Here comes chapter five! This one is my longest yet, I really liked it. Enjoy!

Chapter 5: Excitement

We had been following the road for two days, when we came to the landmark that the woman explained to us. We were supposed to follow the road to this place, and then travel off road until we came to the bandit hideout. We did this and travelled across some plains, until we arrived in front of a mountain range. In the distance, I could see walls, built from chopped down trees. I had been told that this was the base of the bandits, so we walked towards the walls. I couldn’t see any one there, but I was sure that there had to be people on the other side of the walls. We climbed up to a higher vantage point, and just as I expected there were indeed three bandits there, guarding the entrance.

We quickly sneaked over to the entrance. We agreed that Amelia would deal with one of them, and I’d kill the other two. We jumped over the wall. I landed in front of one of the bandits, I grabbed his shoulder and used one of my spells on him, as he froze into an ice statue. Then I immediately threw my knife in the throat of the other bandit, and he collapsed, holding his throat, trying to stop the blood from flowing.

When all three bandits were dead, we proceeded into the cave. On the walls of the cave there were torches, illuminating its surroundings. I decided to extinguish all the torches I saw. This would make the cave pitch black, and the bandits wouldn’t be able to see in the darkness. But this was not a problem that Amelia and I would face, as our vision was even better in the darkness. We proceeded forwards. On the way we would meet a few bandits, either alone, or in pairs. We kill them in a flash, and sometimes drain their bodies of blood.

As we were traversing trough the pathways of the cave, we eventually appeared in a bigger hall like room. In this room there were three more pathways, and these pathways had around twenty bandits guarding them. We stood outside the room, hidden in the darkness, as we looked at them. We didn’t charge straight in, because we knew they were on guard. As soon as they had noticed that there wasn’t even a speck of light in the entrance pathway, they knew something was wrong. They were talking between themselves, discussing what they should do. Soon they decided. One man went to the middle pathway to report to their leader. With my superior hearing I could of course clearly hear their conversation. I already knew that the middle pathway was where the leader and his lieutenants were. The pathway on the right led to the sleeping quarters of the normal bandits, while the one on the left was the prison area.

As one of the men went into the middle pathway, three more walked towards us. They stopped outside the pathway, hesitating to walk into the darkness. But they still stepped in. In the darkness they couldn’t see anything at all, so they decided to go back, but at this moment we attacked. I swung my knife at one bandit’s throat, then grabbed the neck of the other one as the first one’s head flew off. I broke his neck, then grabbed the decapitated head. Amelia had also decapitated the last bandits head. I looked her in the eyes and nodded. We then threw their heads into the hall. The bandits were shocked and angry as they saw their comrades’ heads flying towards them, but we didn’t give them time to recover, as we rushed into the hall, knife in hand.

I appeared in front of one of the bandits and flashed my knife at his throat, while generating a spell in my free hand. Suddenly around ten ice spikes appeared in front of my hand. The icicles flew out, piercing into several bandits, killing them. Amelia was had grabbed on of bandits and thrown him into the others, killing several, then stabbed her knife through the eyes of another bandit. I used another spell, generating pure darkness. This darkness formed into a large ball, as it flew at insane speed towards the rest of the bandits. As the ball touched the bandits, it grew small until it finally disappeared. The bandits were looking in shock, as nothing had happened to them. Suddenly they started screaming in excruciating pain, as blood started flowing out of their crevices. Tentacles, made of darkness, pierced through their bodies, and they started drying up, as if they were aging at incredibly speeds. Soon the floor was filled with dry corpses, all of them filled with holes. I looked at the dead bodies with no remorse, then ventured into the middle pathway. We arrived in a cave with a throne on the middle. In the throne sat a menacing looking man, in front of him were his five lieutenants. I walked forwards as he looked at me menacingly, but I couldn’t care less about him. I in return looked deep into his eyes with huge killing intent ever apparent. The man started sweating a cold sweat.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here? Why did you kill my men?” He asked with a deep raspy voice, filled with hate.

“I was sent by the Mercenary Association to wipe out your hideout, not leaving a single man alive, and to rescue some merchant’s daughter that you kidnapped.” I honestly told him. I wasn’t afraid of him, since I was both of superior strength and race. Generally I, as a vampire, would be able to deal with someone of similar strength easily, thanks to my superior speed, and greater endurance and regenerative abilities. It was very hard to kill a vampire. You had to completely destroy the heart, or they wouldn’t die. I wasn’t afraid that he would escape either. If he tried to get out of the cave, it would basically be a death trap, since he wouldn’t be able to see anything.

I could see the fear appearing on his face.

“Kill them!”

He spoke two words and everyone charged.

“Amelia you kill the other ones, I will deal with the leader.”

I said and charged straight through the other ones, shocking them with my speed. I appeared in front of the leader swinging my knife at his throat. He managed to get away and block in the nick of time, but he still stumbled a few steps back from my strength. He looked at me in fear, then determination and he viciously swung his axe at me. I easily stepped to the side, dodging the strike, thanks to my superior reflexes, but then in the corner of my eye, I noticed his leg swing towards me. I didn’t dodge in time and was hit directly. I flew two meters back and landed on my legs. This was definitely not the strength of middle C rank. This was at least someone at the peak of rank C! I looked at him in anger, and charged at him. I threw the knife at him, then formed my hands into claws. I swiped my claws at him, he dodged the first strike, but my second hit him in the chest, drawing out his blood. He looked at me with shock. He had never seen anyone make his hands into claws. This wasn’t something humans could do.

“What are you?!”

He charged at me, axe in hand. He swung his axe at me again. I easily dodged, this time I was prepared for another strike so a dodged out of his reach. He swung again and I dodged again. This repeated four times, but then he put his hand behind his back and pulled out a crossbow. He quickly fired it. The bolt left the crossbow and pieced right into my chest. I grimaced in pain, as the bolt stuck out my chest. Thanks to my endurance, it didn’t hurt as much as it should. If I was a human that bolt could have seriously injured me, but as vampire, it was only enough to cause a bit of pain. Now I was infuriated. It wasn’t that I wasn’t stronger than him, but because I was just too inexperienced in combat. If I had more experience, then he would have already died.

I furiously at him in my rage. I insanely attacked him completely disregarding my own body. This way he had managed to strike many “lethal” strikes on me, but I wasn’t affected much. I furiously swung my claws towards his chest, but he managed to dodge to the side, but at this moment I already swung my other claw at his arm. There was a spray of blood as his arm fell to the floor. The man screamed in pain. I took the opportunity and kicked him in the leg with all my power. There was a loud crack as his leg snapped in half, the bone sticking out of the skin. I then stabbed my claw into his chest and grabbed his heart. He looked at me horrified. ‘How could he do this, I struck several lethal blows, but they barely even fazed him’ he thought.

“What are you?” he asked again, this time in a weak voice, as he spit up blood. I looked at him coldly, then crushed his heart. I turned around and looked towards Amelia. She had already killed three of them, so I charged behind one of them and broke his spine, then crushed his head under my foot, as he lied there, helplessly. I looked at Amelia with a smile, after she killed the last one.

“Let’s go get that merchant girl and leave.”

I said, then turned around and left through the pathway, hence we came. Back in the hall we turned to the pathway on the other side. We entered it, and eventually arrived in another cave. There were several cages in here, and in each of them there was a prisoner. Some of the girls were naked, looked like they had been raped. Some of them were dead. We looked around for the girl we were sent for. We had been given a picture of her, back in the city, so we knew what she looked like. Soon we arrived in another cage. In there was a girl. She looked tired and dirty. She had black hair that went down to her waist. She was wearing ragged clothes, that may have once looked good, but now they wouldn’t even pass for beggar clothes.

“You there, get up. We were hired by your family to save you.”

I said in an indifferent voice, as I looked at her.

“You’re here to save me? What about the bandits? There are so many of them.”

She replied, her fear clear in her voice.

“Don’t worry, we already killed all of them.”

I said and then grabbed the door to the cage. The door was locked, but as I put a bit of force into my hands, the lock broke and the door opened. The girl looked at me in amazement as the door opened. I wasn’t payed to rescue the other people so we left after freeing the merchant girl. The army could send someone over if they wanted them rescued. When we came to the dark pathways, I told the girl to hold unto Amelia. She asked us how we could see anything in this darkness, but I just told her that we can see easily in the dark.

After we left the cave, we travelled for a few hours before we came back to the road. From there we continued travelling back to the city. It took us a few days to get back to the city. It had been hard for us to feed these days, but we stayed at an inn once, so we managed to sneak out and have a good meal. After a few days we finally arrived in front of the city gate, once more. We entered without trouble, and walked straight to the Mercenary Association Hall.

In the hall, I walked up to the reception desk. There was another woman there now. I showed her my token.

“We have finished a rank C mission to wipe out a bandit hideout and rescue a merchant’s daughter.”

I said to her. She looked at me, the respect showing in her eyes. C rank mercenaries were quite rare these days, and one as young as this was almost never seen. She flipped through some papers, then found ours. She told us to sign it, then we were given a bag of gold. Before the girl was taken away she gave me a piece of paper.

“If you ever need anything you can come to this place. This is my family home and I’m sure that father would gladly help you, since you saved me. But even if you don’t need anything, make sure to still come. I’m sure father will want to meet you.”

She said with a cute voice as her eyes sparkled. This girl looked to be around seventeen years old. She was quite pretty, but she didn’t match up to Amelia. After she gave me the paper, she quickly left. But there was one thing she didn’t realize. Neither I nor Amelia could read. But she was already gone.

We didn’t have any weapons or armour, so we decided that we would go and visit a blacksmith. We went back to that inn we used to stay at and asked for directions. Soon after we were in a weapons and armour shop. We purchased some light armour, we didn’t need big armour since we regenerated quickly and had high endurance. We then both purchased a longsword each. Now we were armed with armour and sword. Before we only had the clothes on our back and a knife. Talking about clothes, they were the next thing on our agenda. The clothes I had been wearing had been torn up in the last battle. We asked the blacksmith about clothing stores, then left. Later we had bought several sets of clothes each. Now we only had about a hundred gold coins left. The things we bought had been very expensive. The armour and weapons were made of a very tough material, so they were naturally expensive. The clothes had also been of high calibre.

There was now one more thing we wanted to do. We needed to learn to read, and also someone to teach us magic. I was capable of making my basic spells seem powerful, but that was only because I had a lot of mana. I could pour vast amounts of mana into them, thus making them much more powerful. For example, the ice spark spell I used would normally only make one spark, but a master mage with a lot of mana could make more sparks. The same with devouring darkness spell. I should only have been able to kill one of the bandits with it, but I had way more mana than any other novice mage. Therefore I could make my spells more powerful.

But if I could make a mage teach me more advanced spells and tutor me that would be much more effective. Therefore we decided to find a mage and turn him into a vampire. But we didn’t know where we could find one. I decided that I should try and ask that girl’s father. I went back to the inn. I explained to the innkeeper that Amelia and I were both from poor rural families and couldn’t read, and asked him to tell me the contents of the paper. The innkeeper complied and soon we were out again. The sun had now set so it was much more comfortable outside. After walking for a few minutes, we arrived in front of a big mansion. This merchant certainly was rich. I walked up to the door and knocked. Soon a maid opened the door.

“Do you have business here?” she asked.

“Is the master of the house present? Tell him that I want to see him.” I said to the maid. The maid left and then came back again after a short while.

“Please follow me, sir and madam, the master is waiting for you.”

The maid led us through a few corridors and soon we arrived in a room. In this room there was a table with a few chairs. On the table there were three wine glasses and a bottle of wine. On one end of the table there sat a respectable looking man.

“Are you two the mercenaries that save my daughter?” he asked.

“Yes we are.”

“Good, very good! Please sit down and have a glass of wine.”

The man said, as the maid poured wine into the three glasses

“Now tell me. Is there anything you need? If I can help you, I will.” The man said. I looked at him with serious look. “We need a mage. Can you help us?” I asked with hope in my eyes. “A mage? Sure I can get you one. Does he need to be specialised in any of the elements?” he asked.

“Yes, he needs to excel at darkness magic, and frost magic. Is this possible?” I asked once more, the anticipation growing in my heart.

“Yes, it should be doable. I will immediately send someone to look. If you come back tomorrow evening, the mage should be ready.” He said. We kept talking for a while, then after an hour we left. On the way out we met the girl we rescued. She was excited to see me and begged to stay a while longer. But I managed to get away after telling her that I would be back tomorrow.

The next day we were back in the mansion. In front of us was a man. He was wearing dark robes with blue patterns on it.

“I’m Kato. I’m looking forward to working with you in the future, Sir Isaac.” The mage said respectfully. I asked him some questions about his magic. He was indeed very good at darkness and frost magic. He had been considered a prodigy since he was a kid. I was very satisfied with him and decided that it would be him. I looked towards the merchant named Bogat.

“Good. He will do. Thank you for your help. I’ll visit you again in the future, if you don’t mind my company.” I said to Bogat, then the three of us left. Before we got out I was stopped by that girl. Her name was Serana. I talked to her for a while before we left. She was a nice girl, pretty smart too.

Before we left the city I explained our “mission” to Kato. Of course this mission was fake. After we left the city we travelled for a few hours, until we arrived at a cave. We went into the cave and set up camp there. I told Amelia and Kato to stay there, while I went out for a while. While they stayed in the cave waiting, I rushed at full speed, trying to find two persons together. After looking for a few minutes I actually managed to find a pair walking on the road. They were both men, and looked to be novice adventurers. I rushed behind them and knocked them out. I flung them over my shoulders, then ran away. I ran at full speed back to the cave. I entered the cave and threw the bodies in a corner. Kato looked at me in shock.

“Who are they? What are you doing?” he asked in shock.

“They are your food.” I said to him with a smirk on my face. Kato looked at me with a confused expression. I walked towards him and visibly extended my teeth.

“Don’t worry, this will only hurt a bit.”

I said to him as I walked in front of him. He was scared now and started charging a spell, but before he had a chance to do anything I quickly bit him. I was rapidly draining him of blood, until there was only a small amount of blood in his body. I let some of my venom flow into his body. I made it so that he would have more mana and more potential for magic than most vampires. I also made him better at spiritual stuff. Making him this mage oriented also made it so that he had a bit less strength than other vampires, but it was still more than a mortal. After configuring his powers I finally let go of him.

We waited for an hour before he awoke once more. He looked up in confusion, not seeming to remember what happened. But then it struck him, and he looked up me with fear.

“Don’t worry Kato. I didn’t hurt you. In fact I made you stronger. Have you ever heard of vampires?” I asked him with a gentle tone, as to reassure him that I wouldn’t hurt him.

“Vampires? Yes I’ve heard of them. Are you saying you’re a vampire? That’s not possible! Even the vampires in legend only existed countless millennia ago. They probably didn’t exist at all!”

He said with disbelief in his eyes.

“Yes we are vampires. And you are one too now. And it is true that vampires haven’t existed for millennia. Until recently that is. You see, I am the first vampire, personally created by the God of Death, Gebados. Amelia here was the second, the first one that I turned, while you are the third. I am the progenitor, while you are my clansmen. Now, since you know about vampires, you probably know that we need blood. This is in fact very true. Without blood we will become very weak. And since you’ve just transformed you will need to drain these two men of their blood, completely.”

I looked at him with a serious tone, as I explained to him what he had to do.

“What? I have to drink their blood? Well, I’ve killed before, but I don’t think I can actually drink their blood.” He said with worry.

“Don’t worry. Since you’ve become a vampire, drinking blood will be very natural, and will taste extremely good. If you can’t do it, then just wait. In a while you won’t even be able to stop yourself"

I said to Kato with smile on my face. I knew too well that he won’t be able to stop himself from feeding. But he did last a while though. He sat there, grimacing, for thirty minutes before he said, fuck it, and walked over to the still unconscious bodies. He grabbed one of the bodies, and was surprised at his own strength as he lifted the body of the ground. He bit into the man’s neck, and a moment later he fell to the floor, completely drained of blood. Soon after the other man followed.

I looked at Kato.

“How was it?” I asked with a smirk.

“It was tasty” he said, the surprise easily apparent on his face.

“I told you that you would get used to it immediately.”

Soon after, we left. We ran back to the city as quickly as we could. We were running at Kato’s fastest speed, but he was a lot slower than us. He had been at the F rank in physical strength before I turned him, so now he would be at the E rank until the maturing period ended.

When a human becomes a vampire they will become a lot stronger than they were before. But if a human at the B rank or A rank became a vampire they wouldn’t increase in strength that much. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t beneficial. Humans were mortal beings. They would never be able to reach a rank beyond the A rank. But if an A rank human became a vampire, he would be able to get beyond the A rank. After the A rank you had the S rank, the SS rank, the SSS rank and finally the X rank. But there weren’t many beings above the S rank in the world. The X ranks could be counted on one hand. They were the ultimate beings of this world. But the vampire had the potential to reach the X rank. The longer a vampire lives, the stronger it would become. But this needed a vast amount of time. Also, humans didn’t have great regenerative abilities. If a human lost an arm he would never get it back. But if he became a vampire that arm would grow back. This of course this also counted for any crippled limbs.

As we were rushing back to the city, I explained the details of being a vampire to Kato, like our little sun weakness, being careful when feeding and not leaving any evidence and our immortality. Like becoming stronger as we age, not getting sick and being immune to any poison. I also told him of my plans. He agreed to teach us to read and magic. Not that he had a choice. With the bound connecting us, he would never be able to refuse my orders.

When we got back to the city, we went back to that inn we stayed at. We rented two rooms for two months. We still had about a hundred gold coins left. This was more than enough to pay for the rent. These two months were spent learning magic and to read. Vampires had an improved mind. We could think faster and learn faster. Therefore it only took us two months to master the written language. Kato also taught us some magic. These two month both our magic capabilities had increased. I was already able to do magic of the next tier, and Amelia was very close to have her breakthrough.

Just as fighting strength was dealt into ranks, so were mages. The first rank was Beginner Mage. After that you had Acolyte Mage. Then there was the Elementary Mage. Then you had the Half Circle Magus. Then Full Circle Magus. The last one that I knew of was the Warlock. There were ranks after this, but I just didn’t know of them. Magic was a very deep and broad field. But humans were also limited in magic. It was very rare for a human mage to make it all the way to Warlock. Even though humans were a weak race, they were still the primary race of the world. This is because of their population. They vastly outnumbered the other races. But the other races were still too strong, so the humans didn’t dare start a war with them. There still existed beings that could be a major threat to the human race. These were the super experts that could easily wipe out entire armies with a swipe of their hands. But these super experts were very secluded and didn’t partake in mortal affairs. But if the humans were to attack on of the races, then these super experts that belonged to said race would probably intervene. Thus there was an everlasting peace between the civilizations of the races.

They might even establish trade routes and alliances with each other. The humans would import elven items in exchange for human technology. Humans were the most technologically advanced of the races. Since they weren’t strong, they revelled at inventing. Using science they would make formidable formations, and devastating weapons. But some of these inventions couldn’t even be used or built by humans, since they required high amounts of mana or titanic strength to build.

One day, a messenger had arrived before me. He told me that Lord Bogat wanted to see me. He had an important matter to discuss. That evening Kato, Amelia and I went to that big magnificent mansion. Inside the mansion, we had been brought to a room. Inside this room, Bogat sat on a chair. He looked at me.

“Isaac, you’re here. Good. There is something I need your help with. This is a very important matter. I needed someone capable, that I trust. I trust you Isaac. You saved my daughter, and I have had a few good chats with you. I know that there is more about you than you let on. But that isn’t of importance. The point is I trust you, and I need your help. And I will pay.”

He said, the seriousness very apparent in his voice. I stayed silent for a moment, thinking. I looked him into the eyes.

“Fine. If I am capable of doing it I will help you.” I said. I was a bit worried about his tone before. It seemed this matter was very important.

“Good. I’m glad. Now let me tell you. This matter involves the lives of my family. And it is very illegal. You see, five days ago, my wife died. But it was no accident or illness. No, she was murdered! Assassinated! I was shocked and despaired from her death. But I recovered. What was important now was to avenge her. As the assassin was running away, he slipped. This mistake of his made him lose his mask. I saw his face. The next few days I did some investigating. Eventually I found the killers identity. I had him captured and tortured, to find who hired him. It didn’t take long before he told us everything.

I knew the cause of my wife’s death. It was our rival, the Chong family. Our family and theirs have always been enemies, since several generations ago, when they came to the city from foreign lands. But now they dared to kill my wife! They have to pay! They need to die!

Isaac. I want you to exterminate them. But that’s not enough. I need you to terrify them. I want you to kill them one by one, leaving terror in their hearts as they know that they are being targeted. I want you to make the horrified of the thought, ‘what if I’m next?’ I want you to slowly exterminate them one by one. But you can’t ever be discovered. If you do, then it will be bad for both of us. The towns guard will probably be able to see our connection and put two and two together.

Especially since this is the capital of Fenlai prefecture, Fenlai City!”

I looked at him as a menacing smile began creeping up on my face. Soon I began laughing. This really exited me. To slowly, but surely exterminate a clan, sowing the seed of fear in their hearts. I looked at him once more, then I said

“I will do it. I will definitely do it.”

End of chapter 5