Bryce had been almost completely indifferent when she woke up after the defeat of Zeroth.
The maintenance crews had spent hours working on her E.V.A. core, replacing damaged components and stabilizing the systems that had been pushed far beyond their recommended limits. Bryce herself had barely reacted to any of it.
She lay there, watching the technicians work.
The attack on Kephra had already become another entry in the growing list of disasters the Knight Association had survived.
Then, during the latter stages of the coordinated defense, something unexpected happened.
Something—or rather, someone—came flying out of nowhere.
A figure slammed into the battlefield directly in front of Bryce.
The impact sent debris skidding across the ground.
Bryce stared down at him.
"...What?"
The man was battered.
His uniform and armour were torn and damaged, his body covered in dust and blood, and whatever strange amplification he had used had clearly pushed his power beyond its normal limits. Yet the opening he had created had been enough.
Enough to change the flow of the battle.
Enough for the her to exploit the gap.
Bryce had initially assumed he was dead after all the initial area she was told he was in was blown to kingdom come.
Honestly, considering the force with which he'd been thrown, she wouldn't have blamed him.
Then the man's body twitched.
Bryce's eyes narrowed.
"He's alive?"
Before she could move, another figure stepped from the smoke.
A hand closed around the injured man's throat.
He was lifted from the ground effortlessly.
Bryce's expression remained flat.
"...Okay."
The situation was almost laughable.
Almost.
There was something about the stranger that bothered her.
Not his appearance.
His power.
Bryce had seen abilities like that before.
Not personally.
Records.
Old Knight Association records.
Nearly twenty years ago, there had been a Knight whose abilities bore an unsettling similarity to what she was witnessing now.
The footage had been grainy. Old combat recordings. Most of the information surrounding the Knight had been classified, fragmented, or outright missing.
But the name had survived.
Daedric.
That had been his code name.
His real name was—
Akhuta Kodonaki.
A Knight who had disappeared.
Some said he had been killed.
Others claimed he had been taken.
There were even rumors that he had simply vanished during a mission and never returned.
No confirmed body.
No confirmed death.
Nothing.
Bryce's E.V.A. sensors immediately began screaming.
Unknown variation of ura detected.
unknown threat found.
The Daedric connection would remain a footnote.
An interesting one, certainly.
But a footnote nonetheless.
Bryce had more immediate concerns.
For one, she owed that guy a thank-you.
The problem was that she had absolutely no idea where he lived.
She had caught his name—or at least, she thought she had.
Nathaniel.
Nathaniel from Squad 4.
That was all she had.
No address.
No contact information.
Nothing particularly useful.
She could have asked the Knight Association, but the front-desk staff had been surprisingly unhelpful when she tried to track him down.
Apparently, Nathaniel wasn't exactly known for staying in one place.
"Where does he usually go?"
The receptionist had thought about it for a moment before giving her a few places.
Bryce memorized them.
The Illumine Guild was one of them.
Apparently, Nathaniel frequented the place often enough that someone there would probably know where to find him.
Bryce considered that for a moment.
Then shrugged.
Fine.
If she couldn't get his address, she'd just have to find him the old-fashioned way.
Hang around the places he frequented.
Eventually, he'd show up.
And when he did, she could finally thank him properly.
Though, considering what she'd seen during the battle, Bryce suspected finding Nathaniel might be considerably easier than finding out what the hell had happened to that unknown man.
She wasn't particularly worried about that.
Someone else could deal with the mystery.
She just needed to find the guy who had saved her.
"...Nathaniel from Squad 4."
Bryce committed the name to memory.
"Got it."
Then she turned toward the exit.
"Illumine Guild first."
Meanwhile, at the Knight Association HQ, specifically Squad Four's assigned training center—
The sound of steel striking steel echoed throughout the training grounds.
CLANG!
Alucard's greatsword came down with enough force to crack the floor beneath Nathaniel's feet.
Nathaniel caught the massive blade with both of his own.
His weapons were short compared to Alucard's greatsword, resembling shortened katanas in overall length, but they were noticeably heavier and more substantial than ordinary short blades. Each had a single sharpened edge, built for powerful chopping strikes rather than delicate fencing.
The three weapons locked together.
Nathaniel shoved Alucard's greatsword aside.
George immediately moved in.
Nathaniel spun, bringing one short blade up to catch George's attack while his other blade swept toward his torso.
George twisted away.
CLANG!
Sparks erupted from the collision.
Alucard recovered and swung again.
Nathaniel crossed his blades.
KRAANG!
The impact forced him backward several meters.
"You're getting slower," Alucard taunted.
Nathaniel looked at him.
"No."
His eyes began changing.
The usual silver faded into a dull orange.
"I'm getting heavier."
The blades in his hands began glowing red.
Heat radiated from the metal as Energize coursed through them.
Nathaniel wasn't using the technique at maximum conversion. He was deliberately keeping the conversion rate low, using just enough energy to reinforce his current state.
Even so, his attack power had nearly doubled.
George noticed immediately.
"He's boosting."
Nathaniel grinned.
"Just a little."
The orange in his eyes intensified.
Then he increased the conversion.
BOOM!
A concussive blast erupted from his body.
Heat and force blasted outward simultaneously.
George and Alucard were thrown backward.
Alucard dug his greatsword into the ground, using it to slow himself.
George skidded across the floor before catching his balance.
Nathaniel stood in the center of the training ground, both short blades glowing like heated iron.
Alucard's mouth curled upward.
"Okay."
His eye sparked with Uratsu.
"Now it's interesting."
Blood began forcing its way from his pores.
It spread across his body, layering over his skin before rapidly expanding and hardening.
The blood took on an iron-like quality.
Alucard's body became encased in dense crimson armor.
Spines of hardened blood erupted from his back.
Nathaniel lowered his stance.
"Here we go."
The spines launched.
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!
Nathaniel twisted between them.
One tore past his shoulder.
Another pierced through his side.
He barely reacted.
Alucard was already charging.
His greatsword swung horizontally.
Nathaniel crossed both short blades against it.
CLANG!
The collision sent sparks flying.
The heated edges of Nathaniel's weapons pressed against the greatsword, glowing brighter from the friction.
Then—
A flash of white and blue electricity erupted behind Alucard.
George.
His entire body crackled with electricity.
"Got you."
Alucard's eye widened.
"Don't—"
KRA-KOOOOOM!
Lightning surged through the iron-rich blood covering Alucard's body.
His muscles seized as electricity tore through the hardened coating.
Nathaniel jumped away.
George smirked.
"Still think I'm holding back?"
Alucard staggered.
"You bastard."
George laughed.
"You knew that already."
The three separated.
Nathaniel rotated his short blades in his hands before settling them into a reverse-ready stance.
Alucard's greatsword rested against his shoulder.
George's fingers sparked.
Then George glanced at Alucard.
A thought occurred to him.
His magnetic influence reached toward the absurd amount of iron contained within Alucard's hardened blood.
Alucard immediately noticed.
"...George."
George smiled.
"Sorry."
The magnetic force yanked.
Alucard's feet left the ground.
"GEORGE!"
George swung him around.
Nathaniel's eyes widened.
"You're actually doing this?"
"Catch!"
George released him.
Alucard came flying directly toward Nathaniel.
Nathaniel jumped.
He caught Alucard by the elbow in mid-flight.
For half a second, Alucard hung there.
His greatsword was still in his other hand.
Nathaniel looked at him.
"Thanks."
Alucard's eye widened.
"For wha—"
Nathaniel twisted his body.
Then threw him.
BOOOOOOM!
Alucard shot across the training ground with several times the force George had given him.
George barely had time to turn.
"Wait—"
CRASH!
Alucard slammed directly into him.
The two disappeared beneath a cloud of dust.
Nathaniel landed smoothly, both heated short blades resting at his sides.
The dust settled.
George's body began reconstituting itself.
Alucard's blood armor cracked as he pulled himself free.
Both stared at Nathaniel.
Nathaniel gave them an innocent look.
"...Teamwork?"
George slowly raised his middle finger.
Alucard started laughing.
"That wasn't teamwork."
Nathaniel shrugged.
"It became teamwork."
George sighed.
"You're an idiot."
Nathaniel's eyes gradually returned to their usual silver.
"Yeah."
He lowered his weapons.
"Want to go again?"
"Who said we stopped?"
Alucard's voice came from behind the dust cloud.
Nathaniel paused.
"...Oh."
Alucard slowly stepped out of the wreckage, rolling his shoulders as his blood armor repaired itself.
Then he muttered a particularly creative selection of words under his breath.
Nathaniel's expression barely changed.
Internally, however—
What the fuck?
He almost performed a spit-take despite not having anything in his mouth.
Alucard raised his greatsword.
"Acquired Characteristics."
The blood armor across his body suddenly began to glow.
"Burning Blood."
Red flames erupted across his hardened blood.
"Kinetic Charge."
The flames intensified.
Nathaniel's eyes widened.
The red sclera that had surrounded Alucard's glowing eye faded away.
His eye became almost completely white.
Then it shone, red iris glowing.
WHOOOM!
The temperature around him immediately climbed.
Nathaniel slowly raised his short blades.
"...You had that the entire time?"
Alucard grinned.
"You didn't ask."
From the observation deck above the training grounds, Erementaru watched the exchange in silence.
His eyes remained fixed on Alucard.
Advanced Haemomancy.
That augment had always been an unusual one.
And Alucard's particular development of it was even more so.
Erementaru knew that Alucard still carried several separate vials of blood on his person.
Blood acquired from friends.
Colleagues.
People who had willingly donated samples to him.
Each vial was kept separate.
Each one potentially contained something useful.
That was the nature of Blood Cultivation.
But it hadn't begun that way.
When Advanced Haemomancy first awakened, it behaved far more like a primal survival mechanism than the sophisticated ability Alucard possessed now.
The first requirement was hunger.
Not ordinary hunger.
Blood.
Without sufficient blood in his system, Alucard's body began to deteriorate.
He became visibly malnourished.
Weak.
His ability to maintain his physical condition diminished rapidly.
And if the deficiency became severe enough—
He entered a frenzy.
His blood constructs reflected that primitive state.
Blades.
Hooks.
Bear traps.
Barbed tendrils.
Anything capable of opening wounds and anchoring itself to prey.
The constructs weren't elegant.
They weren't sophisticated.
They were tools designed around one objective.
Feed.
The frenzy generally subsided after Alucard consumed enough blood to satisfy the requirement.
But once his body had sufficient blood—and once the Uratsu and other relevant information contained within it were properly maintained—
The second characteristic could express itself.
Blood Cultivation.
The ability to fragment genetic qualities and factors present within blood and incorporate limited characteristics from them.
As a child, however, Alucard's ability had been practically impotent.
He could circulate his own blood more efficiently.
He could push his physical performance slightly higher.
He experienced mild bouts of blood hunger.
That was about it.
The potential was there.
The fuel wasn't.
Everything changed when he gained access to a large quantity of blood.
That was when his ability finally had enough material to work with.
And Alucard discovered something else.
Sunlight.
When he was younger, even brief exposure to the sun caused his skin to burn.
It had forced him to spend much of his childhood indoors or covered in protective clothing.
Then came the blood pack.
A donation from a famous individual whose augment granted extraordinarily rapid regeneration.
Alucard had consumed it.
And something changed.
His body adapted.
His first acquired characteristics emerged.
Blood Bank.
His body became capable of storing and maintaining far greater quantities of blood.
And—
Regeneration.
His wounds began healing far faster than they previously could.
It was the first time Alucard understood what his augment could truly become.
He wasn't simply manipulating blood.
He was cultivating it.
Every compatible characteristic became another tool.
Another adaptation.
Another weapon.
Erementaru watched the flames crawling across Alucard's armor.
And now there was another one.
Burning Blood.
A characteristic that allowed his blood to ignite without immediately destroying its structure.
And paired with—
Kinetic Charge.
His blood could now store and release kinetic energy.
Erementaru's expression remained calm.
But internally, he was already calculating how dangerous that combination had become.
Alucard lowered his greatsword.
The red flames rolled across his body.
Nathaniel tightened his grip on his two heavy-set blades.
George's electricity began crackling around his arms again.
Alucard smiled.
"Round two."
Nathaniel sighed.
"You're really committed to this."
"Obviously."
Alucard disappeared forward.
BOOM!
Nathaniel barely managed to cross his blades before the flaming greatsword collided with them.
The impact detonated.
Heat and kinetic force exploded across the training ground.
Nathaniel was launched backward.
His boots carved two trenches into the floor.
He looked down at his blades.
They were still glowing red.
Nathaniel smiled.
"...Okay."
His eyes shifted orange again.
"Now I'm interested."
"You should be."
Alucard's grin widened.
"This stuff is yours."
The smell of ozone began wafting across the training room as George's electricity intensified.
The three Knights squared up again.
Nathaniel's blades remained at his sides, their heated edges glowing faintly.
George's body crackled with white-blue electricity.
Alucard's blood armor burned with red flame, kinetic energy visibly pulsing through the hardened material.
Nathaniel's expression changed.
His eyes shifted.
For a moment, his perception sharpened dramatically.
The pupils and surrounding structures subtly took on characteristics resembling the compound eyes of a peacock mantis shrimp—multiple layers of visual information overlapping while remaining almost imperceptible from the outside.
His Compound Peacock Mantis Shrimp Sight was doing its job.
And what he saw made him pause.
There was something familiar in Alucard's energy.
Not merely similar.
A portion of Nathaniel's own energy signature was present within Alucard's blood.
Nathaniel stared.
...That's uncanny.
Alucard noticed his expression.
"What?"
Nathaniel looked at the burning blood coating his body.
"Nothing."
Alucard shrugged.
"Not gonna lie, Nathaniel."
He lifted one arm, examining the glowing blood around it.
"Your blood is really metallic."
Nathaniel's expression went blank.
"...My what?"
"I got the sample during the fight with that combo-shrimp boss."
Nathaniel's eye twitched.
Of all the things Alucard could have told him, somehow that wasn't even the strangest.
Alucard continued.
"Your powers work best when movement is involved, right?"
Nathaniel slowly lowered his blades.
"Generally."
"Thought so."
Alucard flexed his fingers.
"I guess that's outdated now, considering your developments."
The flames around his arm intensified.
"Being able to ignite your energy by moving it, while combining it with stored kinetic energy?"
He gave an approving nod.
"That's pretty damn cool."
Nathaniel stared at him.
Internally, however—
Thank fucking God.
A wave of relief passed through him.
Alucard had acquired a sample from an older battle.
That was all.
He didn't have access to the other augment factors Nathaniel had acquired since then.
The developments.
The adaptations.
The additional characteristics.
The things Nathaniel had accumulated without anyone else knowing the full extent of them.
Hell—
Nathaniel was starting to have a stockpile.
And the last thing he needed was for Alucard to start drinking his way through it.
Nathaniel tightened his grip on his two heavy-set blades.
Keep smiling.
Don't look suspicious.
And absolutely do not let him know how much more there is.
Across from him, Alucard's flaming blood armor surged.
George's electricity snapped across the floor.
The air itself seemed to vibrate.
Alucard raised his greatsword.
"Ready?"
Nathaniel's eyes returned to their normal silver.
He smiled.
"Always."
George cracked his neck.
"Then let's finish this."
The three moved simultaneously.
Nathaniel's smile widened.
Then the heat came.
It began around his hands.
His fingers gradually glowed red-hot, the air around them warping as his body temperature surged. The orange light in his eyes intensified until it almost seemed to burn through his pupils.
Energize.
The conversion climbed.
Nathaniel's two heavy-set blades became incandescent, their single-edged surfaces radiating an intense orange glow.
Alucard's grin widened.
"Oh, that's new."
Nathaniel didn't answer.
He simply raised one hand.
FWOOM!
A sphere of unnaturally hot orange fire erupted from his palm.
Then another.
Then three more.
They weren't ordinary fireballs.
They looked almost like condensed plasma, brilliantly orange at their cores with faint cyan traces twisting through the energy like veins of another element struggling to escape.
Nathaniel flicked his fingers.
The spheres launched.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Alucard brought his greatsword around.
One plasma sphere struck the blade and exploded.
Another tore past his shoulder.
The third slammed into the floor, sending a wave of superheated air across the training room.
George vanished.
Nathaniel's enhanced sight caught the movement immediately.
"Found you."
A crackle of electricity preceded George's sudden appearance.
He swung his temporary electrified longsword directly toward Nathaniel's neck.
Nathaniel turned.
His hand snapped upward.
CLANG!
He caught the blade.
Barehanded.
George's eyes widened.
Electricity crawled over Nathaniel's arm.
Nathaniel's fingers tightened around the sword.
The metal began glowing.
George's expression changed.
"Wait—"
CRACK!
Nathaniel closed his hand.
The electrified blade simply broke.
Not bent.
Not knocked aside.
Severed.
The upper portion of the longsword fell away, its broken edge still sparking as it hit the ground.
George stared at the remaining hilt.
Then at Nathaniel.
"...You just cut my sword with your hand."
Nathaniel looked at the glowing fragments.
"Huh."
He flexed his fingers.
"They're pretty hot."
George's eye twitched.
"That's not the point."
A heavy footstep interrupted them.
THOOM.
Alucard was already there.
His blood gauntlet had expanded around his arm, layers of hardened blood forming a massive armored fist.
Red flames crawled across it.
Sparks jumped between the plates as stored kinetic energy accumulated inside the structure.
KZZZT—KRAK!
The gauntlet released tiny bursts of kinetic force with every movement.
Alucard pulled his arm back.
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.
The blood gauntlet compressed.
All the stored momentum Alucard had accumulated was being forced into a single strike.
"Got something for you."
Nathaniel planted his feet.
The orange glow around his body intensified.
His fingers burned brighter.
Alucard swung.
BOOOOOOM!
The flaming gauntlet collided with Nathaniel's crossed blades.
Heat erupted.
Kinetic force detonated outward.
Orange and red energy swallowed both of them for an instant as the floor beneath their feet cracked from the impact.
George backed away from the shockwave.
"...Okay."
He looked at his broken sword.
Then at the two monsters currently trying to flatten each other.
"... lets turn this up."
George's scars suddenly lit up.
The discoloured flesh passing through the left side of his body darkened though something beneath his skin had awakened.
Then—
KZZZT!
Royal-blue lines ignited across his body.
Royal-blue lightning arced from scar to scar, crawling up his arms, across his chest, and around his neck. The electricity didn't merely surround him anymore.
It became a visible shroud.
A mantle of concentrated energy overtook his entire body.
George lowered his stance.
His expression became completely serious.
"Let's turn this up."
The air around him exploded with electricity.
EXIMUS MODE.
The royal-blue lightning intensified.
The ground beneath George began cracking from the sheer amount of energy being discharged.
Nathaniel's eyes widened slightly.
"...There it is."
George vanished.
BOOM!
He reappeared several meters away, one arm extended.
A massive volume of royal-blue electricity erupted from his body.
It wasn't a single bolt.
It was a torrent.
Dozens upon dozens of branching arcs converged into a gigantic electrical discharge that tore across the training center.
The sheer volume of energy illuminated the entire room.
Alucard immediately brought his flaming blood gauntlet up.
Nathaniel didn't move.
Instead, his eyes shifted.
His perception sharpened.
Then he inhaled.
"Aerokinesis."
His fingers moved.
The air surrounding his body suddenly changed.
The atmosphere was violently displaced outward, creating a semi-vacuum around him.
The incoming electrical discharge entered the distorted pocket of air.
For a fraction of a second, the torrent seemed to bend around Nathaniel.
The absence of normal air resistance altered the way the discharge propagated, while the pressure differential violently pulled debris and loose dust toward the boundary of the vacuum.
Nathaniel stood in the center of it.
The royal-blue lightning screamed around him.
His orange eyes burned brighter.
His heated fingers curled around his blades.
Then Nathaniel looked directly through the electrical storm at George.
"...Okay."
A grin appeared.
"Now we're actually fighting."