A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

But that moment never came. The older vampire managed to continue running until he reached the village… and continued sprinting past it.

At the edge of their village, the monster continued taking slow, measured steps forward. They were steps meant to terrify and hurry the villagers along, not actually catch up to them. And for that, they worked fine.

Its heavy steps reverberated through the ground, while the eery clicking from its claws and strange growling from its throat continued egging on the villager's screaming and frenzied rout.

For several minutes, the monster continued forward slowly… until it finally reached the centre of an empty village. A mob of more than a hundred people, young and old, was now racing through the jungle towards the nearest city, having completely abandoned the village.

The entire way, each one of them constantly swivelled their heads, terrified that the monster would be behind them again. Each one of them continued hearing that clicking and growling, even long after that would have been impossible.

Meanwhile, the monster looked around and uttered a strange chuckle. At the same time, a transformed Naeku came up from behind it with a wry expression. "Are you sure you didn't go too far…? Some of them might actually have traumas after that!"

Find adventures at My Virtual Library Empire

Slowly, the monster's body started to shimmer and disappear, shrinking slightly until it revealed Erik's armoured werewolf form. Immediately after disabling the illusion sigil contained in his armour, he also transformed back into human form.

When he was done, he turned to Naeku and shrugged helplessly. "Well, at least they'll be alive to have traumas! Just give them a little time, and they'll get over it. I'm sure there's still some living psychiatrists out there…"

Sighing lightly, Naeku walked over to him and wrapped her furry arms around his armoured body. "I know... Thank you for doing this," she muttered, resting her head on his chest. "I just wish it didn't need to be this way."

"I know," Erik nodded while he compressed his armour back into the armguard before starting to caress Naeku's head, focusing on her panther ears.

Naeku immediately started to squirm a little. "That tickles…" she muttered indignantly but made no effort to pull away.

"You seem to enjoy it, though," Erik grinned as he continued patting her head.

"Shut up…!" she muttered, even as she tightened her grip around him. "We— We need to follow the villagers and keep any beasts at bay while they flee…"

Despite her words, she made no effort to actually start doing so for another few seconds, a time that Erik enjoyed to its fullest. Finally, however, she pushed back against his chest and turned in the direction the villagers fled, a light blush on her cheeks. "C— Come on! If any of them die now, all this would have been for nothing!"

Chuckling, Erik followed her, quickly but stealthily catching up to the fleeing villagers and protecting them from the shadows.

Along the way, Erik couldn't help but be impressed by their compassion for each other. Even while panicked and fleeing, most of them made sure that both young and weak were never left behind.

"Most of them are good people," Naeku smiled softly when Erik shared his feelings. "They're just… misguided."

"Let's call a spade a spade and call it very misguided," Erik chuckled as he remembered the stubborn older vampire who stayed till the end. "I can appreciate making a stand in the face of impossible odds, but only if there's a point. They hadn't even ordered the people to evacuate before they attempted to face me, so all they were faced with was a pointless death."

In fact, Erik could appreciate the young man who was the first to flee a little more than the old man. He may have fled, but he didn't truly panic and even made sure to grab his little sister before leaving. He realized the hopelessness of the situation and the pointlessness of protecting that place, instead choosing to focus on the safety of himself and his family.

Erik was far from a coward, but he could appreciate the man's mentality.

Naeku reluctantly agreed, and they continued moving quickly. Soon, they started nearing the closest city, Bahir Dar, and the two of them decided to rush ahead to greet the villagers at the gate.

Being a city that existed on the edge of a large lake, Bahir Dar was one of the more easily defended cities in Enkare Nkai's kingdom. A true stone wall enveloped the half of it that was exposed to the jungle outside of it, providing a lot of protection from the beast hordes.

It wasn't on the same level as Enkare Nkai's wall, of course, but that didn't mean it couldn't become like that one. It just needed some more time and help from Elora's sigils.

At the same time, the lake also meant that the jungle was only encroaching from half of their border, while plenty of concrete was making it that much harder for the plant life to break through the ground. Especially because this city had a large population to work together at keeping their space liveable.

Finally, Bahir Dar had plenty of empty living spaces, and was all-in-all a massive improvement on the village Erik and Naeku just came from.

Thus, once the villagers reached the city, they were greeted by their princess and emperor, who just so happened to be in the neighbourhood and welcomed them with open arms. Naeku immediately went to work on providing them with proper housing and making sure they all felt welcome and cared for.

Meanwhile, Erik's stern and powerful presence made these frightened people feel safe and comforted, as if they truly had nothing to worry about anymore. Some of them did feel a little strange when they looked into his glowing amber eyes, but no one made the connection.

On the next day, Erik and Naeku moved on to the next village, making sure that the nearest city was a different one this time, as they didn't want to make things overly suspicious.

This village was mostly of shapeshifters rather than a mix, but neither the methodology nor the result was any different. Once again, they'd driven a group of villagers into the safety of the cities.

They repeated this a few more times across the kingdom, until they ran into a problem…