Chapter 27: The Vampire’s true voice.

The heavy wooden door of the carriage creaked softly as the older merchant stepped down onto the uneven dirt road.

Despite the cold sweat still clinging to the back of his neck, he forced a calm, gentle expression onto his weathered face.

He adjusted the collar of his fine traveling robes and began walking toward the armed blockade, his hands held slightly out from his sides to show he carried no weapons.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," the man called out, his voice remarkably steady as he closed the distance. "Is something the matter with the road ahead?"

He did not need to take more than a few steps before the enormous beast lounging at the center of the path reacted.

The hulking creature, which the veiled woman was currently sitting right on top of, parted its drooling jaws and let out a low, earth-shaking growl.

The guttural vibration rippled through the soles of the merchant’s boots, stopping him dead in his tracks.

The old man flinched backward, his breath hitching in his throat. He understood the warning immediately. He was not supposed to take another step closer—especially considering the rough, scarred thugs flanking the beast were already moving forward to close the distance themselves.

"A traveler," one of the bandits spat onto the dirt, resting a thick, iron-studded wooden club lazily across his broad shoulder as he prowled forward. "Or maybe you are a rich merchant. Which one are you, grandpa?"

"Yeah, answer the question, old man! Which one are you?" a second thug jeered, stepping out from the brush with a rusted hand-axe spinning in his palm as the rest of the pack fanned out, slowly surrounding the lone merchant in a tight semicircle.

Swallowing hard against the lump of fear rising in his chest, the old man ignored the jeering men and turned his desperate gaze upward, looking directly at the woman in the flowing black dress perched atop the monstrous beast.

"A-are you the one in charge here?" he stammered, hoping to appeal to someone with reason.

"Uhnn?!" the thug with the club grunted in annoyance, offended at being ignored.

Paww!

Before the older man could even register the sudden movement in his peripheral vision, a heavy, calloused fist slammed viciously across his jaw. The sheer force of the blow snapped his head to the side, knocking him completely off his feet and sending him crashing hard into the dirt road.

Inside the carriage, Guinevere, who had been nervously peeping through the narrow gap of the window curtains, watched her father hit the ground.

Instantly, the blood drained from her face, replaced by a mixture of absolute terror and blinding rage. Forgetting every single warning he had given her moments prior, she threw the carriage door wide open and bolted out onto the road.

"Father! Don’t you dare touch him!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her boots kicking up dust as she raced toward his fallen form.

The moment she reached him, she dropped hard onto her knees in the dirt, throwing her arms out and turning her fierce gaze back toward the bandits to act as a human shield over her groaning father.

"What the hell do you people want?!" she demanded, her chest heaving beneath her emerald top.

Her desperate question lingered in the air for a long, tense moment.

Then, all at once, the surrounding thugs erupted into a chorus of harsh, mocking laughter. They looked at one another in pure amusement, finding the noble girl’s fiery defiance hilarious while realizing just how easy this robbery was going to be.

"Well, well, look at that. The old man has a daughter," one of the bandits chuckled darkly, licking his dry lips.

"Interesting," another murmured, his eyes raking shamelessly over her bare legs and tight shorts.

"Right? And she is pretty, too," the man who had punched her father sneered. He took a heavy step forward and reached down, roughly grabbing Guinevere by the jaw and tilting her face up as if he were inspecting a rare piece of merchandise at a market stall.

Guinevere’s brow furrowed in pure disgust. With a sharp, defiant jerk of her head, she yanked her chin free from his filthy grasp and spat directly into the man’s left eye.

The laughter died instantly. A chaotic uproar rippled through the crowd of bandits as they watched one of their own get so blatantly disrespected by their captive.

"G-Guin... I told you to wait inside the carriage..." her father groaned weakly from the ground, his vision still swimming as he struggled to muster the strength to sit up after the brutal punch.

"You little bitch!" the bandit roared, wiping the spit from his eye with the back of his dirty forearm as his face twisted into a mask of murderous fury.

He drew his heavy boot back and swung it forward with everything he had, aiming a bone-shattering kick directly at Guinevere’s ribs. Guinevere squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the agonizing impact.

However, the blow never landed.

Out of nowhere, the air beside her shifted. Lucious finally decided to intervene.

Moving with the terrifying, silent speed of his high agility, he materialized right beside her kneeling form, his pale hand shooting out to catch the bandit’s heavy boot mid-swing, stopping it mere inches from her face.

"Sorry," Lucious said, his voice completely flat and devoid of emotion. "But I am afraid I cannot let you do that."

A wave of genuine shock washed over the faces of the surrounding bandits. Just a fraction of a second ago, the few who had bothered to look up were dead certain the pale mercenary had been sitting motionless on the roof of the carriage.

None of them had even seen him jump down, let alone cross the clearing.

"Who the hell is this guy?!" the trapped bandit barked, trying and failing to pull his leg free from the iron-like grip.

Lucious did not even bother answering him.

With a casual flick of his wrist, he shoved the man violently backward, sending the grown thug stumbling and crashing into the dirt on his ass.

Totally ignoring the curses of the surrounding men, Lucious looked down at Guinevere, who was sitting frozen on the ground, her heart hammering wildly with terror.

"Your father had a plan to de-escalate this, and you just ruined it," Lucious stated coldly, his glowing crimson eyes looking down at her without a shred of sympathy. "Take him back inside the cabin. You do not want him getting hurt any further, do you?"

Though his tone was unnecessarily harsh, the cold logic of his words cut right through her panic.

After all, her father’s final plea before stepping out had been for her to stay hidden inside. Steeling her nerves and biting back her pride, she quickly nodded, sliding her arms under her father’s shoulders to drag him back toward the safety of the carriage.

However, before she could even lift him an inch off the dirt, the remaining bandits closed ranks, their drawn blades and clubs forming an impenetrable wall around them.

"Sorry, sugar buns, but she is going nowhere," a smooth, teasing voice echoed from above.

Finally, the veiled woman spoke.

Through the thin, semi-transparent black lace covering her face, a wide, predatory grin was clearly visible. Slowly, with theatrical grace, she stood up right on the broad back of her monstrous mount, gesturing lazily toward the reinforced carriage with a gloved hand.

"The name is Terissa Monguel," she announced, her voice dripping with arrogance. "If you have been traveling around this region, then you should already know that I am the leader of Snake Valley. You lot are just unfortunate enough to have run right into my web today."

Lucious slowly tilted his head to the side, his expression completely deadpan. "Who?"

The utter lack of recognition in his single-word response caused Terissa’s confident posture to stiffen in mild shock, though she quickly forced a laugh to play off the embarrassment.

"Hmm..." she chuckled nervously, waving her hand dismissively. "You must not be from around here, then. Either way, it does not matter. Here is what you are going to do if you want to walk away from this road alive, handsome."

Terissa leveled a sharp finger, pointing directly down at Guinevere.

"Initially, my boys and I only set up this blockade to take hold of the classified artifact being transported inside that vehicle," Terissa explained, her eyes glinting greedily behind the veil.

"However, seeing as you happen to be traveling with such a young, feisty, and beautiful girl, my terms have changed. I will be taking the artifact and her as well. Hand them both over without a fuss, and I guarantee that you and the old man can leave here with your lives intact."

Lucious remained completely silent for a long while.

Slowly, he dragged his glowing red gaze across the ambush party, looking at the bandits one after another. Hovering neatly above each of their heads were small, translucent system brackets, each glowing with a slightly different aura that only he could see.

From what he had learned through his innate Vampire God wisdom and his recent hunts, the colors of a living creature’s vitality aura indicated the exact quality of their blood.

A deep, vibrant red meant the blood was rich and of the finest grade, capable of granting substantial experience and nourishment. A dull green meant the blood was stale and weak in comparison. And a bright blue—a color he had only briefly glimpsed on rare, magic-imbued forest sprites—meant the blood was toxic poison to his undead physiology.

Right now, almost every single bandit standing in this clearing, especially the veiled woman at the top, was radiating a healthy, pulsing shade of red.

’So, in this case, they are the right meal for me,’ Lucious thought internally, a cold calculation settling in his mind.

"I am afraid I cannot let you do that either," Lucious finally replied, keeping his tone conversational.

Terissa paused, the smile vanishing from behind her veil as her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"And just what makes you think you have a choice here?" she snapped, her voice rising with irritation.

"Are you blind, mercenary? We outnumber you ten to one, and not a single one of my men would hesitate to slit your pale throat where you stand! Or are you just desperately trying to ignore the giant mountain beast breathing right behind me?!"

Lucious frowned slightly, then let out a long, tired sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as if dealing with a stubborn child.

"I really do not have time for this nonsense," Lucious muttered. "Tell your people to clear the road so we can pass. Go try this extortion routine with someone else."

Dismissing her entirely, he began to turn his back on the bandit leader to check on Dori inside the carriage.

Seeing the mercenary arrogantly turn his back on them snapped the patience of the largest thug in the front row.

Moving with sudden, explosive violence, the hulking bandit whipped a heavy hunting knife from his belt and hurled it with lethal precision, aiming the spinning steel blade directly at the back of Lucious’s head.

Lucious did not even need to turn around. His hand blurred upward, snatching the flying knife cleanly out of mid-air by the blade just inches from his skull.

In the exact same heartbeat, Lucious Crimson and orange flames violently erupted from his pale palm, completely engulfing the iron knife. Spinning on his heel, he whipped his arm forward and threw the blazing weapon right back at the man who had cast it.

Before anyone in the clearing could even blink, the flaming knife tore straight through the center of the giant bandit’s forehead with a sickening crack. The volatile fire magic did not stop at the wound; upon impact, the flames exploded outward, spreading rapidly across the man’s leather armor and skin, bathing his entire body in a roaring pillar of fire within seconds.

The entire roadblock froze in absolute, paralyzed shock. The bandits could only stare in horror as their strongest comrade dropped to the dirt, screaming in mind-bending agony as he writhed and danced painfully on the ground, his flesh charring into black ash.

’A mage class?!’ Terissa gasped internally, her mind racing as she took an involuntary step back on her beast’s saddle. ’No, wait... with physical reaction speeds like that, there is no way he is a traditional mage!’

For the first time since the carriage had stopped, genuine fear crept into her chest as she frantically weighed the pros and cons of committing her gang to an all-out slaughter against an unknown variable.

However, before Terissa or any of her terrified men could fully grasp what had just unfolded, Lucious’s patience officially ran out. A cold, suffocating fit of rage washed over his pale features.

He slowly turned his body back toward the veiled woman, his crimson eyes glowing with a bright, sinister light even in the afternoon shade.

"I gave you a fair chance to walk away from this," Lucious said, his deep voice dropping, until it echoed like a death sentence across the silent woods. "There is no second chance."

"Uhn?" Terissa flinched, her hand dropping toward her hip.

Crack!

Before she could even shout an order to her men, Terissa suddenly heard the loud, sickening sound of snapping bone echoing sharply from the bushes to her left.