Modern World Warlock

After Dante and the reporters had given their prayers for Radeon's rest, they made their way to the area where he said he had encountered Megan's group, which was a few blocks away from their location.

When they arrived, they noticed the destruction that was left in the wake of their fight and the crater that remained from Radeon's explosion. However, neither Megan nor Lindsey and Irina were present.

As Tanya and Dirk began recording the scene, Dante looked around and saw traces of Megan's umbra in the air.

'Hmm, interesting… I can still see her traces. It must be an effect of my contract with her,' Dante pondered, walking along and following the trail, which resembled a streak of red smoke.

Tanya and Dirk followed the warlock closely, still recording their surroundings and stopping their movements as soon as Dante did, seeing a large group of zombies walking towards them.

"Hmm?" Dante hummed, raising an eyebrow at the undead that slowly walked forward.

The reporters didn't waste any time and began recording, expecting the warlock to take down the group. However, when they saw the warlock delving into his own thoughts, they started to feel a bit worried.

"Umm… Mr. Dante? Should we run?" Dirk pondered aloud, still aiming the camera at his target.

"No. Stay there…" Dante replied with a bit of disinterest, rubbing his chin as he kept inspecting the undead.

"These people were turned recently…" Dante continued.

From the amount of necrotic energy that flowed out of the zombies' bodies, Dante could roughly tell how long it had been since they turned.

All of the zombies and ghouls they had encountered had been created when Netherius took over the city. Nonetheless, the group that was approaching them had undead who were clearly turned mere hours before.

Tanya instantly connected the dots and began coming up with her own theories. She knew that humans couldn't live long inside the necropolis since the air would slowly kill them and turn them into zombies. She had experienced it first-hand as well.

The fact that the group of zombies was new led her to believe that the necromancer must have been expanding and taking over citizens who managed to escape or avoid the first expansion of the necropolis.

Instead of asking Dante if she was correct, Tanya simply spoke to the camera in a very professional tone, with the zombies approaching in the background of the shot.

'The reporter woman is right… The necropolis must be expanding pretty quickly,' Dante thought, and as he raised one palm to deal with the group of weak undead, he sensed something approaching and halted himself.

Suddenly, an object crashed down right in the middle of the zombies' group, releasing streaks of hardened blood that stabbed and skewered them before blasting their bodies away.

The two reporters were confused since they couldn't see what had happened, but Dante instantly recognized the vampire sentinel that landed before them.

When the warlock spotted the vampire, he knew that the girl had drunk someone's blood as her eyes were glowing, and the energy coursing through her body felt exponentially stronger than usual.

Curiously, Dante could sense his own blood inside the vampire and deduced that she must have gotten it from Megan.

When the group of zombies was completely taken down in a few seconds by Irina, she turned her head and spotted Dante, quickly approaching him with a somewhat worried expression.

"Irina. Where's Megan and Lindsey?" Dante asked, unable to sense their presence anywhere nearby.

"That's who I'm looking for!" Irina replied, her voice slightly deeper than usual.

The vampire explained that after they fought against Radeon, the netherlord decided to blow himself up with a final spell.

Of course, the three of them weren't aware that Radeon actually lived through it and that Dante had to execute him mere minutes before their encounter, but that wasn't their priority.

After the explosion went off, the three women were blasted away in different directions.

"I only lost consciousness for a few seconds. When I woke up, I couldn't sense Megan or Lindsey anywhere around me…" Irina explained.

The vampire sentinel tried looking under the rubbles of the destroyed buildings, checked the crater left by the explosion, and even scouted the inside of the structures that were still standing. Nonetheless, she couldn't find her team.

"Now that you mention it. I was following Megan's umbra trail here… But it seems to cut off," Dante said, sharpening his gaze and looking around for more clues.

"By the way, Dante… Who the fuck are these people?" Irina asked, looking at both Tanya and Dirk behind him, who simply recorded the entire exchange.

"Oh, right. These guys are some kind of reporters or something… I found them dying in one of the streets," the warlock casually replied.

Irina noticed that Tanya and Dirk were wearing the protective talismans around their neck, looking back at Dante with a suspicious stare.

"You really saved those two, huh?" Irina commented.

"What do you mean?" Dante asked.

"Just saying. I didn't think warlocks cared for others that much…" the vampire continued.

"Well, they are not really bad people, and I had extra talismans on me… I'm not that big of an asshole to just let them die," Dante casually replied, still looking around for clues about Megan and Lindsey.

"Hey, girl. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How come your wings are different from Mr. Dante's?" Tanya interjected, approaching the vampire with her microphone in hand.

"Ehh?" Irina hummed, slightly taken aback and feeling a bit shy in front of the camera.

"Ohhh, you are so young! You must be a teenager… How splendid! This is great content, I'm telling you," Tanya continued, wholly invested in her documentary.

As the vampire was interviewed by the reporters, Dante walked to the corner of the block and sensed a very faint presence, which he recognized.

"Vesnia…" Dante muttered to himself.

Out of all the high-ranking Death Knights that worked for Netherius, there were two in particular whom Dante knew in his old world. Vesnia and Udras.

While he didn't truly care about Udras' fate, he was still upset at the treatment that his friend's little sister had received, and seeing how Lindsey and Megan's traces of energy dissipated, he deduced that Vesnia had something to do with it.