Chapter 7 — An Audience With The Vampires (7)

It was, beyond question, a speed Shin Hweein could never have reacted to.

The thought had already crossed his mind that this one, keeping Rank Five-and-a-half vampires as its retainers, might well be a yokai of that order.
But the presence it gave off was heavy enough to put those underlings beyond all comparison.
He had no prior experience to measure it against, so he could not be certain. Probably, though… a full Rank Four, or higher.
A true monster, against whom even a Second-Rank sorcerer would stand no chance.
In short, the creature could not be overcome unless Lt. General Yun himself descended, or at the very least several of the strongest hands in the Spell Army’s sorcerer-corps arrived together.

“—Kkh!”
“What…? I was certain I had laid the Evil Eye on you. How is this?”

But by sheer fortune Shin Hweein still held the Flame-Made-Flesh active, so his body was lighter than usual and his reactions quicker too.
Ignoring the vampire’s nonsense about an Evil Eye and whatever else, he hurled himself backward with all his strength to dodge the deep-thrusting katana, and on instinct he cried out.

“Pagoda-Tree God!”
“Ha!”

In that instant a blinding light burst from the talisman tucked at his breast, and countless pagoda-tree blossoms came scattering through the air all around.
The blossoms were pure white, their petals splayed open to either side, so that the sight of them was very like an uncountable swarm of cabbage-white butterflies beating their wings.
And they were not merely beautiful.
Some of them clung to the vampire’s body and to his sword-blade, fouling his movements, and in that interval Shin Hweein was just barely able to pull himself back and step clear of the creature’s strike-range.

“The Lord is impressed. ‘No matter how I look at him, in his present state he is one step from death, yet the sorcery he commands is still pure art,’ he says. But for all that—!”

The vampire’s eyes flashed sinister, and he swept the hand that had become a katana fiercely through the air.
Countless droplets of blood seeped from the blade, and each in turn became a shuriken charged with terrifying force, hurtling toward Shin Hweein.
They were swift, and what was more they moved at the vampire’s will, taking aim at every vital point on his body. This was no situation a few flame-shots or a stroke of Fire-blood could fend off.

“Oh?”

But the talisman’s role was not yet exhausted.
The pagoda-tree blossoms still drifting through the area began clustering thickly onto the staff in Shin Hweein’s one hand, and then, at his ear, the kindly voice of an old man sounded.

— This time, in truth, I shall be the one to protect you.

“Pagoda-Tree God…?”

The incarnation of the pagoda tree that warded the front courtyard of the Shin House had, just in time, descended through the body of the tree-dokkaebi he happened to bear.
The staff slipped free of his control and rose of its own accord into the air, sending out hundreds, thousands of branches in wild disorder. They pierced and shattered every shuriken bearing down on Shin Hweein, and the katana as well, and then drove on toward the vampire.

“Wretched things!”

A black aura rose at the vampire’s roar and swallowed the branches whole.
But the branches came on without seeming end, meeting his aura head-on and stubbornly tormenting him.
In that interval Shin Hweein was able to steady his breathing and refine the strategy with which he would face the creature.
The clue had come to him earlier, from his exchange with Geum Moa.

‘Can it be done? It is the only means available to me. Is there any chance? If even the thinnest of chances exists, I must stake everything on it. It amounts to losing one leg of my support… yet this much should still help draw out his complacency.’

Before that, on the off chance, he had tried to call Flame-tail to him, and as expected it had not worked.
It might be little enough to say so, but the sorcery in question teleported another to a distant place within the same Other Realm; for him to sacrifice himself in the casting was a balance that did not begin to add up. That was the thought he had been turning over.
And then, sure enough, this space shut out any intrusion from outside completely.
Surely it was a space that only those sharing the man’s true blood could just barely enter, and only at enormous cost.
The moment he understood that, his odds of victory rose higher still.

“Hah, you were going to call your shikigami, weren’t you? Yes, I was told for certain they were weak, but those shikigami of yours turned out to be stronger than they looked. I was rather shocked.”

Even while busy contending with the Pagoda-Tree God’s still-unending branches, the vampire had somehow read Shin Hweein’s intent, and he laughed in a buoyant tone.
Sadly, the talisman’s power was running dry. The branches that had first poured out like a waterfall were dwindling in force, visibly enough now for even Shin Hweein to see.
The vampire, meanwhile, had recovered his composure and was gathering strength to himself, treading the air at his leisure as he moved.

…His words were only half-right, but Shin Hweein did not bother to deny it.

“So I decided it would be better to call you to me than to go to you. If those monster-pets of yours got in the way while I was held up by your resistance, that would have been a problem, you see? My objective from the start was you, and you alone.”

If the creature was confident Lt. General Yun could not break in, then, though he had not been counting on it, surely it meant Geum Moa likewise could not.
For her to do so would violate their Three-Year Pact.

‘Though… if it is not that she truly means to leave me to die, perhaps she will come find me before it is too late… tch!’

He shook the naturally-rising, weak thought from his head at once.
Her appearance would mean the end of Shin Hweein’s struggle.
Had he not already concluded that such an end would be worse than death itself?
And yet, if every time his own peril came to mind he kept Geum Moa’s intervention in reserve, how could that be called a struggle staked on living?

“Even if I should die here, on this very spot.”

Judging that, as things stood, he would lose a fight even he could have won, Shin Hweein made his declaration with fierce intent.
The act of speaking it was to lay a spell upon himself, and so compel himself.
That he might never violate it. That, should his own heart betray him, he would die by his own hand before the enemy could kill him.

“I will never run away, nor depend upon another. I will, without fail, bring you to your knees before my eyes.”

In neighboring Hwa such a thing was called jubak, the binding of oneself by spoken spell; in the Celtic mythology of the West it was called a geas (Geas), a concept that granted a powerful force so long as the oath was kept.
Nor was its use confined to those traditions of sorcery. Anyone who believed that words carried power could make use of this spell.
Of course, lacking the rising boon a geas would confer, in its present form it was no more than a fool’s act, one that merely shackled his own actions.

“You’re a riot, you.”

About then, at last, the talisman’s power gave out, and every branch and petal that had stretched into the air withered all at once.
The vampire, just in case, broke the now-powerless staff and cast it aside, then alighted lightly upon the ground and looked him straight on.

“Truly the look in your eyes is one that thinks he can win against me. That it is.”

His eyes were stained violet and gave off a sinister aura. One could understand at once what was meant by an Evil Eye.
Only, it did not work on Shin Hweein.
Was it perhaps thanks to his own eyes, which saw more than most?
It was a possibility he had not so much as imagined until now, but perhaps Shin Hweein, too, possessed an Evil Eye of his own…

“As I thought, the Evil Eye doesn’t work on you. But what’ll you do now? You seem to have spent all your secret weapons, and you can’t even use that leg of yours properly, can you?”

Mockingly miming a limp with his own foot, the vampire closed the distance between them little by little.
From his whole body a black, wavering aura was surging up, and in the next moment it completed itself as metal and arrayed itself in mid-air. His thrall’s transforming of her arm into a sword had been like this too; apparently it was the man’s unique ability.
Only, he wielded it far more naturally still. Not as a part of his body, but with the aura he commanded alone, he forged weapons far more powerful.
And on every blade he made, droplets of blood seeped out a little at a time. Whether he hurled them by a swing or wound them about and attacked, he could call up blood-curse on top of it, an arrangement worthy to be called offense and defense in one.

“Are you not even short of blood?”
“Ah, that’s right. You handled some blood-magic yourself, didn’t you, in your meager way. But you can never become an Elder (Elder, a senior-rank specimen) if you run short of blood at this level. Whether you keep blood on hand at all times in your own pocket-space, sacrifice your thralls to replenish it, or take an enemy’s blood and make it your own—!”

With those words the creature loosed upon Shin Hweein, in a single volley, all the armaments he had brought forth from his body.
Shin Hweein, every ounce of Pungbaek’s force still wreathing him, hurled himself to the side with all he had. But that, in the end, was the creature’s trap.
What had truly come to attack him was a dagger sprung from the blood the thrall had naturally daubed onto his body earlier, in the act of sacrificing herself to teleport him here.

“Khak!”
“Ha. You don’t see, even now, that I’ve been observing the courtesies due a friend of the Lord’s? If I’d meant to finish you, I could have done it at any time.”

A great deal of blood flowed from the abdomen of Shin Hweein, who lay collapsed on the ground, pierced by the dagger.
Seeing it, the vampire gave a slight tilt of his head, then, as if something had not gone as he wished, knit his brows and once more closed the distance between them.

“Curious, this. As a rule, I can freely command the blood of any enemy I’ve wounded with my own. But with your blood, that doesn’t work. As though… you were of a rank far higher than mine.”

‘Though such a thing cannot possibly be,’ the vampire muttered, approaching with little hopping steps.
Even as he formed new armaments in the air, taking aim at Shin Hweein’s neck, his footwork itself was light and rhythmic as some operetta-actor’s.

“Anyone with such peculiar blood, I would by rights take as a thrall without question… but the Lord said it was to be either I kill, or be killed. One of the two, no other choice. So there’s nothing to be done. I cannot very well be the one to die, can I?”

At length the hundreds upon hundreds of blades floating in the air took aim at Shin Hweein’s torso.
The man came right up to Shin Hweein’s face, wearing the pale-but-beautiful countenance truly befitting a vampire, and smiled brightly as he spoke.

“What’ll you show me this time? Nothing? Then die.”

The smile of a handsome man like him was nothing but loathsome. Yet now Shin Hweein smiled back.

“There is still… one.”
“Really? But I don’t need it. Just die!”

In the midst of the hundreds of weapons flying at him together, Shin Hweein murmured quietly.

“Fire-blood — the art of Osubacha (the life-essence-devouring hungry ghost).”
“What—?!”

In that instant a rain of blades poured down from the sky and crashed into the blades aimed at Shin Hweein, shattering them all together.
There is a tale that the soul of one who betrays his comrades on the battlefield and seizes his own riches becomes, after death, a hungry ghost that craves only the vital essence of men, and wanders hell; that blades fall from the sky as if in pursuit of him, tearing the hungry ghost’s flesh.
The hungry-ghost art Shin Hweein commanded was a clever inversion of this tradition, so that when the hungry ghost appeared, the rain of blades it brought down could be made to obey the sorcerer.

— Kyuaaaat!

This alone was already a powerful art, but Osubacha was, strictly, a sorcery commanding a hungry ghost that devours vital essence.
Mist surging up from the vampire’s shadow seeped into his body in an instant, and from within it began to devour his power.

“Wh-, what is this…?”
“Earlier your words were only half-right. To be sure, I could not summon the flame-hound… but another of my children has eaten a great many of your kind. Thanks to that, it acquired the ability to seek out higher-rank vampires.”
“Just that? Just that?! Even my own thrall sacrificed her life… to send you to this place…!”

The vampire, his life-essence draining in real time, was growing paler still upon a countenance already pale.
And Arong was even now bringing to bear with all his force the power of the consecrated water he had absorbed from Sister Barbara earlier, so the creature would not be able to drive him out so easily.
Of course, a vampire of Grade Four standing would in the end manage to expel Osubacha and recover his vigor; ordinarily one would use the time so bought to open distance again and prepare a powerful art to disable him…

“Hah, huhh…”

But Shin Hweein, sadly, had already exhausted all his spiritual power and reached his limit.
With the time he had just barely bought, lifting himself only enough to kneel on one knee was the most he could manage.

“Hah, haha. Quite so. Having used a hand of that kind, you cannot possibly have spiritual power left…”

Even staggering, the vampire steadied his breath and rose with eyes dyed scarlet, halting right at Shin Hweein’s face.

“I was caught out for underestimating you. No, I’ll be honest. From you I felt the dignity of a venerable house that has polished its sorcery for long ages. Yes, a friend of the Lord’s ought to be at least this much, weak as he may be. It was a pleasure, truly. If I had my way, I’d want to chat longer, but—.”

Mid-speech, the man swept out an arm with sudden speed.
As he had at their first meeting, but now more swiftly and more violently still.
Only when the katana pierced through Shin Hweein’s chest did a smile finally come to the vampire’s lips.

“If I gave you more time, it seems you’d pull off another odd trick. My apologies. That was an undignified thing to do.”
“Cough…”
“By way of recompense, though it hardly counts as such, let me give you my true name. Leon Blade. The name of the man who has given your life a magnificent finish, leaving no blot upon it. Remember it even in death.”
“Leon, Blade…”
“Good. Perfect.”

Shin Hweein, with the hand he weakly raised, took hold of the blade that pierced his chest and spoke.

“Got you.”
“—?!”

The Gatekeeper’s Brand set into the back of that hand began to give off light.
The last warding charm tucked at his breast.
The talisman of the Gate-King God, who is the god of the great gate and also the god of every Gatekeeper, answered in kind and added its own light, and in the next moment.
A small wavering ripple formed upon the blade he had taken hold of, and swallowed the sword.

“Gak?!”

And then it reappeared, piercing through the vampire’s chest.
Even as the fountain of blood that poured back struck him in full, a deep smile rose to the corner of Shin Hweein’s mouth.

“You—what is…?!”
“You vampires handle teleportation so well that… I happen, as it turns out, to have a similar authority of my own, cough. I watched yours and adapted it.”

In truth this was something he had been devising for some time.
To be more exact, ever since the fight with the taejagwi who handled the power of boundaries, Shin Hweein had been taking a great interest in the power of space.
He could, after all, create gates that crossed between the present world and the Specter Realm; with a little study, he had wondered, might he not learn to wield that power more freely?
But this power had been given him by the spirit-gods, not won through his own inquiry, and so even a small variation upon it was no easy thing.
On the off chance, he had filled one of his three talismans with that of the Gate-King God, and only after enduring the vampire’s teleportation upon his own body had he, just barely, become able to teleport objects or parts of his body a little.
And even that he could never have managed, this trick of teleporting a strike clear through an opponent, had it not been for the weapons fashioned from the vampire’s transforming body.

“You won’t, then… go gracefully…! I was, trying to be courteous….”
“You still don’t see. I was simply trying to draw blood. That, alone, was the purpose.”
“What?”
“My meaning is, that I have won.”

Working his now-free hand, Shin Hweein reached into his breast.
What he drew out was a single talisman, its conditions of use now met, giving off a blinding light.

“Curse-absolving.”

Soaked through with the blood of ‘Shin Hweein’ and ‘Leon Blade’ both, giving off an aura that was no ordinary thing, it bore only three characters.

Indulgence, they read.