Arcane Exfil-Chapter 36: How to Kill a Vampire Lord

It didn’t take long for the registry to confirm each applicant. They arrived first thing the next morning, just as Cole had finished gathering his notes for the scheduled ‘joint discussion’ at OTAC.

Tenna, Lisara, Darin, and Melnar: four new variables, just as they needed to head out. Not ideal, even if they’d already passed their initial interviews.

Cole would’ve preferred a day, even half a day, to observe; get a feel for the dynamics. See how they settled in, get a baseline, run some mental diagnostics on how the household functioned with actual staff instead of just them rattling around in it. Leaving untested assets unsupervised felt… sloppy. Like leaving a flank exposed under the assumption that nothing was there.

But Sir Fotham had been specific: the demonstration of their ‘adapted spellcasting techniques’ was requested, and attendance by the entire team was expected. Apparently, OTAC wanted the full picture, or maybe just didn't want to schedule multiple briefings. Either way, it wasn’t a request he could debate. Duty trumped preference, same as it always did.

The black Forëa pulled up precisely on time. It was Warren, here to pick them up. Cole took the front passenger seat; Mack, Miles, and Ethan filed in behind him.

Warren broke the silence as they pulled away. “I trust your household appointments have been made in good order?”

“Yeah, wish we coulda helped them get settled in, though.”

Warren nodded, slowing their car to let some pedestrians cross. “A household requires time to establish its natural order. If ‘settling in’ be your only concern, then worry not; you shall see it in the days to come.”

The conversation died a natural death there. The rest of the drive passed in silence, broken only by the occasional comment about the schedule or the weather. Cole used the time to finalize his approach: recalling how Green Berets set up their lessons and thinking on how best to frame advanced concepts for this audience.

Of course, that wasn’t to say Fotham, Warren, and Verna were slouches; they were all experts in their own right. But without the core physics, they were like toddlers given the keys to a stealth fighter.

Cole had to flip the script: this couldn’t be a classroom lecture. It had to be a live-fire demo: the kind that preceded a DARPA green-light on a new weapons platform.

After getting past the front gate, Warren navigated them directly to the primary training area, parking in a partially empty lot just outside of the gym. Fotham and Verna stood by the range, talking amongst themselves.

Cole disembarked and approached them. “Sir Fotham, Lady Verna,” Cole greeted.

“Ah, Sir Cole. Opportune timing,” Fotham acknowledged, expression composed. Composed, yes, but Cole’s gut registered something definite: a hint of tension, maybe concern: beneath the usual diplomatic veneer. “Lady Syndra’s men have reported a rather peculiar discrepancy in Kidry.”

Cole focused on the word. “Discrepancy?” Coming from Intelligence via Fotham, that probably meant trouble wrapped in polite language. “What do you mean?”

“Preserved foodstuffs, Sir Cole,” Fotham said. “A notable quantity is unaccounted for in their stores. Vanished, one might say. Far exceeding reasonable estimates for garrison consumption or spoilage.”

Warren spoke then. “Have Lady Syndra’s men yet uncovered the destination of these items?”

Fotham sighed, no doubt wishing he had a better answer. “They’ve discovered trails, faint though they may be.”

“Perhaps we may infer that from the logistics, gentlemen,” Verna said. “To move such bulk requires a medium and a route. Should these tainted supplies be intended for distribution elsewhere, there must be a point of departure from Kidry’s vicinity, and a target destination. The report we’ve been discussing prior to your arrival revealed no significant trails leading to the Line, nor further into the Wastes: an illogical destination in any case. Only the coast remains, though… demons possess no craft suited for the sea, nor the skill to sail them.”

Fotham shook his head. “It would be folly to discount that, given what we’ve seen in the castle, and at Kidry thus far. Either our understanding of demonic capability is incomplete, or they employ methods yet unguessed.” He turned his full attention back to Cole. “Now then, I suppose that revelation lends considerable weight to the purpose of our gathering here today. What have you to demonstrate?”

Straightforward fights were becoming the exception: an oddity to these people, but all too conceptually familiar to Cole, magic aside. “Nothing related to investigations or forensics, I’m afraid. But maybe some good additions to your demon-slaying repertoire.”

Cole approached the range. “That fight with K’hinnum was tough, and it sure as hell wasn’t a fight we were expecting to get for a training mission. We scraped by: barely. We were pretty lucky we’d already been experimenting with more than the fundamentals by then, mixing the basics of magic with the physics and principles from our world. Mack here showed a bit of it when we first met with Sir Warren,” he nodded towards Mack, “but we’ve enhanced a few things since then.”

He faced the earthen dummies downrange. “Figured it's crucial you see exactly how we did that, starting with how we managed to disorient something as powerful as a Vampire Lord. First thing we wanna show you is less about stopping power, more about disruption. Overloading the senses of your enemy. Gives you an opening against one tough bastard, or maybe screws up a group trying to pull off something sneaky, like whatever’s happening with those poisoned supplies.”

“Quick heads-up,” Cole added, making eye contact with each of the Celdornians. “This thing makes a hell of a flash and a bang. Won’t hurt you from here, but it’s loud and bright. You’re gonna want your ear pro: er, wear your hearing protection.” He demonstrated by putting his own gear on.

Once everyone else had taken the proper safety measures, he pointed toward the dummies. “I’m gonna set off my spell next to the targets: should be 20 yards out or so.”

Seeing their nods, Cole drew on his mana. He tossed up a barrier, adjusting its opacity and frequency characteristics: tuning it to block the visible spectrum and adjacent bands that would otherwise scorch their eyes. Then, he got to work.

The trick with the spell wasn’t just making a bright light; any mage could conjure a sparkler. The real physics came from how the flashbang operated. Of course, he didn’t have magnesium or chemical charges or pyrotechnics, but mana could achieve the same physics.

Cole started with a superheated core: the same principle behind their modernized fireball. Then, he encased it with barriers, wrapping a layer of condensed air around it before sealing the entire system with an outer shell designed for catastrophic failure. When that outer barrier ruptured, the superheated core would mix instantly with ambient air, creating both the flash from rapid thermal bloom and the bang from the pressure differential.

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When it was ready, he unleashed the construct.

For a split second, the world outside the immediate blast zone flared white. It was nothing like the M84s back home; those were bright, yeah, but manageable. This, on the other hand, was the full Hollywood, Call of Duty overkill: unrealistic, yet apparently achievable with magic. It was a miniature sun meant to burn right through the eyelids, akin to Requis himself coming down to skullfuck the target. Without a barrier for protection, it’d probably be enough to blind someone for hours, if not permanently.

Then the crack hit. It registered even through the Celdornian ear pros: less like the pop of an M84 and more like a small breaching charge detonating. A solid pressure wave rippled outwards, shaking the air like a jet going supersonic. He hadn’t really noticed the spell’s power until now. Was this really what he had hit K’hinnum with?

Cole blinked away the faint afterimage that managed to ghost past his squint and the barrier’s edge. He dropped the barrier as the Celdornians removed their earplugs, giving them a moment: as demanded by the sheer output of the spell: to recuperate.

“Y’all doing okay?”

They gave silent nods, but the expressions on their faces were hard to gauge. Only Verna’s said everything: she couldn’t wait to try it out.

“Its designation,” Cole began, voice sounding okay now that the initial ring had settled, “derives from a non-lethal ordnance we used back home. M84 stun grenade, but we called it a flashbang: and for good reason. Now, the real thing uses chemicals, burns incredibly hot, and is basically a tiny bomb. Forget the chemistry, though. What we’re borrowing is the principle: hit the senses simultaneously with overwhelming light and sound.”

Fotham didn’t seem interested. “A principle whose utility in dispatching creatures of profound resilience remains… unclear, Sir Cole,” he observed. “One might question the tactical economy of merely incommoding a foe one fully intends to annihilate. Why delay the inevitable, when a direct, lethal application might suffice more readily?”

Warren answered before Cole could launch into the nuances. “The path to annihilation is scarcely ever direct,” he said. “This ‘flashbang’, though it may scarce be termed a weapon in the strictest sense, has nevertheless its use. In those instances wherein hostages render brute force untenable, or where the adversary’s might so far exceeds one’s own that direct engagement would court ruin, then such a device may prove decisive. To hew at a dragon’s hide with mere steel would be naught but folly: yet to rob it, if but for a heartbeat, of sight and sense? That fleeting instant may suffice: whether to deliver a great blow or to retreat.”

Leave it to a legendary Slayer Elite to understand the gist from the get-go. Fotham seemed to get it as well, though Cole might’ve guessed that he was probably still more interested in the spell’s composition and underlying theory than its function.

“Now, how we manage that effect with mana,” Cole continued, “is different from just making light or sound separately.” He laid out the process: the instantaneous, extreme heat focused purely on peak luminosity, followed by the pressure gradient and deliberate failure of the barrier. “It’s the rate of that pressure release, not the total force, that creates the acoustic shockwave: the bang. And timing that with the peak flash is everything. Do it right, and whoever: or whatever: you hit will be reeling long enough for a clean kill, even if it’s a Vampire Lord.”

Cole stepped back. “I’ll leave y’all to it. If you need pointers, ask any of my guys.”

Fotham’s attempt came as no surprise, proving exactly why he was the Director of Thaumaturgy. He mastered it in no time at all, just as a chef could easily recreate a dish off of a single demonstration and a list of ingredients.

He held his flashbang overhead, priming it for release.

The spell detonated downrange, bursting right next to one of the targets. Less dramatic than Cole’s demonstration, but solid work nonetheless.

“Efficient,” Fotham remarked, already forming a second spell.

The components aligned with the specifications Cole had demonstrated. He had to respect the discipline, honestly. Where most mages might try to show off or improvise, Fotham simply delivered exactly what was asked. Though, no doubt he’d get to experimentation sometime down the line.

Verna though… Yeah, Cole probably shouldn’t have expected anything less. She was already moving before Fotham finished nodding, hands blazing with mana like she’d been waiting all day for this moment. Her thermal core flared up twice as bright as needed and she slammed the containment barriers around it with enough force to make the air crack.

“Lady Verna,” Fotham cautioned, “perhaps a measure of restraint–”

She launched it before he could finish. Cole threw up a second barrier on instinct: good thing too, because Verna’s version hit like a supernova. The pressure wave punched through his first layer of protection, and the flash burned white-hot even through both barriers. Her target cracked: damn near split down the middle.

“Oops?” She didn’t sound particularly sorry.

Warren sighed, stepping up for his attempt. The final product looked almost boring compared to Verna’s light show, but Cole knew well enough that the man could have easily one-upped her if he wanted to. freeweɓnovel-cøm

When it fired, the flash was clean, the sound crisp: textbook execution, much like Fotham’s.

“The earth yet churns,” Warren noticed, pointing at the settling dust. “The force, it would seem, extends beyond what is readily seen: sufficient to cast a man from his feet, or to turn aside a shaft mid-flight. A secondary effect, perhaps? The frame unsettled, the senses unmoored?”

Cole nodded. “Yeah, that’s the pressure wave. Mack used something similar to get Kidry’s possessed off our backs. Same with Garrett and Walker; they used a variant to take down the Nevskors, get through their armor. What did you guys call it again?”

“Concussive Blast,” Ethan replied. “Name’s still a work in progress; marketing department’s on vacation.”

Miles snorted at that, already moving toward the range. He faced the Celdornians. “Wanna see what happens when you crank the pressure and skip the pretty lights?”

Warren raised an eyebrow. “By all means.” He raised another earth dummy, armoring it with compacted dirt and stone.

Miles squared up with it. The spell he crafted looked different from the start: the principle of combustion remained, but he’d retooled it to amp up the pressure and channel the explosive impulse into a focused shockwave.

“Watch the target,” he called out.

He released the spell. Instead of the dramatic flash-bang combo, there was just a dull thump: like someone had dropped a tungsten rod from orbit. The armored dummy caved in on itself, collapsing as if someone had taken an invisible battering ram to it.

“Gracious,” Verna exclaimed, stepping closer to examine the destruction. “That’s rather more thorough than I’d anticipated.”

Fotham nodded, smiling like he’d gotten some ideas out of the demonstration. “The force pierces through the armor, rending what unprotected flesh lays beyond. Ingenious, I dare say.”

“Yup,” Mack agreed. “Think of anything that can deflect bullets, cannonballs, whatever. Even if it can’t pierce the armor, it still does damage, right? Blunt force trauma. It’s kinda the same with this.”

Warren considered what he’d just seen. “Indeed, when set against the armor of a Dread Revenant, or the hide of a Pit Lord, this would prove most effective. That Garrett should manage to threaten such high-level defenses, though being level 12 himself, is no small revelation. Technique may allow a mage to strike above his measure, but seldom by more than a narrow span, and rarer still beyond a single rank.”

Mack knew exactly where to take things. His grin widened. “Well, if you’re impressed by that, we’ve got something else. Higher skill floor, but the payoff?” He let out a low whistle. “Let’s just say a Level 12 using this won’t just be threatening higher-level threats. Y’know, I’d actually go so far as to say that he could probably one-shot something way above his weight class.”

The grin was contagious: at least for Verna.

Even Warren seemed to have caught on. “The spell you used to vanquish K’hinnum,” he said.

“Yup,” Mack confirmed. “This spell? It’s not something you throw around casually. But when you absolutely need to delete something from existence… or if ya really wanna know how to kill a Vampire Lord,” He cracked his knuckles. “Well, let’s just say it makes everything else look like party tricks.”

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