The Fallen Vampire

"What the fuck? Who cut out the light?!"

"Cyprian! How are you incapable of holding a torch properly?"

"I-It was not me! The torch just blew out on it's own!"

"Excuses, excuses."

"Enough, I have a spare glowstone here so it hardly matters." An elven man said as he reached into his satchel.

A strong gust of wind blew his hair across his face just as he pulled out the small glowing stone.

"That's much better..."

"Still scared of the dark, Boreas?"

"Of course he is, he's still shaking!"

As the men laughed merrily, the elven man noticed they were missing one of their members.

"Where is Cyprian? Did he storm off?"

The men all looked around and realized that their young companion was indeed missing.

"Could it have been that we teased him too much?"

"No he's soft but he's not... a wimp..."

Suddenly, all of the men could smell something they had all become accustomed to.

The thick metallic scent of blood.

Normally they would have assumed it was coming from one of the animals they were caring, however the cleanliness of this scent meant that it undoubtedly belonged to a human.

"Cyprian!"

On the ground with his head dislocated from his body was the young human man who had been carrying the torch only a moment ago.

"What the hell?!"

"Who did this?!"

"Stay calm! Back to back formation, now!" The elf ordered.

As the men drew their weapons and got into position, their elven leader became deep in thought.

'I did not sense anything, could it have been an expert? No... this isn't the way they would do things... the only ones who would have a need to hide in the dark like this are...'

"Come out assassin! We know you're here and we will not fall prey to your schemes!" He yelled.

"An assassin?"

"Of course!"

"When I catch him, he's fucking dead!"

From within the shades of a tree, Indra watched all of his prey with a neutral gaze.

He was not surprised they deduced that he was an assassin, it wasn't as though he was exactly trying to hide it.

Unfortunately, they had taken up a solid stance that left him unable to pick them off one by one as he usually would.

A normal assassin would have to wait for them to either break their formation or cause a cheap distraction.

Indra however was no normal vampire.

'Dark Moon Art : Illusory Demon Moon.'

As the men shouted their threatening taunts into the dark night, a figure dropped down from a tree.

"So it's you! He's in front of me, men!" The elf warned.

However, instead of immediately coming to his aid, his companions began to make similar reports.

"There's one over here too!"

"I got one as well!"

"We're surrounded!!"

"What?!" The elf did not understand.

A brief glance at his surroundings told him that all of his men were seeing the exact same man approaching them slowly and calmly.

Even with these men right in front of him, he could feel no breath, no presence.

The man was not even bending the blades of grass underneath his feet. He was simply walking on top of them as if he weighed nothing at all.

"These are illusions! Do not fall for this level of trickery!" The elf warned.

As if seeking to test his theory, the assassin opened his palms and two long katanas with black blades appeared in his hands.

"H-he's got weapons now!" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑤𝑒𝑏𝓃ℴ𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"I see them too!"

"Bryn is right, this must be a trick!"

The men felt slightly more confident in their theory that what they were seeing was merely a fabrication, and even though they were still on guard, they were now scouring the trees for the source of this ambush.

Indra however did not care whether they believed in him or not.

He'd only had time to learn the first move of his mother's sword art but it seemed like that was going to be more than enough to deal with this bunch.

Lucky for him they'd lumped themselves together in one big group to make this even easier.

'24 Wraiths Sword Art : Northern Star.'

Indra's black blades began to glow red and crackled with electricity as he concentrated his qi into the weapons.

Two quick slashes in the air launched concentrated qi that took the form of a bright red star.

The elf named Bryn knew in his bones that this was an illusion, but his mind could not deny the indescribable sense of danger he felt from that attack.

"Dodge it!"

But unfortunately, it was too late.

Leaping up into the air, the elf watched as three of the attacks were revealed to be illusions as he'd anticipated.

However, the attack that he avoided was completely real and it cleaved through the rest of his hunting party like they were made of butter.

The two men at his side were bisected cleanly, not even getting the luxury of a quick death. The man at his back however was split into four pieces before he even knew what happened.

"Nooo!"

"Stop yelling."

Bryn was horrified to see in the corner of his eye that the assassin who'd just annihilated his hunting party had somehow appeared right behind him in the air.

'By the twelve... What kind of monster is this?'

Bryn continued to curse his unfortunate luck as his head was separated from his body without him feeling a thing.

Thud!

Thunk!

As the man's body and head hit the ground, Indra landed silently beside it without pausing to admire his work.

"Come out. We have to keep-"

"Ha!"

Indra caught Keran's leg that was on a collision course for his brain.

"...What are you doing, little wolf?"

"You bastard! How dare you use my beloved's name for me! Was it not enough for you to steal his appearance and taint my memory of him?!" Keran was so angry she was seeing red.

She'd felt all along there was something wrong ever since Indra showed up and now she knew why.

There was no way this could be her beloved since he did not even have the ability to cultivate!

"What are you on about?" Indra asked exhaustedly.

He was no longer certain if taking this job was worth only a single teacher.

'I swear that little snake better teach me every single thing she knows or I will fashion an accessory for Enyo out of her scales....'

"We don't have time for this. I am not an imposter."

"Liar! I'll kill you!" Keran was trying to free her leg from Indra's grasp but he was not budging even an inch.

Keran and Kohaku did not understand what exactly was going on, all they knew was that their savior had suddenly become their princess's enemy.

And as her bodyguards, they naturally had to defend her without asking questions.

"Wait." A feminine voice said.

Descending from the sky like a goddess among men was a woman that Keran knew very well.

"Enyo!"