The count launched another attack with his claws, but missed even though his target was slower, the movement of the badger woman suddenly feeling like she was an expert martial artist, her quick erratic movements caused his flurry of attacks to miss every single time.

He attacked again and missed.

Again and the ground shifted, the loss of balance making his claws lose their momentum.

Again and his attack had been blocked by a branch of a tree that had moved of its own will.

What was happening? The Count's eyes were darting around in confusion, an unpleasant feeling rising in his stomach. He looked at the trees around him and they seemed to be laughing at him. He looked further into the forest, but could not see it clearly, as if the night was much thicker than usual. He felt the blades of grass at his feet, their touch unpleasant, like a touch of a ghost risen from its grave.

"What trickery is this? Do you think a puny dark magic like this will help you?!" He shouted while thinking frantically about what was happening to him. Was it a debilitating spell? Or illusion magic? No, he should be resistant against those. There was only one thing that could penetrate all his resistances and protection of his magical equipment.

A curse, but it was still ridiculous, a curse should not have this level of power!

"Fall back! Retreat behind the wall!" Attacking while knowing nothing of the curse was reckless and the Count decided to retreat behind the safety of the walls to consult with his kin. This level of force would be unable to breach the defenses of The Waldorf Castle anyway.

It seemed ridiculous when he watched his army that outnumbered the rebels many times withdraw. Most of the force was comprised of hired mercenaries that cared little from where their gold originated as long as the sum was high and their most crucial weakness of fighting only on the winner's side was void as well, because vampires were rarely on the loosing side. Vampires were traditionally good at earning money, gifted with talents and abilities that enabled them to extort and manipulate wealthy people.

Still, the backbone of the forces were lesser vampires that were strong and numerous.

The Count watched his forces that reluctantly began to execute his command, the incoherent mass of mercenaries glued together by the layer of lesser vampires and his blood turned even colder than it already was.

"Reluctance? Defiance?" With horror, he watched his army's core that no longer obeyed his commands with sharp determination, some of them even stopped and began examining their bodies.

"No, this has to be a nightmare!" Count Waldhaiss watched his army to gradually halt during their retreat and a single shout made all hell break lose!

"The Count's blood control is broken! Fight for liberty! Take back you freedom and fight with Silverfang!" The next moment, many eyes turned to look at the Count, they were nothing like the eyes he looked into before the battle had started.

"I command you to kill the intruders!" He shouted, but there was no reaction, except for a wild grin that began to form on the faces of many of his formerly loyal subordinates. The hired portion of the army looked with confusion at their officers that halted in their steps, not knowing what to think about the abrupt chaos, underlining the sudden disarray in their ranks.

"Only one option left." Count Walhaiss knew that it had to be a curse and based on how incredibly lucky his badger-like opponent was, she had to be some kind of a conduit that channeled the curse's power.

"I have to kill her right here and now!" The Count was just a dozen meters from his target and was confident that he would be able to kill her quickly if he threw away all caution.

"You can disrupt my blood control, but what if it's my own blood?" He thought and changed the way he fought.

He roared and his body turned all red, tiny droplets of blood appearing on his skin.The volume kept increasing until his visage changed and he turned into a thin husk that looked frail like a piece of paper with a thick layer of his blood on top of his skin.

"Do you want to confuse me? Then I will attack in all directions at once. Try to disrupt the control of this blood, for my blood is myself!" In a split of a second the blood formed thin needles on the surface of his skin, turning the Count into a porcupine before the needles launched outward in every direction with tremendous speed and force. It was impossible for anyone who was near him to dodge the attack, everything around the Count being shredded into paste in a violent explosion of splinters and dirt.

The Count Waldhaiss' thin figure laughed like mad when he saw the body of the so called Silverfang to be turned into a broken mess, pieces of her fur flying everywhere.

"Eat that you bitch! I will not go down because of some lowly curse, I will break it just like this every single time. I will find the witch who did this and torture her for generations to come!" The Count roared victoriously as he watched the hostile mob falter in its steps the moment he had killed the self-crowned liberator.

Witches, beastmen, undead, warlocks, shamans, necromancers, ghosts, all of the dark creatures abundant in the west shall remain under the rule of the noble race of vampires. It had been that way since time immemorial and it shall not be changed by some ordinary curse. Looking at the chaotic melee around him, he spread his hands wide and commanded his army to advance once more against the crowd of all kinds of hostile creatures that had been confused by Silverfang's death.

The will of the vampire lords would always be the will of the west and there was nothing some little witch, ghost, necromancer or anyone else could do to undo their position at the top.

* * * *

"See, I have told you to hide instead, that the event was supposed to end like this. The vampires were a playable race in the game, there is no way it has been designed in the way you wish it to be. They are not going to lose, the witches were always just a flavour text to give the game darker and more mysterious atmosphere when needed. The vampires will hunt you down after this and restore control over their territory as easily as breathing. Just watch." Jerry sat on a tree branch and was looking at a hunched figure of a woman that breathed heavily. It was obvious that she had spent all her power to protect the Liberator from the Count's attacks up to this point, but his last move was too strong and she had failed to save their hope for freedom.

All was lost.

Her eyes shook when the body of the beastwoman had been torn into shreds, she knew that the curse had nothing to do with her soul, as vampires were turned, not born. The contradiction needed for The Curse of Twisted Origin had to be contained within a body, souls did not have any vampire origin whatsoever.

How could the liberation so many of them had predicted fail? Was what the skeleton was saying true? His language was often strange, using unfamiliar terms, but he could predict much as if he possessed some kind of forbidden knowledge of fate itself.

"She is . . " Right when all hope seemed to be lost along with the Liberator's body that had been turned to pieces, everything stopped still. All of them waited for something that had not come to pass.

The Count.

The mob of vampires.

The tattered remains of liberator's forces.

The witch.

"What is happening? The curse is not broken!" Everywhere, there were combatants yelling in confusion. Even with the Liberator dead, the curse had not been undone and their wills were still their own, unaffected by the Count that was yelling orders, trying to bend their wills to his again.

"The world itself has been cursed, this curse can never be undone! Kill the vampire lord! Take your freedom!" The hunched figure of the witch straightened herself for a second and shrieked madly. her action followed by a mob of lesser vampires, skeletons and others that attacked the exhausted Count as one. It took only a minute before his body was disfigured and unrecognizable.

His long reign had finally ended when his headless body fell on the soft grass between the forest and his castle, his seat of power where he ruled for many centuries. It loomed at the background, standing witness to yet another of its lord's demise.

"Now, I have to find the true liberator before the vampires do." The witch whispered, knowing well that what she had shouted for the crowd was a lie. The curse had not been broken, because the badger woman was not the only one marked. There had to be someone else with equal hate for the vampire control despite being the bearer of their origin and she had to find him soon, before the vampire lords would.

"Jerry, bring Silverfang when she resurrects along with our elites, we need to find someone." The skeleton jumped down from the branch and faced the witch whose features had became apparent.

She wore two gray cloaks draped over her shoulder, as if afraid that just one would have not covered her enough. She held a gnarled wooden staff that shone with sickly turquoise light at its end, forcing her to reveal a hand that held the staff, stretching like a spider leg from under her cloaks. It looked like whoever had designed the staff had continued with the hand in the exact same style, making the hand and the staff look almost like a matching set of items. The figure of the witch was hunched, but she was not small, she would have been even higher than the skeleton if she was to stretch her spine, as she had done when shouting to the crowd not long ago.

"And recruit as many former vampires as you can, many will be invested in our cause, not wanting to lose their freedom again." She smiled, her face was not beautiful nor hideous, looking surprisingly normal with short, unkempt black hair and eyes black as night. It seemed that she had been born human, but no one could tell for sure and asking a witch for her origin and secrets was asking for trouble.

"This is messed up." Jerry was still dumbstruck by the outcome of the battle and walked away to inform the others, the eyes of the witch following him with a wide grin.

* * * *

"Your power is broken, beast. This is your en . . " A phantom hand of bones suddenly appeared and crushed the speaker into a bloody paste, making it impossible to identify what or who he had been. The remains splashed onto the stone floor, adding to the carnage all around with only a single figure standing in the middle.

"Impudent." Morgul relaxed his hand and gathered all the blood around him with just a thought and absorbed it into his own body. It was very similar to breathing to him, natural and simple. He walked outside on a balcony that overlooked his gargantuan castle and clicked his tongue.

"This will be a tedious affair." He sighed and observed the chaos below. Some of his subordinates were leaving the castle in a hurry and others were running back and forth, not knowing what to do.

"All storms will pass with time My Lord, but we are ageless." A voice sounded from behind his back.

"Oh? I have thought that the bloodbond had been cursed quite thoroughly." Morgul glanced behind his back at one of his servants that seemed still under his control.

"The bond is no more, but those with real power do not need it to command respect." The servant dressed in black and red bowed to Morgul, who just lifted his head higher and laughed.

"Well said Salar, but it still complicates everything. Go, bring here those who are still loyal, we need to do some serious reorganization." Morgul gestured and Salar immediately walked away to bring those who remained and tell them that the rule of Morgul the Ageless was still far from its end.