“That wasn’t so bad,” Yu mused cheerfully as she looked at their captives, the two vampires they had just defeated. Both of them were unconscious and bound by her shadows.

  “Anyways, what about her?” Rayne asked, nudging her head at the former princess of the Argon Kingdom, Lucianna.

  The princess stared palishly at Henry.

  “We bring her back to Ulrum. This time, she will be in cuffs, and she will be pced in a much smaller room with significantly less comfort and with scrutiny.”

  “Wait. Please don’t. I was just—”

  “Silence,” Henry uttered softly, but his tone was deafening enough to suppress any excuses the princess might spout.

  “Still, all’s well that ends well,” Yu said. “I expected a harder fight, but these vampires ain’t much, are they?”

  “That’s because the dragon is with us,” said Kierra. “They don’t dare waste their potential and energy with us, lest they have to fight him after us.”

  “You fttered him too much,” Rayne baulked bitterly. “I can easily handle these two myself.”

  “You sure know how to jest, Zeva,” Kierra scoffed. “You can barely handle the female vampire. What makes you think you handle two of them?”

  “Your disbelief does not concern me. I know my own strength well.”

  Kierra chuckled. “I didn’t take you for a delusional person.”

  “Delusional?” Rayne walked up to Kierra, who was shorter than her by a head. “You want to try saying that again to my face?”

  “Well, if you insist, then I shall. Delu—”

  “Alright, that’s enough,” Henry jumped in between the two. “You two can argue all you want ter. The fight ain’t over.”

  Kierra raised an eyebrow. “Ain’t over? Those two are unconscious and in our captivity. How is the fight ain’t over?”

  Rayne’s expression changed. “Because there’s still another one.”

  Kierra and Yu widened their eyes and immediately scanned their surroundings.

  “Fun’s over. You can come out now,” Henry said out loud.

  “You did not disappoint,” said a voice from in front of them. The space whirled, and a vague, blurry figure revealed itself: a man with long, silver hair, dressed in a three-piece suit, holding an open book in one hand and a cane in the other. “It’s an honour to meet you, Lord Henry. You may call me Vince.”

  “If you hadn’t noticed me, I would have assumed that Her Majesty had simply misjudged you.”

  “She probably had misjudged me, considering what she’s doing right now.”

  “Oh, this? This is not her doing. This is our own decision. Her Majesty had nothing to do with this. We were—”

  “Save it,” Henry said and lunged at the vampire.

  “Predictable,” Vince muttered, closed his book, and tapped his cane on the ground. A spread of darkness appeared on the ground before him and something flew out of the darkness.

  Henry raised his hand and caught the cws that were aiming for his head. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  The monster with a deformed humanoid appearance roared as it struggled to yank its arm out of Henry’s grip.

  “I wouldn’t dare to, Lord Henry,” Vince tittered. “Even if I wanted to, it would not be possible. However, it’s a different story if we’re talking about distraction.” Vince tapped his cane once more.

  Henry threw the monster away and snapped to Yu. “Behind you!”

  Yu turned around, just in time to see another deformed humanoid monster lunging at her. Her shadows were fast, but the monster was close enough to reach Yu before her shadows— or that was what would have transpired if Rayne hadn’t already seen through Vince’s trick.

  Rayne shot past Yu and drove her heel into the face of the monster with enough strength to make the whole head explode into bits and pieces.

  “The prisoners!” Henry shouted.

  Before Yu realised it, the two vampires were no longer beside her.

  “I’m sorry, but I will have to take these two with me,” Vince said as he gestured at the two vampires beside him, hoisted by a gigantic snake that was moulded of darkness.

  “Don’t be sorry,” said Kierra. “You’re not going anywhere anyway.” Kierra cpped her hands together and barriers began to form around them, surrounding them, encaging them.

  “Impressive. To be able to conjure such a spell of this proportion in such a short amount of time… Your talents with magic might even rival Her Majesty.”

  “If this is impressive to you, then your precious majesty may not be anything special.”

  The smile on Vince crumbled. “Mind your words, Magus.”

  “Oh? You know what I am?”

  “Nothing escapes the knowledge and awareness of Her Majesty.”

  “And you won’t be escaping Ulrum.”

  Vince chuckled. “I know that I might not be able to match your strength, Lord Henry, but I am not without my own fir and strength,” he said and tapped his cane again. This time, a colossal humanoid monster appeared behind Vince, as if he had raised the monster from hell and into the living world. At the same time, the snake wrapped around its summoner without constricting him.

  Kierra snorted. “It’s useless, fool. You can’t break through my barrier with brute strength.”

  “Why do you think brute strength is all that this giant is capable of?”

  The colossal monster started shivering before it came crumbling apart piece by piece. At the same time, dark coloured gas was oozing out of its crumbling body.

  “Poison gas!” Yu excimed. “It’s poison gas, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Henry nodded with a grim expression.

  Lucianna yelped in terror. If the gas reaches them, she would be the first to die.

  “Poison… the weapon of a coward,” Rayne sneered.

  “The weapon of the wise. Now, dear Magus, will you release me from this cage, or will you choose to die with all of your friends here? And mind you, this poison is not gentle. You will die painfully and horribly. You have about a few seconds before the poison accumutes to the threshold. So, what will it be?”

  “What if we just kill you right here and now?” Kierra retorted.

  “Do you think that’s wise? Do you really want to provoke Her Majesty?”

  Henry sighed. “How fucking shameless. Why am I even trying to solve this peacefully when you clearly had no intention of being peaceful?”

  “Lord Henry. You best no forget that Her Majesty’s patience may be plentiful, but it is also finite.”

  “What a coincidence. So is mine.”

  “Your wit will not save your friends. Release the barrier, and things will—” Vince retched at the end of his sentence, and what spurted out from his mouth was not bile, but blood. He felt light. His world was tilting to one side. It took him a while, but he came to understand what had transpired. He cast his gaze down. His legs and hips were not below him. And he dropped to the ground. “What the f-fuck…” he stammered.

  “I’m very sick of that line,” Henry scoffed with a sneer. While the vampire was yapping away about his mistress, Henry had used Vacuum Breath to bisect Vince. Since he had learned to control the intensity of his power, he had merely whistled, but the output was enough to slice the vampire in half.

  Seeing how the situation was unfolding, Kierra dispelled the barrier and the poison gas scattered.

  “You… fool. Do you honestly think—”

  “Shut up,” Henry growled as he appeared right before Vince. He then pced his foot on top of the vampire’s chest. “Not another word.”

  Vince was reluctant, but he complied. He couldn’t oppose Henry’s words. It was as if some unknown force was compelling him to be compliant. Oddly enough, it felt eerily simir to how he couldn’t disobey a single word from Her Majesty.

  “Yu, take the two back to the vilge.”

  Yu nodded and came to retrieve the two vampires, who were still unconscious, along with her shadows.

  “Wrap them like a mummy. Don’t take any chances.”

  Yu did as Henry said and wrapped the two up like a mummy with her shadows.

  “Rayne, you go with her.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Just go.”

  Rayne flinched. It was unlike Henry. He was always patient with her no matter how impudent she acted. It caught her off guard to see him so solemn and bullish. She didn’t argue with such a Henry.

  “And what about me?” asked Kierra.

  “You can stay. I may have some use for you.”

  “Is that something you should be saying to a dy?”

  Henry did not entertain Kierra’s frivolous retort and turned his attention back to the vampire he was holding under his foot.

  “My… Lord… You should know… that I won’t be spilling a single piece of information about Her Majesty.”

  “Is that what you honestly think my intentions are?” Henry chuckled. “And I’m supposed to be the fool here.”

  “Then, why am I alive?”

  “To speak to your mistress.”

  Vince fell silent. His attempt at hiding his astonishment was in vain.

  “Given how much all of you thralls were boasting about your Vishara, I can only surmise that she can see and hear through your eyes and ears.”

  “....”

  “Well, if you’re listening, Vishara, consider this my decration to the end of our alliance. I don’t intend to decre war on you, but you have given me plenty of reasons to see you as an enemy. I will not pursue you. However, if you try something like this again, I will ensure that you personally pay for it. For now, consider this to be your reparation.”

  “What are you—”

  Henry did not let the vampire finish his sentence. He pressed down on his foot, crushing the vampire’s torso. The vampire showed only a brief hint of shock before life was expelled from his expression. Henry then engulfed the vampire in fmes to make sure he was dead for good.

  “...Isn’t this no different from a decration of war?” Kierra questioned.

  “If it were, I wouldn’t have bothered with all those flowery words. I would have simply flown over to Verugo and burned her pace down.”

  “...That’s not a decration. That’s already the first offence. Still, is it wise?”

  “Wise? Probably not, but I have run out of patience with her. She keeps screwing me at every turn. I doubt she has any actual intention of being my ally in the first pce. Most likely, her interest in the alliance is nothing more than a ploy to keep me from focusing on her. Now, she had made herself abundantly clear. She’s not to be trusted.”

  “Then, what about the two you have Yu bring back to the vilge? What good will they serve?”

  “Oh, they will be extremely useful.”

  ****

  Vishara jolted up from her throne as if she were unched from a spring. She was clutching her chest and panting hard. Sweat was even pouring from her head.

  “Your Majesty?” asked Mel, the maidservant. She climbed up the short step leading to the dais in a hurry.

  “I’m fine,” said Vishara, waving her maid away. She slumped back down on her throne.

  “Some tea, perhaps?”

  “Some tea would be nice.”

  Mel bowed slightly and began pouring tea that she had prepared on a small waiting table just beside her. “A bad dream, Your Majesty?”

  “No, it’s something worse.”

  “A nightmare?”

  Vishara snickered. “Oh, it’s a lot worse. It’s something more… tangible. I appeared to have died from having my torso crushed.”

  Mel frowned with confusion, but a second ter, her expression beamed with understanding. “Ah, I see. Whose torso was crushed, if I may ask?”

  “Vince,” Vishara said with a hint of sorrow.

  “Did Vince perhaps done something to provoke the dragon?”

  “He hasn’t. I had.”

  “A decration of war, Your Majesty?”

  “Actually, he made it clear that he had no intention of going to war with us, but he will no longer be leniet with me. Looks like we will have to revise a lot of our strategies.”

  “Shall I make the appropriate arrangements?”

  “Not yet. Let it be for now. We’ll stay away just like wanted. He’ll come around. Sooner or ter, he’ll realise that he needs me.”