The real threat, Vicky realized, was the unknown.
His conversation with Mila replayed in his mind even as he paced the length of his penthouse, watching Veros's skyline through reinforced crystal. The city looked peaceful: glittering towers, a river of distant headlights, a dusk haze that softened the edges of warehouses and tenements. But beneath the surface, purpose was gathering. Glyph by glyph. Building by building. The Silent Dragon's array was not just a circle of property or fortune—it was an act of war. And, more troubling, it was a declaration issued by an enemy who still believed he was just a powerful vampire—nothing more.
For hours, Vicky studied the complex patterns displayed in 3D above his war table. Mila had drawn out the city's grid with red dots where the Silent Dragon's hidden properties intersected energy lines, subway tunnels, ley points, and even the old, forgotten aqueducts from centuries past. The array was vast—i.e., city-spanning. There were outlier dots on the outskirts, some deep in industrial ghost towns, others inside opulent high-rises. No pattern was perfectly regular, save one fact: together, they described a perfect ring.
"It's a cage, but for what?" Vicky murmured to himself.
Elias entered the room, a faint sheen of dried blood on his shirt. He was stoic; the hunt at the port had been a total success. "Master. The Deep Ones are finished. No survivors. We left enough evidence for the FBI to 'solve' their case. The human agents will be busy for weeks."
Vicky offered a nod. "Good. Your squad?"
"Minor injuries. Nothing that didn't heal." There was satisfaction in Elias's rumble.
"And the city's atmosphere?"
"Tenser. Rumors are starting in low-level circles, but the higher-tier players are cautious. The only talk is that a powerful vampire is making moves—nobody's guessed your real race. The Silver Tier masters still seem hidden. They're watching through proxies."
Vicky smiled, the sharp smile of a predator. "Let them. But you're right—nobody has seen the bigger game. Not even the architect of this array."
A new voice interrupted, soft and precise. "That's because this is not standard cultivation magic." Mila's face appeared above the display, her tone clipped with worry. "Vicky, I ran the node intersections against magical compendiums and historical city blueprints. Some overlap, but I can't find any documented formation that matches. The closest I find are ancient Chinese ghost-binding nets—and those were for containment, not destruction or control. But this... this is too large. Too intricate."
"A net meant for a monster," Vicky mused, looking at his own reflection in the glass.
A long silence stretched out between them.
"You need to scout it directly," Mila said at last, brows furrowing. "Physically. You need firsthand sensing. The ritual site in the southeast—near Old Bell Foundry—matches the most likely command node, based on density and historical layering. But I can't guarantee safety. There are high-level passive wards. You'll set something off."
Vicky turned to Elias. "You'll lead a diversion. Hit the northern node with a visible strike—something noisy but survivable for our squad. Force their eyes up north. Marcus, you'll hold the Vault. Mila, guide me via comms. I want all secondary Pact teams to be ghosted, but close enough to extract me if things turn. Understood?"
Elias gave a crisp nod, baring fangs in anticipation. "It will be done, Master."
Marcus, in the background, gave approval with a single, curt "Yes, Master."
The city at midnight was a different kingdom. Vicky chose to travel by rooftop, shrouding himself with just enough vampiric concealment to pass unnoticed by mundane eyes or camera lenses. He felt every vibration of the city—from the pulse of traffic, to whispered conversations of gang members, to the psychic tremors of his own soldiers echoing through the Pact bond.
Approaching the Old Bell Foundry, the atmosphere changed. The foundry was an ancient ruin, most of its bricks blackened and overgrown. The very air seemed viscous—charged, as if heavy rain hovered in the clouds. At the center, the oldest bell tower stood sentinel, its windows hollow and floor lined with graffiti.
Vicky dropped to the ground, landing so lightly that the cracked pavement didn't stir. No humans in the immediate area—his senses confirmed it. But other energies tingled at the edge of perception: runic clusters etched in invisible ink within the mortar, sigils painted in occult blood beneath loose stones, and threads of faint golden light connecting to the rest of the circle.
He opened his inner sight, letting Blood Dragon Chi and vampiric senses blend into one. What he saw was a spiderweb spun in ten dimensions: nodes pulsing faintly with power, interwoven lines that drew vitality from the city itself: streetlights, Metro wiring, even the movement of air and cycles of river tides. It was elegant but terrifying in ambition.
'They're drawing on the city's living energy. Not just mana—human life, flow, even fortune. Everything.'
Moving with supernatural speed and silence, Vicky circled the perimeter, eyes scanning for traps and secondary triggers. He detected energy anomalies—silent alarms that would warn practitioners of any interference but nothing that felt like an instant-death trap.
He ducked into a shadow where a ward's weak point flickered. Here, he extended a taloned finger and lightly scraped a glyph, drawing a sliver of the array's energy into himself. The taste was strange—almost stinging, sharp with an alien flavor not present in standard western or eastern runic magic.
Mila's voice crackled in his earpiece. "Readings are spiking. It's sending a signal to at least three locations. You need to get out—someone's triangulating."
He kept feeding her data, whispering descriptions, as he moved to the inner sanctum: the center of the bell tower, where a massive sigil spiraled on the concrete—a brand that pulsed with a life of its own.
Now he could sense it more clearly. The array wasn't just a cage. It was a filter, a set of interlocked spells designed to change or suppress something at a citywide scale. Vicky felt a chill. There was a resonance here, tuned to the metaphysical spectrum that he, and those like him, existed within. Not an instant kill, but some sort of suppression, isolation, maybe locking away a certain class of beings—or something that would otherwise reveal itself.
A sudden pulse of hostile intent slammed into his senses.
He spun, silent as a wraith, just in time to see a shadow cross the ruins. A human silhouette—too careful, too deliberate to be a homeless trespasser. His eyes registered faint spiritual armor, flickers of jade-green energy surrounding the figure's limbs.
A Silver Tier practitioner.
The air grew colder still; the city's sounds faded.
Vicky did not draw on his full Blood Dragon form. That would light the metaphysical sky like a nuke and tell every rival—human and not—that he was more than a vampire. Instead, he let just enough power slip, baring a hint of Progenitor aura through his Presence.
The figure paused just outside the circle's central glyph. For a moment, neither moved. Then, softly, the intruder spoke—his voice a velvet whisper, laced with power and confidence.
"You shouldn't be here. Nightwatch dog, are you?" The accented words suggested an old education, far from Veros.
"I go where I please," Vicky replied, voice calm. "And I see you're not afraid to walk into your own trap. Which of the Silver do I have the honor of meeting?"
The man smiled faintly, the light sliding off his skin strangely, "Honor is for the righteous. You are not that, nor am I. But you—" The man's eyes flashed, "—reveal things you shouldn't be able to see. All I smell is blood, Nightwatch dog. You reek of it. Will you bleed for me tonight?"
Vicky gave only a tilt of the head, every last sense on edge. The exchange lasted only seconds, but within them, a lifetime's worth of stakes seemed to balance.
He could test this man—see what level Silver Tier truly meant. But if he displayed even a fraction of his true lineage, the whole city's supernatural network would know within minutes. Every old power, every spy, every enemy would recalibrate overnight.
Instead, Vicky played the careful game. "Let's not start a war none of us will walk away from. I'm just here for a look."
"Looking," the man agreed softly, stepping closer, now mere meters away, "is dangerous. You're lucky tonight wasn't the night planned for hunting." The man lowered his stance, energy swirling. "Next time," he said, "come with less hunger. Or don't come at all."
The intent was clear: a warning, but also a test. The Silver Tier did not know his nature. Maybe suspected a strange new vampire, possibly even a nascent progenitor, but not the full scope of what had emerged in Veros.
Their eyes met, predator and predator. The moment was knife-edge tense.
Then, as if on cue, distant sirens rang out from the north. Elias and the Alpha Squad had begun their diversion; Syndicate alarms and gunfire broke the city's silence. Both supernaturals registered the shift instantly.
Vicky held the Silver Tier's gaze. Both of them retreated at the same moment—one to the shadows of the bell tower, the other back to the rooftops. Neither turned their back.
When Vicky returned to The Vault, Mila patched into his comms at once. "They moved. Satellite feeds show at least four Silver Tier energy spikes relocating across the city, all converging on the array's border nodes. Whatever this is about to become, they're mobilizing. The net is almost finished."
"And the silent dragon," Vicky said, "doesn't even realize they're about to catch something far beyond their imagination."
He looked at the city, his city, and knew the next move was his. But as dawn colored the sky, the sigils across Veros began to flicker, one by one, as if welcoming something older or wicked—or perhaps, something neither vampire nor dragon wanted to meet.
END OF CHAPTER 43
VICKY THORNE: STATUS
Level: 31
XP: 500 / 55,000 (To Level 32)
Tier: 2 - Advanced (Vampire Knight)
Race: Progenitor - Blood Dragon Hybrid (100% Purity)
STR: 56 (37 base x 1.5 from Dragon's Blood)
SPD: 54 (36 base x 1.5)
END: 54 (36 base x 1.5)
Chi: 50/50 (Blood Dragon Chi)
Special Skill: Blood Dragon Transformation (Active: x4 to base STR, SPD, END)
NEW ABILITIES (Unchanged):
Dragon's Blood (Passive)
Blood Dragon Chi (Active)
Dragon Wings (Active)
Blood Fire (Active)
Mind Control (Active)
Vampire Knight Authority (Passive)
Blood Dragon Presence (Passive)
Blood Dragon Transformation (Active, x4 physical stats)