The Fallen Vampire

Chapter 10: Hunt In The Dark

Indra did not even notice what was happening but his clothes slowly started to change.

Bio armor is a truly miraculous thing.

It is essentially alive in the sense that it can sense it's hosts emotions and responds accordingly.

With Indra now in hunt mode as he had been so many times during his mother's training, the bio armor shifted to the outfit he traditionally wore in combat.

His kimono gradually lost shape and split apart and in a moment, he was wearing black hakama pants with a piece of black and gold cloth down the middle and sides that were tied with a long strap of burgundy cloth.

The loose and baggy pants became much tighter below his knee and his feet remained bare, ensuring his ability to remain absolutely silent.

His arms were covered in long black sleeves while the rest of his upper body remained free and unencumbered.

On his chest there was a black metal chest plate with a symbol in the center that roughly translates to 'kaizen'.

Unconcerned with his miraculous new outfit, Indra shape-shifted into a small black bat with red eyes and flew up onto the ceiling just as the humans entered the hall.

Unbeknown to Indra, Enyo had sensed his mental state through their connection and flew to his location in utter panic.

She was enraged when she saw that more filthy humans had barged into their hallowed castle but she quickly forgot about that when she saw how he was behaving.

And so Enyo decided to remain invisible and incorporeal, wanting to see if her prince had retained muscle memory from the queen's harsh training.

If things started to look dire, she would not hesitate to step in and save her prince before any harm could come to him.

'Come on, Prince Indra! Your faithful Enyo is routing for you!'

As the humans came closer and closer, Indra no longer needed to use his enhanced hearing to pick up what they were saying.

"I'm sure we'll find your parents in here somewhere, Sarah." One man said.

"We'd better...I've been trying to keep the twins calm but I'm running out of things to tell them." the woman responded.

"This place is massive though... Do you think maybe we should've brought more than eight people?" Another asked.

"It can't be helped. We could only scrape together so many adventurers on such short notice."

The group of eight humans began to search and scour various rooms in the castle.

All the while they were never aware that they were being followed by a very small bat that was crawling along the ceiling.

Among the humans gathered, there were five cultivators in the mortal realm and three one star arcane mages.

Stars are the term used to refer to the level of ones talent, power, and expertise.

Like cultivation it is something that can be improved upon overtime but where cultivation requires materials, resources and dedication, stars only require enlightenment and practice.

However, those two things are not as easy to acquire as they sound as a great many mages never rise above four star.

Indra watched all of the humans without blinking.

In this state of mind, there was little that could cause him to lose focus.

No longer fighting his hunger and no longer being controlled by it, he was guiding it instead.

After twenty minutes of searching, the human woman called Sarah finally threw up her arms in frustration. "By the twelve! This'll take forever at this rate."

She turned around to face the rest of her party.

"Let's split up. We can cover way more ground if we search multiple areas at once."

Two of the girls in the group looked like they were on the verge of tears having to search such a spooky place alone, luckily two male cultivators each offered to escort one of them.

Sarah looked annoyed by the downright obvious acts of the two men but she simply elected not to comment.

Right now the most important thing was that they began the search as quickly as possible.

The group soon broke apart and walked in four separate directions.

It didn't take long for Indra to decide on one of the men who was alone.

He wasn't worried about losing the rest of the group, one of the abilities of the vampire race was their ability to track their prey in the dark using thermal vision.

Indra followed the man into what appeared to be a large and extravagant kitchen.

The man looked around the kitchen for a bit before he grumbled in annoyance.

"This feels like such a waste... her parents probably looted as much as they could from this damn place and ran off somewhere."

The annoyed man eventually took out a metal flask and began drinking to alleviate his boredom.

"Hoo! That's the stuff!"

The man was in such a good mood as he drank, he didn't even notice when Indra dropped down from the ceiling in his true appearance and stood behind him.

The vampire held up a single finger and watched as a sharp black claw burst from his nail.

Indra plunged that single finger into the back of the man's head.

A shallow gasp escaped his mouth before he died without even seeing his attacker.

Indra caught the body of the man before it could hit the ground and cause needless noise.

'Silence... only silence...'

His mind repeated those words like a mantra.

He wasn't sure where he'd heard them but in this moment those were the rules that defined his existence.

Indra looked at the dark blood that was spilling onto the floor in disgust.

Right now, he could not drink any blood with even the slightest bit of alcohol. If his senses became dull and his body lost it's equilibrium, he would lose his efficiency as a hunter.

Such a thing could never be allowed to happen for it would put his life at potential risk and even stain his honor.

Unfortunately, his first meal was inedible but that was fine.

There were seven more morsels walking around his castle whom he could drink from.