Lying on the ground, Heiman's upper half had already regenerated its lower half. With his power over matter, even his clothes were pieced back together from the raw materials around him. Sitting up, he glanced at Magnus and the Nullfang, which was curled up behind him. His expression was hard to read; his eyes still held that same curiosity, though now it seemed darker.
He had lived for centuries—almost a thousand years—wandering the world. Even though he'd spent most of that time rooted in one place or another, building foundations that always turned to dust, either by fate or his own hand, he'd witnessed things others only knew from legends. The rise of humanity, the growth of magic, and entire stretches of history and experience packed into a single being. Yet never, in all his years, had he seen anything like the boy standing before him—or even the strange creature at his side.
"You really are something special... It's a shame you turned down my offer to join me," Heiman remarked as he stood up completely.
Magnus didn't look away.
"Yeah, well, if you hadn't gone all in on human trafficking and murder, maybe you'd have a shot." His voice was flat, eyes locked on Heiman, tracking his every move.
Heiman watched him just as closely.
"Hmph... So much power, and still so naïve. You humans really are the world's biggest waste." The words hung in the air, and as Heiman said them, Magnus felt it: the warning before an attack.
But there was more—he could sense the matter inside his own body shifting, parts of him ready to rip apart.
In an instant, Magnus teleported. Heiman's invisible power strands snapped at empty space—he'd been less than a second away from being torn up from the inside. At the same moment, the Nullfang, under Basker's control, lunged forward, mouth wide, rushing Heiman. Glancing over, Heiman raised a hand, ready to disintegrate the beast on the spot.
But then, surprise flickered across his face.
"What-"
He could feel his power slipping through the Nullfang's structure, but when he tried to break it down, something stopped him—a force almost identical to what blocked him from breaking Magnus apart.
Even his pet? What in the world is this? Is it even magic?
Heiman frowned and changed tactics as a blast of air whipped past him. It condensed in an instant, forming a solid wall from a material unique to this world, tougher than tungsten. Even the Nullfang, with its indestructible body, could only dent it as it crashed into the wall. The impact sent a tremor through the mansion and shook the air. The Nullfang could have slipped through, but that would mean phasing its entire body—and doing that would drop it through the floor, too.
With that threat contained for now, Heiman glanced to his right and spotted Magnus, surrounded by a wide ring of spinning bands. They were the same rings Magnus had used to hold Heiman's first body in place before erasing it. Now, they shot through the air like frisbees, coming in from every angle, all aimed at him. Heiman's eyes narrowed. His wall broke apart, the pieces turning into fine sand, swirling up to form a field in front of him. The rings smashed into it and exploded, the blast powerful enough to send cracks through the ceiling.
There's no way to win this—not with just this part of me. Who would've thought I'd be forced to run from a boy barely out of diapers?
Heiman sneered a little, his pride stung, but he hadn't survived this long without learning how to adapt. This city had been good to him, and the Jackals had succeeded in more ways than one, but it wouldn't be the first time he'd walked away from an operation. He had all the time in the world. He could always create new organizations, new Hierarchs, even find a new city.
That was the wonder of immortality: endless time to do whatever you wanted, the ultimate freedom.
I'll have to lay low for a while and avoid 'him' when he finds out I left and comes looking, but even he can't hunt down a shadow.
Using the chaos—the explosions and flying debris—to cover his escape, Heiman prepared to vanish, leaving his body behind and slipping into the shadows.
But suddenly, he realized he couldn't move.
It felt like his body had been anchored in place. He could still think, and his true form—just a shifting mass of energy inside—was still there. But the shell around it wouldn't change or shift, no matter how he tried.
He was trapped.
What is this!?
"You know, when you regenerated without changing anything about yourself, not even your clothes? That made it really easy to picture you again." Magnus's voice echoed from somewhere out of sight. He kept his distance; just because Heiman was frozen didn't mean the vampire couldn't still fight back. Still, without a visual target to lock onto, Heiman's attacks—waves of disintegration lashing out and tearing the mansion apart—never got close to touching Magnus.
"Now to finish this. Basker." At Magnus's word, the Nullfang moved in. The wall that had blocked it before was gone. As the beast rushed at Heiman, the trapped Umbrach tried to fight back, ripping up the ground and combining it with the floating particles of metallic sand, reshaping it all into a barrier made of the same tough metal he'd used to stop Magnus's magic.
But some things can't be stopped by any material. A blade of absolute zero was one of them.
The Nullfang's tail snapped out, its edge flying straight for Heiman. The metal barrier formed into a sphere, wrapping him in darkness, but he couldn't move at all.
It doesn't need eye contact? How can any power be this absolute!?
He barely had time to process it. The Nullfang's tail hit the sphere, freezing the metal instantly and covering it in thick frost before shattering it like glass. The blade struck clean through Heiman's chest. His face didn't even have a chance to change; every part of him was still anchored. Instantly, an icy cold, untouched by the world but affecting everything around it, swept out.
The energy inside him fell silent, and a heartbeat later, he was frozen solid.
Then, with a final swing, the Nullfang smashed its tail again, shattering what was left. Just like the Hierarchs before, Heiman's remains broke apart. This time, there was no black haze, no sign of regeneration. Everything had been stilled, then scattered to the wind.
Magnus watched the whole thing unfold, feeling both relieved and a bit stunned. The Nullfang shifted, its tail sliding across the ground until it stopped right behind him. It was the perfect height, so Magnus just sat down on it and let out a long sigh.
"That... was rough. But honestly, not as rough as I thought it'd be. Does that make sense?"
He was talking to Basker, of course. The Nullfang gave a small nod, and Basker's voice echoed in Magnus's mind.
[Indeed. If Hierarchs could be compared to Master-levels in some fields, we'd expected the Umbrarch to be more like an Archmage or Champion. Clearly, that wasn't the case.]
Heiman was strong, no doubt about it, but compared to the top fighters Magnus had met in this world, he didn't quite measure up.
Maybe I'm just being anxious for no reason. Then again, my powers did counter him pretty hard.
Magnus ran a hand through his hair and sighed again, letting those thoughts go. A minute or two passed, then someone jumped up through one of the many holes now connecting the lower and upper floors.
It was Niall.
As soon as the relatively 'young' vampire landed and took in the scene, he froze. The Nullfang alone was enough to terrify anyone—it was a monstrous sight. But beyond that, the second floor looked like it had been through a war. Even from below, Niall had felt the tremors and heard the chaos from Magnus's fight with Heiman. Huge sections of the floor had caved in, dropping to the level below, destroying rooms and knocking down whole walls.
But that was nothing compared to what was left up here. Everything had been reduced to debris. There wasn't a single room, wall, or scrap of luxury left. The strangest marks were the long, clean lines that sliced through parts of the mansion. They were so perfect they looked unnatural among the wreckage, yet they hadn't broken through the outer walls.
That was because neither Magnus nor Heiman wanted the patrols getting involved. From the outside, except for some roof damage, the mansion looked untouched.
Niall hesitated a moment longer, then started over to Magnus, moving carefully and glancing at the Nullfang, whose eyeless head tracked his every step.
"My Lord," he greeted with a slight bow. Magnus, still sitting on the Nullfang's tail, looked up.
Magnus didn't say anything, waiting for the report.
"I've captured all the remaining vampires in the mansion and isolated their Nexus. As you ordered, not a single one escaped."
Magnus didn't seem excited, but he did look a little lighter, as if a burden had been lifted.
"Good work." He stood up, brushed himself off, and used [Restoration] to create a fresh set of clothes, which landed neatly in his hands.
"I'll be down in a minute. Once I get rid of these last Nexuses, we'll sweep the city one more time." With that, the vampire society that controlled Arlcliff City—and the Jackals under them—would finally be finished.
As for the Mind Slaves, the countless people the vampires had twisted and the families they'd taken over? Without any vampires left to give orders, they were basically just normal people again.
Still, I should reach out to the Major General, see if he wants to coordinate. No sense finishing this if I'm not thorough.
With that in mind, Magnus got dressed and headed downstairs with Niall.
=====================================•=====================================
A couple of kilometers from the mansion that once belonged to the Umbrarch, a tall tower stood over Arlcliff City. There weren't many buildings like this in the Upper City. If someone climbed all the way to the top and looked out on a golden morning, they'd see the true stretch of Arlcliff and the lands beyond its walls.
But tonight, under the moonlight, someone was already up there—not looking through a window, but sitting right on top of the tower itself. The curved roof was smooth under their legs, and the cold breeze brushed past. In their hand, they held an ornate glass cup, the thick red liquid inside clinging to the sides as they sipped.
"What? He actually managed to defeat my partition? It should have been more than strong enough to take him down. I even went as far as to take control personally near the end." The one speaking was none other than Heiman himself. Even from this distance, with his sharp vision, he could spot his mansion. More than that, he'd been able to share the senses of the split-off part of himself. So he'd experienced Magnus's powers—and his own death—firsthand.
It wasn't something that happened often, except when he left a weak partition behind to fake his death.
"What now, what now? With all the chaos he's caused, my work in this city is basically finished. I only sent a partition because I worried the Archmage behind him might show up, but they never did." Heiman spoke softly to himself, taking another drink. His lips tinged red, he licked the last drop away with a flick of his tongue.
"I wonder if they'd show up if I tried to snatch the boy before leaving. He's just as tempting as he is interesting."
"I'm glad someone else feels that way. I never expected us to be so like-minded." A woman's voice reached his ears—not gentle or innocent, but not cruel, either. It was a voice full of amusement, at him, at the world, at nearly everything. Only someone completely sure of their path in life, but nowhere near its end, could sound like that.
The voice made Heiman freeze for a moment.
He frowned, glancing over his shoulder. There, floating in the air, stood a woman. Nothing was beneath her feet. Her dress billowed in the high-altitude wind, hands folded behind her back, head tilted a little. With the stars and moon behind her, her face was hard to see, especially under the wide-brimmed hat she wore.
Even so, her eyes shone like blue sapphires, needing no light at all to pierce the darkness.
Heiman looked her over, then relaxed, finishing his drink and tossing the glass off the roof before standing up.
"Speak of the devil," he muttered, his face complicated but not hostile.
"You shouldn't litter," the woman chided.
There was no mistaking her—it could only be Eveline.
Heiman just stretched.
"Doesn't really matter, considering what's about to happen, does it?"
One of Eveline's eyebrows lifted.
"Oh? Planning to fight me? I thought you might go quietly, you seemed so reasonable for a moment." Despite her words, there was a hint of excitement in her voice, like she'd already expected this.
Heiman gave a crooked smile.
"What kind of person would just hand over their immortal life without a fight?"
Eveline hummed to herself, a wide grin spreading across her face.
"You'd be surprised. Still, I suppose I can humor you. Thanks to all the challenges you put in his way, Magnus has gotten even stronger, and I've enjoyed every second of it. That alone is worth some praise. But honestly, I don't think he's ready to truly fight you yet, and I doubt he could get any stronger from facing you, even if you escaped and crossed paths with him again. No, you and your kind—you've been fascinating subjects, but your time is up. So consider this your last moment." With that, Eveline lifted one hand from behind her back. In an instant, both she and Heiman vanished from Arlcliff City.
They reappeared an unknown distance away. It was still night, and Eveline was floating gently above the ground, her feet never touching the sand. Heiman stood about fifty meters ahead, balanced on top of a sandy dune.
There was nothing around them but endless waves of sand. The wind shifted the dunes back and forth, uncovering even more layers beneath. It was cool now, but when the sun came up, the temperature would soar, too high for anyone to survive, even with protection.
"The Quietlands? It's been a while since I was last here," Heiman mused, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. He'd lived so long that he'd seen this place transform, watched as the desert swallowed up the lush rivers that once ran through its valleys.
"The perfect stage, just for you," Eveline replied.
Heiman laughed, his eyes glowing a deep, unmistakable red.
"How generous."
Suddenly, the ground beneath him shook like an earthquake. The dune Heiman stood on, along with the surrounding desert, trembled. Then, as if something underground had exploded, massive pillars of sand erupted all around—not just near Heiman, but across an area several kilometers wide. These swirling columns twisted through the air like giant serpents, huge enough to block out the stars and cover the night sky.
There were hundreds of them—so much sand it could bury an entire city.
Hovering there, Eveline watched as the sand torrents moved through the sky, then turned and rushed toward her. Compared to their size, she looked like she was standing in front of a mountain.
"Ah, such skill. Not a single grain out of place... Magnificent!" She shouted, her voice loud and feverish.
"Yes, this is the most fun way to learn—show me, with your final moment, what your centuries are worth!" She let out a wild, echoing laugh. Even with the sand roaring all around, her laughter cut through everything, ringing out across the night.
That night, if the Quietlands had been home to any civilization, they would have seen a light burst from the desert's heart, brighter than the sun itself.
=====================================•=====================================
Magnus was midstep when he appeared at his dorm room door, rubbing the back of his neck like he had a kink. Of course, he didn't. His body was perfect, or always on its way there. Muscle aches were a problem [Perfective Regeneration] had solved ages ago.
His room was quiet at this hour, but not empty.
Celia was there, sitting up against the headboard, wearing another set of his pajamas and reading under the soft glow of the luminous crystals set in the walls.
When she saw Magnus, she didn't close her book.
Instead, she set it aside, gave him a careful smile, and asked, "Well, you're alive. That's good. So... how'd it go?"
Magnus didn't answer right away. He kicked off his shoes, crossed to the bed, and flopped down, resting his head in Celia's lap. He let out a long, tired breath—a sound that summed up exactly how he felt.
Celia looked down at him, her expression gentling.
"You know, when I signed up to be your assistant and maid, I didn't think it'd involve you using me as a pillow. You do have actual pillows, you know that, right?"
Magnus gave a lazy nod, not moving.
"Not as soft. Or as warm."
"I thought you couldn't feel temperature," she teased, her hand drifting to his hair.
"Don't use my biology against me. Anyway, you're the one who's been camped out here the last few nights," Magnus mumbled, which made Celia chuckle.
"Well, someone's got to look after you. If I left you alone, I bet you'd start spiraling the minute you ran out of things to do."
This time, Magnus laughed too, though it sounded tired.
"Yeah, you're right."
They were quiet for a bit. Then Celia's face grew a little more serious.
"How have you been doing, really?"
Magnus answered without thinking, "I'm fi-"
He caught himself, paused, then started over.
"It's been getting better, I think. I don't see things... 'them' as much. Not being alone helps. I still see it all in my dreams, but I can handle those. So, yeah, overall, I'm improving. A little, at least."
"Well, any progress is good progress," Celia said gently.
After a moment, she asked, "What about the vampires? Did you...?"
Her words faded, but Magnus nodded.
"I handled it. All of them."
Celia drew in a quiet breath.
"I see. That's good, right? No more Jackals, no more human trafficking or mind control."
"Yeah. But Nightshade's still out there. I need to figure out what Zeth's planning and stop it. All of it." Celia listened in silence. In the past, she might have told him to slow down or take a break, but she knew he wouldn't listen. Not now. Over the nights she'd spent here, she'd seen what state Magnus was in. He seemed normal on the outside—maybe no one but her could really tell. A part of him was gone. Another part was obsessed. And the rest... it didn't know what to do when this was all over.
Telling him to stop would just make him unravel faster.
"Just... be careful, alright?" It was all she could say.
Magnus made a soft sound of agreement as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.