Charlotte desperately tried to control her breathing; her knuckles were white as she clenched the bedframe in fear. She tried to divert her gaze from that thing in the sky that gazed upon everything.

A man in a red wine suit holding a black cane with a red gem stood calmly in the sky. His eyes drifted across the landscape as if judging the mortals below his feet. To the untrained eye, he seemed to be searching for something by sight, but alas, Charlotte was no mundane; her magic sight threatened to blind her as waves of power left the man in all directions.

Charlotte had no idea what kind of spell could release such immense mana output, but it was undoubtedly a location spell as it ripples across the land with the man as the epicentre.

Charlotte gulped as another wave of intense mana passed over her skin as if searching every cavity and even reaching her soul. She silently cursed in her mind, 'Can you restrain your spell? Not everyone in this fucking town is mana blind!'

She gripped her earring artefacts and prayed they would protect her from such intense scrutiny.

***

Damien floated above Blackthorn's central district with a frown. Despite his increased security, murders, arson, robbery, and even slave trading still occurred occasionally. But this murder stood out to him; it differed from the rest. Drunkards got into deathly brawls with their fists and grit, but this was no fight nor duel. Instead, it was an assassination far too swift and clean for Magic to not be involved.

"Hmm..." Damien was multicasting levitation, perception field and clairvoyance to find this mysterious mage. He checked all the residents one by one as best he could, yet none of them displayed the capabilities required to perform such an assassination.

'Only my close associates and Marquess Cunnigdal's men know Magic. Apart from my kin, none have the capabilities to pull off such a feat. Therefore it's highly likely this assassin is foreign.'

Damien directed his telepathy toward zero, 'A merchant convoy arrived today; ask the guards if there was anyone suspicious.' Once he closed the connection, he thought about the implications of such an assassin within Blackthorn.

"All my guards are mere mundanes; only a few crafting classes have awakened their mana circuits due to the spider's assistance. Therefore my basic security team could drop like flies while investigating. The knights would be able to submit an assassin if they worked in groups of three..."

Damien looked to the walls and saw the Cunningdal Knights patrolling them; their enchanted armour gleamed in the afternoon sun as they moved, giving off a display of power and protection.

"Useless when the enemy comes from within..." Damien muttered to himself as he cancelled his spells. "I thought I had done rather well. Made a police force, have Zero working from the shadows, Roselyn has decent coverage of the outskirts, and around the fields, Knights patrol the walls, and we check all merchant carriages."

Damien could only shake his head, "Magic complicates things, and it always will. Perhaps I should set up some complicated runic formations." He rubbed his chin in thought but quickly dismissed it, "Blackthorn is supposed to be a throwaway frontier town, and without a Leyline to power it, the formation would require a vast amount of mana stones or blood to sustain it."

As Damien flew over Blackthorn, he saw the many sights. The town had expanded rapidly with the Knights converting their camp around the walls into full-fledged homes. The town now housed a few thousand residents of various races. However, Damien noticed that the vast majority were human or beastmen. A few elves wandered here and there but were few and far between. It has been a few weeks since Vanity arrived, and with her donating a single drop of Ichor blood, Roselyn had grown in power by leaps and bounds. Her vines now covered the entire town and fields.

Various checkpoints allowed residents to exchange blood for food and other basic services, greatly increasing Blackthorn's poorest residents' quality of life within days.

Damien wasn't oblivious to his questionable ruling practices, but he was a Vampire, and Magic opened up new ways to rule over the masses. In such a world, an authoritarian government was inevitable.

Back on Earth, dictators eventually died or were overthrown; a simple bullet to the head was enough to end the tyranny. But here in Throne and Awakening, the strong decided how the weak lived. Damien disagreed with exploiting his people, hence the lack of taxes and providing jobs en mass, but that doesn't mean he had to be kind to his enemies.

From his vantage point, Damien could see the miles of fields surrounding him in all directions. Blackthorn was an oasis of green amongst a sea of mud and barren land. Water was drained slowly from the Tarlington lake via crude aqueducts and distributed to Blackthorn's fields and people.

Progress had been fast with the help of Magic. Earth mages made construction a breeze, and the influx of people from Richard Cunningdal's territories made business boom.

Although Damien was delighted with the progress, his savings were in freefall. "I offered jobs back when this town was small, and nobody trusted me; how was I supposed to plan for this mass influx of people?" Running some numbers through his head, Damien discovered a horrifying truth, "I will be out of money in two weeks. It turns out constructing a town in the middle of nowhere is expensive with poor returns."

Damien passed over the fields with humans working alongside undead skeletons managed by Roselyn and landed within the courtyard of his castle.

"Welcome home, master." Walter bowed.

"Get the car ready. I have debts to collect." Damien instructed as he walked past the butler.

"As you wish, young master."

Damien walked through the castle halls with large strides, he had been idle for far too long, and it was time for some action. He stopped a maid carrying some laundry and questioned her, "Where are my kin?"

The maid sighed and replied in a tired voice, "Responding to Your Highness's question, Mistress Fay is sleeping upstairs, Mistress Vanity is staring at a wall, Sir Jackson is having fun in the brothel wing, and finally, Mistress Lily is ordering more clothes."

Damien paused, "Did you say more clothes."

The maid had a deadpan expression, "Yes."

Damien pinched the bridge of his nose in utter frustration, "I know I said she looked good in a dress, but she has spent ten platinum this week on clothes... there are enough clothes to fill two entire rooms at this point."

The maid nodded while gesturing to the laundry in her hand, "And the Mistress keeps having sex parties while wearing dresses that take a week to clean each; it is rather tiresome."

Damien felt he was at his breaking point. It had been a few weeks, and the twins had turned a third of the castle into a whorehouse, and Vanity had practically refused to do anything without seeking payment.

'I need a vacation.' Damien resolutely decided and walked to his bedroom, "Inform my kin that I will be gone for two weeks; they are to sit house and not go bankrupt while I'm gone!"

The maid didn't even hide a groan as Damien walked away down the castle's newly refurbished corridors, 'Who should I bring to Staedbergh?' Damien thought as he scratched his chin, 'Fay for sure, but do I bother to bring the others?'

It only took hearing the moans from the castle's western wing for Damien to resolutely decide to sneak off with Fay and not look back. He passed by Vanity's room and saw her cultivating intensely, 'She is a rather loose cannon for now. I can't control her, and if someone in Staedbergh infuriated her, the entire city might disappear off the map...' He shuddered from the thought and quickly moved on. 'Vanity can remain as this town's guardian for now. Nothing in Staedbergh can threaten me, but Blackthorn could be razed to the ground while we leave it undefended. Roselyn will make an excellent guardian in the future, but for now, she is stuck at the B grade, so Vanity should be left behind... right?'

Damien silently floated past the room to not disturb his sister but suddenly felt a pressure on his neck, "Brother, sneaking off somewhere fun without me?"

Damien turned and saw Vanity still cultivating, yet there was clear pressure on his shoulder. The hand felt viscous and wet and reeked of blood. He gulped and answered his sister, "Vanity, I didn't wish to disturb you! This is a simple misunderstanding."

She continued staring at the wall and tilted her head in confusion; her reply came from behind him, "I am terribly bored, brother."

Damien sighed loudly before whispering, "Fine. You can come with me but keep the twins busy and protect this place."

The creature of Ichor blood floating behind him condensed into a slightly shorter mirror image of Vanity and skipped alongside him; the clone placed a finger on her chin and cheekily asked, "Soooo Brother, who is the lucky one to receive your wrath?"

Damien shook his head, "Not wrath, my bloodthirsty sister. To earn my wrath implies they angered me personally. The destruction of Staedbergh is merely a business deal. Nothing more, and nothing less."

"Which fool sold their soul to the devil?" Vanity's clone was filled with curiosity.

Damien grinned, "Someone that didn't read the fine print."