After gathering their supplies, Levi and Liliya made their way to the eastern gates. Qorbin had run off earlier, saying he had another visit to make and to meet him at the gates in an hour. Unlike before, they weren’t traveling by horse as it would be far too slow. Instead, Qorbin had arranged another method of transportation for them, though he hadn’t told them what.

  Levi really, really hoped said method of transportation wouldn’t be alive.

  Qorbin was waiting for them already by the gates. Except he wasn’t Qorbin anymore; his appearance had changed completely. They didn’t recognize him at first and nearly walked right past him, only stopping in place when Qorbin let out a soft but very pointed cough.

  Levi blinked in surprise as they turned to face him. “Qorbin?”

  The assassin now wore a simple leather tunic over a somewhat dirtied undershirt. His eyes and hair were different colors, and even his facial shape had been altered, his cheeks looking rounder and flabbier and his chin larger than before. He looked fatter with a protruding belly, and if it weren’t for the sound of his voice, Levi wouldn’t have recognized him at all.

  Which, incidentally, was rather concerning, considering how Levi should most definitely have noticed any magical glamours or illusions ahead of time. His eyebrows rose when not even his True Sight could detect anything. Was this some unique ability of a Grand Assassin? Or maybe–

  Levi paused.

  Oh.

  He was an idiot.

  Perhaps the reason why he couldn’t detect any magic concealing Qorbin’s appearance was because Qorbin hadn’t used any magic in his disguise. Levi’s lips quirked. It was little things like these that separated a good assassin from an excellent one; it appeared that Qorbin’s title wasn’t just for show.

  “Shh,” Qorbin said, pressing a finger to his lips. “I’m incognito. Call me Robin.”

  “Why are you dressed like that?” Liliya said, her brows furrowed. “You look…” She hesitated, searching for a polite way to put it. “Uncouth.”

  “Now hold on a moment here,” Levi said, holding up a hand as he looked Qorbin up and down with a considering gaze. He nodded. “I think this may actually be a marked improvement from before.”

  “Ha ha,” Qorbin said, giving Levi an unimpressed look. “Watch yourself, kid. You know that a master is legally allowed to give his apprentice a lashing, right?”

  “I’d rather not hear about your deviant interests.”

  Qorbin snorted. “Oh please. If you think that’s deviant…” He leaned down and whispered something into Levi’s ear.

  Liliya watched on with undisguised curiosity as Levi’s eyes widened and he reared backward in shock. “You’re sick!” he gasped.

  Qorbin grinned, taking obvious pleasure in finally throwing Levi off-kilter for once. “I have needs,” he said. “Sick, twisted needs…” He then turned to Liliya. “To answer your question…” He shrugged. “I’m a Grand Assassin. It’s my job to keep my location obfuscated. Only reason why I’m even going through the front gates instead of leaving through my usual methods is because of you two; I’d rather avoid the panic that comes with two Institute students suddenly dropping off the grid.”

  Liliya nodded. “I see.” Then she hesitated. “If I may ask, what exactly did you say to Levi?”

  “You sure you want to know?” Qorbin asked, even as Levi made frantic abort, abort! motions in the background.

  “... on second thought, perhaps ignorance would be bliss after all.”

  Officially, Levi and Liliya were performing an escort mission for Robin, a trader from a faraway village. The gate guards didn’t even bat an eye at the forged papers Qorbin had provided, and after just a little questioning, the guards wished them luck and waved them through.

  Once they were far enough away from Luxanne, Qorbin finally returned to his normal appearance. As Levi had thought, Qorbin’s disguise had been done the old-fashioned way: a wig, colored contact lenses, facial latex to alter his face shape, and padding underneath his clothes.

  “The gates are imbued with several enchantments that nullify most magical disguises,” Qorbin explained, wiping off some makeup around his eyes. “It’s quite the intricate piece of runework; I hear it took the Institute nearly a decade of research to create.”

  Liliya and Levi nodded in understanding.

  “Ah,” Qorbin suddenly paused. “That’s supposed to be classified information, by the way. Please don’t tell anyone that I told you.”

  Liliya stared at him. “Suddenly, I think I understand why the Royal Sentinels hate you so much…”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Their animosity is wholly unjustified. Anyway, plug your ears.”

  Liliya did so immediately. It was clear that she had learned by now to act first, ask questions later. She pressed her hands tightly to her ears as Levi merely reinforced the magic protecting his eardrums.

  Then, Qorbin brought his fingers to his mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle.

  Liliya lowered her hands from her ears. “That specific pitch…” Her brows furrowed in concentration. “I recognize it.”

  Qorbin raised an eyebrow. “You do? Man, prodigies are scary sometimes.”

  “I learned about this before. That pitch was to summon a…” Liliya slowly trailed off as she looked up at the sky.

  Levi looked up as well. Off in the distance, he saw a tiny speck in the sky rapidly approaching them. In just a few seconds, it was on top of them, its wings generating great gusts of wind that sent their clothes billowing. It descended with incredible speed, landing on a pair of clawed talons. It was massive, easily thrice the size of a horse, but its appearance was unmistakable.

  “A giant falcon,” Levi said. “That’s how we’re getting there?” Damnit. He should’ve known better than to hope.

  Qorbin nodded. “Specially bred and trained by a master beast tamer. They’re a pretty nifty form of transportation.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Liliya said with barely-disguised awe, her eyes roaming over the falcon’s sleek, streamlined figure. “There are only a handful of these falcons in Luxanne. They’re by far one of the fastest mounts, only available for Adamantine-tier adventurers and above. Even then, they have an extraordinarily long wait time for use. Last I heard, it takes an average of two months to attain access to one of these.”

  “Yeah, another adventurer was scheduled to ride this bad boy today. He was not a very happy camper about getting yanked off, I will say that…” Qorbin shrugged. “Oh well. That’s Robin’s problem to deal with, not mine.”

  Liliya looked like she wanted to say something, but managed to restrain herself. In one graceful motion, she climbed onto the falcon’s back. It let out a pleased trill as she scratched the top of its head and cooed into its ear.

  Qorbin and Levi were left standing on the ground, staring at the falcon.

  “After you.”

  “No, after you.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Animals don’t like me very much,” Levi confessed.

  Qorbin glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Really now. What a coincidence – they’re not the biggest fan of me either.”

  “Ah…”

  Right, Qorbin was a Grand Assassin. The scent of blood and death would naturally cling to him as well.

  “Well?” Liliya called out to them from atop the falcon. It was nuzzling its head into her hands by now as she gave it head scritches. “What are you two waiting for?”

  Levi and Qorbin both looked at her.

  “It’s not fair, huh.”

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  “It really isn’t. Together?”

  “Might as well.”

  They stepped forward together in unison. The falcon immediately froze, its head snapping toward them.

  Qorbin sighed. “Don’t worry, I got this.” He reached into his inventory and withdrew a massive cut of meat, rich fatty marbling rippling across its surface. “Here, birdy birdy.”

  On top of the falcon, Liliya blinked. “Is that A5 helio-beef meat? Those are ten platinum coins a pound.”

  Qorbin sighed. “Please don’t remind me…”

  After a bit of coaxing and some very expensive bribery, the falcon finally allowed them to climb onto its back. And then they were off, the falcon rising high up into the air well above the clouds before blasting forward at breakneck speeds. Qorbin took out his anti-eavesdropping dice and a barrier expanded to surround them.

  Levi was about to comment on the extreme level of paranoia – he himself was as paranoid as they came, but still; who was going to eavesdrop on them up here? – until he realized the true function: by trapping all sound within the barrier, the dice prevented the noise of the sound barrier being broken from reaching the outside world.

  Huh. That was pretty ingenious, actually. It even had the added bonus of filtering the incoming sounds, so they could hear each other talk.

  “I’m sure you’ve both learned plenty about the Third Blood War already,” Qorbin said, “whether in your classes or through reading textbooks. However, unless Aldric himself was teaching you guys, I don’t trust your professors to have done a good enough job – and the less said about history textbooks, the better. Half of them aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, really…”

  Levi nodded in agreement, even as Liliya looked a little skeptical. Still, she nodded after a moment as well.

  “As such, settle in and pay attention. It’s history lecture time.”

  Six years ago, Luminarche had drowned in an ocean of blood.

  The Third Blood War had been a terrible conflict waged between Luminarche and Arcedia. The relationship between the two nations had never been the amiable sort to begin with; Luminarche had to deal with vampires killing and feeding upon its citizens, and Arcedia had to deal with adventurers killing them to prevent them from doing so. In their own words, the adventurers were interfering with the natural sacrosanct cycle of life. Naturally, the adventurers disagreed.

  Still, although tensions were always hostile, the two nations were willing to maintain the status quo and not take any extreme overt actions against each other.

  Then the daughter of a Vampiric Lord had been assassinated. The assassin was never identified, but all the signs pointed to Luminarche being responsible. Arcedia promptly proceeded to flip its shit and declare all-out war on Luminarche.

  Vampires had fallen upon Luminarche, attacking from a simultaneous northern, eastern, and southern front. The other three great nations and countless minor ones, unwilling to draw Arcedia's ire, had stayed neutral, though they made sure to keep a close eye on things. While Arcedia only had a population of around twenty-five thousand compared to Luminarche's twenty million, they had two major advantages.

  One: they were on the offensive. Luminarche was large, but that meant they had to spread out their numbers to defend all the numerous towns, villages, and cities, whereas the vampires could concentrate their forces into wiping out one population center at a time.

  Two: the average vampire was far stronger than the average human. Mostly because like most monsters, they were born with a higher average baseline level than humans. Pair that with their nigh-immortality allowing for some extraordinarily long lifespans, and vampires could grow to become very strong indeed. That wasn't even counting the thralls they controlled: humans who were killed then forcibly turned into undead vampiric familiars.

  It wasn’t uncommon for vampires to attack a town of ten thousand and suddenly gain ten thousand to their own numbers afterward. They were vicious and brutal, attacking and killing indiscriminately without any regard for age, gender, or class. Luminarche’s soil had been flooded and soaked with rivers of blood as entire towns and cities were massacred.

  However, though the vampires were strong, that alone wouldn’t have been enough. The Adventurer's Guild, the Church of the Goddess, and the Royal Military had set their usual differences aside and banded together in a remarkable alliance to push back against the vampiric forces, and despite the vampires’ advantages, in the end they were still vastly outnumbered by humans. Quantity had a quality on its own, and humanity also had their trump cards.

  Unfortunately, the vampires had a trump card of their own: the Vampiric Lords, the ruling body of Arcedia.

  The Vampiric Lords had been the sole reason why Arcedia was so unbelievably feared by every nation. Most of them had been alive for thousands of years, older than human civilization itself. When humanity had first invented the wheel, they were already there drinking their blood. They had witnessed the rise and fall of the Age of Heroes, and the majority had amassed enough power over the millennia to rival an Ascendant-tier adventurer.

  There were always twelve Vampiric Lords at any given time. Their combined power was easily that of an entire nation’s, perhaps even more so. Luminarche had only four Ascendant-tier adventurers, and of those four, only two had been willing to help.

  For one long, gruesome year, Luminarche had slowly lost territory after territory. They tried to launch a counterattack on Arcedia, but it had been far too difficult getting a substantial strike force through the highly dangerous wildlands to reach the vampiric homeland. Though nobody was willing to admit it, it had slowly become clear that Luminarche might actually lose.

  Then…

  Well.

  There were always twelve Vampiric Lords at any given time. Currently, there were four New Vampiric Lords and eight Old Vampiric Lords.

  There used to be nine, until Aldric Heimler had killed one without receiving a scratch in return.

  That, as it turned out, had been a pretty convincing argument for peace.

  “I don’t understand,” Levi said. “I thought Heimler was only an Adamantine-tier adventurer at the time. How was he able to defeat an Old Vampiric Lord?”

  “Divine providence,” Qorbin said simply. “No, really. During the battle, Aldric unlocked a new Conceptual Skill, [Stillpoint]. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.” Levi carefully kept his expression neutral. “Depending on how much a god favors the person, a divine sponsorship can boost a person well past their normal tier’s level. Especially when they first unlock it, as that’s when the god is often the most generous with the amount of their power they send over the link.”

  Right. Conceptual Skills typically only required the activation mana from the user; the rest of the magical energy was supplied externally by the gods themselves.

  “On average, divine sponsorships are far less powerful these days due to how large humanity has grown, but back during the Age of Heroes, one of the main reasons why the Heroes had been so incredibly strong was because of their divine sponsorships. Aldric’s [Stillpoint] is one of the few Conceptual Skills in modern day that’s comparable with the Heroes of old.

  “Of course, that alone wasn’t enough to win the fight. Honestly, Aldric just got extremely lucky; it was a one-in-a-billion victory. The Lord he was fighting, Svetozar, was a close-range melee specialist, so Aldric’s [Stillpoint] hard countered his entire fighting style. With the element of surprise on Aldric’s side, he managed to win. I’m sure that if Svetozar had been aware of [Stillpoint] before the fight and adapted accordingly, Aldric would’ve almost certainly lost, but…” he shrugged. “There’s the nature of war for you.”

  Levi nodded in understanding. “I assume that long-range mages are what Heimler struggles the most against?”

  Qorbin nodded. “Mages, marksmen – anyone who can stay out of his range. That’s the weakness of Sword Sages, and Sword Saints, in general.” He grinned. “Thankfuly, that’s what he had me for.”

  “Because assassins counter mages and marksmen?”

  “Exactly. After that battle, we were finally able to force a treaty.” Qorbin scratched his head. “To be honest, it was mostly the result of a metric fuckton of bluffs. The vampires didn’t know the full details of how Aldric had killed Svetozar, you see. So we basically just went with the strategy of making shit up. I helped organize an extensive disinformation campaign that made Aldric out to be some specialized anti-vampire boogeyman, and Arcedia bought it.” He grinned. “That’s why one of the provisions in the treaty had been a lifetime ban for him from the country of Arcedia.”

  “So that’s why he’s banned,” Liliya said with realization in her eyes. “I’d always wondered…”

  “The cat got out of the bag eventually, of course,” Qorbin said. “The vampires realized they’d been had. But by then, tempers had cooled enough that they weren’t willing to start another war again – especially since this time, we were far better prepared. There’s a reason why in the past five years, we’d poured a fortune into developing and constructing a vast train network that connects every major city.”

  “I see,” Levi said. “Do you and Heimler still work together, then?”

  At this, Qorbin’s eyes flickered with some undecipherable emotion. “No,” he replied, sounding almost a little sad. “Not anymore. We disbanded our party three years ago, and we haven’t really talked much since.”

  “Ah,” Levi paused. “He spoke highly of you when I talked to him, you know. Said that you were the best mentor Liliya and I could ever have.”

  Qorbin froze for a second. Then, a small smile spread across his face. “He said that now, did he?” Then he paused. “Hold on, you told him about our apprenticeship arrangement already?”

  Levi nodded. “He offered me an apprenticeship of his own. I had to decline.”

  Qorbin choked on his own spit. “What?! There’s no way. He once told me he had no intentions of ever taking on an apprentice. What did you do to change his mind?”

  Levi coughed. “I, err… I solved the Subaru Paradox.”

  Qorbin opened his mouth. Closed it a moment later. “You know what, I don’t want to know,” he finally said. “That explains it, though. I hear he’s been obsessed with that problem for the past year…” Briefly, a worried glance flashed across his face, though it disappeared a moment later. He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. “Well, I guess it says something that you chose me over him. Thanks, kid, it means a lot.”

  “A choice I’m starting to regret more with every passing day…”

  “Aww, don’t be like that. You know you–”

  The falcon suddenly dove down through the clouds, and the three of them clutched tightly onto its feathers to avoid falling off. They emerged through the clouds a second later to see a village below.

  Levi’s gaze hardened. Even from up here, he could tell that it was empty. Pouring magic to his eyes – not True Sight but rather just general reinforcement magic – his vision sharpened, allowing him to see everything in detail. Broken windows, collapsed buildings, blood and gore staining the ground…

  His expression became solemn, pained, as he scanned through the village. There were plenty of signs of conflict, but like Qorbin had said, there weren’t any bodies left behind.

  Levi narrowed his eyes as he suddenly detected movement. Focusing his enhanced eyesight, he saw a single figure standing amidst the ruins of the village. From this high up, the person was little more than a miniscule dot on the ground, and Levi would’ve undoubtedly missed them altogether had he not been channeling magic to his eyes. As it was, he examined the figure, noting their dark overcoat, their platinum-blonde hair, and–

  Their eyes met.

  Levi froze as the figure suddenly turned their head and looked upward directly at him, having somehow sensed Levi’s gaze despite the immense distance separating them. Crimson eyes locked onto Levi’s grey ones with alarming precision.

  Then the figure gave Levi a casual wave, smiling up at him. The fangs were unmistakable.

  So the vampires had been responsible for the massacres, after all.

  “I’ll be right back,” Levi said.

  “Wait,” Qorbin said, having also noticed the vampire. “I think–”

  But Levi had already jumped off the falcon, the wind whistling around him and his magic swirling within him as he fell toward the vampire.

  The vampire’s smile widened.

  6 chapters ahead!