Dragon of Endless Evil

" Shut the fuck up! Let me do my monologue~."

Vamp cleared his throat and switched to a softer melody.

"I continue... When I was young and human, I was sold by a vile tribe as a slave to nobles." His fingers slowed on the keyboard. "No need to specify that I spent the worst moments of my life. Dying would have been a deliverance I didn’t even have the right to. After all, a twelve-year-old child in the hands of pedophile pieces of shit can only end badly." He marked a silence. "Fortunately, I eventually met the Master, and he made me become something else. Thus I was able to accomplish all my objectives, starting by all those scumbags and delighting in their blood~~."

Conrad remained silent...

’Why is he telling me all this? Is he crazy? What am I supposed to answer? Tell him sorry for having lived all that?’

"Yeah, I know. You’re quite moved..." Vamp continued without turning around. "Added to this melody, it amplifies the sadness. It’s normal to be speechless."

"Uh. Hum, indeed, Lord Vamp, your story is an example of courage to follow!"

"You’re skilled at ass-licking... Your tongue must be full of shit, hahaha!"

"..."

An awkward silence settled, disturbed only by the crackling of the fire and the sliding of Vamp’s fingers on the keys.

"Anyway, it’s to tell you that life can be so flavorless that one thinks of ending it. But the solution, wouldn’t it be to no longer be weak? Or to be more precise, to no longer remain these pathetic and ephemeral beings we call humans?"

"What do you mean, My Lord? Is it possible to become like you?"

Vamp’s back, until then hidden under the light fabric of his shirt, began to mark with scars visible through the cloth. Branching lines that drew the silhouette of a five-headed dragon stretching from one shoulder to the other.

Vamp stopped playing.

"Little Vamp told me a bit about you..."

He turned his head slightly. Enough for Conrad to see his eyes: entirely black, without the slightest glint of white, two pits that reflected no light from the room.

’This... This isn’t Lord Vamp?’

"Poor little thing... Do you want to become my next Work?"

Conrad lowered his head to the floor, his hands trembling.

"My life as a human stops here... I am ready to sell my soul... As long as you give me a chance, Master!"

***

*Back to the present*

"He’s completely lost his mind, we have to subdue him." said Victoria.

"Yeah... He’s spouting so much bullshit. I have to shut his big mouth."

Daemon sheathed his katana with a sharp gesture and drew it again at once, the blade turned differently in his palm. It was no longer about understanding what was happening but subduing Conrad, whatever the cost.

"Victoria, we take him together. You cover, and I try to subdue him."

"As usual." She bent her knees, her palm already charged with undulatory chi.

< Second Sense of Sword: Steel Breath! >

Chi flowed into Daemon’s muscles. He lunged first, a shoulder strike followed by a reverse of the katana aiming at Conrad’s flank.

Conrad didn’t bother to draw. He dropped his sword to the ground and raised his hands, his fingers curling into black claws even longer than during the first assault.

His build changed before Daemon’s eyes: the shoulders broadened, the back muscles swelled under the fabric of his tunic that tore at the seams, and his spine curved slightly forward.

He intercepted Daemon’s reverse bare-handed, his claws scraping against the steel of the katana.

< Undulation! >

Victoria sent a concentrated wave toward Conrad’s exposed flank while he held Daemon’s blade. The attack made him step back one pace, just enough for Daemon to free his weapon and follow with a circular kick to the torso.

Conrad took it without a gesture of retreat. Daemon’s foot bounced against the ribs.

"Tsk!" Daemon clenched his teeth, the pain climbing up to his hip. ’His skin... it has become thick like Uncle Dorian’s head’

Conrad growled and counterattacked with a reverse of claws aiming at Daemon’s throat. The latter bent his knees, slid under the attack, and retaliated with an ascending katana strike that opened a cut on Conrad’s forearm.

The wound closed in a few seconds.

"Shit... He’s no longer human!" Daemon breathed.

Conrad took advantage of that second of stupor to leap, his claws aiming this time at Daemon’s face in a wide movement.

< Undulation! >

Victoria deflected the attack to the side with a palm strike, Conrad’s claws gouging the wall a few centimeters from Daemon’s skull. She followed at once, sliding between the two fighters to intercept a second blow that Conrad had already launched toward Daemon’s kidneys, invisible to him as he remained focused on the frontal exchange.

"No need to analyze these gestures, he strikes from everywhere at once!" she shouted while repelling the sneaky attack with a new palm movement.

"Understood!" Daemon recentered himself, refusing to let himself be distracted, and chained three successive katana strikes. The first two struck the hardened skin without cutting it. The third, charged with the full Steel Breath, finally opened a deep cut on the shoulder.

Conrad stepped back one pace, a blackish substance oozing from the wound instead of blood.

"You’re not a daugr, what the hell are you exactly?"

Conrad didn’t answer with words. He answered with a roar and charged at him again, his claws slicing the air.

"Who’s that?"

Before Daemon could understand where the voice came from, a silver blur crossed the hall at a speed that swept the debris in its path.

"So fast!!!"

One could barely make out silver hair in the movement.

"Whatever..."

"Slay!"

A silver chi swirled around the silhouette. The blade approached Conrad’s neck, the trajectory perfect, the speed sufficient to slice clean.

Then the stranger’s foot hit a stone detached from the collapsed wall.

"Shitty shit!?"

In the thousandth of a second where his balance wavered, Conrad pivoted and slapped him with a backhand. The impact sent the stranger flying across the hall, his body bouncing twice on the ground before immobilizing against a pile of rubble.

Everyone remained silent, a bit disconcerted by the scene.

"Who the hell was that?" asked Victoria.

"He didn’t last long anyway..." Daemon shrugged, still on his guard against Conrad who was now stepping back, shaking his head trying to regain control over himself.

A noise rang out from the rubble.

"Ah.. *Cough*Shit.. I hurt everywhere *Cough*"

A young man was slowly straightening up, pushing back blocks of stone bare-handed. He had long silver hair, tangled with dust and blood on the temple, and when he lifted his face, his heterochromatic eyes appeared in the gloom, one golden, the other blue like a winter sky. His build too frail for the sword he still held firmly in his right hand.

"Don’t you recognize me?"

He pushed with difficulty a last block of rubble that rolled to the side in a cloud of dust.

"I am the second prince... Siegfried Dragonslay.."

...