The day was barely born when Axiel arrived at the village. 

It was a miserable village of clay and wood, surrounded by broken palluses and guards as thin as the dry branches around. The smell of sweat, smoke and human waste mingled in the cold morning air. No bell played. No prayers were heard. Only the ranger of the old wagons and the back eyes of children who couldn't cry anymore. 

Axiel passed them in silence. The black costume stuck to the body, adapting itself as a traveler tunic, with hood. Even so, he was noticed. His red eyes, hidden under shadows, were difficult to ignore. The people retreated as if he were a walking plague - and maybe it was. 

An elder, with curved pimple and injured in the leg, asked for help. Axiel stared at him for a moment and continued walking. It was not evil. It was indifference. 

Loriel floated beside, with unusual expression. 

- You know what happened here, right? - She commented. 

Axiel looked around, indifferent. 

- Someone lost. Someone won. 

- Human did this... like them. But better armed. They call " Children of Sun". Players who preach divine justice and rape on its behalf. 

He didn't answer. His eyes wandered to a alley where two bodies lay covered with dirty cloths. A man and a woman. Both mutilated. A small child was hiding nearby, hungry. He felt the girl's weak pulse. The thirst came ... but he choked her. 

Later, in the nearby woods, he knelt over a dying deer, lying on an iron trap. The animal breathed with difficulty. 

Axiel leaned his hand over him. His eyes closed. 

- I'm sorry. - He whispered. 

The prey came up. The animal's blood was sucked quickly. It was thick, hot, but unsatisfactory. 

- It tastes like moss with bile. - Commented Loriel, floating up, covering his nose. 

"Still, your body seems to react well." It's more ... alive. 

Axiel got up. The veins pulsed. The claws grew effortlessly. His eyes could see further, hear the hidden birds, feel the warmth of the viscera under the skin of a fox a hundred meters. 

He smiled in the corner. 

- Better than dried meat. 

"You'll still need human blood ... or something even more powerful, you know that, right?" 

- I don't want... 

Loriel didn't insist. 

But wild peace did not last. 

Just that afternoon, as they walked back to the village between shrubs, an arrow spoiled into the tree next to Axiel's head. 

- There! One of them! 

Men came out of the woods. Ten in all. They wore shabby leather, gold sun insignia on their chest. Armed with wide swords, spears, beasts. Laugh like hyenas. 

- This one was peering at us, I bet! Send the coat and the fairy too! Shouted one of them. 

Axiel raised an eyebrow. 

- Coat? 

Loriel sighed, floating backwards. 

- Will you play with them or will philosophize? 

- Let's see how this "coat" works. he said sarcastically. 

The first of the looters advanced. Axiel simply raised his arm. The costume reacted like living flesh - a black blade came out of the forearm, crossing the man's neck. Blood gulled as a source. He fell with wide eyes without emitting sound. 

The others hesitated. Axiel smiled. 

- It's good to test before you trust. 

They attacked together. 

The combat was an elegant brutality show. Axiel diverted from spears with silent turns, appeared behind enemies with inhuman speed. Claws teared tendons. Shadow blades emerged from the costume, taking shapes of scythes, spears, whips. One of them tried to use a silver dagger - and axiel grunted as he felt the burning on his shoulder. But he responded with an explosion of black light of the claws, tearing the opponent. 

In a few minutes, the ground was soaked. Hearts standing. Heads at wrong angles. 

Loriel watched sitting on a stone with his legs crossed. 

- Nine of ten. The last one fled. I bet a magic nut that he will tell stories of a demon with black wings. 

- Great. No peace for me. 

He looked his hands, bloody. Felt ... strong. But the void still pulsed in his mind. The memories did not come. Only fragments: a broken throne. A spear of light. An unnamed face. 

Two months later. 

The sky was dark, covered with violet clouds. Rays cut the horizon. The cold winds blew oak leaves and war ashes. 

Axiel was walking a high slope, looking at the field ahead. His black cover stirred with the wind. The costume had evolved, shaping to the body as living armor, with organic details and blades embedded in the wrists. Loriel floated beside him, the butterfly wings gleaming like gold as he tied his hair, now lighter than blond, in a horse bun. 

- We arrived at Aeltherion's border. Elf forest. 

- Very green. - Said Axiel, without emotion. 

Downstairs, between the brown-covered hills, a small troop of elves in broken formation was seen. Men and women on green armor struggled desperately against human knights with sacred spears and golden banners. The blood has already tined the grass. 

In the center of the chaos, a silver haired elf warrior wielded a curved sword, spinning between enemies. Her movements were graceful, but her body was exhausted, covered with injuries. An arrow crossed her shoulder. She grunted in pain. 

- That is Elena Van Lanfoi. - Said Loriel, landing on Axiel's shoulder. - Elf and Duchess. One of the last defenses of the forest. 

- Noble and fragile? 

- Fragile? She killed three knights with her injured shoulder. And ... - She smiled - It's immune to her vampiric charm. It will be fun. 

Axiel watched carefully. Two human soldiers surrounded Elena. She fell to her knees. 

- She will die. 

"Yes. Unless some weird strange, black -cloak and demonic eyes, do something well ... Heroic." 

Axiel snapped his fingers. The claws stretched. 

- Boring, but I understood. 

He jumped from the cliff like a hungry wolf, plunging into the shadows of the battle. 

Loriel smiled. 

- Aiai ... the vampires today. Much suffers in one body ...