Philip did not last long. He tried to rush at me. At first I am startle by the sudden charge, but I quickly regain my composure. I block Philip’s sword with my Khopesh, the force of the impact is strong enough that Philip’s sword drops out of his hand, and flies into the empty fountain.

I gaze at him, and I can see the fear in his eyes. His hands shake, and he was about to take a step back, but my arm shoots forward like a snake. I feel the rush of energy move into my fingertips, as I grab onto his head.

Philip starts to vanish, layer by layer as the spell moves downward. The weaving is useful when it comes to creating fear. However, it is costly, as much of an ogre’s soul. Which means, I will only have enough mana to do this a few more times.

The only thing that remains from Philip is his clothes, and the leather armor. His soul is fill with pride, and sadness. Sadness for a son lost, and content that he is no longer feeling the pain of a lost child because of poverty.

Another two charge forward at me, but I anticipate their charge. By this time, I am preparing a sound spell to stop them.

One of them is already over the line by the time I am finish weaving the spell. His sword is on a path to cut into my neck. I raise my hand to block the blow; using my khopesh would take to long, and it would leave openings in my stance. The man is quick, but his swing is too weak. His blade cuts into leather gauntlets, but did not cut through to my bone. I feel only the edge of the sword grazing against my bone.

I release the spell, and an explosion of deafening sound burst forth from my hand. I made sound spell to replicate the sound of an explosion, and I am thankful that I have no ears to be physically affected by the sound. Both of the men who charged at me, drop their swords and move their hands to their ears.

I did not hear their yells, the sound from the spell had drowned that out, and even now it still echoes. They both drop to their knees, and try to get back up, but they only fall back down. I can see, and tell that they are disoriented. Their words are gibberish when they try to speak.

Those that did not charge at me, are also affected by the spell. Four of which are on their knees, while the other three are still struggling to not fall. They all have their hands cupped around their ears, and all of them are shouting or cursing. Of course, this means that they dropped their weapons.

Not letting this opportunity go to waste, I begin to form threads.

I force all my mental processing into forming a reverse repair spell, and I manage to do it within roughly five to ten seconds. By the time another five seconds passed by, my hand is already on the head of the man who crossed the line. I unleash the spell, and watch him vanish, from head to toe. He is able to get a few screams before his head vanishes. And, too my benefit, the screams most likely made the others terrified.

After the spell takes full effect, I lift my hand off his head. Once again, only the leather armor and clothes remain on the ground. This soul tastes bitter, and it is fill with anger. I can see pictures from the man's life as I absorb his soul. Something in me feels happy I killed him, he was a child murderer.

I have recently been seeing images from the souls I absorb. Images from their life. Though, this does not seem to be the case with all souls. I began to prepare another reserve repair spell.

The second man who charged towards me, is still trying to stand back up. He was closer to the spell, so he suffered more of an impact than the others.

The sound must have affected the man’s brain, because even though he is still unbalanced, he charges towards me after picking his sword up. You would think that after seeing such display of magic, he would be more cautious. Why are people so quick to be stupid? I am patient with stupidity, but not with people who are proud of it. He swings at me pathetically, I did not even need the knight’s memories to block it.

I deflect the man’s sword with my khopesh, then I punch him with my left hand. The punch is for being stupid, and also to act as a medium for the reverse repair spell. My spell unleashes as my hand made contact with his flesh. Within a few seconds, the only thing remaining of him is his armor, and clothes. Just like with the previous three.

I can see the pictures of the man’s life, as I absorb his soul. It is like watching a slideshow, and I am starting to notice that these images seem to best describe the soul of the person. The man was a sheep, and all he ever did was what people told him to do. I am not sure if I should give him pity.

Of the ten men, now only six remain. The explosion appears to still be ringing their ears, because they are arguing about how difficult it is to hear. I find the whole charade to be comedy.

Panic among the six remining men is slowly rising. It is one thing to die, it is another thing to completely vanish. The unknown made them fear. And, fear is what I am using, hopefully they will not find out that I can’t do this much longer. Maybe I can simply change it, so that that only the head vanishes instead of the entire body. It would save me the large amount of mana required to do the spell. A headless man would generate some fear, but a man that completely vanished right before your eyes is different.

“Someone call the captain.” One of them shouts. On close inspection, it is man that threw the dice who spoke. His eyes quickly glance at me, then back at his group, who are all now rushing inside. After seeing the rush to escape, he shouts,” Not all of you!”

The group eventually reorganizes themselves, and only one man goes inside, through the doors. I put my mind to thinking of an escape plan if things got worst. It’s always good to have a plan for an escape in a situation like this. I take a step forward just to test them. In response, the five men all take a step back.

I am actually surprised they all have not decided to attack me all at once. Maybe they only care about themselves, and rather have someone else take the risk. The ones who were willing risk, are already dead now. And, only these remain, the cowards.

Most of this gang’s members are probably inside. It is late in the night, so I am assuming they would be sleeping. This would explain the lack of people guarding.

I am okay with waiting; it gives me enough time to think of what I will do next, and I only want to kill those who step across the line. Several minutes later, the man who was sent inside to find the captain returns.

He returns with a smirk on his face, which is a far comparison to the horror he had shown before. He moves to join his five companions. Their faces all change to one of relief at the sight of his return. I cannot wait to wipe that smirk off his faces.

Three figures emerge from the warehouse entrance.

The first of the three is a man, and just like the one behind him, he has black hair. His eyes are light grey, and he wears a grey leather vest. Black segmented pauldron, with short spikes, covers his right shoulder and arm. He has one gauntlet, made of metal with spiked finger tips. With the matching grey pants, and shoes, it looks as though he is wearing a tuxedo, he did not have a bow tie, though. I find that I like both his gauntlet and shoulder armor. They are better than anything I currently have.

The next vampire, who is walking behind the first, is dress much the same, except without the pauldron and gauntlet. And, he had an oblong face, with scars on one side of his cheek.

However, the woman next to him looks like she forgot she had on Halloween costume. She looks awfully gothic, with her red, and black hair, and a black gown that matched. It looks like she is wearing neck choker, filled with small pearls. They are all pale, which raises a few red flags.

As I use my mana vision to focus on the three newcomers, the burgundy glow around them becomes more pronounce. Based on what I know from Isabella, I can determine that these are not humans. I began to imagine how a vampire soul would taste. I hope it did not taste like blood. It probably did.

I start weaving a spell. Both the repair, and bone threads are combine, and with right sub-thread tweaks, they form the weaving of the healing spell. The intricate patterns of the threads as they wrap around my arm fascinates me. It is an odd time to appreciate the beauty of magic. I looks just like how I weaved it in my mind.

“I don’t like being interrupted when I’m having a meal.” The vampire who wears the pauldron said, with an orotund voice. He moves in front of the straight-line formation. The six men stiffen their shoulders, and stand up straight when they see him pass by.

“I’m told you are a mage, the Shrouded can always use a mage. The schools seem to have a monopoly on them.” The vampire looks at me, then gradually approaches me. I think he is expecting a reply. He lifts a hand, signaling the two vampires behind him to stop. They do, and patiently wait at the front of the formation of guards.

“The Shrouded pay well, for any services rendered.” He said again. He waits for my reply again, and appears disappointed when I did not give him one. I cannot think of any reason I would want to talk to him.

He appears to be someone who is high in their hierarchy. However, the real reason I did not talk to him, is because I cannot. I have not yet cast the healing spell yet, and to my knowledge, weaving two spells at once is impossible, because no one has more than one soul. I know how this conversation would end. I take several steps away from him, since I am not sure how fast he is, and at the same time, it is also a taunt.

“Very well, have it your way. I am going to make this painful.” He said in frustration. With great dexterity, and lightning speed, he draws both his swords. Just my luck, a dual sword wielding vampire.

He moves forward like a blur. In response, I take two quick steps back, and away from the piles of clothes and armour before my feet. He leaps over the across the line I drew, and over the piles of clothes and armor. His is lacks caution, and most likely underestimates me. That is good, let him think that I am weak.

He is still in midair, his leap is wide, and I should have expected such an inhuman jump. He spins around while he is still in the air, both his swords are aiming for my neck. As soon as he lands, my khopesh meets his blades in a clash of steel.

He is blinding fast when he moves, but his swordsmanship he is not as good as Isabella. Or, maybe he is holding back something. Our blades dance in the air, as we clash and clash, and I am slowly being pushed back, because it is difficult to hold this weaving while fighting with a sword. But something weird is happening. The man sword strokes become sluggish, and his grey eyes occasionally shift to my chest. He suddenly stops, and takes a step back.

My man’s eyes raise in a sudden realization. I am not sure what happened, but something causes the man to turn around, and be was about to flee. But, I grab the back of his shirt, and I pull him back to me.

“He has no heartbeat! RUN! He is an Ancient! Run you fools!” The man shouts. His two vampire companions waste no time; they return inside the warehouse with all haste. Seeing them flee, made the other six vanish into the warehouse as well. My khopesh impales him from behind, and out through his stomach. To my surprise, and the horror of his companions, he screams. Which was interesting to note since I expected him to feel nothing from that. I let go of the khopesh, and move my hand against his chest.

I unleash the healing spell, and I can feel the mana flow out from my soul. Within a second the man’s chest illuminates with a bright yellow glow, then it turns to a dark red. The red spreads across his body, until he looks like a hot coal. Then he explodes with a widespread release of smoke, and ash. I grabbed his soul before it can float away.

His soul his soul is large, almost ten times the size of a human’s soul, but still not as large as a priest. I begin to suck it in, but it refuses me. This was the first time this happened. I squeezed it harder in the palm of my hands. But, the soul still did not want to be absorbed. I grow angry, and I try to restrain my anger, before I lose control of myself like I did in forest. Despite that my rage only flares, and the rage of the Skeleton once gains control.

“Come to me, now!” I yell at the burgundy soul, as though I am talking to Nia.

I can feel the soul give way, and I absorb it in the palm of my hand. It tastes sweet, and of course, like blood. The energy fizzles through me. And, I begin to feel a change within me after I fully absorb the soul. Something is certainly changing in me, but it is subtle. I sense the change coursing through both my bones, and my soul.

The smoke is thick, and I cannot see anything after a certain distance. I pick up my khopesh off the ground, and wait for this smokescreen to clear.

When the smoke clears. I take quick steps back from the monster that is someone standing in front of me. I scan the area, this is bad. I am surrounded by figures. The mana around them is burgundy in color.

This must be the twelve that Isabella talked about, well, they are eleven now.

I look at the monster directly before, he is about ten feet away. On closer inspection, I can tell that it is not a monster but just a man, a really old looking man. The blood dripping out his mouth is the first thing I see. and he is the palest person I have ever met. Though, he looks more white than pale. He wears a gold, and black robe, which matches his blonde hair. The man did not blink; his red eyes stay focus on me. Just like he gazes at me, I gaze at his face, which is cracked and wrinkled from his age. He looks too skinny, way too skinny to be alive. His voice is tired, and condescending when he speaks.

“I felt him die. You have broken several laws of ours, therefore I must put you down like the rabid dog you are.”