Riven assessed the situation in an instant.
Luke was pinned behind a stone pillar, safe for now, but two vampires were already circling to flank him. If she didn't intervene, he'd be dead in seconds.
She moved.
The vampires heard it first—a sharp whistle of displaced air, like a blade being drawn at impossible speed. They looked up just in time to see a strange L-shaped sword descending toward them.
Riven didn't even need Broken Wings for this. Two quick cuts, four distinct pieces, and Luke's flankers were reduced to twitching chunks. His follow-up shots turned the chunks to ash.
"He's got backup!"
"Contact Deacon Frost! Now!"
"I can't—there's no signal!"
"What do you mean no signal?"
"It's being jammed!"
The vampires shifted their aim to Riven, unloading everything they had. Bullets filled the air like angry hornets.
Riven danced through the storm.
She deflected some rounds with her blade, sidestepped others, moved in patterns that seemed to predict exactly where each shot would land. To the vampires' enhanced perception, it looked like she was playing with them.
Panic spread through the room like wildfire.
Deacon Frost was the real power behind New York's turned vampire population.
In the hierarchy of the undead, there were two classes: purebloods—born vampires, aristocratic, ancient—and the turned—former humans, considered inferior by their "betters." The purebloods, led by the elder Gitano Dragonetti, controlled the vampire nation's official power structure. They looked down on turned vampires like Deacon the way old money looked down on lottery winners.
Deacon had clawed his way up anyway. Built an empire of turned vampires through sheer numbers and ruthless ambition. Earned a seat at the table through force of will. But he knew it wasn't enough. The purebloods would always see him as lesser. Would always stand in his way.
Unless he found a way to surpass them entirely.
The Blood God ritual. The Book of Erebus. A Daywalker's blood as the key ingredient.
That's why Deacon had been so careful about the recent attacks. Other vampire lords might have reported the losses to Gitano, requested backup, made noise. Deacon kept quiet. Every hunter incident was an opportunity—because somewhere out there, Blade was operating. The Daywalker. The key to everything.
When reports first came in about someone in tactical gear massacring vampire gatherings, Deacon had assumed it was a government operation. The humans occasionally culled vampire numbers when they got too visible. But Gitano's network would have detected official action. The wealthy elite—the ones desperate for immortality, willing to do anything for the "embrace"—would have warned their vampire patrons.
No warnings came. This was something else.
A lone hunter. Maybe connected to Blade, maybe not. Either way, Deacon needed to handle it quietly.
With Riven drawing fire, Luke stepped out from cover.
Two-handed grip. Steady breathing. Controlled shots.
The vampires had numbers and guns, but they also had a critical weakness: one silver bullet anywhere on their body meant instant death. It didn't matter if he hit center mass or clipped a toe—silver was silver. The playing field was more even than it looked.
Luke picked off targets methodically while Riven carved through anyone who got too close.
"Good thing body armor's restricted here," Luke muttered between shots. "Otherwise these idiots might actually be dangerous."
It was true. Turned vampires were, by and large, broke. The purebloods who controlled vampire society's wealth saw no reason to invest in their "lesser" cousins. Why spend money arming cannon fodder?
The economics of vampire society were surprisingly mundane. Blood was expensive—the "blood tax" that funded the vampire elite ran about ten thousand dollars per hundred milliliters of legally sourced plasma. Vampires who hunted humans without permission were eliminated to keep the peace and, more importantly, keep the money flowing. The whole system was designed to keep turned vampires dependent and desperate.
Great for vampire politics. Bad for vampire combat readiness.
One by one, Luke's targets dropped. The survivors finally broke, scattering toward the exits—only to find Riven already there, blade singing through the darkness.
No one escaped.
When the last vampire crumbled to ash, Luke took a moment to check his drops.
Most of it was junk. Cash. Random items. But a few things caught his attention.
"Gold coins from Dark Souls... a cloak from Elden Ring..."
Minor drops from games he'd sunk hundreds of hours into. Cosmetic, mostly. But they proved the System could pull from those universes.
Which meant the good stuff might eventually drop.
"If I could get Soul Edge..." Luke mused.
The cursed blade from Soul Calibur. A living weapon that fed on souls, hatred, and violence—converting negative energy into raw destructive power. In its original setting, it had corrupted knights, toppled kingdoms, and driven entire civilizations to ruin. The kind of sword that chose its wielder as much as the wielder chose it.
Luke had played a lot of games. Action RPGs, character fighters, hack-and-slash titles. The Yamato from Devil May Cry would be incredible—a katana that could cut through dimensions. Frostmourne from Warcraft would make him unstoppable. So would a hundred other legendary weapons from a hundred other franchises.
But Soul Edge? That thing was basically a nuclear option in sword form.
Assuming the RNG ever cooperates.
Luke scanned the room for cameras. Nothing obvious, but he wasn't taking chances.
"Help me pile the flammables," he told Riven.
They stacked furniture, fabric, anything that would burn. The church basement had reserve fuel stored in containers—gasoline for generators, probably—and Luke made sure those ended up in the pile too.
One match. One growing inferno.
By the time anyone found this place, there'd be nothing left but ash and char.
Riven retrieved the signal jammer, and they disappeared into the night.
The vampires arrived the next evening.
The door was open. That was the first bad sign. They rushed inside and found a gutted ruin—scorched walls, collapsed ceiling, the acrid smell of burnt flesh and gasoline.
"Goddammit." A blonde vampire in designer sunglasses kicked through the debris. "Another hunter attack."
"Why didn't we get a distress signal?"
"Frost. We have a problem."
Quinn—the blonde—turned to face his boss. Deacon Frost stood at the entrance, expression unreadable, wheels clearly turning behind his eyes.
Quinn had been crazy before he was turned. The kind of crazy that came from too many years of hard drug abuse. Becoming a vampire had stabilized him somewhat, channeled his mania into useful directions. He was loyal to Deacon in the way only the truly unhinged could be—absolute, unquestioning, eager for violence.
"This is the third location in two months," Quinn continued. "We're bleeding numbers. We need to do something."
Deacon stroked his chin thoughtfully.
The smart play was patience. Wait for Blade to surface. Let the other hunters thin the herd while he focused on the real prize.
But Quinn had a point. Losing too many vampires weakened Deacon's position. The whole reason he'd built such a large organization was to have leverage. Numbers were power. If some random hunter kept chipping away at those numbers...
"Five hundred," Deacon said finally.
Quinn straightened. "Boss?"
"I'm giving you five hundred vampires. Find this SWAT cosplayer and end them."
Quinn's grin stretched wide enough to show fangs. "Consider it done."
It was not, in fact, done.
Quinn threw himself into the hunt with characteristic intensity. He mobilized his forces, interrogated witnesses, scoured every corner of the city's underworld for information about the mysterious tactical-gear hunter.
He found nothing.
No trail. No pattern. No leads.
The "SWAT" had vanished like smoke.
PLZ THROW POWERSTONES.
300 , 500 , 1000 for each milestone 1 Bonus Chapter.