Timur grunted. The theatrics drained from his face just a little.
“Well. Fair,” he said, quieter. “Not much a man can say to that.”
He jabbed a thumb down the path ahead. “We’re heading to Mira anyway. Closest place with people dumb enough to offer ferry service to the Islands. We need to report… whatever the hell this all was.” He took another look at the massive wreckage left by the Moon Flayed King.
“Report? to the guild?” Ludwig asked.
His voice dropped lower. “To a group of Vampire Hunters.”
That caught Ludwig’s attention. His steps slowed slightly.
“Vampire Hunters?” he asked.
Timur nodded. “That’s what they call themselves, yeah.”
Robin reappeared at their side—no words, just a quiet nod, barely more than a ghost in motion. Gorak trudged behind him like a silent tower.
“They’re not the real deal,” Timur continued. “Just some enthusiasts. The real Covenant? Long gone. Centuries ago.”
And with that, Timur turned and kept walking, boots crunching across the broken stone of the March.
The wind had grown colder as they walked.
Beneath their feet, the ground shifted from broken stone to uneven earth, knotted with roots like grasping fingers. The trees thickened, their skeletal branches reaching low over the path as if to whisper secrets to passing ears. The dim light from the stars and what seemed to be a cloud of hidden moonlight dulled the world to shades of grey, blurring the ruins in the distance into dark silhouettes.
Timur trudged forward, his gait steady but not quiet. He walked like a man who knew the rhythm of travel well, but didn’t care if the world heard him coming. His armor creaked and clanked in time with his muttering.
“So these so-called ‘Vampire Hunters’…” he said, voice rising just enough to carry. “They’re not what they make themselves out to be. No oath-sworn bloodline. No ancient order. Just kids in capes with granddad’s daggers and delusions of grandeur.”
Ludwig didn’t answer. He walked behind, listening—head tilted slightly downward, as if weighing every word against memory.
“They’re looking for something,” Timur continued. “Their old base. Gone quiet centuries ago. Nobody knows where it was. Just… vanished. Poof. And now they think this place might hold a clue.”
He kicked a stone. It skittered into the underbrush.
“How would they make that connection?” Ludwig asked. His tone was even, almost too neutral.
Timur scoffed. “Same way fools always do. Wild theory and desperation. All because of one name—Bastos Van Dijk.”
Melisande kept close behind Ludwig, her pace light, arms crossed over her chest. “Eight-tier mage,” she said, voice more serious now. “The only living descendant of the Bastos family.”
“Aye. A real piece of work,” Timur muttered. “Now branded a criminal by the Holy Order. Which, frankly, only made him more interesting to every nutjob with a sword and a holy book.”
“They sent adventurers out here,” Melisande added, frowning. “To his old estate. Hoping to find relics, evidence, a reason.”
“And what did they find?” Timur threw a hand outward, gesturing at the desolate landscape around them. “Just what we saw. Monsters, death, and something that shouldn’t be born under the sun.”
Gorak’s steps never slowed. He remained silent, but the grip on his axe tightened slightly.
Ludwig walked in silence for a moment, the faintest crease on his brow. He didn’t look at them when he spoke again.
“He’s a vampire now.”
“Yes,” Melisande replied softly.
“But he wasn’t back then,” Timur said. “When the royals got him? He was human. A little… unstable, maybe. But human.”
Ludwig narrowed his eyes slightly. “He was captured?”
Robin, who had barely spoken since rejoining them, gave a soft nod. His voice came quiet, clipped. “You saw the remains. The bones. The rot.”
“I did.”
Ludwig didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.
He had read Van Dijk’s journal. Or what remained of it. Pages torn, entries smeared, sentences that ended mid-thought. Words filled with frustration and grief, some trembling with madness, others with clarity too sharp to face.
Timur exhaled. “Rumor is—he was accused of wiping out his entire bloodline. execution?. Rituals? No one knows why; all they saw were the bodies. The story shifts depending on who’s telling it. But the ones who pushed for his downfall weren’t saints. They were capital merchants. Rivals.”
“Influence war,” Ludwig murmured.
“Exactly,” Timur said, stabbing a finger at the air. “They couldn’t beat him fairly, so they labeled him a monster. Pulled strings. Spread tales. Called in favors. When the noose tightened, they took everything—his holdings, his investments, all except this patch of cursed land.”
Melisande’s brows drew together. “And this place… turned like this after?”
“Overnight, apparently, or that’s what history is saying,” Timur said grimly. “No one dares come here. Those who do… rarely leave. They say it’s cursed. But no one ever proved he did it.”
They reached a slight clearing. The trees thinned just enough to reveal a slightly wider path forward.
“It’s strange,” Ludwig said. “That so much knowledge of what happened survived from seven centuries ago.”
Timur let out a laugh—sharp, bitter. “That’s the irony. The merchant guilds who destroyed him? They still exist. Proud of it, too. They call it a triumph. They claim they defeated the ‘Black Fiend’ before he ever rose.”
“They claim credit,” Melisande echoed, “for ruining him. And now that he’s known as one of the greatest mages of the empire…”
“They brag,” Timur finished. “They brag about forcing him down a darker path. Like they did the world a favor, it makes my damn stomach turn. Though they never expected him to become a Tower Master, their descendants still fear the day he could turn his magic on them, but unfortunately, he is far kinder than I would have been.”
Gorak gave a grunt, low and approving. Even that seemed loud for him.
“And the Hunters?” Ludwig asked. “What happened to them?”
Timur shrugged, his voice almost a growl. “Chased ghosts. Chased Van Dijk. Eventually, they vanished. Picked off. One by one. Some say it was him. Some say it was another hidden force, no one knows for sure, but the original Vampire Hunter cult, they’re eradicated.”
Ludwig’s expression didn’t change.
“He earned the name Black Fiend for a reason,” Timur said. “The things he did to the people who came for him weren’t just cruel. They were… instructional. He wanted to be understood.”
A silence stretched between them.
“Does he have any family left?” Ludwig asked quietly. “Not the ones lost—any distant kin? Cousins, siblings…?”
Timur shook his head. “Not a whisper. The old records list the Bastos line as single-branch. One father, a couple of wives. A few sons. All dead. Van Dijk took their bones. Buried them himself. No one’s seen or heard of another soul carrying that blood.”
“I see,” Ludwig said.
He wasn’t surprised. But it still sank in.
Another piece. Another silence where a voice should have been.
[Dawn Island Quest Updated!]
[Investigate the group of Neo Vampire Hunters.]
A group of them seems to be in the city of Mira
There is a possibility of their involvement in the complete destruction of the Bastos Family
The notification blinked before Ludwig’s eyes—and only his. A cold reminder. Another thread was quietly offered by the system.
He dismissed it with a flick of thought, his face unreadable.
The journal had named the Treacherous Fanged Apostle as the destroyer of the Bastos bloodline. But now… this. Another group. Another hand in the ruin. Not myth. Not prophecy.
The Vampire Hunters.
Ludwig walked on, the silence pressing tighter around him.
He wasn’t chasing ghosts anymore.
