A massive sailing ship drifted several kilometers off the coastline.
On the rear deck stood a tall, broad-shouldered middle-aged man with a full white beard and a stern, commanding presence. He gazed into the distance at the continent slowly shrinking behind them. This man was the immortal Alexander Corvinus—the very one Chen Mo had been searching for all this time.
As he watched the land he was about to leave behind, a flicker of silver suddenly entered his sight.
On the towering cliff by the shore, a squad of silver-armored knights appeared. Among them, his gaze instantly locked onto the tallest figure—the only one cloaked in black. Alexander Corvinus' eyes grew heavy, angry, and deeply confused.
Ever since that plague centuries ago awakened the "perfect blood" inside him—granting him immunity to all disease, immense strength, and more importantly, eternal life—he had never considered himself above humanity. Humans were the true masters of this world. He was the outlier—an aberration.
So he gave up his lands, concealed his identity, and lived quietly as an ordinary man… until the day his two sons were bitten by a vampire bat and a wild wolf.
Both inherited fragments of his perfected blood. Their wounds caused them to evolve—but unlike him, their change was more like a mutation. Their bodies twisted, their instincts warped, their temperament completely overturned.
Marcus grew elongated fangs, developed a fear of sunlight, and became overwhelmed by an uncontrollable hunger for blood. The livestock at home were drained dry. He nearly turned on humans if Alexander hadn't stopped him.
William's transformation was even more extreme. He became a beast—feral, brutal, bloodthirsty. He didn't even recognize his own father and tried to rip him apart in a frenzy.
Alexander believed all of this was divine punishment—for possessing power no human was meant to have.
They were his sons—mutated or not. Alexander could not bring himself to kill them. Instead, he drove them away, leaving their fate to the world.
But when the scourge of the werewolves began to spread, he finally understood just how terrifying his son William truly was.
Even then, he could not slay his own child. He merely followed behind, cleaning up the aftermath, trying desperately to contain the devastation.
His power was great, his warriors elite, but even so, the werewolf plague swept across Europe unchecked.
He knew the source was William. Capture or kill William—this nightmare would end. But Alexander could never bring himself to act. He merely followed, burying corpses and burning villages, cleaning chaos without ever stopping its cause—until Chen Mo appeared.
Back in the valley, while Chen Mo and the Knight Order fought off hundreds of werewolves, Alexander had been hiding further away, wary of Marcus—who lurked in the forest. Chen Mo had not sensed them, both because of the distance and because Alexander's people were exceedingly well-hidden.
Yet Alexander witnessed everything—Chen Mo unleashing bolt after bolt of blue lightning, obliterating every werewolf in sight.
That scene shook him to his core.
That was power belonging only to gods.
In that moment, he felt it—Chen Mo had come to reclaim the power he should never have possessed.
But Alexander would not submit. After centuries of life—watching humans grow old and die while he remained untouched by time—he could not accept returning to mortality. If heaven wished to take his immortality, then let heaven catch him with its own hands.
So when Chen Mo withdrew, Alexander abandoned both Marcus and William. He and his followers slipped out of Chen Mo's territory.
From then on, he monitored Chen Mo's every move through the information networks he'd built over centuries. He soon learned of Marcus' submission and William's imprisonment. He felt no anger—William had slaughtered for centuries. Imprisonment was more mercy than he deserved.
The massive search that followed confirmed Alexander's worst fear:
Chen Mo truly was hunting him.
But how? Only Marcus knew of his existence—and Marcus never realized Alexander had been following from the shadows. So how did Chen Mo find him?
If not for the instinctive warning he felt upon first seeing Chen Mo—if he hadn't escaped immediately—he might already be surrounded by Chen Mo's army.
Though powerful, Alexander and his warriors were nothing compared to Chen Mo's vast, heavily-armed Knight Order. They would have been crushed.
Fortunately, Europe was vast. As long as he remained moving, Chen Mo would never corner him.
Or so he believed.
But Chen Mo's expansion exceeded all his expectations.
After failing to find Alexander, Chen Mo launched an unstoppable campaign of conquest. His Knight Order swept across the continent like a tide of steel—no army could stand, no fortress could stop them. Wherever their iron hooves tread, the nine-headed hydra banner rose.
Terrified, Alexander fled westward again and again, always keeping just ahead of the Knight Order. But Chen Mo's expansion grew too fast—his territories merged, blocking off all eastern routes.
Finally, Alexander was pushed all the way to the westernmost edge of Europe—the Cape of Roca.
There, posing as a noble in exile, he joined the terrified local lord. He donated great wealth, strengthened defenses, and helped prepare for Chen Mo's invasion. The local lord, once tyrannical in his own domain, trembled at the stories of how Chen Mo dealt with nobles. Knowing he was doomed regardless, he chose to resist to the death.
Alexander—a fellow "fugitive noble"—seemed a godsend. He offered money, manpower, and strategy. The lord trusted him completely.
Alexander did indeed reinforce the fortress. But in secret, he prepared his own escape route.
Below the cliff, his people quietly constructed a massive ship, stocking it with provisions and water. They finished everything just before Chen Mo's forces arrived.
When the Knight Order appeared outside the fortress, Alexander left the lord—his unwilling shield—to face Chen Mo. He slipped away with his warriors, boarding the waiting ship and sailing into the open sea.
For three years he had fled, chased from one end of Europe to the other. Now, at last, he had escaped Chen Mo's grasp.
With the naval technology of this era, Chen Mo could not possibly send cavalry across the sea. The only force Alexander feared was the heavy cavalry. If Chen Mo dared to pursue without horses, he would learn firsthand that Alexander Corvinus—the first Immortal—was no mere coward.
He would show Chen Mo the power he had honed over centuries.
He had not lived these hundreds of years in vain.