The word “Terminator” was the first impression Henry had of the so-called Syer, not entirely in its appearance but in its aura and mien. Its moniker was even simir to the word “Terminator”. The Syer did have a pair of bright glowing eyes but they were blue instead of red. The Syer looked to be a knight's armour frame melded together with a metal-forged endoskeleton.

  The Syer was truly a machine but instead of electricity, Henry could feel the immense amount of Murux coursing within the Syer’s synthetic innards.

  “Fucking hell…” Henry gasped in awe. “This is terrifyingly awesome.”

  “You’re fascinated?” Vishara questioned with a brow raised.

  “It has a certain romance.”

  “You’re a strange one, Dragon.”

  “It’s all just perspective.”

  “Incoming!” Vishara shouted as the Syer unched itself at the two by kicking off the ground, leaving behind a small explosion as a result of the strength it poured into its legs.

  “Holy shit!” Henry excimed and quickly spun, swinging his tail at the charging Syer.

  The Syer stopped its lunge midway and leapt to the air to dodge Henry’s tail.

  “That won’t work, Dragon. It’s very agile and fast,” Vishara said and attacked the Syer with a flurry of blood-forged javelins.

  The Syer made no attempt to dodge or block the blood javelins as they couldn’t even make him budge in its fall. It nded right in front of the two. The Syer morphed its right arm into a bde that was two sizes bigger than its arm.

  “Oops, this slipped my mind. It also has this annoying trick,” Vishara said and rapidly created some distance between her and the Syer.

  Henry rolled his eyes and stood his ground.

  “Dragon, don’t be conceited. The Syer’s edge is sharp!” Vishara warned.

  But it was needless. There was a sharp and loud cngour of steel but one side wasn’t steel but something completely organic, Henry’s scaly hide. The Syer tilted its head in surprise and confusion as its bde-arm didn’t even scratch Henry’s hide.

  Henry inwardly heaved a sigh of relief and unleashed his Fire Breath at the astonished Syer. He only dared to risk testing the Syer’s bde because of Vishara’s presence. If he had fought the Syer alone, he would not have dared to leave himself vulnerable just to test something out.

  The Syer moved fast, as Vishara had already pointed out. Even at such close range, it was able to avoid being smelted into molten steel. The Syer hopped a few steps away and assessed its damages. It gnced at its shoulder which had slightly melted off. Its gaze appeared to narrow at the damage it sustained.

  “Impressive,” Vishara praised. “Not even my blood magic could make a dent but your fmes easily melted its body.”

  Henry grinned. “And I was worried for nothing.” Henry’s battle lust was infmed. With victory in sight and Iluna most probably out of harm’s way, he could finally let loose. The tattoos around his limbs glowed and he surged towards the Syer.

  The war machine dove out of the way as Henry streaked through where it had just been standing.

  Vishara appeared behind the Syer as it was recovering its bearings. She threw a fist that was aimed at its slightly molten shoulder. The Syer noticed Vishara’s presence without even turning its head. It dodged low and retaliated with a spinning kick.

  Vishara tutted and spun to the side to keep her neck from getting snapped. She made do with what she could get and smmed her foot to the Syer’s waist but it barely flinched from her kick.

  “I’m so weak,” Vishara cursed at herself.

  Before the Syer could grab Vishara’s outstretched leg and twist it, it leapt away instead as Henry’s Jetstream Breath cut through the air of the spot where it had stood.

  “So slick,” Henry grumbled. “Very well, outrun this!”

  Suddenly, the Syer began to shudder and it slumped to the ground on its knees. It tried raising its arms but it couldn’t even keep its arms up.

  Henry clicked his tongue.

  “Gravity manipution?” Vishara asked.

  Henry nodded.

  “Couldn’t you have used that from the start?”

  “I can only use it a few times before I’m drained,” Henry expined. Out of all the skills and abilities he had acquired so far, the ability to manipute gravity was by far the most expensive in terms of Murux expenditure.

  “Whatever. Destroy that thing now. Your spell wouldn’t hold it—”

  Before Vishara could finish her sentence, the Syer’s body glowed and it rose to its feet after a brief heavy straining.

  “—for long.”

  Henry shot a Firebolt at the Syer but the attack spell missed the machine as it jumped up high into the air.

  “Come the fuck on!” Henry shouted and shot a barrage of Firebolts at the Syer.

  The Syer’s body glowed once more. It stood still in the air without falling and a translucent barrier appeared around it, deflecting all of the Firebolts away.

  “Now that’s new,” Vishara remarked grimly. “It would seem that it may still have a lot of tricks under its sleeves.”

  Henry paid Vishara’s words little to no heed and concentrated his assault on the Syer. As he was firing Firebolts in quick succession, their firepower was low but they were quick in reaching their mark. However, even after Henry ran out of breath, the barrier did not crumble.

  “Fuck! This is so frustrating!” Henry growled.

  “Damn the humans… Just what monstrosity have they created?” Vishara murmured.

  The Syer did not retaliate immediately. Instead, it gazed at Henry and Vishara for a good while.

  “What is it doing?” Henry asked.

  “Assessing the flow of the battle, perhaps?”

  “Good,” Henry said and fired his Jetstream Breath.

  The Syer dispelled the barrier and dropped to the ground. Henry greeted it with his Fire Breath but the barrier appeared and staved the fmes away from the Syer. When the fmes died down, the Syer charged at Henry again.

  When the Syer was within range, Henry cast his gravity magic but the Syer kept moving without being restrained by the shifted gravity.

  “Bullshit!” Henry spat and met the Syer’s charge with a swing of his cws.

  The Syer flipped over his cws and aimed a roundhouse kick at Henry’s jaws. Henry flinched from the kick but he was not truly harmed. Still, the kick did hurt like crap to him. Henry took a swipe at the Syer again and it again dodge his attack. This time, it nded on his head. Henry felt the Murux within the Syer surge.

  Henry spread his wings and lifted himself into the air slightly, enough for him to tip his body. The Syer lost its bance and the energy bst from its palm shot to the sky. Henry spun violently, throwing the Syer off of him. It tumbled across the ground for a few rolls before flipping itself to its feet.

  “A little help would be nice, Vishara!”

  “I can’t win against you, Dragon and you can’t win against that thing. I’m afraid I would only be a burden if I continue to participate in the fight.”

  “Fucking useless! Then fuck off from the start! You led this death robot to us, damn it!”

  “Robot?”

  Out of frustration, Henry roared incomprehensibly at Vishara before charging at the Syer. The machine dodged Henry’s cws and tails skillfully and evaded all of its breath attacks, save for his Fire Breaths and Firebolts. It relied on its barrier for those two abilities. The Syer tried retaliating with its palm energy bst but the beams bounced right off of Henry’s hide.

  In the midst of the battle between Henry and the machine of death and war, one of the beams from the Syer’s palm bst was deflected over to where Iluna had hidden herself. As a result, Iluna let out a small yelp of fright. Her faint cry caught the Syer’s attention and it veered its gaze in her direction.

  “A Lavan?” the Syer spoke in a raspy mechanical voice.

  “Don’t you dare!” Henry screamed and successfully connected his cws with the Syer due to its momentary pse of focus. Henry smmed the Syer hard to the ground and trapped it firmly under his cws. Without a dey, he decapitated the Syer with his Jetstream Breath. After that, he melted the rest of its body with his Fire Breath.

  Now that the Syer was just a pool of molten metal, Henry heaved a huge sigh of relief and slumped on his belly in repose.

  “I knew you could do it, Dragon,” Vishara said.

  Henry shot the vampire a gre. “You have the galls to say that considering how useless you were in the fight.”

  “I won’t deny. I was useless in that fight. But can I be bmed? It was an ill-matched opponent. If the Syer had been flesh and blood, this would have been over in seconds.”

  “I’m flesh and blood too, lest you forgot.”

  “You are but you are a Dragon. Your skin is akin to steel and your flesh is akin to iron. And your mind is strong. I cannot influence it at all.”

  “What? You can dabble with the minds of others?”

  “Ah, maybe I should not have mentioned that. But reassured, it is not something I use willy nilly.”

  “Somehow, I’m not reassured at all.”

  “Lord Henry?” a soft and soothing voice called out.

  “Iluna,” Henry turned his head in the direction of the voice and saw Iluna trotting towards him. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “I should be asking you that, Lord Henry. I wasn’t the one who fought that machine of death.”

  “I’m impervious to most attacks, Iluna. You need not be worried.”

  “If you’re fine, then I’m relieved, Lord Henry.”

  “Midy, forgive me for the beted introduction. I am Vishara, the former sovereign of all vampires.” Vishara bowed in a manner as if she was performing on stage.

  “The sovereign of vampires… But you’re the ancestor of the Zevas… How can you be a vampire?”

  “Because the Zevas are descendants of vampires.”

  “Impossible. The Zevas do not drink blood as far as I’m aware.”

  “I didn’t say they are vampires, midy. They’re merely descendants of vampires. They are not vampires. They are but a pale sliver of a shadow of a vampire, save for one of them.”

  “...Rayne?”

  “You’re acquainted with her?”

  “Barely. Diplomatic acquaintances.”

  “I see.”

  “Now, do you mind expining why that thing is chasing you and how did you get here?” Henry asked in an imposing tone as he moved between Vishara and Iluna.

  Vishara sighed and slumped to the ground, crossing her legs. “I wandered into a human settlement, a town. I wanted to gather some information but I didn’t know the humans have set up some sort of… eborate detection spell around their towns. It escaped my notice until it was too te.”

  “It’s an array,” Iluna said. “It’s to prevent monsters from attacking the towns and cities.”

  “Well, this array… attacked me since it recognised me as a monster. Of course, I destroyed the array and incapacitated the guards but…”

  “That’s when the Syer appears?”

  Vishara nodded. “Not immediately. I wandered the town for a while, trying to get a picture of the terrain. I was naive. I saw the magic of humans. I experienced their fighting capabilities. Even in my weakened state, they couldn’t even put a scratch on me. I proceeded to presume they have nothing that could be of threat to me but then I was proven wrong. The Syer came. It had no blood. It had no flesh. I was completely helpless against a machine. Mind you, I have dealt with machines before but in my current state, I was but a damsel in the face of a Syer.”

  “And how did you end up here?”

  “Well, the Syer chased me out of the town and even after that, it kept chasing after me. It didn’t intend to stop until I was dead. I ran into the woods nearby and stumbled upon this strange portal. I was briefly intrigued and very cautious about this strange portal. The Syer caught up to me then and I was forced to fight him there and the portal began to...”

  “Expand?”

  “For ck of a better word, yes, expand. We were both swallowed by it. After we arrived in this foreign world, the Syer kept on chasing after me and then I saw a rge silhouette in the distance. I have the inkling that it might just be you. And lo and behold, it is you. Is this fate?”

  “Absolutely not,” Henry instantly denied.