Smille, Smille (1)
Clubhouse, Blood Night.
When they kicked the door in, the place hit them with the stench of orgy and the sharp tang of bites.
Most of the patrons looked bisexual.
"Disgusting."
Behind the cage, bald men in makeup put on a show in outfits of leather straps.
The hunters' eyes fixed on the red-tinted drinks on the customers' tables.
"Blood," Rian said.
"How can you be sure?" Jenia swallowed; that was her answer.
"…I see."
"Welcome, hunters."
The club's host, Eblon, greeted them from the bar.
He was Black, had half his head shaved, and two piercings in his lower lip.
Katein stepped forward.
"You've lost your mind. You know who we are and you still hold this kind of festival?"
"What's your problem? That we're selling blood? Or that we're drinking it?"
"Obviously it's you."
Pauer, mega-gun loaded, leveled both muzzles at him.
"Answer one of the two. We'll take you down clean."
"Now, now! Don't get excited."
Eblon, turning with the gun trained on him, mixed a cocktail and set it in front of Pauer.
"We're just scum the purebloods kick around. Honestly, mongrels like us can hardly get blood. Kill the wrong person and you'll be running for life."
Rian asked, "Then where do you get blood?"
"By buying it, of course. In the slums you can get it for ten silver a liter. It might be junk to purebloods."
"We're looking for the purebloods' hideout. Give us information and we'll leave quietly."
"I heard the rumor that Nike came to this city."
Pauer raised the mega-gun again.
"Shut up and answer my question! If you don't want to find out we're scarier than that brat—"
Feeling the threat, Eblon raised his hands.
"Calm down. I'm saying we risk our lives too. You hunters know better than anyone—if Nike catches you, it's worse than death, right?"
"Offering a deal?"
"No. More like a game."
Eblon jabbed a finger.
"We don't know where the purebloods' hideout is either. You know how the information hierarchy works. But we can get you a meeting with the Umbrella Man."
"Umbrella Man?"
"The guy who handles the purebloods' errands. He always carries an umbrella, so they call him that."
"How do we meet him?"
"With you."
Eblon pointed at Rian.
"The corpse of Maha's Knight."
When Pauer's mega-gun spat, silver rounds struck Eblon and he went flying into the shelves.
Bottles shattered everywhere. He groaned, bared his fangs, and screamed.
"Kyaaa!"
Only then did the half-breeds in the club stop their games and turn toward the Genocide team.
"Where the hell—"
They lacked pureblood dignity, but their dark pupils shot with blood and their fangs marked them as true maen.
"Stop."
Eblon gripped his wound. "We can't win."
Even in daytime, these were the same ones who had driven Nike off with a single blow.
Pauer climbed onto a shelf and trained the mega-gun.
"Talk straight. Where's the Umbrella Man?"
They didn't expect the truth to come easily, so the hunters left the others and pressed on.
"I don't know either. I only heard a rumor they're looking for Maha's Knight. If you want what you're after—"
With a thunk he landed on both feet and swung the buttstock, snapping Eblon's jaw.
Blood sprayed in a line across the low shelf.
"Last time. Where is he?"
"Kik! Kikkikkik!"
Eblon shrugged, shoulders trembling.
"You can't take your anger out on me because some woman dumped you."
"What of it?"
Since Jenia had started drawing Rian's attention, Pauer's irritation was obvious.
"Don't make excuses. Just beat him. Good target, right? He's no different from us."
Katein opened a first-aid kit.
"Right. No different."
When a specially prepared syringe was raised, Eblon's face drained of color.
The injection apparatus was terrifying.
"Did you think we were sane? I don't fight for humanity, nor because I'm human. I just hate you."
"You, you—"
"Jenia, get out."
Katein spared her the sight—the procedure would be the kind that could trigger memories of the experiments she had endured.
"No, I'll do it."
But Jenia reached out instead.
"You sure?"
Eblon spat blood and shouted, "You vicious bitch! You're a mongrel too! Joining up with humans to torture our own kind?"
"If what you know had been in my head…"
Jenia lifted the syringe.
"You would've stabbed it into me."
A chill crept over Eblon and he reached out.
"Alright. I'll talk. I'll tell you everything I know—"
"No."
The syringe plunged into his collarbone.
"No. I said no."
As the drug seeped in, Eblon's eyes bulged wide.
"Kiaaaa!"
A scream carved by one hundred percent pure pain embroidered the Clubhouse.
Thirty minutes stretched like an eternity.
When Eblon finally crawled away and collapsed, the half-breeds looked petrified.
"Hah. Hah."
"How's that? Thrilling?"
Katein produced another syringe.
"Vampires are convenient. No need to fear death. This one is my specialty—"
"Please, stop now."
Jenia stepped forward. "Where is the purebloods' hideout?"
"I really don't know. I only heard it's some wealthy patron's mansion. If I knew, I'd have told you the moment it hit."
The pain was clearly unbearable.
"The Umbrella Man?"
"Seems like he's at the Royal Cemetery. Orders went out to the city's vampires. If someone finds Maha's Knight, send a letter."
"So, they sent one?"
Eblon's trembling lips were answer enough.
"Damn it!"
Pauer kicked Eblon in the face and shouted, "Fall back! The purebloods are coming!" Suddenly the front gate exploded inward and a man in a bowler hat dragged a whip as he entered.
"NIKE??????"
To the half-breeds he was more feared than any god.
"Rian."
Nike called Rian's name, and the frightened Eblon bowed his head.
"They've held out! Please, show mercy—!" Before the plea finished, the whip cracked and tore across the upper part of his face.
"Kiaaaa!"
Panicked half-breeds ran wild while Rian gripped the great broadsword and moved forward.
"I'll handle this. Go to the cemetery."
"But—"
"Hurry!"
Whoever stayed would only add to the corpses.
"I will avenge the shame of that day."
Nike's eyes flashed light. As she swung the whip, the half-breeds' flesh tore free into the air.
Their crime had been nothing more than obstructing the whip's arc aimed at Rian.
"Eiyaaa!"
The force of divine transcendence split the space as Nike's body spun.
'He dodged it?'
Nike's form was almost a black vortex.
"Twisting the Law is familiar to me too."
The whip wrapped around the great broadsword, then uncoiled with terrifying speed, scoring the blade's surface.
"Arrgh!"
It was Nike's signature 'sword execution,' but did not break.
'Strange.'
Rian's two hands, gripping the hilt, were twisted in the same direction as his neck, and yet Nike's face grew unsettled.
'Does it never break?'
Rian had expected nothing more than steel-hardened resilience, so this result shocked him.
With his wrists still bent, he rapidly regenerated and righted his stance.
'Strong.'
"You look surprised," Nike said.
In the quiet club—everyone who wasn't dead had fled out the back—she let the whip fall.
"Of course. My physical ability is twenty-eight times that of an ordinary Almas."
If Lyca—the pureblood who had been minister of Radom's hybrid division—could be called ordinary, Nike could be called that.
"Twenty-eight times…"
It wasn't like having twenty-eight Almas; it put her far beyond any imaginable limit for a living being.
"Seems you use a possession technique."
Nike still couldn't forget the blow Rian had delivered in the colosseum.
"How far have you gone?"
To outsiders the question might seem odd, but Rian understood Nike's meaning.
"You?"
"Who can say."
No one had reached the terminus.
"You'll know when you die here."
The way of the blade reveals the terminus only at the moment of death after endless fighting.
Usually talkative in rage, Nike had calmed.
"This is real from now on."
A world of blades where words mean nothing.
Nike's hands moved fast; when the whip disappeared, the clubhouse's outer wall split open.
An entire building was swept away, but Rian did not waver—he drew deeper fury from within.
"Yacha!"
His muscles contorted and an explosive energy burst out as if he could do anything.
"Argh!"
"Come."
In the city center, those who claimed to be life's apex collided head-on.
Jenia flinched and turned her head. "Rian…"
A terrible roar erupted where they'd left as a cloud of dust billowed up.
Pauer gripped Jenia's shoulder. "Don't worry. Skill-wise, he's a monster. Nothing changes if we look back."
When they reached the Royal Cemetery, pureblood vampires were already waiting.
"Looks like a Vessica-class."
The hunters' hands found their weapons; the aura of the vampires was plainly different from the mongrels'.
There was nothing to discuss. The vampires dissolved into smoke and encircled them.
"Go!"
Pauer's mega-gun sparked and the hunters scattered in all directions.
Strike first at the heart.
"Eiyaaa!"
A sword ought to cut Nike.
Kuuuuhng!
When the Law of the blade activated in the line the great broadsword struck, buildings toppled.
"Ugh!"
But Nike dodged again, and once more the heart strike hit Rian.
"Is that a heart technique?"
Nike hung upside down above Rian's crown as the whips gathered.
"How's life? Not easy, right?" With no chance to dodge, the lashes wrapped and flayed Rian's flesh.
"Aaaagh!"
Over forty percent of his flesh gone, Rian's skeleton showed as he dropped to his knees.
"Curious how far you've gone," Nike said lightly as she landed and swung the whip.
"This is as far as you go."
"Ughhh…"
Since fighting Imer's molar, he hadn't felt Siok this often.
- Smille, Smille.
The auditory hallucination came again and the severed parts began to regrow.
"Almost like a vampire," Nike observed. "A body that can't die when it wants to, stripped of mercy."
- Smille, Smille.
'Still… I can still fight.' Rian ground his teeth and glared forward, and then, abruptly, his body's regeneration stopped.
'What is this?'
For a moment he thought this might truly be the end, and then another voice threaded through the hallucination.
- Smille. When the heart is cut first, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be cut.
The voice wasn't speaking to Rian.
- You can't use 'necessarily' in this world. Other things move when I move.
For the first time, a woman's voice intervened.
- Then what is absolute? You always want the absolute, brother.
- My heart. My conviction. When a heart cut first turns into the conviction to cut it…
Rian's eyes widened.
- The moment that conviction becomes absolute, the movement of my sword becomes separate from the movements of the world.
The hallucination spoke.
- That is me—Ojent.