Chapter 30: [30]A Letter from the Shadows
Leon’s new dorm room was an upgrade.
It was located in the "Honor Wing" of the academy, a perk of his new, unclassified status and Rostova’s string-pulling. He had a single room, soundproofed walls, and a window that overlooked the glittering skyline of Neo-Veridia.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Leon sat at his desk, staring out at the city lights. It had been two days since he broke Damian on the training field. The rumors had stopped being about his failure and started being about something else.
"Don’t look him in the eye," he heard a student whisper in the hall. "He feels... cold."
They were afraid of him. Even Elara had been hesitant when she saw him at lunch, sensing the change in his aura. He had smiled, tried to reassure her, but the shadow hanging over him was palpable.
Leon sighed. He picked up a piece of the destroyed training dummy he had kept, a twisted shard of titanium. He molded a shadow around it, shaping it into a dagger, then dissolving it.
Practice. Control.
Beep.
The secure delivery chute by his door chimed.
Leon frowned. He wasn’t expecting anything. Rostova usually communicated via encrypted comms.
He walked over and opened the chute.
Inside sat a small, flat package wrapped in plain brown paper. No return address. No digital tracking tag.
Just his name, handwritten in elegant, flowing script.
Leon Vale.
Leon hesitated. He flared.
The package wasn’t explosive. It wasn’t tech.
It felt... organic.
He picked it up. It was light. He carried it to his desk and cut the paper open with a shadow-claw.
Inside was a single envelope. It was made of thick, black parchment, heavy and textured like expensive velvet.
Sealed on the back was a blob of red wax.
Leon froze.
The wax wasn’t red pigment. It was dried blood.
And the crest stamped into it...
It was a sigil he recognized from the memory fragments he had stolen from Valerius.
A stylized bat wing wrapped around a broken crown.
[ SYSTEM ALERT ]
[ DARKLINE SIGNATURE DETECTED ]
[ ORIGIN: ANCIENT ]
[ THREAT LEVEL: DEVA-TIER (UNQUANTIFIABLE) ]
Leon’s breath caught in his throat.
Deva-Tier.
That was two ranks above Royal Shadow. That was god-level.
He reached out to touch the seal. His finger trembled slightly.
As soon as he broke the wax, a scent filled the room. Iron. Old roses. Decay.
He pulled out the letter.
The paper was white, stark against the black envelope. The ink was a deep, rusty brown.
Blood.
Leon began to read. The handwriting was impeccable, sharp and jagged.
"To the Little Thief,"
"You have taken something that does not belong to you. My child, Kain, was foolish. He was arrogant. He played with his food and choked on a bone."
"I do not mourn him. Weakness is a sin in our house."
"But his blood... his essence... that belongs to me. It is an investment of centuries, and you have swallowed it whole. I can taste him in your veins, boy. I can feel the shadow of the Monarch curling around my lineage like a parasite."
Leon’s heart hammered against his ribs. The letter wasn’t just words. It was a psychic link. As he read, he could feel a presence in the room, cold, ancient, and infinitely hungry.
"You think you are hidden? You think your little academy walls, your Federation toys, your stolen crown protect you?"
"I see you."
The letters on the page began to bleed, running down the paper like tears.
"I am sending a hound to retrieve what is mine. He will not stop. He will not bargain. He will peel the shadow from your soul layer by layer until only the meat remains."
"Run, Little Thief. Run as far and as fast as you can. It makes the wine sweeter."
"Your new father,"
"Lord Malakor."
The letter burst into flames.
Leon dropped it on the desk. The fire was green and silent, consuming the paper in seconds, leaving nothing but a pile of grey ash that smelled of ozone.
Leon stood paralyzed.
Malakor.
One of the Three Progenitors. The vampires who started the bloodlines. Legends said they were older than the Awakening itself, monsters who had slept in the earth until the mana returned.
And he knew Leon’s name. He knew where he was.
[ QUEST UPDATED ]
[ NEW MAIN QUEST: SURVIVE THE PROGENITOR’S HUNT ]
[ OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS ]
[ HUNTER: (BLOODHOUND CLASS) ]
[ TIME LIMIT: INDEFINITE ]
[ REWARD: ??? ]
[ FAILURE PENALTY: DEATH (ABSOLUTE) ]
Leon looked at the ash on his desk.
He walked to the window. The city of Neo-Veridia stretched out below him, millions of lights twinkling in the night. It looked peaceful. Safe.
But Leon saw the truth now.
The lights were just a thin veneer over the dark.
Malakor wasn’t coming himself. A Progenitor didn’t lower himself to hunt a Level 15 student. He was sending a "hound."
But a hound of a Progenitor would be a monster in its own right. Probably an A-Rank. Maybe higher.
And it was coming here. To the academy.
Leon clenched his fists. The shadows in the room surged, responding to his fear and anger. They climbed the walls, blotting out the light from the hallway.
He thought of his sisters, safe in the Level 5 Safe House.
Are they safe?
Malakor knew who he was. Did he know about them?
"Run, Little Thief."
Leon’s reflection in the window stared back at him. His eyes were glowing violet, burning with the Monarch’s power.
"I’m not running," Leon whispered to the glass.
He turned away from the view.
He walked to his closet and pulled out his tactical gear, the black stealth suit, cleaned and repaired after the cathedral mission. He strapped his shadow-steel daggers to his hips.
He wasn’t going to wait in his dorm room to be slaughtered. He wasn’t going to let the academy become a battlefield where students like Elara would be collateral damage.
If a hound was coming, Leon would meet it at the gate.
He opened his system interface.
[ SYSTEM STATUS ]
[ LEVEL: 15 ]
[ SHADOW SERVANTS: 2/3 ]
[ CORRUPTION: 8% ]
He was stronger than he had ever been. He had Iron. He had the Fallen Marquis.
But against a Progenitor’s assassin?
It might not be enough.
Leon picked up his datapad. He hesitated, then typed a quick, encrypted message to Rostova.
"Package received. Message from Malakor. He’s sending a hunter. I’m going active."
He sent it.
He didn’t wait for a reply.
Leon walked to the door. He paused, looking back at the simple, comfortable room. The bed he had slept in for two nights. The desk where he studied.
It was a nice life. A student’s life.
But that life was over. The letter had burned it to ash just like the paper.
Leon opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
The shadows stretched out before him, long and eager. They knew what was coming.
War.
Leon Vale, the F-Rank student, was gone.
The Shadow Prince walked into the night, ready to defend his crown.