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Volume Two: Sunbreak

Q: Why are Energy or Emotion Vampires not hunted by the Starlight Council?

A: They didn't need to break the second law of Magic to live.

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Zane rushed inside the looming darkness of the cavern. Day or night, it doesn’t matter, darkness reigned here all the time. Zane was the second time here. The first time, it was him pursuing a group of thugs, but the second time, the role was reversed. Now he was being pursued by the group he was chasing before.

He pushed against the lean figure with the dominion of gravity, skidding him away against the rough walls. It crashed against the rough wall, but he ignored it altogether and rushed out.

‘Blasted Heroes,’ Zane thought as his figure lunged through the uneven, rocky lands. Well, it was not his fault. He just went on a mission which seemed pretty simple on the outside, but who could have known he was chasing after a bunch of bloodsuckers? He should have known better about identifying their pale skin and lean figures, though that's not always the way to distinguish.

It wouldn’t be much of a problem if there were only one or two, but not only there were four of those bloodsuckers in the group, one of them was a spellcaster. That changed many things. Vampires were naturally better physically, agiler, and could take beating far better than any human could. They were monsters, after all. Why wouldn’t they be better at combat than humans?

However, even with that Zane could manage to escape, unfortunately, the spellcaster made his chances almost empty the more time passes. There was only one way remaining, and that was by escaping out of this looming cavern to the outside where the sun should have risen already.

Powerful as they may be, they were not without weakness. Most vampires grow weaker in sunlight. Their supernatural abilities were mostly rendered futile, leaving them almost a mortal foil of a body. Even the spellcaster would be a little better than a normal human. That was their curse of existence for all the sins they were born with.

That was what Zane aimed for. If he was anywhere, he wouldn’t have a problem using his dominion. He will be out there in no time. Sadly, he couldn’t manipulate gravity well enough to move around in such a narrow space like this. He tried before and only got his head banged against the rocky walls. There was no helping it. He was new to the dominion. Sprinting was the only way, though he had to leap every second step.

Suddenly, Zane’s supernatural senses tingled, and without a second thought, he pushed against the earth below his foot, and lurched up. Zane hadn’t managed to neutralise another headbang when a bombardment followed where he was just a moment ago, shattering the uneven rocky path.

The spellcaster was just on his trail. ‘Flaming bloodsuckers,’ swore Zane as he pushed against the shards of stones which were created by the bombardment. Zane not only managed to escape from the stone shards, he redirected toward the bloodsuckers on his trail.

He didn’t wait to see the result, redirected his anchor of gravity at an acute angle and flew away. He got down before he could injure himself hitting against the ceiling or walls. Daggers appeared on his palms as he prepared for combat.

Two silhouettes chased after from both sides, with machetes and daggers in their arms. The narrow tunnel of the cavern couldn’t let them use broader weapons like a spear. Sword was still usable, but Zane followed with his daggers.

In a combat position where one was battling against more than two opponents, it was always best to take charge of the battle as soon as possible and then direct it. Zane tried the same. He chose the opponent coming from his left, redirected his anchor at the figure, and pulled. Moments passed as both of their figures shot at one another, pulled by an invisible force.

The bloodsucker saw him using the dominion of gravity before, but he wasn’t prepared for it as Zane did. His arms moved with the swift jab of the dagger into his chest. The bloodsucker yelped in agony, but Zane wasn’t finished. He twisted the dagger, pulled it back, and hacked the other one into the vampire’s neck.

Zane finished pushing the figure away with gravity while the other one almost caught up to him. He wasn’t ready for that. He ducked down to dodge the blow coming towards his upper body and pushed against the earth to buy some distance between them.

However, before he could deal with that one, a wave of concentrated fire shot at him. The temperature of the flame was well over a thousand degrees Celsius. Even with all his defence and armour, Zane would be no more if he got hit by it. He manoeuvred the dominion of gravity to lurch out of the way at the last moment as the liquid fire molten the rocky terrain into smouldering embers.

The pyromancer caught up with her buddies, standing just beside the one Zane almost killed just a moment ago. Well, it would take more than a couple of jabs to kill a vampire, after all, even though his blows were at critical spots.

“Human spawn,” the sorcerer swore threateningly. “You’ll pay the price for your insolence.”

Zane’s head bumped against the wall, breaking the spirit armament there. He gritted his teeth, reinforced the defence again, and came down slowly. “Sorry,” he shouted back, “I'm neck-down in debt to pay anything.”

Two others of the spellcaster companion joined on her back, looking at him ferociously with their elongated teeth. Zane’s mind was running on calculation. Three against one, with one of the three being a spellcaster. Dealing with her would be the hardest. Even though the lady vampire wasn’t anything compared to a real magus, she knew a couple of tricks.

She was a master pyromancer, could knock good punches with fire spells, and her defence wasn’t compromised either with another vampire always standing near her all-time. Unlike human practitioners, vampires have a better constitution and instinct, which puts her still in the mid-range without pyromancy.

Her intervention in this conflict would limit his escape option. He had to find a way to deal with her and that too, as soon as possible.

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