Chapter 1429 (Patreon)

“Fascinating,” I admitted after we watched the creature stumble into its former comrades' camp. It obviously retained little of its former intelligence or memories, but it was surprisingly mobile, despite the massive change in its locomotion. I was fairly certain I couldn’t adapt to a completely different gait as quickly as the creature, so where did the instinct come from? And, relatedly, where did its battle instincts come from, the ability to use its natural weapons, and apparently some innate Vampire abilities, like the sudden surges of super-speed I had seen Lia use? Lia, and now this creature, only this creature seemed much more competent with the skill than Lia had been when she first learned it. I remembered her running into more than one wall while experimenting with it, but this creature was using it competently in a fight mere minutes after waking up.

“The speed- how good are you with it by now?” I asked, uncertain of her progress. Maybe the creature had somehow inherited her ability, since that was the closest logical explanation I could come up with. 

“It can be a little challenging,” Lia admitted. “But I’m honestly not sure; I don’t fight all that often, you know? Most of the time, I use the speed to soundlessly appear behind someone and end the fight. I never had a partner to practise using it in close quarters like that,” she explained, making me nod in understanding. It made sense; you couldn’t train for fighting like this without a suitable opponent. Maybe we should try working on it, if we ever had an abundance of free time. 

“So, you aren’t sure if you could do what the thing did, or if you could, it would only be thanks to superior attributes,” I verbalised my conclusion, and Lia agreed with a nod. 

“I’d really like to know where the thing got its skills from,” I admitted, as the newly made vampire managed to tear out the throat of one of its assailants, only to be stabbed in the side moments later. “I mean, sure, it’s not really skilled, but think about it: it clearly doesn’t know anything, making it basically a newborn, but the thing can fight competently, even if it has no concept of numbers. Doesn’t understand a desperate situation…” I grumbled, only to fall silent when a piercing shriek rend the air, making me cringe as my sensitive ears were assaulted by the horrible noise. 

“Or maybe it does,” Elaine remarked, a faint grin on her face as the vampire used its speed to take off into the darkness, covering dozens of metres in a second or two before slowing and continuing to run at a less impossible pace. Though even that less-impossible pace was fairly decent, especially given that its locomotion remained rather goofy and clumsy-looking. 

“Should we follow it? Try to find out what it does now, and how much intelligence is behind those red eyes?” Lia asked, and I considered her idea for a moment. The people here wouldn’t be useful to us. They would lick their wounds for a bit, maybe investigate what happened, but they wouldn't contribute any useful information. But the creature might surprise me once again, as it had already done twice. First with its practical use of super speed, then with the piercing scream it had used to stun its opponent and give it an opening to flee. 

Because that scream hadn’t been purely physical, maybe not even primarily. It was a magical attack, largely created by amplifying a natural sound and then lacing it with Mind Magic. Rather impressive, and something I wanted to copy for the future, though only if I found a way to make myself immune to it first. After all, the creature had managed to stun me for a second or two, despite the massive gap in levels between us. Hel, the scream might have given the thing enough of an opening to get a serious, maybe even fatal, strike in against me, at least if I hadn’t known about the superspeed beforehand. That alone made it worth studying further. 

“Let’s follow it,” I told Lia, my eyes easily piercing the darkness between the fleeing vampire and us. Even from this distance, my eyes could make out the creature easily, and I could even look beyond it, quickly locating a convenient perch we could use.

“Want to try using the shadows to travel alone, or should I take you?” I asked, knowing Lia wanted to train herself in the skill, and using it for something fairly simple like that was good practice. 

“I’ll go myself,” she replied, and let herself fall into the shadows below us moments later, disappearing from my regular sight. Magically, I could still feel her as she moved in the shadows, maybe a little slower and less confident, but it was easy to trace. She might also have used more power than I did, but it was difficult to judge without a direct comparison.

Grinning, I followed her example, letting myself drop from the branch and dive into the shadows, my momentum vanishing the moment I crossed the threshold. Within the shadows, physical speed didn’t matter, only how well you could apply your will and magic. Because of that, I emerged from the shadows at the same time as Lia. 

“Well done,” I complimented her, as her travel had looked quite smooth to my senses. The next challenge would be to improve her control over the shadows so she could travel longer distances, and then to have her recognise the anchors from within the shadows, so she could target them. Otherwise, she would remain rather limited, unless she managed to create her own version of my thrones, as those were the original version of my anchors. Well, not really. ‘Original version' would mean my anchors were based on the thrones, but they weren’t. It was more like two completely different applications leading to similar results.

“Thanks,” Lia replied, her focus already on the creature fleeing below us. 

Suddenly, the thing stopped, its head scanning around frantically while I made sure that it couldn’t find us. I was curious what it would do, and scaring it, if that was even possible, wouldn’t really help us observe it. 

When it dashed toward the tree we were on, I was ready to dive back into the shadows to maintain the experiment’s integrity, but then I realised it wasn’t charging at us. Instead, it was charging some small critter in a nearby brush, a raccoon or rabbit; it was hard to see from above, too many leaves in the way.

I couldn’t help but snort with amusement when the creature reached the brush and leapt forward; its movements were simply too goofy to stay serious. And the dangling, even from above, I saw far too much dangling for my tastes. But there was little to be done about that particular problem, though I was rather impressed by the creature’s sheer aggression and savagery. 

It quite literally tore through the brush the critter had hidden beneath, shredding leaves and branches with unbridled fury and speed. The critter might have been asleep or something, but it should have been able to react, yet it didn't. The vampire managed to get its arms through the thick brush and onto the critter's spine before it could do more than hop up, and by then it was too late. Far too late, as the vampire broke the critter’s spine with laughable ease before ripping it from its hideout.

What followed was rather gory, as the vampire demonstrated the feeding etiquette usually associated with piranhas or something similar. Falsely associated, at least for the fish, but the image came to mind as we watched the vampire feed. It savagely tore the critter apart with fangs and claws, feeding on flesh and blood alike, but the truly fascinating part was what happened beneath the surface, the magical aspect. Or maybe the spiritual aspect, as the vampire didn’t just tear the critter to pieces and devour it; I could faintly feel the critter’s soul fade from this world, but even that was diminished, as if the vampire had taken a bite out of it. 

“That’s unexpected,” Lia admitted when I relayed my observations to her. “I don’t think I can do anything with souls, but…” she shrugged, admitting her own ignorance. 

“Maybe you can’t; it might be something unique to that thing, with its diminished soul. Or to it and others like it, as creating something similar wouldn’t be too hard if we were so inclined,” I admitted, wondering if the thing would be useful. Maybe as a guard of sorts, but the care and feeding might be difficult. I had a feeling that this type of vampire wouldn’t be easy to domesticate. 

“Give me a moment,” I told her when an idea struck me. I felt a little silly for not considering something like this before, but it didn’t matter much. A touch of Overflow, a burst of Mind Magic to stun the vampire and put it to sleep, then I could approach easily and carve a runic mark in the back of its neck, anchoring it to the creature’s very magic, so it wouldn’t fade, nor could it be removed without destroying the vampire. The mark was now part of the magic that animated it, letting me find it wherever it went and study it later. 

“I’m done,” I told Lia, once I was back in the tree with her. “We can continue observing.”