cries still ring in my ear. I flipped the coin again, tails. I materialized a knife made out of blood and decapitated the corpse, I sucked out all the blood out of her head and suckled on her brain matter for a bit.

What was left was a dried-up husk of a head, I flipped that coin again. Heads, her arms would stay attached. It seems lady luck was on her side as all the other flips landed on heads as well, sighing, I went out of the alleyway. It was a nice hunt, and the taste of a demons - demonesses? - blood was nice, it was sweet in a way. Different from humans that had a metallic taste to them, I definitely needed to hunt down some more of them.

I left the alley and decided to head home, my hunt should be enough. After about 10 minutes, I felt a great disturbance to my soul. I instantly got down on my knees and lowered my head, I could feel blood flowing all around me before forming up as a figure in front of me, I could only see her white legs and feet, they had a certain red pattern on them - my head stayed lowered.

I felt her gaze on my head, she said, “Dreg, how did you let that child escape? More importantly, he is hunting you down from my observations and has enlisted some help. Make sure to stay alert, lower the frequency of your hunts and try to bait him out. If you manage to do this, I will give you all the materials to become a Viscount.” I nodded, stamping down my excitement in the process.

Becoming a Viscount… would accelerate my goal immensely. She turned back into blood and went into the night, I waited a minute before standing up. The encounter with her made me want to hunt again, made me want to stalk my next prey. After all, what was the worst that could happen? I slinked back onto a roof and jumped from it to another, after 5 minutes of searching to no avail, I planned to go back to that nightclub when I saw an escort out of the corner of my eye.

My eyes lit up, a Nephilim! This was a jackpot, their blood is the sweetest of all - well, not sweeter than Angels, but they're too pompous to be sex workers, and thus not good targets. She was dressed as an escort, a red-haired Nephilim was a rare find as a prostitute. She would be quite the amazing prey, I turned back into that handsome black-haired man that I used to kill that demon, and walked up to her. The red-haired Nephilim held a red bag and looked my way.

Her smile was intoxicating, was this the charm of the Angel side of these Nephilims!?! I had to be more careful around her, I smiled and flipped a coin. Before it could land, 4 earthen walls formed around me and the Nephilim, and in came Mike walking. I constricted my eyes to slits, this little bastard stopped my hunt.

He looked at me with a frown and said, “We meet again, you damned psycho.” in a solemn tone. His face, no, his entire demeanor irked me in a way I didn't think possible. This was a horrible position to be in, without talking, I lunged at the nearest wall and put my entire force into a punch. I broke through, but what greeted me was another wall of earth after a small, half-meter gap.

Mike came out of the wall I was looking at, only at a different point, and fired a stinging bolt of lightning. He then phased back into the wall of earth, it seems that they were hollow. I heard him say, “Now, you damned Sanguine. You shall know what it is like to be prey, what your victims felt before their death.”

I let out a hearty chuckle and snapped back, “Oh so overconfident are we now, Mike? Don't forget, I was the one to win that first encounter.” with a lot of mirth. This was just a bluff, though, I wasn't stupid and instantly realized how much worse the situation was for me. Last time he was unprepared and had to protect someone, shit.

I could feel his frown worsen, he said from inside one of these walls - “Well, well, well. I would like to see you try to beat me, I will be sure to make this a slow and painful death.” I split myself into 10 different copies, and we all split up and began to lunge towards a wall to try to find an escape.

“No, no, no. Not this time.” I heard from the walls, I could hear that he was reveling in the power he had over me at the moment. I felt my connection to my avatars all break, I narrowed my eyes. Shit, this guy prepared a counter? How rich is he really, he shouldn't have this much money. He surely couldn't have afforded such a thing. I tried it once again with 4 avatars, and unlike the first 10, these 4 were all roughly the same strength as the real me. They were instantly dispelled, shit.

I closed my eyes and sensed around me, I could feel 2 mana signatures. One big, 1 small in the surrounding walls. I looked at the big one and began to try to disrupt his mana reserve, only to feel a bolt of lightning hit my back and a spear of fire pierce my arm. I let out a scream and hurriedly cast some water to ease the stinging pain, I could hear the detestable laughter echoing all around me.

A wall broke in front of me, I launched my own bolt of lightning at it, but it was just a fake. A large boulder formed over my foot and crashed down, turning my once beautiful foot into a mangled mess. I held down my scream and instead focused on sensing their mana, for a split second he was careless, and I punched my mana into his reserve.

“Hahaha, a bit too confident, aren't you now, Mike?” I said, acting as if I was still confident. A burst of equally confident laughter echoed out, “You only hit a static blob of mana, I'm afraid. Let's see how you deal with pure, unstable mana.” He tossed what looked to be a violent white ball inside my little area. I widened my eyes, how prepared was he?!?

I made two thick mana shields around the unstable ball of mana, I could feel another form around my 2. Shit, he was still just playing with me. The ball of mana finally became unstable enough, and it exploded outwards, breaking all 3 shields instantly - but they did weaken the blast incredibly. I was swept off my feet and landed on my back.

When I tried to stand up, a tiny stream of water hit my right leg - it perfectly severed the nerves and made me instantly lose control of it. The pain was unbearable, and a slight teardrop formed in my eye. I looked around while sitting and felt another stream of water hit me, this time in my arm.

I grunted loudly and forcefully stood up, releasing my mana in a wave and hitting him. The blood he coughed up and spilled on the ground was easy to detect, I grinned widely and began to control the blood he spilled. The blood still inside his mouth was protected by his physical body from my manipulation, but the blood outside was different.

When I formed a knife made out of blood, I instantly threw it at his back. At that moment, though, I lost my footing and a searing pain emanated from my left leg that was holding me up. I looked down and could see my entire foot removed from my leg, the pain felt like a fire was burning rapidly on the cut side. I could only helplessly lay down on the ground, nursing my wounds and trying to create shields to protect myself.

A full mana shield would drain me too quickly, I just made ones that were just enough to protect me from his attacks. The laughter was still echoing, whether that was because he was still echoing or I was just imagining it wasn't important. I got careless for a second and two small fireballs landed on my arm and left leg. “Shit, FUCK! GODDAMMIT.”, the pain got to me, it was excruciating.

The bastard definitely controlled the power of the flame, so it gave me 2nd-degree burns instead of 3rd degree, fuck. I could feel my nerves burning, yet unlike a 3rd degree that burns them so much it doesn't feel painful, mine just burned endlessly. A stream of water came inside the room, I looked at it with bloodshot eyes. It was greenish water, acid had been mixed inside it. The water was made up of mana, but the acid wasn't - guess he wasn't proficient at acidic spells. Shaking my head to get rid of unnecessary thoughts, I lifted my hand and squeezed down, forming a mana shield around that greenish liquid.

Another stream came inside, this one was much too quick for me to react, and it burrowed itself inside the cut that severed my foot from my leg. I started to frantically roll around, trying to help ease the pain as much as possible. I could see my leg turning black and melting down into a puddle, what kind of fucking acid did he use??

My senses could feel him charge up another attack, it was instinctive from honing my sense for years. A large ball of water shot out at me, I was too tired to even form a barrier in time, the ball of water splashed on me, soaking me in my entirety. I was freezing now, and a lightning bolt came at me. It electrocuted me for what felt like an eternity, but it was only pain - I could tell he didn't put any real power behind it and just wanted to make me suffer.

He laughed again, I could hear him reveling in my pain. Oh, so reminiscent of my own, it stung me in a way that I never thought possible. No, his laughter was even worse - it was even worse than mine, he enjoyed my pain more than I enjoyed others’ pain. As far as I know, he had only killed 1 person before this, was he just built to enjoy the pain of others. It took me years to know how to enjoy it, yet it came oh so naturally to him. That was what bruised my ego the most, he was just… better than me.

Two sharp, jagged pieces of stone were shot out and embedded inside me in non-lethal areas. Moving my body caused them to tear more flesh around them, causing me to have to stay still. Green blades of wind made small cuts all around my body, those blades carried an acid that then started to simmer inside the cuts. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, IT HURT. What did I do to deserve this?!?

There was only one option left for me now, I - with the last amount of mana left in me - decided to do something crazy. To reveal my true Sanguine form, I barely formed that blood knife and stuck it inside my heart. Instantly, a transformation began to start. My mana would be sealed in such a state, a result of my rank being low. My wounds healed quickly, my skin turned a blackish-red; bumps and abscesses formed on my skin, most of a yellowish color.

Two large wings grew on my back, they were of the same color as my skin and were made up of a membrane. There were holes in the membrane, and the wings tapered off to sharp points. I contracted it, so they were back inside my body, forming two bumps on my back. My hair turned yellowish-green, my fangs grew exponentially, and my eyes turned more monstrous. The warts were especially bad on my face, and half of my face looked mangled - as if I were just out of a brawl with a wild animal. My fingernails turned to claws, claws like those of wild beasts.

This was the last resort of any Sanguine… our true form… my true form. We were to descend a status upon the use of it, I would lose my noble title but damn it, it was preferable to dying. My voice turned guttural, yelling out “DIE YOU MAGGOTS.”

My sensory abilities were magnified, and I charged straight at his mana signature, my claws crashed through the mana barrier he created and scratched his right arm. Five lines were seen imprinted on his arm, blood spewed out, and I started to effortlessly control that blood. Mike widened his eyes, but stayed calm from the looks of it, and pulled out the red bag. He stuck his hand inside and pulled out a blue mirror, my mind instantly looked at it.

“BLUE MOONLIGHT!, DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE” was the only thing I could muster up, I lunged at him as best I could and tried to snatch that mirror out of him. He stuck his mana inside it and activated it before I could reach him, the blue moonlight touched my skin and a sizzling sound was heard immediately. I ran off and looked down at my arm, the abscesses popped and a yellow mucus with a vile stink rolled down my arm. It wasn't healing, the natural enemy of all Sanguine was this moonlight.

“DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE” was the only thing I could articulate, I rushed at the other person that was with him, THAT FUCKING NEPHILIM. I reached her quickly and tried to stick my hand inside her, to forcefully rip out her womb and make him witness me eating it. She dodged quickly, and I could only hold on to her right arm, I crushed down on it and the sweet crackling of bones was heard, with the amazingly delicious smell of Nephilim blood being in the air now.

It excited me to no end and I bit down on her mangled arm before I could get any blood, that BLUE MOONLIGHT HIT ME AGAIN. “ARGHHH, DIE” I yelled out and ran towards Mike, trying to hold off the pain. He broke the mirror, and much to my surprise and horror, a blue moon formed in the air and the light intensified.

“ARGHHHHHHHHHH, DAMN YOU.” I yelled out, I could see the Nephilim hold such a mirror as well and break it too. Another blue moon formed, the two used each other’s light, and the intensity magnified. I was in too much pain to articulate any sentences, I could feel my form fading and I had to return to my regular state. After 2 minutes of mind-numbing pain, the blue moons dissipated, and I was laying down in a puddle of my sweat, blood, and other bodily fluids.

I looked up barely and saw Mike coming to me with a knife in hand. He looked like an executioner coming to finish the last job of the day, I smiled and laid down again. This is the end, it seems. I thought I would be angrier, but no, I feel… peaceful? In a weird sort of way.

He looked at me and asked “Any last words?”, I chuckled a bit but stopped because of the pain coming from my chest and said “Yeah, sure. I got a whole damned confession to make.”

Mike didn't like my joking tone, but said, “Sure, confess.” I was surprised but began to speak nonetheless - “Heh, we aren't so different. You and I, you're just better at controlling your urges. You ever felt like you had a will to dominate others? Completely control them? Yeah, so do I. I felt it in your voice when we were fighting, you did not revel in being able to kill me - the killer. You only reveled in the power and authority you held over me, you're quite the good actor… Mike-” I said his name with enough bile and venom that it would be able to kill cities worth of people, but I continued, “You act as if you're some proper boy, I researched you. You bought a slave, and no matter how much you try to deny it. You like that feeling of control, don't you? You know you do, so why fight it? Let it control you, and you'll feel so much better, so much… freer.”

He looked at me with incredulity, “And become like you? Not a chance, you psycho.” I laughed a lot, enduring the pain, and said “Heh, you didn't deny you like that feeling of control. Guess you do love it, maybe even more than me. At least you know your place and don't go trying to control people you can’t, calling Ari-" He came up to me and put the knife on my throat, drawing the slightest bit of blood.

"Don’t you dare call her by her name, refer to her as the Duchess properly." I started to laugh again, "It seems you really love her, or is it respect? What is it then, Mike? Ah, whatever, that doesn't really matter. I just hope you know the Duchess isn’t what she seems to be.”

"What you say is wrong, monster. You know nothing of the Duchess" I smiled and said "Perhaps, perhaps not. I can't look into her well anyway, and she's a Noble. She fakes everything to the public, no matter what. She has to keep up appearances after all, heh, I don't even know why I'm discussing this with you. Oh, and if I were you, look into Ava's past. Now, just kill me, I have confessed all I want to." He looked at me angrily, I looked at the surroundings once again - the final vision I would ever see. I saw… THAT FUCKING WHITE SANGUINE. She stood there with a creepy smile - showing no inclination to help me in any way with my predicament - my anger increased exponentially, and she just watched as Mike took a deep breath. I saw him rotate the knife so that he was now using the blunt side.

I widened my eyes, no. A blunt force fell upon my head. When I woke up, I was tied to a chair and I could see a tall girl look at me with a creepy smile. I looked around the room a little, stimulating my mana failed repeatedly - I WAS LOCKED OUT OF MY RESERVE?!? My hands and arms were tied tightly, moving them took much effort and just ended with me having burn marks on my wrists and ankles. I saw a small tray with some tools, and the truth of the matter came crashing down on me. I looked at the girl that was hidden in the shadows, she was working diligently on… something. She had olive skin and white hair, she was the future Duchess of Lendenburg.

Wait… Mike couldn’t have gotten out from the official mages with no uproar, then that means… She was the one to release him?? Wait, no. NO. She finally came out of the shadows and had a little instrument in her hand, she looked at me and said “Well, well. I can finally see the little child that hurt my precious. I have to keep up appearances, so I can’t just do what I want. However, now that it is just the two of us. I’m finally free to do what I want."