The night sky stretched endlessly above, a silent canopy of black scattered with cold, distant stars. Down below, through a narrow, shadow-drenched alleyway, a lone figure staggered forward.
Marcus’s breaths ca in ragged, tearing gasps. Sweat slicked his face, dripping from his chin as he stumbled, each footfall uneven and heavy. He veered toward a wall, one trembling hand slapping against the cracked tiles to steady himself.
He glanced over his shoulder, then tilted his gaze upward, searching the rooftops. His fingertips sparked faintly, small flickers of blue lightning jumping between them before sputtering out.
“I can’t see them anywhere,” he muttered, voice breaking with exhaustion, “but I don’t think they’ve given up.”
His legs gave way. Marcus let himself slide down the cold wall until he was sitting on the dirty concrete floor. He didn’t care what gri or filth clung to him anymore. His whole body throbbed with pain. His muscles felt torn, his arms were shredded with cuts, and his bones ached like they might crumble if he tried to move again.
‘That man... he was so strong,’ Marcus thought bitterly. ‘I never stood a chance. Running was the only choice. Using all of my energy to bring the building down behind ... it had to be done. But even after that, I doubt he’s dead.’
A darker thought gnawed at the back of his mind, one that chilled him more than the night air.
‘Did they let go? Did they want to escape, just to follow later?’
He had tried to reach the other mbers of the Dark Guild, sending out urgent signals across their channels, but nothing. No response from anyone.
‘It had to be a coordinated strike,’ he told himself. ‘It wasn’t just . They must have hit every base, every cell at once. But why? Why target us now? Was it because we were helping the Lupus pack... or was it sothing else? Did they want our items?’
His fists clenched, and he winced at the pain that flared up his forearms. The Dark Guild wasn’t supposed to be vulnerable like this. They had bases spread across multiple cities. Their mbers were feared, many of them trained in the use of Qi, and most carried powerful artifacts at all tis.
There was a reason they were called one of the Kings. Even if another King attacked them, taking down the Dark Guild was supposed to be nearly impossible.
And yet here he was, alone, broken, running for his life.
‘No,’ Marcus growled inwardly. ‘If I stay here, I die. The only thing I can do now is make it to another base. Maybe... maybe there are other survivors still out there.’
Gritting his teeth, Marcus forced his body upright. His legs scread in protest, but he pushed on, dragging one foot ahead of the other. He had barely taken a few steps before sothing flickered in the darkness ahead.
Two glowing red dots.
His heart stopped.
Eyes.
The sa eyes that had been stalking him for hours.
“You guys really don’t leave alone, do you?” he rasped. “Always waiting... only coming out after I’ve barely managed to recover.”
He raised his hand. Sparks crackled between his finger and thumb, but fizzled away before they could form into anything solid.
Too drained.
Too empty.
His powers were failing him.
The red eyes darted forward, and from the shadows, a figure lunged, a pale blur with clawed hands outstretched.
Marcus braced for death.
A flash of light split the alley like a thunderbolt.
A beam lanced from the side, striking the vampire mid-leap. Its body disintegrated in a burst of white fire, collapsing into drifting ash. Its severed hand thudded to the ground with a hiss, crumbling into dust monts later.
“I told you we should’ve left earlier,” a calm voice said from the side. “If we’d been any later, he’d be gone.”
Marcus’s eyes darted toward the voice. Monts ago, there had been nothing there. Now, two figures stood at the mouth of the alley, side by side, as though they had simply appeared from the shadows themselves.
One of them, a tall man with a greatsword slung casually across his shoulder, let the weapon rest against his back as he stepped closer. The other gave off a strange presence that prickled Marcus’s senses. Sothing about him felt oddly familiar, though Marcus was certain he had never seen the man before in his life.
Before Marcus could speak, the unfamiliar man lifted a small canister and sprayed sothing toward him. A fine mist enveloped Marcus, soaking into his torn clothes and stinging the cuts along his skin.
“You have a rather large wound on you,” the man said matter-of-factly. “You reek of blood. No wonder they’ve been able to track you.”
Marcus blinked, confused, as the mist quickly dried.
The man continued. “You should’ve figured it out by now. That vampire wasn’t trying to kill you. They were tracking you, using you. Keeping you alive so you’d lead them to any other survivors still out there.”
Marcus’s breath caught. His mind flashed through the long chase, the way the vampires had stalked him but never gone for the kill, always staying just out of reach.
They hadn’t been trying to finish him off.
They’d been herding him.
Right now, Marcus didn’t trust anyone. He never had, not fully, and after what had just happened tonight, that paranoia was carved even deeper into him.
But these two... they had saved his life. And they spoke about the creatures as if they truly understood them.
He hesitated, then forced out the words. “Who... are you? Why are you here?”
The man with the strange presence looked him over, eyes calm and sharp.
“Marcus,” he said. “Leader of the Dark Guild.”
Marcus stiffened.
The man tilted his head, a faint smile flickering. “You’ve got fascinating powers. They’re becoming more common among your kind, I’ve noticed.”
He gestured to the swordsman beside him. “This here is my assistant, Dean.”
Then his gaze locked onto Marcus once more, and the air seed to shift around him as he spoke the last words.
“And as for myself... I am Rickle. One of the founders of NIRV.”
Author’s Note
(No Chapter yesterday, I moved city 12 hours away and everything has been chaos. The apartnt we moved into has extrely toxic furniture, so I’ve spent the whole day looking for a new place while we currently have nowhere to stay, including my son. We’re at a BNB now. I’ll try to make up for it on the weekend once we have a proper place.)
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When news drops about My Vampire System, My Werewolf System, or any other series, you’ll hear it there first. If I’m not too busy, I tend to reply.
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