The Smiling Shadow's Bait

“That’s enough out of you,” Anna said, letting her go. She then stood up and faced Zebril, “Captain Zebril, your duty is to command the barracks’ defense and manage its resources from the command post. Let us handle the direct engagement.”

She took Maren by the arm, “Lady Serenya tasked us with the protection of this barracks. That includes handling threats at the gate. And don’t forget, this child right here is more powerful than any knight in here.”

Zebril stared at Anna and Maren. Finally, she gave a single, sharp nod. “You’re right. Go. I’ll secure the inner perimeter and coordinate the defense. Do not fail.”

“Maren, sword form. Now,” Anna commanded.

With a final, bratty “Hmph!” the little girl dissolved in a flash of blue light, reforming into the elegant, deadly blade.

The scene at the main gate was worse than she’d imagined. The temporary wooden barricades had been torn to splinters. Several guards lay wounded, their armor rent and torn.

In the middle of it all, a knight had been corrupted;

"IT WAS ALL THE VAMPIRES FAULT!!" he writhe. His skin was spotted with pulsating black veins, his plate mail was warped and twisted, and his eyes glowed with the same sickly white light as Pietta's. He fought with superhuman power, tossing armored men aside like toys.

Zebril, arriving just behind Anna, gasped. “By the gods… that’s Sir Marmaducus. He’s one of Tetbald’s best men.”

But Anna’s newly evolved senses weren’t focused on the knight. They were locked onto the object clutched in his corrupted gauntlet. A small round stone, glowing with orange light.

That’s… her mind stuttered. That’s Pietta’s stone. The one I left in the wall.

Zebril saw it too, her commander’s eye spotting the unnatural artifact. “That stone in his hand,” she demanded of a nearby wounded guard. “Where did he get that?”

The guard coughed, clutching a wound in his side. “We found it, Captain! Right outside the wall after the big battle last night. We thought it was some kind of monster’s core, something left behind by the Mupo bird attack.”

The pieces clicked into place in Anna’s mind with sickening clarity.

Her memory flashed back to the alley, to Pietta’s sweet, innocent-sounding offer. “This seed. If you keep it, no human will touch you.”

“Is this what she mean…?

“We tried to destroy it, Captain!” he gasped out. “Sir Marmaducus said it felt evil, so he struck it with his warhammer. But… it didn’t break and exploded! A wave of that light hit him and three others.”

As if on cue, three more figures stumbled out from behind the burning wreckage of the gatehouse, all of them turning their attention to Anna and Zebril.

Thwip. Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.

In a single motion, four arrows were released and reached their targets. Each one hit the single exposed vulnerable spot on a corrupted knight—the eye socket.

Before their bodies ever touched the cobblestones, the four giants fell to the ground, dead.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the source: Apu, the silent squire, who was now standing with a longbow and another arrow nocked, his face displaying a deadly, serene focus.

The first to recover was Zebril,  “Status report! Form a perimeter! Where in the hells is Tetbald?!”

A nearby guard, his helmet askew, shook his head. “We don’t know, Captain! He went to investigate the disturbance before Marmaducus found the stone. He’s missing!”

“Bloody hell…” Anna muttered, the situation spiraling further out of her control.

Far above, circling unseen in the night sky, a single crow watched the scene unfold. Its eyes glowed with a faint, magical light. Through them, Demidicus and Helartha observed everything.

“She truly is a monster,” Demidicus murmured, his voice a mixture of cynical admiration and genuine surprise. “To deliberately leave a cursed artifact on the outer wall, knowing the night watch would be the first to find it. She targeted their best men without lifting a finger.”

Helartha shuddered, watching through the crow’s senses. “This… this is the person Lord Yarte has named his Shadow? She creates chaos and then stands back to watch it unfold.”

Back at the gate, Anna’s eyes saw something the others couldn’t. The four corpses of the knights were glowing with a soft, white aura, signaling that their residual life and magical energy could be devoured. She turned to Zebril.

“Captain,” she said, her voice low. “Their bodies are still tainted with Morvanium. They need to be… cleansed permanently. Do I have your permission?”

Zebril, still reeling from Tetbald’s disappearance, just gave a sharp, weary nod. “Do what you have to do.”

Anna then walked slowly to each set of armor, her head bowed. In her mind, she was simply reading the names engraved on their gorgets, a silent, final acknowledgment. Marmaducus. Rinewa. Breiden. Lyamwe. Then, with a quiet, internal command, she said, “Devour.”

Four streams of black liquid erupted from the empty armor and flowed into her, her mana reserves ticking up slightly.

Through the crow’s eyes, the scene was different.

“Look!” Demidicus said, his voice alight with academic fascination. “That’s how a proper vampire should do it.”

One by one, savoring the process. Meanwhile saint X just devoured eighty monsters in a single second! The techniques are completely dissimilar.

Helartha, however, was pale with horror, her heart seeing only pure, calculated evil.

“It’s so much worse than that, Captain.” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Don’t you see? That stone turned them. She turned those poor men into dark beings first, all so she would be able to devour them after they were killed.” She looked at Demidicus, her eyes wide with terror.

“What a monster.”

A small, internal notification flickered in Anna’s mind.

[Mana: 10,400,000 / 32,450,000]

Maren who still in her sword form, floated gently beside Anna’s shoulder. “Mnnaaa, Anna…” she whispered telepathically, her tone conspiratorial.

“I noticed two spies up in the sky. In the form of crows. They feel… dark.”

Anna didn’t break her calm demeanor. “It’s probably just Yarte’s people, keeping an eye on their new asset,” she murmured, loud enough for only Zebril to potentially hear. “Just let them be. It’s best they see we have nothing to hide.”

Casually, she tilted her head up towards the night sky, found the two circling crows, and smiled, followed by a little wave.

-ooo-

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he chuckled, a newfound, dangerous amusement dancing in his eyes. “She just broke the fourth wall.” Demidicus said from afar

With the spies acknowledged and the immediate threat neutralized, the reality of the situation crashed back down. She looked at the main gate.

Zebril walked over, “That was… an effective way to handle the situation, I guess.” she said, her voice a low rumble. “Thank you for taking care of them. You prevented a full-blown plague within these walls.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Anna replied, her gaze sweeping over the massive, gaping hole where the gatehouse used to be. She kicked a loose piece of rubble with the toe of her boot.

“…But yeah, the front gate being completely destroyed is kind of a bummer.”

Zebril looked at her, then at the catastrophic damage, followed by a short, barking laugh. “A bummer,” she repeated, testing the strange word. “Yes, I suppose it is.” She clapped a gauntleted hand on Anna’s shoulder, “Don’t worry about it. That’s my job. Fixing this mess is what I do.”

-ooo-

The cool night air was a familiar comfort to Tetbald. For twenty years, he had walked the patrol routes around the barracks. But tonight, something feels wrong

It was too silent. He had been drawn away moments earlier by a strange noise, “Someone there?!”

He heard another sound, closer this time. A sharp snap of a twig from deep within the trees.

An animal? he thought, his hand tightening on the familiar ash wood of his spear.

Or another scout from that damned army?

Suddenly, the tall grass to his left rustled violently.

His training took over in an instant. He spun, planting his feet and bringing the spear’s leaf-bladed tip to bear. The faint hum of his personal protection ward activating, a magical shield that had stopped orc axes and goblin arrows for years.

The attacker was so fast. Tetbald didn't even have time to thrust his spear. He saw a flash of movement, felt the solid, reliable magic of his ward shatter like a pane of glass, and then… a sensation of shocking, surgical cold across his neck.

There was a dizzying tilt to everything. He had an incomprehensible view on the moon, treetops, and his own armored shoulders. The gentle sound of his own helmet striking the woodland floor was the last thing Sir Tetbald ever heard.

Whatever it was, it vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, leaving just the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.