Chapter 208. The Ravine. Part 4. Disappointment.
Dodging the claws, Severus allowed a trace of disappointment to cross his expression. He had not expected this from a Vampire at the peak of Magister rank. So far, the creature had relied entirely on its natural advantage in physical strength and speed. No magic whatsoever, as though it simply didn't know how to use any. Yet in his world it was precisely Blood Magic that had made these creatures something everyone went out of their way to avoid.
In those two areas, yes, the Vampire outpaced him. Only by channeling magic through his body could Severus keep up. But he had no desire to switch to spells yet. It had been a long time since he had fought with a blade at all, aside from training sessions to keep the skill from rusting.
Severus was not a master swordsman. But in actual combat he had never been outmatched by the strongest warriors he had encountered, and that was entirely because of how he combined magic with the blade. Over his short life he had developed numerous enchantments that could reinforce his body and his weapon, lending it extraordinary sharpness or an elemental quality, though the latter rarely lasted long, since most swords simply couldn't hold those particular charms, or the volume of magic being channeled through them, and eventually broke apart under the strain.
That had been the fate of nearly all his blades, with one exception: the last sword he had claimed from a defeated warrior. That one had survived until its wielder's death, five and a half years in total, holding the strongest enchantments he had been able to apply at the time. He had never determined what material it was made from, though in fairness he had barely tried. His mind had been occupied with entirely different things.
Dodging, deflecting, and turning the Vampire's claws aside was not difficult. The creature's movements were too repetitive and too simple, as though it had never learned to fight properly, relying almost entirely on instinct and natural ability.
For some reason, Severus felt uncomfortably like a man waving a red cloth at a bull and stepping aside as the animal charged.
Though he had to concede one thing: those claws were genuinely sharp. The floor and walls were suffering for it, which was also why he had activated the runes on his sword. He had no wish to be accidentally cut in half. He also had no desire to lose a useful artifact, even a modest one that could barely sustain a first-level enhancement array, when it had taken real effort to find.
Severus stepped back again, letting the sharp claws pass his face by a hair, then dropped low under the second swipe and came back up fast. Without holding back, he drove the sword's pommel into the Vampire's jaw and sent him staggering backward several meters.
Another thing in its favor: limitless stamina. He watched the creature land on its feet and noted, with some satisfaction, that the previous superiority had vanished from that green gaze. He gestured with two fingers, beckoning the enraged creature forward. It didn't hesitate for a second, literally launching itself at Severus, claws extended, aiming for his chest.
Severus caught the attack cleanly on the flat of his blade. A horrible scraping sound rang through the ravine. He planted a kick squarely in the Vampire's stomach and sent him backward again, then clicked his tongue with a note of irritation.
If the bloodsucker kept attacking this stupidly, there would be no training to speak of at all.
"Has solitary confinement for a few centuries finally taken its toll? Would it kill you to use some magic?" Severus drawled, tapping the flat of his sword idly against his own shoulder.
"Shut your mouth! Human!" The creature's eyes blazed with hatred as it hurled itself forward again.
"A deplorable display. If your ancestors could see this, they'd throw themselves headfirst into a boiling cauldron rather than witness the shame of it." He kept at it, deliberately needling the creature, trying to push it past composure into something rawer and less predictable. Maybe then it would become a proper opponent. Ah well. I had such hopes for a real fight. A light sidestep to the right, away from the open jaws. Though if it had managed to reinforce its core to the peak... A lean to the left, claws missing cleanly. ...something genuinely interesting might have come of this. A block with the blade, catching the other hand. Then he grabbed the Vampire's wrist and yanked it forward, and the creature's eyes lit up, already imagining its fangs in a human throat. Instead, it heard a flat, irritated: "Close your mouth," followed by a solid impact to the jaw. The Vampire's teeth snapped together and severed the tip of its own tongue. The small piece flew past Severus's head. The creature stared in stunned shock, hit suddenly by sharp pain, and then: "How you irritate me!" Another strike landed on its nose before it had recovered, and blood began to flow.
"Stop!" The vampire tried to raise a hand and pull free from the grip, but:
"I was looking forward to a real fight, and what I got was this!" Severus pivoted sharply and flung the body into the stone wall with tremendous force, as though throwing a ragdoll. The vampire hadn't even processed what had happened before the pain in its back and skull was joined by a sharper pain in its palm. The sword was driven through the hand to the hilt, pinning it to the wall. For a creature that had not felt pain in nearly a thousand years, it was a profoundly unpleasant experience. Vampires were undead, but they felt pain in full measure. "What in hell was that?!" The hand that reached for the hilt to pull it free was slammed into the wall the next moment and held there under the sole of a black boot, accompanied by another sharp cry. "Answer me!" And without restraint, Severus struck the bloodsucker across the face. The back of its skull cracked into the stone wall, and a miserable groan escaped its mouth. "I can't hear you!" Another strike. The nose bent slightly, and fresh blood appeared on Severus's knuckles. "Answer when you're spoken to!" A strike. "I will keep hitting you until I have an answer to my question!" A strike. Another. Another.
For the next full minute Severus continued without pause, hitting the creature steadily across the face with virtually no restraint. Vampires had decent regenerative ability. Blows like these caused pain but no serious lasting damage.
The whole performance had a single goal: to drive the creature past reason. It had been in a fury before, but reason had still been keeping the animal beneath in check. Now, with every blow, Severus could see the eyes growing a deeper, more saturated red, the attempts to throw his boot off growing stronger and more desperate.
Until, in one moment, a sound came from the Vampire's throat that was not human at all. That was the signal. Severus seized the sword hilt and threw himself backward. What followed him was no longer a thinking opponent. It was a beast.
Clang. Clang. Clang. A torrent of blows came at him at tremendous speed, almost faster than he could block. But the creature didn't stop, snarling, raining attacks on Severus without pause.
There it is. Superior force. I've missed this feeling for a long time: blood running hot, life hanging by a thread, one mistake and it's over. The runes on his sword blazed brighter, and the creature's body was thrown aside by a boot to the chest. Dangerous. He ran a finger along his cheek and felt the faint sting. I let one through. He looked at his own blood with a slight, crooked smile, pulling away from claws moving like razors.
"Rrrrrraaar!" The Vampire snarled and threw itself forward again.
Even in this state, still no magic. A shame. Severus was bringing his sword up to block the next attack when the Vampire changed direction abruptly. It sprang sideways, drew a hand across its own nose, and flung the drops of blood at the wizard. They hardened mid-air into thin needles, accelerating to dozens of times their original speed. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed Severus's face as he threw himself clear at the last instant.
The Vampire used those milliseconds to hurl itself at the wall to the right, kick off from it while Severus was still in the air, and come around with claws aimed straight at his back.
Severus saw the move coming. His eyes narrowed with something almost like amusement. He drove the sword into the ground below him, wrenched his trajectory sideways in midair, and drove his heel directly into the temple of the Vampire, who had no time whatsoever to understand what had happened. The stunned creature went headfirst into the wall. Severus landed, pulled his sword free, and waited for the next round.
The creature didn't move. That was completely unlike the beast he had just spent the last several minutes fighting.
"No. No. You can't be serious. We were only just getting started. Did I hit you too hard?" He picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it at the Vampire's head. No reaction. "Damn it all. And just when it was getting interesting." He let out a grim sigh, walked over to the collapsed body, cast a diagnostic charm, and after a few seconds let out another exhale. "Unconscious. Should have restrained the second seal. I suppose I got carried away." He looked at his right hand, still damp with the creature's blood, murmured something, and it was clean a second later. He raised his palm toward the body and levitated it with a gesture. "Tough one. I was hitting with full force and the temporal bone is still intact. Most likely in the final instant, without even thinking, it reinforced the bone through magic. Not quite enough to stay conscious, but enough not to shatter." He sheathed the sword, and a pair of magic-suppressing shackles appeared in his hand. He fastened one set to the Vampire's wrists and another to its ankles. The creature hadn't been using magic, aside from those final few seconds. But these shackles were considerably sturdier than ordinary restraints, and they carried an additional property: they absorbed ambient magic directly from the wearer's body, growing stronger in the process. That had limits, of course, but they should hold him. And if the creature somehow managed to break free, Severus simply had no intention of holding back, and would put it down permanently. He was keeping it alive only long enough to ask a few questions about this place, and for no other reason.
He dropped the body against the wall, walked back into the Vampire's chamber, and approached the sarcophagus. The gold he barely glanced at. Galleons were not something he lacked. His accounts held upward of three million already, enough to buy out all of Diagon Alley with a remainder to spare, if most of the buildings didn't already belong to the Ministry of Magic and Gringotts, both of which had followed his example and used their own institutional weight to buy up the majority of the shops.
What interested him about the coffin was its function: absorbing and channeling magic. At the moment, he was in the process of preparing a broadly similar ritual, though considerably more complex. Seeing something related, even loosely, might offer him a perspective that would help accelerate his work, or suggest improvements that could reduce the risk of failure.
He crouched in front of the sarcophagus and began with an exterior examination of the artifact.
"Right then. Time to get to work." He swept centuries of settled dust from the carved surfaces with a quick cleaning charm and turned his attention to the rune arrays inscribed across the stone.
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