Ordinarily, catching something in flight while running along the ground was all but impossible. Perhaps it could be done across open plains, but once mountains, rivers, and rugged gorges forced a pursuer to take winding detours, no amount of speed would suffice.

Yet Arwin accomplished that astonishing feat even with Shan on her back. Following the distant, airborne lord of Kastaman Castle, she swam across small streams, climbed low mountains, and leaped gaps several meters wide between cliffs.

Shan laughed when the vampire glanced back, recoiled in horror at the sight, and beat its wings even more furiously. Greater vampires were supposed to regard humans as prey, yet anyone could see which of them was the prey now.

The chase ended after roughly five minutes. Giving up on flight, the vampire slowly descended to the ground.

'Just as I thought.'

Flying monsters fell into two broad categories: those with wings in place of arms, and those with separate wings on their backs. The former could fly as freely as true winged creatures, but the latter were often limited in speed or flight duration. Sir Darkal had surmised that this was probably because they could not enlist their shoulder and arm muscles.

In any case, with bat wings sprouting from its back, this creature could hardly remain airborne for long.

As Shan rode Arwin closer, the lord shouted in a voice whose sinister gravity was at odds with his hideous appearance.

"You! Stop! I have a message for your master!"

Surprised that his opponent had addressed him, Shan drew on the reins rather than attacking at once. He slowed about thirty meters away—a little too far for either to launch a surprise attack, but close enough to converse with raised voices.

"What is it?"

"Tell him I am changing my offer! I do not need a new domain! I will be satisfied if he recognizes the area around Kastaman Castle as my territory, so put an end to this outrage at once!"

After puzzling briefly over what that was supposed to mean, Shan realized the vampire had mistaken him for an executioner sent by Prince Elvin, its negotiating partner.

Should he agree, lull it into a false sense of security, and then finish it off? He considered the idea, but decided there was no need to go that far. More than anything, he wanted to see what a proper greater vampire could do. Having come all this way, surely he ought to have a real fight.

"And if I refuse?"

"Human whelp! Do you truly imagine the likes of you can stand against me? I am Kudrak, Lord of Night, Ruler of Darkness, heir to noble blood! I retreated only because you came in a mob! A single knight is no match for me!"

The vampire, Kudrak, flew into a rage at Shan's indifferent response. Like the roars of large monsters, the sinister power in his shout bore down upon the human mind and body.

But neither Shan nor even Arwin beneath him flinched in fear. The mare had her exceptional bloodline, mingled with monster blood, to thank for that.

"Lord, ruler... That's rich coming from someone who ran away first thing."

Muttering in disbelief, Shan urged Arwin into a charge. The vampire opened his eyes wide and fixed him with a glare. The instant Shan met those blood-red eyes, he felt his consciousness leave his body and begin to be drawn toward his opponent.

It was the same sort of charm magic used by the vampire masquerading as a priest, but far more powerful...

"Whew..."

Yet a single deep breath swept away every trace of that mental interference. The barrier of spirit within Shan, forged stronger than anyone else's through blood and tears, had dispelled it.

At least it was an improvement over the earlier attempt, which had failed to make him feel even a moment's dizziness.

'What?'

Realizing what had happened, the vampire's eyes widened in horror. Over the past several centuries, he had fought knights at least a double-digit number of times. With all the power he had accumulated, even reasonably capable knights would ordinarily be dazed for several seconds when first subjected to his charm, or tumble from their mounts.

To think a monster existed that could shake off his secret weapon with a single breath!

"Kraaagh!"

If charm magic would not work, he would have to find another means. The enormous bat-man, roughly two meters tall, leaped up and slashed his hooked claws down at Shan's head. With his wings adding a glide, the attack came almost straight down from the sky. It was far faster and more powerful than the earlier vampire's attack, too.

But to someone who saw both as similarly slow, there was little difference between their tricks.

Shan calmly raised the spear in his right hand and thrust, simultaneously knocking aside the incoming claws with the shield strapped to his left arm.

"Ghak—"

This time, the intent he imbued into the spear was neither "penetration" nor "impact," but "destruction." His enchanted spear did more than pierce the creature's heart: it tore a hole larger than a fist and emerged through its flank.

Shan rode on for a dozen or so meters before turning back. The vampire stood in tatters, its heart gone. The flesh around the wound writhed as though desperate to regenerate immediately, suggesting that the spear's enchantment had taken proper effect.

"You dare—!"

The vampire shouted with remarkable vigor for someone missing a heart. At his gesture, the black blood pouring from his chest surged upward.

Offensive magic—for various reasons, almost no humans in the present age could wield it, leaving it virtually the exclusive province of monsters. This was blood magic, the vampires' specialty.

"Oh...!"

Dozens of streams of blood, refined into shapes like sharp gemstones, flew toward him. After checking their trajectories, Shan raised his spear and began intercepting them—only those likely to strike Arwin, rather than himself.

Precisely maneuvering a spear over three meters long to deflect projectiles the size of a few finger joints, and ones aimed at his mount rather than himself at that, was a feat ordinary knights would consider beyond imagination and well into fantasy. Even Shan had to concentrate hard enough for his head to grow briefly hot, leaving him little attention to spare for his own body.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The blood crystals struck his plate armor like hail battering a metal roof, sending vibrations through his body. When one flew toward his face, Shan turned his head slightly and deflected it with the side of his helmet. Scratches and dents marked his armor all over, but fortunately none had pierced it completely.

He had let the projectiles hit rather than deflecting them all because the defensive enchantment applied for the joust was still active. There was certainly a reason people paid so much for armor and enchantments. After all, this armor could even withstand a knight's lance charge, though jousters deliberately imbued their strikes with impact rather than penetration.

If the spell had scratched it this badly, a single casting would probably have wiped out ordinary soldiers in leather armor. Shan stroked Arwin's mane at the thought that she might have been badly hurt if he had done nothing.

'I need to get her into barding soon.'

Like human armor, barding had to be fitted to its wearer's size to avoid discomfort. Arwin was so much larger than an ordinary horse that ready-made equipment was out of the question. He had already placed an order; all he could do was hope it would be finished by the time they returned to the capital after this job.

While Shan worried about his beloved mare's safety, the vampire stood gaping in horror. His opponent had not merely blocked his secret spell. He had taken the hits on his own body while deflecting only the attacks aimed at his horse.

Was that not effectively a mockery: "I could easily block your attacks, but let me show you they cannot hurt me anyway"?

"Y-you! What in the world are you!? Surely not Marquis Abel... No, that man must be old by now—"

"Thanks for the compliment."

Hearing the name of Pendia's strongest knight, whom he would have to defeat someday, Shan offered a perfunctory thanks and charged again.

The vampire twisted his already ugly face and conjured a large shield from the blood flowing out of his still-unhealed wound. Roughly one meter wide and two meters tall, it looked like obsidian, perhaps because it was made from pitch-black blood.

Yet even this shield, fashioned with such confidence, shattered helplessly before Shan's mounted spear charge. Shan worked the leaf-shaped blade, tore the vampire's head from his body, then impaled it like meat on a skewer.

"Can't you talk like this?"

The mouth opened and closed as though attempting an answer, but only a wheezing escape of air emerged, without any meaningful words. Apparently he could still control his headless body, which struggled to rise. But whether because its sense of balance was off or for some other reason, it kept falling over—a comical sight.

'Now for the silver... Ah, did I leave the powder behind?'

Remembering that the silver powder he needed had been in the baggage he had cut from Arwin's back, Shan clicked his tongue. Fortunately, he had a substitute. As he laid a hand near his collar, the blue-silver substance wrapped around his upper body wriggled like a snake and flowed into his hand.

"You're getting a truly luxurious death for a vampire."

Truesilver, as its name suggested, possessed the same property as silver of destroying evil things. Shan shaped A Thousand Forms, made of pure truesilver, into a longsword and drove it into the headless torso. Just as when the silver powder had been sprinkled earlier, it blazed with white light and burned away.

Then he slashed the blade across the horrified, hideous face, ending the life of the loathsome monster that had lived for hundreds of years.

* * *

After disposing of the castle's master, Shan was gathering the vampire's ashes into an empty pouch when he found a magic stone a little larger than his fist. It was somewhat small, but its owner had been quite powerful, so it seemed likely to be useful.

Perhaps he could ask Princess Sherin to make him a piece of armor using it as material, in exchange for accepting her next commission.

With that thought, Shan returned to Kastaman Castle, where he unexpectedly found a rather exhausted-looking Roden and mercenaries sporting assorted injuries. Standing guard before the castle gates, which had opened at some point in his absence, they brightened and welcomed him back.

"What happened? Why have you left the villagers alone?"

"A whole pack of lesser vampires came swarming out from inside... Fortunately, we subdued them all."

Shan's expression grew serious at Roden's words.

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

He had heard that even mercenaries could hunt lesser vampires, but in sufficient numbers they were far too dangerous to dismiss. Even goblins could crush Shan to death beneath their weight if thousands attacked him at once.

"No. Fortunately, with the mercenaries controlling the village joining in, we managed to hold them off."

They had all hunted monsters as routinely as eating meals, and it seemed they had certainly pulled their weight. Their performance merited a little extra pay.

"Really, I should be asking whether you're hurt, Sir Shan. You're the one who went off to fight their leader. It looks as though you had a rather livelier battle than I expected."

Now that he mentioned it, the scratches covering Shan's plate armor did make it look as though he had fought a fierce battle. In truth, the overwhelming disparity in skill and equipment had made it closer to a one-sided slaughter.

Smiling sheepishly, Shan handed over the lord's ashes.

"Here. This is the fellow from earlier."

"I'm glad you caught him. We can start looking inside for any others, then."

They had stayed out of the castle only as a precaution against any greater vampires that might remain. Shan and Roden stationed the mercenaries at the gates to keep anyone from entering or leaving. Fortunately, after seeing vampires pour out of the castle, the villagers below had come to trust Shan completely and obeyed his orders, so there was no need to assign anyone to watch them.

The first to greet Shan and Roden inside were the bodies of people drained to death by the vampires. They appeared to have been servants or maids of the castle.

"Mm. How horrible..."

Roden groaned at the ghastly sight and offered a brief prayer. Shan followed his example.

Afterward, the two searched the castle. Having only two people posed little difficulty: there were merely a few servants' bedrooms, several multipurpose rooms, and the lord's own quarters.

Unfortunately, despite being a centuries-old vampire, the creature had not been particularly rich. Then again, how could someone grow wealthy living shut away in the countryside, eating a farmer every few months?

The land's extreme barrenness was precisely why Kastaman Castle belonged to the Crown rather than another lord, and why it had been left in near-total neglect despite that status. There was scarcely any tax revenue to squeeze out of it, so it had not even been properly administered. No one had paid attention as the lordship was sold from one hand to another, until finally a monster had moved in.

While searching the lord's room, Roden found a bundle of papers. He read through them and frowned.

"Oh, this could be rather dangerous if it got out."

"What is it?"

"Letters Prince Elvin sent to the vampire, and the creature's diary."

Of course, the prince was no fool; he had not openly written a request to kill his elder brother and his followers. Befitting a high noble, his letters were crammed with metaphors and allusions, phrased ambiguously enough that it would be difficult to press the matter if he denied their meaning.

Unfortunately for him, the recipient had explained every detail in his diary. Besides, the mere fact that he had exchanged letters on such dubious subjects with a vampire was enough to tarnish the prince's name.

"Should we burn them?"

"Hmm, that seems a waste... Let's give them to Princess Sherin. She'll find a better use for them than we would."

If she could attribute this affair to Prince Conrad's scheming, as previously discussed, and direct Prince Elvin's anger toward him, they would have more room to maneuver. Even without that, publicly they had merely cleared out a "vampire den," so Elvin had no right to complain. Behind the scenes, however, it would be a different matter.

Continuing to read the diary now that he had found it, Roden clicked his tongue and announced that he had discovered why the vampires had come bursting out.

"Why?"

"These creatures were deliberately capturing and raising lesser vampires to create greater ones."

Ordinary vampires emerged from somewhere deep in the Demonlands, wandering the mountains and fields in search of human blood until they died. Only those fortunate enough to survive after drinking the blood of dozens or hundreds of people became greater vampires.

That meant capturing lesser vampires and continually feeding them humans would eventually produce a greater vampire. To that end, Kudrak had confined several lesser vampires in the castle's cellar, subduing them with his charm magic, and taken them out every night to hunt people. The priest they had killed earlier had been created in precisely that fashion.

"So the charm broke when the lord fled?"

"Probably."

They knew nothing about magic, but that much was a reasonable deduction even for them.

What came next was the important part. Astonishingly, Kudrak, the lord of Kastaman, had not been acting on his own initiative. According to his diary, he was raising vampires here at the request of an organization called the "Council."

"The Council? The name reminds me of the Magic Society."

"It seems to be an association of greater vampires."

"What? Monsters have associations now?"

Being a diary, it did not spell out every last detail of the Council's membership, but some of its members appeared to have infiltrated human society and wielded considerable influence.

Shan, who had been listening quietly, clicked his tongue.

"This is turning into something enormous again..."

An association of greater vampires operating in secret among humans. Someone might have entertained a vague fancy that such a thing could exist, but no such organization had ever officially come to light.

After some thought, Roden sighed and snapped the diary shut.

"Hmm. We'd better pass this off to the princess too. For a start, her intelligence network is far better than ours."

Of course, the princess did not act for the sake of their well-being. But by fulfilling this commission, Shan had at least proved that he could be the most powerful blade at her disposal. Unless Sherin was a fool, she would naturally handle matters in a way that kept him safe.

After gathering everything that looked useful, Shan and Roden went outside, assembled the villagers, and gave them an account that blended truth and falsehood. The castle's lord and the priest, they explained, had actually been powerful, centuries-old vampires capable of taking human form. Having learned the truth by chance, Sir Shan had come to defeat them.

"Good heavens..."

"Is that really true?"

"Didn't you see? All those monsters pouring out of the castle!"

"That's right. There was one flying through the sky, too. And I saw the priest transform."

"No wonder there were so many vampires roaming around here! Jami got carried off just last month."

Though surprised by the shocking news, the villagers were not especially agitated. They had already been told something of the situation, and had seen ample evidence with their own eyes. Only the families of the servants who had gone to work at the castle and met their deaths there wailed in grief.

"Still, to think our lord was a vampire. What a shock."

"A shock, my ass! I thought there was something suspicious about him from the start."

"Anyone can say that now."

"No, I mean it! That pale skin, the way he never mixed with people..."

In truth, Kudrak had not enjoyed much of a reputation among the villagers. He had not particularly oppressed them or squeezed them for taxes, but neither had he shown any interest in protecting them. Given that the lord of a rural domain like this normally served much the same role as a village headman, their poor opinion was only natural.

"Then who's going to be our next lord?"

"His son was supposed to inherit, but he's dead too..."

"If he really was a vampire, that boy couldn't have been his real son, you fool!"

The "son" they spoke of was, of course, a human boy Kudrak had brought in as part of his disguise. Each generation, he had taken a child who bore a reasonable resemblance to his human form, then killed the boy once he reached a suitable age and assumed his place, thus continuing his line.

Naturally, the heir he had intended to use this time had been drained to death by the vampires escaping after the charm broke.

"Could it be...?"

As they murmured among themselves, the villagers turned their eyes toward Shan. Their gazes seemed hopeful, wondering whether this powerful young knight might become their new lord.

In Pendia, a paradise for monsters, a powerful knight's mere presence could make him a dependable protector in the eyes of the people.