The moment Severin finished speaking, her figure dissolved into the darkness.
Only a few lingering patches of cold mist and the increasingly clear sound of Elias's breathing remained in the basement.
In the next instant, a pale, sharp claw thrust out from the shadow beneath his feet.
“Tch!”
Elias slammed his foot down, shattering the layer of ice that froze his boots to the floor.
Utilizing 【Shifting Afterimage】, he slid half a step to the side, leaving behind an afterimage that was instantly shredded by the claw.
The claw did not stop.
Severin's body immediately materialized from the shadows. With a twist of her waist, her other hand swept toward Elias's chest.
Cool moonlight instantly coalesced into a barrier.
Crack!
Four long, thin fractures immediately splintered across the 【Moonlight Barrier】.
The vast gap between a progenitor and a spawn was made abundantly clear by this single strike.
The impact pressed through the barrier and slammed into his chest, forcing Elias to stumble back against the long table.
Empty bottles rolled off the table, shattering on the floor in a noisy clutter.
His legs, which had been frozen by 【Frostbite】, were still numb, making his footing a fraction of a second too slow.
If he took a few more hits in this state, let alone his eighteen hundred gold crowns, he would have to ask someone to burn his final bill to him in the afterlife.
Before Elias could even retreat, several dark-red threads of blood whipped out from Severin's sleeves.
Two targeted his wrists, while the rest went straight for the barrel of his elemental revolver.
She had no intention of letting him fire.
Nor did she plan to give him the chance to unroll a scroll.
With a flick of his wrist, Elias conjured several blinding bursts of 【Hexfire】 that flared up along the floor.
The surrounding shadows were instantly torn apart, causing Severin's movements to falter.
Seizing the opportunity, he pulled back his right hand and used another afterimage to bait the second wave of blood threads. Meanwhile, his left hand slipped inside his trench coat, gripping the 【Arcane Step】 scroll.
The notebook was already in his possession.
He had no reason to risk his life in a basement against a progenitor who was likely Scale Four just for two wooden stakes and a roll of silver wire.
As long as he used 【Arcane Step】 to blast out of the engraving shop and wrapped himself in his 【Moonlight Veil】 to shake off any pursuit, those eighteen hundred gold crowns would still belong to Constantine.
The plan was perfectly sound.
The only problem was that Severin clearly had no intention of cooperating.
Just as Elias pulled the scroll halfway out, the girl in front of him dissolved into a dark-red blood mist once more.
It wasn't actual blood, but rather dense spiritual particles.
Sweeping The Roaring Cane through it only dispersed the mist briefly; it couldn't touch her physical form.
Styptic powder was useless against this kind of blood mist.
While elemental bullets could blow a chunk of it away, the mist would simply reform from another direction in the blink of an eye.
Unless he could catch the exact moment she reconstituted her human form, any ammunition he fired would hit nothing but air.
Immediately after, the blood mist coalesced right in front of the exit.
Severin struck with her palm, aiming directly at his left hand holding the scroll.
Elias had no choice but to engage her again.
In the blink of an eye, the two exchanged several more blows.
Severin would sometimes slip into the shadows of the corner, and other times dissolve into blood mist to circle behind him.
The basement was cramped to begin with, and there was only one exit. Every time Elias tried to make a move toward the stone steps, the blood threads forced him back.
He could never pull the scroll more than halfway out.
No matter how useful the scroll was, he needed to survive long enough to actually unroll it.
“You're really taking the fun out of this, you know.”
Elias raised his elemental revolver, aiming it at Severin as she lunged again.
The girl's body instantly dissolved into blood mist, casually dispersing to the side.
Yet the gunshot did not follow her.
Bypassing the blood mist, the barrel pointed straight at the wooden door behind her.
Boom!
A thunderclap bullet hit the door dead center.
The violent shockwave blew the wooden door and half of its frame to splinters, sending a shower of wood chips flying up the stone steps.
With the obstruction gone, the moonlight from outside spilled back into the basement.
A shower of wood chips rained down on Livia's head. She struggled to curse, but only a muffled, indistinct groan escaped her lips.
“Sorry about that.”
Elias spoke without even looking back.
There was not a shred of sincerity in his voice.
Cool spirituality seeped into his back.
The spirituality that had been steadily draining finally began to recover.
“Thanks.”
Elias grinned at the blood mist that had yet to reform into a human shape, then spun around and bolted for the stone steps.
But before he could take more than two steps, the dark-red mist rushed ahead and completely blocked the exit.
Severin materialized from the mist, standing squarely in the middle of the stone steps.
She stomped her foot down, the immense force shattering the stone bricks beneath her and forcing Elias to a halt.
The two collided once more.
Her claws slammed against his 【Moonlight Barrier】, causing the newly repaired cracks to spiderweb outward once again.
Threads of blood snaked in from both sides, wrapping around Elias's gun arm and pulling downward with great force.
Elias was in no hurry to break free this time.
He stared at Severin, who was inches away, and suddenly realized something was off.
From the very beginning, she had targeted his barrier, and her blood threads had only bound his wrists, gun barrel, and legs.
She had been focused on stopping him from leaving, preventing him from recovering his spirituality, and trying to disarm him.
Yet, not once had she gone directly for his throat, heart, or eyes.
Given the speed Severin had shown, she might not have been able to kill Elias easily, but she shouldn't have gone out of my way to avoid his vital areas every single time.
More importantly, while his 【Malice Perception】 detected anger, threats, and the overwhelming pressure of a high-level Kindred, it detected absolutely no genuine intent to kill.
When the wooden door had been closed, cutting off his moonlight and leaving his legs frozen, that had clearly been Severin's best opportunity.
Yet she had still chosen to rush toward Livia instead of snapping his neck first.
This girl was fighting fiercely.
But she was holding back.
The tension in Elias's nerves suddenly eased slightly.
Is she just putting on a show?
He used The Roaring Cane to blast away the blood threads, backing up until he stood in front of Livia. The hand he had kept pressed against the 【Arcane Step】 scroll slowly relaxed.
Severin did not pursue him immediately, remaining stationary on the stone steps.
She didn't want Elias to leave.
And Elias finally understood why she didn't dare to actually kill him.
“Two in the morning.”
He suddenly spoke.
“What?”
Severin's brow furrowed.
“I rented a delayed-dispatch letterbox at the Society of Freemen.”
Elias raised his elemental revolver. Instead of pointing it at Severin, he rested the barrel right next to Livia's shoulder.
“If I'm not back by two o'clock, three letters will be simultaneously delivered to the Dawn Church, the Seventh Agency, and the Society of Freemen.”
“The address, the commission number, and the presence of two Kindred.”
“It's written very clearly.”
Of course, that last part was a bit of an exaggeration.
At the time, he hadn't known exactly how many Kindred were in the basement, so his actual letter read: “Kindred presence detected, multiple targets.”
But when it came to negotiation, one had to adapt to the circumstances.
Severin's gaze drifted to the elemental revolver.
“If I die, you two are going to be very busy,” Elias added with a smile.
“You think the Dawn Church will stick its neck out for a freeman?” Severin's voice turned cold.
“They don't need to stick their necks out for me.”
Elias gently tapped the wooden floor next to Livia with his gun barrel.
The Kindred on the floor glared up at him with fury, though she couldn't even twitch a finger.
“They only need to be interested in this address and two fresh traces of Kindred spirituality.”
“When that happens, they can hunt their Kindred, and I'll be resting in the morgue.”
“Everyone will have something to do. How productive.”
“We can leave before the letters are delivered!” Severin said sharply.
Her words sounded fierce.
But her right hand, hidden inside the sleeve of her wine-red coat, quietly clenched when she heard the words “Dawn Church.”
It was a very subtle movement.
Had it been moments ago, Elias might not have noticed it.
But now, the spiritual feedback from 【Gauging Expressions】 clearly flickered before his eyes.
It wasn't anger.
It was panic.
She was lying.
Or at the very least, she wasn't nearly as confident as she claimed to be.
“Oh?”
The smile on Elias's face grew considerably warmer.
“Are you sure about that?”
He glanced at the shattered wooden door, then looked down at Livia.
“Should we keep dragging this out?”
“The moonlight is back in. I can recover my strength, but you can't.”
“Once it gets closer to two o'clock, you won't be the one blocking the exit anymore. I will.”
Quiet returned to the basement.
Severin stood in the middle of the stone steps, making no move to attack.
The moonlight from outside fell over her shoulder, casting a long patch of light across the cracked floor.
The dark-red blood mist still churned around her feet, but its movement had slowed down noticeably.
She looked at Elias, then at Livia, who was still pinned to the floor by the wooden stakes.
Livia met her gaze. Her lips twitched, but in the end, she remained silent, though the shame and anger on her face spoke volumes.
Elias knew very well that if they kept fighting, Severin wouldn't necessarily lose.
But she needed to rescue Livia, reclaim the notebook, clean up their spiritual residue, and ensure Elias couldn't go back to retrieve his letters—all before two in the morning.
With every passing minute, the upper hand shifted further toward him.
Severin remained silent for a long time before finally dispersing the blood mist covering the stone steps.
“Speak,” she said, her tone remaining cold.
“What do you want?”
“First, tell me why you want that notebook.”
Elias didn't budge from his position in front of Livia.
His gun remained pointed where he could suppress the Kindred on the floor at a moment's notice.
Severin's gaze lingered on his trench coat for a moment, as if guessing that the notebook had already been tucked away into some spatial item.
Trying to take it by force now wouldn't be any easier than before.
“During my family's migration to the west, we lost an Old Night Gate.”
“Behind that gate lies the 【Night Genealogy Box】.”
Elias didn't interrupt, merely tilting his chin to prompt her to continue.
“There are no weapons inside. Only our family's blood genealogy, a portion of the progenitor's blood, and the locations of several old sanctuaries,” Severin added, as if anticipating his concerns.
“The Owl-Head Ruins that the human scholar made rubbings of is very likely that gate.”
She stopped there, offering no explanation as to why the Old Night Gate had been lost, nor how the 【Night Genealogy Box】 was supposed to be opened.
Clearly, this was the extent of the sincerity she was willing to offer in exchange.
At the mention of “progenitor's blood,” Elias's eyes flickered slightly.
To outsiders, these things might be far less appealing than a chest of gold crowns.
But to a fallen family whose progenitor had been starved of blood for so long, the genealogy could help identify lost descendants, the progenitor's blood could restore their power, and the sanctuaries meant a safe retreat.
No wonder Livia had refused to leave with the notebook, even though she knew a freeman investigator was hot on her heels.
This wasn't just some field journal.
To the Welzen family, this was their entire legacy.
However, there was clearly a connection between the Owl-Head Ruins and the patterns on his elemental revolver.
Now that the notebook was in Elias's hands, he was even less likely to just hand it over simply because she had spoken a few words of truth.
“What about the engraver who stole my things?” he suddenly asked.
“He's alive,” Severin replied. “He's staying at the East Bank Clock Tower Inn. He only lost a bit of blood and a night's worth of memories.”
Elias stared at her for a couple of seconds.
“So he's supposed to thank you for that?”
Rate on N.U.
