The Multiverse Hunter

"Darling, I'm naming the baby."

The young woman's soft voice broke the gentle silence of the candlelit room. She lay back on crisp white sheets, her face framed by loose strands of red hair. She wore the faint, peaceful smile of an expectant mother at her happiest.

Beside her, her husband—Thomas Nolan—sat on the edge of the bed, his broad hand resting gently on the swell of her belly. He could feel the tiny kicks under his palm, that spark of life that made him feel invincible and terrified all at once.

"If it's a boy, I'm naming him after my father," Thomas said with a grin, leaning down to press a kiss to her lips. "If it's a girl… you can choose."

She laughed softly and swatted at his chest. "Deal."

Thomas pushed himself up, brushing her hair back from her forehead. "I'm going to get us something to eat," he said.

Her eyes brightened immediately. "Don't forget the cheese and that stale bread from the kitchen—not fresh! I want the stale bread."

Thomas chuckled as he reached the door. Pregnancy cravings. He'd come to expect them at any hour, strange as they were.

"I won't forget," he promised, stepping out and closing the door behind him.

Inside, alone now, she let her smile linger for a heartbeat longer. Then she turned her head toward the corner of the bedroom.

There, leaning against the wall, was Thomas's sword. An heirloom—steel polished smooth by three generations of blood, sweat, and stubborn pride. Its hilt bore the Nolan crest, the same crest that had guarded these lands for over a century. It belonged to his grandfather who reached the peak of Aura level 4 but died in wars far way from his lands and wasn't able to help his house grow with his strength.

Kale, Thomas's father was an Aura level 3 knight and peaked at that level in his late twenties with no signs of progress but fortunately House Nolan was blessed with a great talent like Thomas who is already at the peak of the third level and should break through to level 4, it was only a matter of time.

Her eyes softened, but her thoughts drifted somewhere else. Seven years back.

Obidos.

She saw herself—just a merchant's daughter, sleeves rolled up, sleeves smelling of tanned leather and salt. The prettiest girl in the city, everyone said. Too pretty for her own good. Suitors queued up at her father's stall every dawn, pretending to shop for leather belts and gloves.

But only two boys came every single day.

Thomas Nolan. Edwin Cinder.

Best friends once. Noble heirs, restless and bright-eyed. Boys who should have been learning court etiquette or military drills, but instead stood outside her father's shop, waiting to ask her to be theirs. Every day. Every time, turned away by her father with curses and broom swats.

She used to laugh about it with her mother.

Until the day it turned dark.

She could see it—clear as glass—the rain-soaked street, the circle of people forming in the mud, the swords drawn. Thomas and Edwin, two muscular young men with mature eyes, faces cut by rain and sweat, eyes wild with heartbreak and ego.

They faced each other, swords raised, Aura flickering like ghostly fire on steel.

She remembered screaming their names.

They didn't hear her.

Then—steel clashed.

One final swing.

SLASH.

The crowd gasped. Thomas stood tall, sword steady at his side. Edwin crumpled to the mud, clutching his stomach, red blooming through his tunic.

Guards dragged Edwin away as his eyes, glassy with pain, clung to the sight of her in Thomas's arms.

The memory vanished like fog.

She blinked the tears away and looked back at the corner—at the sword.

Thomas had won.

Edwin had vanished. To a magic academy, far away. Until now.

Until this war.

She exhaled, steadying her breath—only for her heart to stop cold.

A massive shadow fell over her bed.

She turned her head. A giant loomed at her bedside—a figure wrapped in black, a gold mask glinting in the candlelight. Cold, endless black eyes stared down at her like pits cut from obsidian.

Her mouth opened to scream—

"THO—"

A hand clamped over her mouth. Iron-strong. Silencing her voice before it could ever leave the room.

Tears welled in her eyes as she stared up at the stranger.

Her mind, desperate, pleaded for Thomas—

Outside the door, Thomas balanced a tray of bread, cheese, and an apple. He jiggled the door handle, frowning when it didn't budge.

He chuckled. "Darling? Did you lock the door again?" he called out, knocking lightly.

But then—

"Edwin—NO! EDWIN, LET ME GO! THOMAS! THOMAS—!"

Her desperate scream shattered the room's quiet like glass under a boot. For a heartbeat, it rang clear through the corridor—then BOOM.

The door to the chamber exploded inward in a shockwave of splinters and torn iron hinges. The entire wooden frame crumpled like paper as Thomas Nolan stormed through, every inch of his body blazing with raw, searing Aura. It glowed a violent, pulsing orange that cracked the air around him—like heat haze rising off molten steel.

His eyes were wide, veins bulging in his neck. He scanned the wrecked room in half a breath, heart hammering so hard it rattled his ribs.

The only thing he saw was the window, smashed open—curtains whipping wildly in the wind. Pale silk strips fluttered through the cold night—shreds of his wife's nightgown caught on jagged glass.

"No—!"

He ran to the window, boots crunching across broken glass. He leaned over, eyes darting through the darkness below. His trained senses focused, catching the faintest shape—a hand, delicate and desperate, reaching out in the black as she vanished into the void.

His mind didn't even register the danger. There was no plan. Just instinct.

Thomas roared and jumped.

He launched himself from the high window, stone walls a blur as his body cut through the night air like a cannonball. He reached out, fingers grazing the freezing wind—so close—but then she was gone. Swallowed by shadows. No trace. No sound.

He landed on the courtyard's grass like a boulder, the ground shuddering under the impact. Dirt split open beneath his boots. His breath fogged in front of him, ragged, frantic.

He didn't pause. He spun, eyes blazing bright orange, his Aura pulsing outward in waves of oppressive heat.

He picked a direction—any direction—and ran.

He exploded forward, a streak of molten orange across the courtyard, his footsteps shredding the earth in sparks. Trees blurred past. Stone walls flashed by. He didn't think—he only chased ghosts in the dark.

Then—

WHAM!

A massive body slammed into him from the side like a charging bull. The air split with a thunder crack as Thomas crashed to the ground, momentum tearing up a trail of shredded grass and upturned soil.

His father, Lord Kale Nolan, had his son pinned under him, arms locked around his neck in a brutal headlock.

"THOMAS! STOP—STOP, BOY! SNAP OUT OF IT!"

Thomas bucked like a beast under him, teeth bared, his hands clawing at Kale's iron grip.

"HE TOOK HER! LET ME GO! THAT BASTARD—HE TOOK HER! HE TOOK HER—!"

Thomas tried to surge up again, Aura flaring hotter, but Kale forced him down, using every ounce of his seasoned strength to pin the younger, stronger man. Dirt flew as they rolled. Kale's arms flexed, the cords of muscle at his neck straining.

He knew if he let go, Thomas would run blind into enemy territory—into death.

Above, on the castle's second floor, Lady Nolan stepped into her son's bedroom. Her silk nightgown dragged through the splintered wood and shards of the door that now lay in ruin. She paused, gaze hard, her breath steady despite the pounding rage in her chest.

Her knights—half-dressed, armoured only by urgency—stood behind her, blades out, eyes flicking through every shadow. Humiliation bled from every tense line in their posture. An intruder had walked through a fortress filled with Aura knights—unseen. Unchallenged.

Lady Nolan's eyes fell to a scrap of parchment lying amidst the debris. She bent, picking it up with shaking fingers. She unfolded it, her eyes scanning the ink—each word carving into her like a knife.

"Thomas,

I will raise her child as my own after I kill you with my hands on the battlefield.

This was only to protect her—I wouldn't want her to see your head in my hands when I walk into your home and make it MINE."

Her hand trembled so violently the parchment nearly tore. Usually, her temper was ice—years in court had taught her to master rage, to bury it under perfect smiles.

But this—

This was too far.

She looked over her shoulder at her knights. Their eyes met hers and they saw it too—the barely restrained fury crackling behind her calm mask.

She didn't shout. She didn't scream.

She simply said, voice cold as the grave:

"OUT. TO THE YARD."

She turned on her heel and swept out into the corridor, her gown whispering behind her. The knights followed in a line, steel glinting in the torchlight. Silent oaths burned in their chests—blood would be spilled for this insult.

Behind them, unnoticed, the Latina woman stepped into the wrecked bedroom. She moved like a shadow, bare feet soundless on the stone. Her long black hair brushed her bare shoulder. Her eyes—Sharingan, red and alive with swirling tomoe—swept across the ruin.

She stood perfectly still, eyes flicking over every detail: the splintered door, the broken window, the drag marks, the faint traces of Aura scorched into the floorboards.

'He didn't break the window to enter… only on the way out,' she thought, mind racing. Her Sharingan read the invisible echoes like ink on glass.

'The door was locked. Thomas didn't see the approach. But he saw enough to unleash that power—why did the intruder stay long enough to risk that? Edwin. It must have been Edwin. But to hesitate like that…'

Her eyes narrowed, the red gleam of her Sharingan spinning slowly.

'Love and vengeance. They always ruin clean plans.'

She exhaled, slipped a small blade back into her sash, and vanished into the hall—her mind already calculating how to twist this chaos to her own ends.

Inside the castle of House Cinder, the corridors were alive with the low scrape of armoured boots and the muted thud of gloved fists knocking rhythmically on doors. Knights moved through every hallway, eyes sharp, backs straight. None dared slack off tonight.

At the heart of this tense patrol was the reason they feared idleness — their captain.

A hulking figure in dull black steel sat hunched on a low stone bench outside the young lord's bedchamber. His hair was coarse and black, pulled back tight from a face marked by a savage burn scar that twisted the corner of his mouth. If any townsfolk from Obidos saw him in the light, they'd know the mark for what it was — a slaver's brand, scorched into him as a boy.

But this man had been purchased off the block by Edwin Cinder himself, trained like a rabid dog into a loyal hound. The boy who once wept behind iron bars now commanded the entire guard as a Level 3 Aura Knight. And if you fell asleep on your watch, he wouldn't hesitate to rip your throat out with his bare hands — no steel needed.

So the men walked. They did not dare sit.

Inside the grand chamber beyond that heavy oak door, Edwin lay sprawled on silken sheets. A sword, finely polished, rested within arm's reach on the side table — an heirloom of the Cinder line. Edwin's chest rose and fell slowly. He dreamed of fire. Of betrayal. Of her.

He did not know that two floors below, in a cramped room meant for maids, a different predator was already feeding.

Five young maids slept side by side on thin mattresses. Their breaths came soft and steady, the hush of harmless dreams. But between them lay something that had no place in this world anymore — something that belonged in the age of night and terror.

Seraphina Nightveil, daughter of a vanished dynasty, lay there like a phantom wearing human skin. Her red eyes flickered open, jewels of wet blood and old power. Slowly, she turned her head toward the nearest maid, her lips parting to reveal teeth that were no longer human.

Her canines slid down like knives.

Seraphina's mouth closed around the maid's soft nape. There was no scream, no twitch, not even a gasp — only the faint sound of blood slipping past lips. Litres of warm life vanished down her throat, vanquishing the raw hunger that had gnawed at her since her long tomb sleep.

When she pulled back, two neat pinpricks marred the maid's flawless skin — but Seraphina traced them lightly with a single fingertip. A hush of blood magic, ancient and subtle, knitted flesh over bone until the holes closed like they'd never existed.

A high vampire's nightmare craft. The reason humans had once rallied whole armies just to hunt her kind into extinction.

Seraphina did not stop at one. She moved like a drifting shade, pressing her lips to the next neck, and the next — silent, precise, feeding just enough from each sleeping girl to top up her waning strength. The fifth victim's eyelids fluttered but did not open. The old nightmare slipped her back into dreams.

Seraphina sat up. Her lips were dark and wet. Thin tendrils of blood danced lazily across her fingers, drawn by her will alone. She looked up — straight through the stone ceiling — toward the young master's bed two floors above.

A sly smile curved her mouth.

She rose, walked to the tiny window, and inhaled the cold night air. Shadows rippled across her skin as she called on that deep, dreadful power buried in her veins — the inheritance of her mother's house.

FLAP. FLAP. FLAP.

Her body broke apart, shredded into a swirling column of sleek black bats. Wings beating in chaotic harmony, they poured through the slit window in a writhing tide of darkness. The bats rose, drifting up the cold stone walls like smoke from a funeral pyre.

A heartbeat later, they flooded silently through a crack in Edwin's open window, slipping between the half-pulled drapes.

Inside the bedchamber, Edwin's eyelids twitched in sleep.

The bats swirled once in midair — and then collapsed inward, knitting themselves back into the shape of a woman. Bare feet touched the rug with a whisper. Her red eyes glowed in the gloom.

Seraphina looked down at the sleeping boy who thought himself a lord. She could hear the hot blood pumping under his pale skin. The power of his heartbeat made her veins tremble with want.

She stepped closer. Her hand hovered above his throat.

'I am still so hungry.'

Her sharp nails grazed the air. One taste would be so easy, so sweet.

Then pain.

A sharp tightening seized her chest — a chain pulling at the inside of her ribcage.

The blood contract. Ali's leash, buried deep. Even here in the dark, with him leagues away, she could feel the collar tighten around her will.

Seraphina's eyes flashed with cold fury. She pressed her palm around Edwin's throat — not to drain, but to command.

Edwin's eyes flew open — only to find themselves drowning in the red void of hers. Cracks of living light twisted through her irises like dying stars.

"You kidnapped the woman you love tonight," she whispered, her voice like poison silk. "You hid her somewhere safe. Tomorrow afternoon, you march your army against House Nolan. Nothing else."

Her thumb brushed his cheek, almost tender.

"Now… sleep."

His eyelids fluttered shut. The last of the blood she'd stolen pooled behind her eyes, fueling the ancient compulsion. She felt it burn out inside her like dry straw.

Empty again. Hungry again.

Her lips pulled back in a silent snarl — but the contract was a vice around her neck. No more time to linger.

Seraphina stepped back, turned for the window, and vanished once more into a flicker of black wings.

Outside, the castle's watch torches flickered — unaware that under the cover of moon and bats, the old monsters had already chosen the time for men to die.

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