Vampire's Blood Ascension-Chapter 43: Strange Murals

After a few minutes of watching Rudy sleep like a sack, Sera stood and walked outside.

’It’s cold.’

Her expression soured as the cold breeze dug into her bronze skin like thin blades, and her hair fluttered like strings of white gold.

’I have to finish this quickly.’

She ignored the biting ache and dashed towards a nearby construct with silent steps.

After entering the chamber, she looked around, but there wasn’t much she could see because, unlike Rudy, she didn’t have the eyes that allowed him to see through the darkness.

White sparks floated around her hands as she drew her chakrams and stepped into the moonlight streaming down from the broken ceiling.

She lifted her chakrams and slightly rotated them until they were perpendicular to the moonlight.

The streaming moonlight fell on her chakrams, and they scattered it throughout the chamber, brightening it in gold.

She looked around the chamber for a few moments and lowered her chakrams.

"This isn’t the one..." she whispered bitterly, and took a deep breath as she moved towards the next construct.

She dashed from one ruined building to another and kept glancing at the deviant horror at the center of the ruins with vigilant eyes.

"Is it the one from my dreams?" She questioned herself, but even she had no answer. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Much like how most regulars couldn’t remember their dreams, Seraphel was the same. Even though her dreams were windows to the future, she couldn’t remember everything she saw in them.

That was why even though seers were dangerous, they couldn’t be absolute, or at least not all could.

After two hours of searching through twenty ruined buildings, Sera finally found the chamber she was looking for.

’There it is!’

In this chamber, the floor near the right corner had a circular white marble plate fitted within the golden grooves of the dark stone.

She stored her chakrams in her spatial ring and crouched near the white plate. "I’ve been looking for you for half an hour, you know?"

Golden light seeped from her hands, solidifying into golden threads that moved through the gaps under the plate, and she pulled it out of the floor.

White light emerged from the dropping tunnel.

"This has to be it," she mumbled with a faint smile as she stood upright and placed the white marble lid by the wall.

She then wrapped her strings at various spots of the ruined wall and jumped down the tunnel.

’Here I come!’

She fell towards the floor, and just as she was about to slam into it, her strings tightened, and she dangled above the ground.

She increased the length of her strings to set foot on the ground and looked around.

Much like all the constructs she’s been to, this place had dark walls, but unlike them, it had white murals, older than history itself, carved onto them.

’What’s this?’ Sera walked closer to the murals and read them with a curious gaze.

The murals depicted three figures.

The first was a hooded figure with three horns and five arms, with strings coiled around them, and one held a lantern.

The second was a plain white silhouette with four wings, nothing around it.

The last wore a veil, with a fly sitting in each of their four palms.

All three of them were encased in a boundary of chains as if they were part of one another, and at the top of them was a red crescent.

Sera took in the daunting mural before her and mumbled bitterly, "I can’t understand anything..."

Being the deviant of the path of the God of Dreams, Nightmares, Knowledge, and Fate.

She embodied the concepts of Knowledge and Fate; thus, to eventually advance to the next ranks, she needed knowledge and had to use fate while staying within its laws.

’I can’t waste my time here.’

She placed her hand on the mural and stared at it before she heaved a disappointed sigh and stepped away from it.

After taking one final glance, she turned towards the tunnel from which came the white light that was brightening the whole place.

She took her chakrams and entered the tunnel.

On the other side of the tunnel was a wide, round chamber with murals depicting the pale desert on the left and the dark desert on the right.

"Wow..." At the center of the chamber was a gold braizer with white flames.

As Sera walked closer, her gaze fell on a glowing orange symbol floating above the white flames.

The symbol resembled a knight’s helmet, with various runes circling it.

Her shadow dwarfed the wall as she stood a step away from the braizer and touched the symbol. "An epic armour rune..."

Just as her fingers brushed the symbol, a sweet voice similar to that of a charming young man drifted into her ears.

[Warrior Seraphel, you have not yet proven yourself worthy of this artifact.]

Hearing that, her expression darkened, and she muttered with clenched fists, "Do I have to kill that beetle to claim this?"

"I think the same," a voice came from the tunnel at the front.

’He is finally here.’ Sera instantly jumped back and raised her chakrams towards the tunnel.

Steps resounded throughout the chamber as a charming man with short black hair pulled back, crafty blue eyes, and a mischievous smile across his face walked out of the tunnel.

He wore stylish bronze armor trimmed in black, a cape draped over one shoulder, and a sword sheathed on his hip.

’If I remember correctly, his name is Kalien Wraith.’ Sera narrowed her eyes and muttered, "Who are you?"

The man stopped in his tracks and placed a hand on his chest as he introduced, "I am Kalien Wraith."

His lips spread into a charming smile, and he asked, "What is your grand name, my lady?"

’He is similar to what I had seen,’ Sera thought as she lowered her chakrams and answered, "Seraphel Thessyne."

Kalien’s eyes shone as he mumbled softly, "Seraphel Thessyne... a beautiful name for an even more gorgeous woman."

Unmoved by his flattery, Sera turned to the tunnel from which she came and stepped forward.

Watching her leave, Kalien’s expression turned troubled, and he stammered while following behind her, "W-Wait! My lady!"

Sera, in fact, did not wait and used her strings to leave the chamber through the tunnel at the ceiling.

Kalien stared at the tunnel with a lost expression for a moment before he turned and sprinted towards the other tunnel.

He reached a round chamber with four tunnels in the four directions, out of which only one was open, and a staircase at the center.

He climbed the staircase and appeared at a ruined dome. He sprinted out and searched for Sera.

A minute later, he saw her stealthily making her way out and dashed towards her with a wide grin.

’I can’t let Vlad know that I was away,’ Sera thought as she saw him from the corner of her eye and shook her head.

Unaware that, far away at the edge of the ruined settlement, a pair of blood red eyes were watching her.