He yanked Soren forward, fabric tight in his fist, then sprinted. Movement came fast - no warning, just motion.
Beracah allowed the pull to take him, just for four seconds - plenty of time to scan the bounty display. Three hunters fanned through the market, shifting to block escape paths. The closest already triggered something. Air near his sword turned flat, colorless. That hush meant suppression tech. Gear that muffled abilities, like Soren once explained. Costly stuff. Not here for show.
Interesting.
That worried look might help," Soren muttered, yanking him behind a market stand.
"I'm concerned."
"You look like you're on a walk."
"I'm concerned and on a walk."
A noise came out of Soren's mouth, almost but not quite speech, then he pulled them sideways into a slim path wedged between shops - one of those accidental cracks cities grow where walls miss each other. The marketplace din changed back there - less chatter, more holding breath, like people had silently agreed to watch.
Beracah noticed the silence first - no crunch of leaves, no breath too loud. Fast movers leave quiet behind. Not rookies chasing luck with noisy boots. Three figures ahead knew when to vanish between trees. Experience shows in what you don't hear. Speed like that comes only after many long nights doing exactly this.
A narrow opening led out to a quiet road. Right he went, steps steady, mind tracking what Beracah already knew - detour meant broader lanes, more people around, less chance of being cornered by those three, not with eyes everywhere. Clever move. Three full years he'd stayed alive here. Every second proved it.
A figure appeared on the roof, moving slow. One by one, steps broke the silence. Then a man stepped forward - first of his kind here. He carried nothing but shadow behind him.
A figure slammed into the ground before them - clad in thick armor, grip tight on a suppression blade, its dampening pulse rolling forward like frost creeping across glass. The wave touched Beracah's interface. His powers flickered. Half vanished without sound. Power drained silent.
Half.
Some stayed untouched. When the dampener ran its check, it looked only at approved types - no alert came through since the System kept silent on others. Where the signal frayed, Malware crept in slowly, nibbling around corners, opening paths that weren't meant to be open.
Back then, the truth still hid from him.
The hunter spoke without pause, voice steady like clockwork. A system-enforced reward triggers this pursuit -
Beracah slapped his throat hard, moved ahead as he stumbled, then just continued on.
Move along, he called back to Soren without turning fully.
✦ ✦ ✦
Down near where the road stopped, two more hunters stood still. They waited there without moving much.
One moved left as the other stepped ahead, blocking escape that way. Classic squeeze play. Not shooting yet - pulling energy into a bolt instead. Armor thick, stance wide, second fighter held ground with field humming. Zones merged where they stood, silence spreading under shared power.
Darkness crept across Beracah's display where the zones met.
Almost.
A jolt of energy struck his shoulder, faster than his reflexes could catch the warning sign. Back he flew, stumbling twice, weight behind it, harm done - agony sliced through him clean and exact, mirrored by the system without delay. His eyes dropped to the display, automatic.
Thirty-fourty out of two thousand two hundred health points. Mana burn affects the shoulder area, movement slows by eighteen percent
Down. Way below what he wanted when things started.
Out of nowhere, the close-combat fighter surged forward - a sudden burst, like vanishing then reappearing ten meters nearer - slashing downward with a suppressor-edged weapon meant for his shoulder. Beracah lifted an arm just in time. The parry cracked hard through bone, rattling his jaw, while the enemy's disruption aura pressed near, making his last working abilities stutter like faulty lights.
Out of nowhere, a noise came from Soren at his back.
Nothing came out. No cry either. Just the noise people make when hurt hits them by surprise.
Beracah turned.
That first hunter - the one struck in the throat, left behind moments ago - moved again too soon. Not Beracah. He aimed for Soren. Better choice. Easier mark. Kneeling now, Soren clutched his side, fingers digging through ripped Phantom Medic fabric near the ribs. The suppression blade had opened skin there. Red filled his health display.
Soren Ashvale stands at eighty nine health out of one thousand one hundred. Bleeding continues without pause. Health ticks downward between breaths. A steady red marks his sleeve
Eighty-nine.
A second strike began as the hunter lifted the blade again.
A weight turned inside Beracah, deep behind his ribs - not fear, not anything gentle like that. An older presence. One that had stayed still ever since he saw the countdown glowing in the cave, noted it without reaction, then walked on. It made no sound when it came. Just settled in, like frost at dawn, like truths you stop arguing with.
This time, he stood his ground - no more vanishing acts would go unseen.
Not today.
Out of reach at any bazaar, half a million coins deep, found by three trackers unaware of the path they'd taken.
Down below the useless powers, beneath the blocked functions and silenced codes, past where labels read VOID or BROKEN like scars across memory - he touched a layer older than edits. A trace left behind when cleanup missed its mark. It stayed hidden there, quiet as marrow, since testing days long wiped from logs.
Without knowing the signal, he moved anyway. Needing it never crossed his mind.
Softly, he spoke. Rise now. That was it
The lifeless spoke back.
✦ ✦ ✦
Out of nowhere, night arrived. It showed up before anything else.
Darkness came, thick and heavy, rising from the cracked pavement as if the earth were seeping night itself. Six degrees colder - just like that. Anyone nearby froze. Hunters too. So did the glowing bolt mid-cast; its power faded out, undone by a presence deeper than magic, one that made the world hold still.
Pools of darkness gathered. Up it lifted. Form took hold.
Seven feet tall, maybe more, he filled the space like pressure before a storm. Wide shoulders strained against fabric - neither metal nor wool, but something shifting between forms, slipping through air like water uphill. Sharp cheekbones cut across his face, skin dull and grey as burnt paper. Those eyes: dark red, not fresh blood but what comes after, when heat fades. Motionless, yes - but less like waiting and more like memory refusing to catch up. Not still like calm, but like everything around him slows just by proximity.
His eyes moved toward Beracah.
Beracah looked back.
A window popped up, nothing like the ones seen earlier. Gone were the flat green letters, missing too the usual frame around it. Instead, a dark purple filled the display. Around its edges ran markings, faintly resembling handwriting.
═════════════════════════════════
Emperor of the Undead Title Ability
═════════════════════════════════
First Court Summons Initiated
Alucard
Vampire God Apex Class
BOUND EMPERORS COURT
This entity existed before the System
Classification Impossible
Just let it happen instead of trying to stop anything
════════════════════════════════
His gaze slid sideways, settling on the trio of hunters like a door creaking open after years shut tight.
A single step back came from the man holding a knife stained by Soren's blood.
Then another.
Running took over, all three caught in its rush.
Back they walked, those two. Alucard stayed still. He did not follow. His gaze settled on Beracah then, face calm but not blank - less a question, more like he saw something familiar, though not quite named. Not submission. Not defiance either. A quiet moment shaped by knowing.
A small tilt of the head. Just enough. Less than a nod, more like a shift in weight - the first time such stillness allowed even that much motion.
Beracah kept eye contact, just for a second. Down on one knee beside Soren, he examined how bad the bleeding was. His palm went firm against the injury.
"Still alive?"
Barely," Soren replied, eyes locked on Alucard past Beracah's form, face pale like dawn breaking too soon. Not a sound came out at first - then, quiet, uneven: "What… what even is that."
Mine," Beracah stated, voice low. A pause followed before the word settled between them like dust after a fall.
Up above, the street lay still - people stuck mid-step, the spot where hunters vanished, shadows creeping like ink through rock. All those eyes, dozens of them, fixed right there. Not on the scene. On Alucard. And that glowing violet display, hanging in air, only clear if your senses reached far enough.
The Emperor of the Undead.
That name wasn't one he picked during testing. It came from the system - just like all wiped-out roles got their final tag ahead of deletion. Back then, it didn't mean anything to him.
Now he gave it a moment's mind.
On his feet now. He reached out to pull Soren up instead of just waiting. His gaze landed on Alucard - frozen in place, right where the cobblestones met dust, as if he'd grown roots long before anyone arrived.
"We need to move," Beracah said. "And we need somewhere to go."
On his feet now, Soren spoke through shallow breaths. That spot I mentioned - maybe the entrance is big enough. His eyes flicked back to Alucard
That'll shift," Beracah remarked.
Maybe it wasn't real. Still, he moved as if it were, so Alucard followed close behind. People stepped aside without thinking. The road hushed - suddenly still, the kind of silence that comes after seeing what should've stayed unseen.
A glitch appeared deep inside the structure - fourteen sorts broke at once. Not one after another, but together, like they were tied.
A fifteenth began.