Wandering the Demon Castle

chapter 7

I

Once he was done toweling off and changing his clothes, Bligh felt like he’d come back to life. “Paradise, pure paradise,” he said, sprawling on a bed.

Just then, Josette came in and said, “I think it best we all stay awake together until dawn. Let’s head into the living room.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bligh grumbled reluctantly, but as the same thought had occurred to him, he went out into the living room without further complaint. Beth and Arbuckle were already there. They were side by side, peering out a window.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Bligh asked.

Beth replied, “Someone’s coming.”

“Come for us already?” Bligh said, adjusting his grip on the spear and taking their spot at the window.

Something was indeed coming that way through the rain. A figure—no, two. One of them was carrying the other. The two of them had almost reached the farmhouse before it became evident they were Jan and Emily.

There was a pounding at the door.

“Don’t open it,” Bligh told the others, and he went over to it instead. Naturally, he was concerned about whether or not the two of them had been attacked.

“Please, open up,” Jan said in a voice that seemed to creep from the depths of the earth. “The two of us went out to the road . . . but no matter how long we followed it . . . we always came back to the same place . . . And finally . . . a tree fell . . . Lost our horses . . . and our bags . . . Got hurt, too . . . Hurry up . . . Hurry up and let us in . . . please.”

Bligh clucked his tongue. Head and heart both vacillated.

“We can’t,” Josette said, the barrel of her gun aimed at the door. She had more of a handle on the situation than Bligh did.

Bligh looked at the other two.

“We can’t,” Beth said flatly.

Sighing sadly in his heart, Bligh asked Arbuckle, “What do you say we do?”

“I leave that to you.”

Don’t just shrug this off, Bligh thought, bracing himself for the worst. Turning toward the door, he said, “Sorry, but we can’t. We’ve got no proof you two ain’t fallen into the Nobility’s hands. Huh?” Bligh exclaimed, finally noticing that there was no longer any indication of anyone outside the door. He called out to them, but still there was no answer.

“Look out the window!” the man said.

Beth raced over, then cried out, “They’ve collapsed!”

“I’m opening it up!” Bligh declared.

Disregarding Josette’s shouts not to, the man opened the door.

Jan lay right in front of the door, with Emily still cradled in his arms. The blood that soaked the right half of his body bright red was now painting a ring around him.

“Sheesh,” Bligh said, the word escaping in a low tone.

The right side of Jan’s head was horribly crushed. Emily’s head no longer resembled one at all.

Checking both for a pulse and looking at their pupils, Bligh let out a deep sigh.

“I’m surprised they made it back here. Okay, we’ve gotta bury ’em.”

 

D and Greylancer appeared in one of the corridors.

“He’s here!” Greylancer said, using his long spear to point up ahead.

D, too, had noted U-taker so far off he couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.

“Leave this to me,” Greylancer said, stepping forward. He was poised to hurl his long spear. “If we dispose of him, at least, there seems little chance of anyone making any strange creations.”

And saying that, the Nobleman made his throw.

An instant later, U-taker staggered. The crimson long spear stabbed through his chest and protruded from his back.

“Well done,” D said, because there had been essentially no time lag between when the Nobleman had hurled his weapon and when it’d pierced his target. This was the very definition of ungodly speed. Would D’s own speed at drawing and striking with his blade be a match for it?

“I’ll deliver the coup de grace,” Greylancer said, walking forward with bold strides. He was unarmed. Though there was absolutely nothing the giant could do if D were to try to cut him down at that moment, he didn’t seem the least bit afraid.

When the Nobleman had closed to about ten yards, U-taker’s body unexpectedly became a blur.

“That’s not good.”

Before Greylancer had even finished saying the words, something white flew from D’s right hand. The needle of unfinished wood went through U-taker’s body and jabbed into the floor. It was followed by a second, but a split second before it was to pierce him, the enemy vanished without a sound.

“He wasn’t destroyed. If he had been, there’d be dust left,” Greylancer said, his lips twisting with displeasure. “He vanished. And there’s only one thing that could do that.”

“Where’s the prototype?” D inquired, looking up into space.

“Are you listening, Duchess? Where’s the prototype? Also—were you the one who sent U-taker away?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the duchess said, her face hanging in midair.

“What are you smiling about?” Greylancer asked her. “It really was you, wasn’t it? I shall look into that later. Where is the prototype?”

“That remains a mystery. It may well be that the two of them are plotting something very serious.”

“Find them, and be quick about it!”

“Oh, you can leave that to me,” the duchess said, and a split second before fading she smiled.

“That vixen’s plotting something,” Greylancer growled.

But no sooner had the Nobleman said that than a gigantic form surpassing even his suddenly appeared up ahead. “Oh?!” he exclaimed, and in his surprise he was too slow in reaching for his long spear where it lay on the floor.

One of the prototype’s hands gripped a longsword that was most definitely slashing down at the top of Greylancer’s head.

Sparks flew. The blade that’d made a horizontal thrust to lock with the other longsword was in D’s grip. Drawn with ungodly speed, the weapon then went on to pierce the prototype’s chest so rapidly even Greylancer’s eyes couldn’t follow it.

At the same time, crimson sparks erupted in front of the pair. Greylancer’s force field had protected them from a particle beam fired from a weapon in one of their foe’s other hands. However, it also prevented D from counterattacking. The instant his blade flashed out for a second strike, the strange figure standing there melted away into thin air.

“It fled?” Greylancer said, turning to look at D only for an instant. His manly grin skimmed across D’s eyes before fading. “It would seem I’m in your debt now,” the Nobleman continued.

Naturally, there was no reply. Instead, the Hunter said, “Where did it go?”

Greylancer shook his head. “I don’t know. Most likely to the same place U-taker went.”

“Should we go back to the duchess?”

“I can’t control the teleportation device. But do you think she set this all up?”

“Probably. Can you think of any other possibility?”

“Toward what end?”

“The purpose this facility serves,” D replied.

“To make a new form of life, one that is neither Noble nor human?”

“Do you have data on humans?”

“Indeed, we do.”

“How does that compare to living humans?”

“Well,” said Greylancer, “flesh with blood pumping through it would give the very best results.”

“One of them vanished from the village above us.”

“What?” Greylancer exclaimed, a terrible light in his eyes.

“Apparently you didn’t know about that, did you?”

“I swear on the Sacred Ancestor’s good name. I knew that human specimens would be the best, and that was what the duchess desired. However, I didn’t suspect she’d actually got her hands on—”

“You let your guard down too easily.”

“Don’t say that,” the giant replied, scratching his head. It was such a typically human affectation, it seemed incredibly endearing. “At any rate, let’s head back.”

The two of them went down the corridor and came to an elevator. Its doors remained closed.

“They won’t budge—what’s that bitch up to?”

“Now we’re the ones who are an obstacle to her.”

Greylancer stared at D. The Hunter had struck at the very heart of the matter.

“She has a chance to combine all three species,” D continued. “I doubt she’ll let it go to waste. And we intend to stop that from happening.”

“Wait just a moment. I—” Greylancer protested.

“The prototype was clearly after you. Even if that was of its own volition, the fact that it appeared right in front of you was probably the duchess’s doing.”

“So, she wanted to remove one of her obstacles? Hmm, we’ve known each other for a long time, but I may have worn out my welcome, as the saying goes,” Greylancer said with a grin, rubbing his boulder-like jaw. It was the way someone smiled after drinking something awfully bitter. While perhaps not in the same way as D, the Greater Nobleman had surely lived an intense life. “However, if that’s the case, things become somewhat more complicated. No one but the duchess herself knows each and every nook and cranny of this facility.”

“Do you know the general layout?”

“Yes, more or less.”

“Then show me the way to where the genetic experiments are done.”

“A simple enough request—normally,” Greylancer replied, a world-beating glint in his eye, and a sad smile, wholly unlike his earlier grin, skimming across his lips.

The Nobleman was enjoying this. And he was looking forward to the mountains of corpses and rivers of blood he and D were going to leave in their wake.

“Unit after unit of soldiers from the facility’s slumbering peacekeeping forces will be activated,” he continued. “And there’s no way to reach the laboratory without plowing headlong through the area where they’ll be lying in wait.”

“And you object to with going with me?”

“No, it’s an honor.”

Greylancer swung his long spear. The roaring wind from it tousled D’s hair, but the inhumanly beautiful face it framed wore a smile. It was the sort of smile to make any who saw want to brag for the rest of their lives that they’d been the one to put it there.

As Greylancer was enraptured, D said to him, “Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

 

An hour had passed since the others had buried the pair. The world outside was crammed full of rain and darkness.

Is D not coming back? That was the thought that held sway in every mind in the group. But strangely enough, not one of them gave voice to it. For they all knew that his return would be an impossible stroke of luck.

Despite the fact that fear and worry seemed ready to split them open from the inside, a certain kind of quiet and composure hung in the living room. In a manner of speaking, in the face of certain death, they’d had a small taste of hope.

“Quiet, isn’t it?” Arbuckle said from where he sat in an armchair, looking at the clock on the wall. Even now it kept time correctly. “A little more than three hours till daybreak. That sure is a long time.”

“It’ll be here before you know it,” Bligh replied.

Josette, who’d been there silently stroking the barrel of her weapon, said, “You’re really determined to make it out of here alive, aren’t you? Have you got someone waiting for you out there?”

The roughneck nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got about a hundred favorite gals out there. Ain’t you worried about your hubby, lady?”

“Oddly, no.”

“Lady, you’re a cold one.”

“Yes, I’m sure I am,” Josette replied, not seeming the least bit angry, and she let her eyes wander through space. “He taught me how to be a warrior at heart. As he used to say, Don’t trust other people. Use anyone, even a child, as a shield. Always stash enough food and weapons for yourself somewhere on the battlefield. If you think you’re going to lose, even if everyone around you is ready to fight to the death, run for it. You can’t fight if you don’t survive—all these despicable notions, right? There was only one that I actually liked. Tell yourself you’re going to die alone.”

Bligh shut his eyes, while Beth gazed intently at Josette’s profile from her seat on the sofa. Arbuckle was fidgeting with his pocket watch.

“That’s a good thought to keep in mind,” Bligh said, his tone like that of a mannequin.

Just then, Beth got up and left the living room. Probably to use the bathroom. She’d been gone less than thirty seconds when a scream pierced the air.

“I’ll check it out. Stay here!” Josette cried out, going after her.

Create a disturbance out back, then hit them from the front—a diversionary tactic. At times, the Nobility’s strategies were remarkably simple.

Josette soon came back, pushing Beth along as she did.

“It was a bat—a bat-monster!” Beth kept repeating, slumping down on the sofa. “I saw it through the window . . . It was so big . . . like a human with wings . . . Only . . . Only, the face . . . It was Emily!”

Josette wrapped her arms around the girl’s trembling form.

II

“Duty calls, Doctor!”

Arbuckle came over, bag in hand. Expertly checking the girl’s pulse, he then put his hand against her brow to see if she was feverish.

“No need to worry. She’s just in a slight state of shock. I’ll give her a shot to relax her. Okay, get that sleeve rolled up.”

Pulling a needle and syringe from his bag, Arbuckle filled it with medicine from a bottle, got the air out, and quickly jabbed it into Beth’s arm. Beth made a little face when he pulled the needle out again, then pressed a cotton swab soaked in alcohol to the mark it left.

“So, you really were a doctor, weren’t you?” Josette said, her tone making it painfully clear how impressed she was.

“Well, after a fashion. I come from a long line of physicians.”

“That crest on your bag—I’ve seen it somewhere before. Oh, that’s right. Sutton Creek, in the southern Frontier. Isn’t that the McCanles family’s—”

“This is just something I won in a card game a long time ago.”

Stowing his things in the bag and shutting the flap, Arbuckle once again took the pulse of Beth, who was lying down. Barely open eyes looked up at him vacantly.

“It’s kind of ironic. You save a girl’s life, but still have to cart her off to hell.” Josette was probably referring to Emily. “Why couldn’t you have stayed a doctor?”

“On account of gambling and drinking—and women,” Bligh said from over by the window.

Arbuckle replied indignantly, “Keep your remarks to yourself, will you?”

“But I’m right on the mark, ain’t I?” he chortled. “A flesh peddler playing at being a doctor is just too damn funny. But if you don’t hurry up and settle on one of the two, you’re gonna find that chasing both brings you to a bad end.”

Anger tinged Arbuckle’s face red. He banged his right wrist against his thigh, and a little concealed gun shot from his shirtsleeve into the palm of his hand. The hammer was cocked.

“Stop!” Josette shouted, but before she’d even finished, both the top and bottom barrels of the little gun belched fire.

At the same time, the window next to Bligh shattered into a million pieces. But not from the pistol’s shots. Those were right on target. They’d gone right through the heart of the winged figure that’d just burst through the windowpane.

“Everyone, down!” Arbuckle shouted, firing a second volley as he dashed toward Beth.

Bligh stood there defiantly with his back to them facing a thing that actually had Jan’s face. In fact, it had his body as well. The only thing that’d changed was that he now had wings growing out of his back.

“They’ve undergone some sort of reconstructive surgery!” Arbuckle shouted as he stuffed bullets into his concealed weapon.

Having taken two hits—and with the resulting small-caliber bullet holes in both the right and left sides of its chest—the monster that’d once been Jan still flew effortlessly into the air. But a terrible force then honeycombed his body. When his body dropped to the floor along with mortar and chunks of the ceiling, it looked just like a battered old rag—but it recovered swiftly enough.

“Rest in peace, creep!” Bligh bellowed, charging forward.

Josette’s attack had done no more than halt the demon briefly. Its accursed heart was only a weakness when pierced by the legendary weapon of antiquity. The short spear was driven deep into him, but with an anguish-twisted expression Jan pulled it out again. And Bligh, who still gripped the shaft of it, was sent flying with a single swing of the spear.

“You must’ve missed,” Beth cried as she raced over to where Bligh had smashed into the wall, snatching the short spear from his hands.

Jan turned around. The fingers he held poised before his chest were curved like gaff hooks. He bent his knees, preparing to launch himself into the air once more, but Beth barreled straight at his chest. As Jan arched backward, he spat up blood. The head of the spear had gone right through the middle of his heart and was poking out of his back.

Once Beth stepped away, Jan took hold of the short spear with both hands. Though he put his strength into it, he couldn’t pull it out. Trying to take a breath, Jan only made a sound like the croaking of a frog, then fell face-down on the floor.

“Just as I thought—they were bitten after all,” Bligh said, mopping the sweat from his brow. “Where’s Emily?”

Josette looked all around. Hers was a cold gaze. To her, the cute girl was just someone to be slaughtered now.

“Someone must’ve turned the two of them into servants of the Nobility,” Arbuckle said, putting his hand to his chest.

“Damn it all. Wish they’d just come right at us instead of pulling this underhanded bullshit. I’d put down the lot of ’em!”

Bligh’s shouts bounced off the ceiling and walls before fading away.

A dark sense of fatigue enveloped them all.

As if to shake off the gloom, Josette looked at Beth and said, “You did good, you know.” She was referring to the way the girl had destroyed Jan. “Right through the heart with a single thrust—even for pros, that’s no easy thing to pull off.”

“I wasn’t even thinking,” Beth replied, trembling from head to toe. Sweat dripped down on her knees like a faint drizzle.

“Hold onto that spear. It might come in handy again.” Josette turned her gaze to the world beyond the window, adding, “Sure is a long night, isn’t it?”

The sound of the rain swallowed her words.

Beth’s head suddenly slumped forward.

Josette had noticed an intense sleepiness sweeping over her. This is bad. They must be behind this . . .

Her consciousness swayed wildly. If it gave way, the darkness would ride in. And the Nobility and their servants would be at the reins.

“Can’t fall sleep. Just can’t.”

There was no one there to wake Josette up when she fell to the floor. Both the men were slumped back against the wall, breathing easily in their sleep.

A figure was visible through the windowpane.

Beth got to her feet. A blank look on her face, she seemed like a different person. Going over to the window without a sound, she touched her finger lightly to the lock, undoing it.

In came Emily, accompanied by the sound of the rain.

All three of those abducted by the Nobility had been bitten and made their servants. Beth had probably slain Jan in order to earn the others’ trust.

Looking down at their former compatriots, now helpless captives of the sandman, the two girls shared a grin. They were the sort of smiles to make anyone’s hair stand on end.

“Who do you want to feed on?” Emily inquired.

“You can choose first,” said Beth. “You’ve been hard at work out there in the rain. Take your pick. It was unfortunate about your lover, but please don’t hold it against me.”

“Don’t worry about him. When we were human, I had the worst time trying to keep him from cheating on me. Got so depressed I tried to kill myself more than once. Before we were made like this, the thought of being stuck with him disgusted me, but now I’m finally free of him. Are you sure you don’t mind me choosing who I want, though?”

Beth nodded in response to Emily’s query.

Two pairs of eyes, which at some point had begun to give off blood light, concentrated their gaze on the two men and one woman.

“Well, I really do like my men young,” Emily said, licking her lips. No trace remained of the cute sweetheart she’d been before. Now she wore the face of a blood-starved demon.

Quickly squatting down beside Bligh, she pulled back his collar. Tilting his head to one side, she exposed his carotid artery. The sight of the blue blood vessel running beneath his suntanned skin made Emily swallow hard.

When the girl opened her mouth as wide as it would go, the fangs revealed weren’t those of a Noble. They belonged to a carnivorous beast. And they seemed suited less for piercing skin and more for tearing through flesh and bone with a single bite.

However, Emily didn’t actually get to put her fangs to the test.

It was Beth who first noticed something. A figure in black suddenly loomed beside Emily—and though she couldn’t see the face, the rest of him was beautiful enough to enrapture her.

“D?!” Beth groaned in astonishment.

At that moment, Emily turned for a look. And as she turned, her right hand swung around. But not with the strength of a human being. She swung it with the strength and speed of a vampire. It should’ve taken off everything on D’s head above the temple.

D stood in the very same position, not budging an inch. His right hand went into action. A bloody mist sailed through the air.

Clutching her neck, Emily backed away. Fresh blood gushed from between her fingers.

Beth hurled her short spear. It went through D’s heart and stuck in the wall behind him, but the Hunter made another swipe of his blade. Shrieking, Beth jumped back ten feet, the air swirling in her wake as she dashed to the window and made an effortless jump out into the rain, where she vanished.

And Emily was only seconds behind her. However, a rough wooden needle struck her back, piercing her right through the lung. The arc of her leap thrown into disarray, Emily thudded to the ground, but quickly got to her feet again and dashed off.

Crying out with pain and fear, she ran and ran.

When the two women came to the base of the watchtower, they paused to catch their breath. Their stark faces seemed to say, Could that really be D?

However, another question seemed plastered over nine-tenths of those faces. Reaching a hand behind her, Emily pulled out the needle that was stuck in her back. Her other hand remained pressed to the wound on her neck. The cut on her neck stopped just shy of the vertebrae, and the needle had narrowly spared her heart, so neither wound had been fatal. However, D’s attacks rarely let anyone off that lightly. Emily should’ve been dead twice over.

“That really was D, wasn’t it?” Beth asked. From the top of her head all the way down to her forehead, the rain was pounding against her bloody, exposed brain. Ordinarily, that would’ve been a fatal wound.

“I’m sure of it. But there was something different about him.”

Beth nodded at Emily’s reply. Every move she made caused the blood seeping from the top of her head to stain her chest and the ground.

Emily continued, “All our attacks went right through him. And while his sword wounded us, it didn’t manage to destroy us. It was D, but at the same time it wasn’t D.”

“In which case—”

The two girls looked back the way they’d come—toward the farmhouse where Bligh and the others slumbered.

Turning then toward the east, Emily said, “We’ve got until it starts getting light over yonder. Just how long should that ‘sleep juice’ in your blood keep working?”

“A little over three hours,” Beth replied.

“That’s almost until daybreak. Should be a nice challenge,” Emily said, baring her stark fangs in a smile.

Both of them were covered in blood. Their breathing was ragged, too. In a manner of speaking, they were half dead from their wounds. However, when Emily smiled, there was no longer any fear of the gorgeous Vampire Hunter in her.

III

The fire that’d broken out somewhere in the facility and the resulting malfunctions were not major concerns for the duchess. All she’d need to do was to isolate that sector. The Nobility had such science at their disposal that, if they so wished, they could put out a fire as large as a Frontier sector with an extinguisher no larger than the tip of the duchess’s little finger. And yet, while the way they had nothing better here for battling the flames than the ancient standbys of water and antiquated foam extinguishers seemed to be taking their love of nostalgia entirely too far, the duchess herself didn’t feel that way. She, too, was a member of the Nobility.

“Well, now, I simply must make the Sacred Ancestor’s hopes a reality before those two manage to locate me.”

The duchess raised her right hand.

The image that appeared in midair was that of the warrior, Lyle Brennan. His eyes were closed. He was unconscious. Having remained behind despite his wife’s wishes, he’d been easy enough for the duchess to abduct.

Two more figures appeared. One was U-taker. The other, the prototype.

Grouping the figures together in midair, the duchess used one hand to carry them to the back of the room. A hitherto-unglimpsed laboratory lay there. The duchess tossed all three of them, and each landed at length on a table. At the same time, machinery that had lain dormant lit up, and innumerable tubes and cords plugged into the trio of bodies.

“The time has finally come to give my blessing to the new fruits of this research. For millennia, I have developed these techniques of reconstruction—nay, of creation—and now I shall use them to bring a new form of life into being.” And then the eyes of the fearsome Noblewoman grew dark. “However, my actions run counter to the Sacred Ancestor’s orders. That I cannot do. I realize you wish to become something stronger. So I leave the rest to the three of you.”

 

“One thing bothers me,” Greylancer said, halting as if he’d just remembered something. Looking back at D, he continued, “The research here always ended in failure. And it was because of that that the duchess descended into madness.”

Nothing from the Hunter.

“If it was impossible to succeed in a sane frame of mind, she had no choice but to plunge into the abyss of insanity. Only there would she find the clue that would give rise to a new form of life, she insisted.”

“And did she find it?”

“I don’t know. To be honest, I’m not even sure whether she returned to her senses, or if even now she wanders a dark world of fears.” The Nobleman extended a single finger that was long and thick, yet still seemed gorgeous. “If she can produce some new normal form of life with the secret she obtained, that’s no problem. But if it’s some twisted, insane thing befitting a world of madness she found, the creatures she creates with it are bound to be misshapen monstrosities. The sort of creatures that would curse the world that gave them life, scorn it, lay waste to it without any regrets.”

“Like something out of myth?” D said, his voice flowing across the ground, seeping into it.

“Yes. We must find where she is as soon as possible, so that her experiments—” Greylancer stopped there.

D picked up the thread, saying, “Can you stop her?”

A pained look contorted the giant’s features. He immediately gave a vehement shake of his head, saying, “No, I can’t.”

“Then there’s no point in me working with you any longer. Let’s go our separate ways.”

“You say that so easily,” Greylancer replied with a wry grin. “But can you reach her without me to guide you?”

“If this place was constructed at the Sacred Ancestor’s bidding, I should manage.”

Greylancer studied D’s gorgeous features with gleaming eyes, quickly nodded, then said, “Yes, you probably could, at that. Very well then, D. We shall do as you suggest and part company here. Farewell.”

The Nobleman then bowed, and promptly walked off in the direction they’d come.

After watching him go, D started walking in the opposite direction at a brisk pace. Going about thirty feet, he turned and looked back.

The huge figure who was back where he’d started quickly ducked behind a corner. As the Hunter remained looking that way, the giant poked his head out again. When his eyes met D’s, he ducked back again, then came out sheepishly. Apparently the Nobleman had intended to trail along behind him.

The Hunter had no more time to spend with him. This time D started forward at an even faster pace. He immediately came to an elevator. Halting there, he began thinking about something. He didn’t have his left hand.

D closed his eyes. The silent contemplation written on his lovely visage suggested he was listening to the voices of the night winds, or else reflecting on some fathomless cosmic philosophy.

The color suddenly drained from D’s face. Not out of fright. Rather, it was the result of terribly intense concentration. His skin quickly became nearly as clear as glass.

Some forty feet down the corridor, Greylancer poked his head around the corner.

“What’s he up to? Just what in the world is he?”

As the Nobleman murmured that, D went into action.

“What’s this?!”

The Hunter put his right hand against the elevator doors. They opened effortlessly.

“Wait! I’m getting on!” Greylancer shouted, dashing down the corridor.

The instant the giant form had piled in, the doors shut and the elevator began to move.

D remained standing there like a wrathful deity, his eyes closed. There was no murderous intent about him. However, that was far more unsettling than the instant he drew his sword to square off against someone might’ve been. Greylancer had probably never had such an uncomfortable ride. But it was over in just five seconds.

Greylancer watched in silence as D stepped out ahead of him. Following after the Hunter and exiting the elevator, the Nobleman unconsciously let a question slip out.

“Where are we?”

And the Nobleman was serious. Though he should’ve been well acquainted with this bizarre facility, he didn’t recognize the spot where they now stood. While in the elevator, his Noble sense of direction—far superior to that of human beings—had told him that they were racing right, then zooming left, then rising and falling diagonally over and over without rhyme or reason until ultimately, and impossibly, spinning in circles.

“Even the duchess doesn’t know about this. This is one very, very dangerous individual,” Greylancer murmured to himself. The way he then grinned was truly in character for the Nobleman.

Just six feet up ahead, D turned right at the corner. When the Nobleman followed suit just a few seconds later, crimson flashes shot by him on all sides. Particle beams. One of them bored through Greylancer’s chest.

Not showing a hint of pain, he raised his long spear up over his head. The beams all converged on the lengthy head of the weapon.

In a few seconds, the firing stopped.

“This is what put the ‘lance’ in ‘Greylancer’—now watch what it can do.”

He struck his long spear against the floor. Dozens of streaks of light shot from the head of it, tracing in reverse the paths they’d previously taken, headed back toward the launchers. Fireballs erupted from the walls and ceiling, spreading with ferocious speed as Greylancer followed after D. For the gorgeous young man had walked away without a baptism of crimson beams.

The Nobleman came to a spot where the corridor branched off in five directions.

“Now, which way should I go?”

The indications of a violent conflict came from the farthest of the corridors.

“This seems promising.”

Muttering to himself that he hoped there’d be no further beam attacks, Greylancer dashed on.

Turning the corner, he found D matching steel with multiple foes a dozen yards away. They were probably the peacekeeping forces for this sector. The men wore green uniforms the likes of which even Greylancer had never seen before, and were armed with spears and shields. Their movements were strangely sharp and quick, and they seemed to be giving D trouble.

However, the noted Noble warrior was left bugging his eyes. Every time D’s sword flashed out, members of the peacekeeping force were slain. Nine of them encircled the Hunter completely, spinning their spears to distract D and attacking at staggered intervals in an attempt to drive him into a corner. Given the length of their spears compared to his sword, their attacks left them at a definite advantage, and from what Greylancer saw, they were quite skilled.

D disregarded all of them. They didn’t even bother him. D didn’t move a single step from where he was—or even a fraction of an inch, for that matter, and he seemed to be swinging his blade without any particular plan.

This shouldn’t have been happening. The spearmen were supposedly striking from beyond the reach of the Hunter’s sword. And yet they were slain, one after another. Those who charged in, those who leapt into the air—naturally they would be cut down, but when those out at a safe distance were laid low in fresh blood, Greylancer thought it had to be some sort of miracle caused by a kind of magic unknown even to the Nobleman.

“H-he can cut down foes beyond the reach of his blade?!” Greylancer cried out in amazement.

Perhaps overhearing him, three of the surviving members turned toward the Nobleman. All the laser beams fired from the devices on their chests were absorbed by Greylancer’s long spear. One of the peacekeepers raced forward and hurled his spear. It was traveling faster than sound.. Faster than a bullet. With a light swing of his long spear, Greylancer sent it flying back.

Following the exact same course, the spear pierced the heart of the one who’d first hurled it. He was knocked back thirty feet, where he fell to the floor. His whole body turned into liquid, spreading out in all directions. He was an artificial human.

In the seconds that battle took, the other two charged to attack. Spears struck at his chest and face simultaneously, but Greylancer countered them with his speed. Parrying both at once, he arced his long spear around at the same time. Or rather, he spun it like a vortex. Though his two foes tried to release their spears, the weapons wouldn’t leave their hands.

The vortex spun at speeds more intense than living flesh could bear. Before even a full rotation was complete, the peacekeepers’ bodies had been broken down into bizarre flesh and organs. The parts spun with the vortex, and when Greylancer stopped his long spear, they hit the floor with tremendous force.

Gazing with disgust at the liquid spreading across the floor, Greylancer turned then to look over at D. The Hunter was already walking away. All that remained at the site of his battle were puddles.

“The way he’s going, it doesn’t look like I’ll ever be a match for him,” the Nobleman said, whipping his cape around and following after the Hunter.

The duchess was bound to have better defenses than this. What other manner of foes would stand in their way? Curiosity and excitement about those unknown challenges made the Greater Nobleman feverish from head to toe.

A dozen yards ahead of Greylancer, D continued his advance. Without warning, his footing gave way. The passageway beneath his feet had sunk. D fell.

Not only that, but the gigantic form of Greylancer also fell through the air. He’d watched as the walls and ceiling had crumbled like spun glass. Below, he could see water baring its white fangs.

Is that the sea?

Since ancient times, the tales had been spread: vampires feared running water, and, once in it, they wouldn’t surface again. And now hunter and hunted plummeted like rocks toward the eddying waters of that impossible, distant sea.