Hanitz watched Gabriel in silence long after his words faded.

The room felt smaller around them, the weight of everything the former Paladin had confessed pressing into the walls.

Hanitz exhaled slowly.

You may be stronger… faster, but you're still the same scared boy I dragged out of that snow hovel, he thought.

You survived the cold, survived the Order, survived the Paladins.

But you're still that half-frozen child looking at me for something to hold onto.

His gaze hardened, not out of anger, but because the memory hurt more than he'd ever admit.

He remembered that day clearly. The wind screaming across the ridge, the collapsed hovel half-buried in snow, the tiny shape curled inside it, waiting to die. Gabriel hadn't spoken then.

He'd just stared.

The same stare he had now.

Hanitz lifted his chin slightly.

"Get up," he said, voice low. "You're not a boy anymore."

Gabriel didn't move at first.

Hanitz straightened, eyes narrowing.

"I don't know if this is Dracamerian blood, or just the fantasies of a cult," he said quietly. "I don't know if any of this makes sense."

"But I do know this, lad." His voice softened in a way only Gabriel ever heard. "I trained you. I know what you are. Stubborn and hard to kill."

He paused.

"If people are hunting you… Then you hunt them back. If someone wants you dead, you kill them first."

Hanitz locked eyes with him.

"You've survived worse."

Hanitz paused for a moment, letting the words sink in.

"It's nearly morning now," he muttered, glancing toward the shuttered windows. "Adan's cleaned up the mess you made."

"I'll get Ennu to bring us some food. You look like you haven't eaten in days."

Gabriel didn't argue.

Hanitz turned toward the doorway, boots heavy against the floorboards.

"Sit down," he said without looking back. "You're no good to anyone if you fall over again."

He left the room, the door creaking shut behind him.

Gabriel sat there, cloth still in his hands, breath slowly steadying.

He's right. There's too much I don't know. I need to find out more about the Dracameres. I need to find out the real reason the Order did this to me.

His fist tightened around the cloth.

The red in his irises began pulsing.

If they come for me, I will kill them all.

Righteousness begets cruelty. Mercy is for the weak.

…

Dawn crept over the abandoned village near Blackhaven, the first light stretched across the broken roofs, unable to hit the ground.

A single figure walked through the main street, towards the church that once nested Vampires.

Tall.

Clad in layered white and silver robes concealing armour, that never seemed to touch the dirt beneath his boots. Frost gathered along the hem but melted before it could cling.

His robe, long and pale as new snow, drifted behind him with each step, untouched by the wind. The metal from his armour shimmered faintly, reacting to the mana in the air.

A pristine sword hung at his hip, looking like it had never seen a single battle, but the area around its sheath vibrated, creating a gentle humming noise.

His footsteps made no sound on the frozen ground.

He moved like someone for whom silence was a natural state.

Only once he reached the edge of the hill did his pace slow.

The church was gone.

The entire structure had been flattened, reduced to nothing but scattered stone and crushed timber.

The hill it had been carved into was missing a full section, the slope cut open and exposed to the morning light.

Frozen soil, broken beams, and fragments of the foundation were strewn across the ground in uneven heaps.

A thin layer of frost clung to everything, undisturbed.

He moved forward, stepping over the broken debris without slowing.

The ground dipped slightly where the front steps of the church had once been. The doorway was gone, but he walked toward the exact spot it would have occupied and stopped.

He lowered one hand toward the ground, stopping just above the frost. Thin strands of mana shifted toward his palm, reacting instantly to his presence.

The current was uneven but not chaotic, evidence of a single, directed strike rather than an extended battle. He rotated his wrist slightly, watching how the particles bent and rolled.

No lingering malice. Whoever had released this power had been in full control.

He stepped to the left, then the right, tracing the spread of the impact. A single blow had collapsed the entire structure.

It was the work of someone who understood exactly how much power to use.

The air inside the ruined area was heavy with residual mana. It moved slowly across the ground and rose in thin currents. The aftermath of a precise, overwhelming strike.

He stood still and let it settle around him.

The man turned his head slowly, scanning the flattened ground, the scattered stone, the exposed cut of the hill. His eyes moved from one point to another as if measuring the force that had done this.

This was beyond anything a normal mage could produce, the mana was too precise, too disciplined.

The corner of his mouth lifted.

A small, controlled smile.

Old scripture whispered about beings who wielded power as an extension of their blood, not their training.

Those accounts were the reason the Order sought to awaken demon blood in the first place. And the residue here matched exactly what the Order had been searching for.

Someone with true demon lineage had been here. Awakened. 1

He looked over the ruined hill one last time.

His smile widened.

Then he turned away from the site, walking back across the debris without looking over his shoulder.

Not a single sound followed him as he returned to the horse, he'd tied at the village edge.

He mounted without hesitation and pulled the reins lightly. The animal didn't resist. It stood as still as the rest of the village.

He cast one final look toward the ruined hill, there was nothing left to learn here.

He turned the horse toward Blackhaven and rode out of the abandoned streets.

No one in the town ahead knew he was coming.

Intentional lore contradiction

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