Chapter 202: Shadows at the Gate
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And tomorrow, when the sun rose, the auction marketing would still happen. But Iron House would wake and realize their young master did not come home.
They would panic. They would feel rage. They would do something stupid.
And Sekhmet, walking through silent corridors toward his sleeping house, felt only one cold certainty settle deeper into his bones.
The auction is no longer just a business event. It is bait. And he had just made sure the predators were already starving.
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A few hours later... Morning came to Slik City like it always did. Not gently. Not beautifully.
It came the way busy cities woke by accident, by noise, by hunger, by people pretending they had slept while their eyes already looked tired.
Vendors rolled carts into position. Guards changed shifts. Beastkin argued with humans about street priority like it was a sacred law. The air smelled like spice, metal, sweat, cooked oil, and fresh chaos energy from stones being counted too early in the day.
And underneath all of that, there was something new.
A thin tension in the city’s pulse. Not from yesterday’s gossip. Not from ordinary crime.
From an unseen pressure that made the hairs on weaker men rise without knowing why.
Three travelers arrived at the outer gate before noon. They did not walk like tourists. They did not walk like merchants.
They did not walk like people who needed permission to exist. They walked like inevitability, wrapped in calm.
The guards saw them and straightened, not because uniforms demanded it, but because instincts did.
The leading man was tall, shoulders relaxed, silver eyes half-lidded as if the city was already boring him. A hood covered his hair, but his aura leaked through anyway. It was controlled, condensed, old. The kind of aura that made a Chaos Rank Two guards suddenly remember he had a family and did not want to die today.
To his right walked a woman with silver hair tied cleanly behind her head. Her face was beautiful in the way cold weapons were beautiful. Her lips held a faint smile that never warmed. Her gaze moved over the gate like she was counting weak points.
To his left walked a woman with black hair, long and loose. Her eyes were darker than the alley shadows. She looked less amused than the other two, but somehow that made her more dangerous.
(Alex. Sofia. Natasha. Half-god rank. True vampires.)
They did not need to announce what they were. Their bodies made the air behave differently around them. Their presence was quiet, but it bent the world just enough to be noticed.
A gate guard raised his halberd and tried to speak with authority. His voice came out less stable than he wanted.
"Travelers," he said. "State your purpose."
Alex glanced at him casually. His eyes were calm. Too calm.
"Trade," Alex said.
It was a lazy answer. Not because it was false. Because it did not matter whether the guard believed him.
The guard’s fingers tightened around his halberd. He tried again.
"This city requires—"
Natasha’s gaze flicked to him. Just a glance.
The guard’s throat tightened like invisible fingers had brushed it. His confidence faltered. Sweat appeared at his hairline.
Sofia smiled faintly.
"Do you want to be brave," she asked, voice soft, "or do you want to be alive."
The guard swallowed. He was a professional, not a martyr. He gestured stiffly toward the registration pedestal anyway, because rules saved weak people by giving them scripts.
"Toll and entry mark," he said.
Alex placed a small pouch down. Chaos stones. Not a few. Enough to make the guard’s eyes twitch even through discipline.
He checked it quickly, hands faster now.
Then he nodded.
"Welcome," he said, voice suddenly polite.
Slik City did not reject money. Slik City did not reject power. Slik City simply tried to survive between them.
The gate rune flared. The barrier peeled aside. And the three walked in.
As they passed through the gate arch, the city noise touched them and then felt quieter, like the noise itself had learned respect.
They moved into the main street without hurry. The air became very heavy.
Merchants pretended not to stare. Guards pretended not to notice. Travelers stepped aside without realizing they were stepping aside.
Alex did not look around like a curious man. He looked around like a predator memorizing a feeding ground.
Sofia’s lips moved slightly as if she was tasting the air.
Natasha’s eyes narrowed, focused on something nobody else could sense.
They had come for an original vampire. Not a rumor. Not a myth. A new source. A new blood resonance.
They should have been able to feel him like a beacon. They could not.
Alex stopped after a few streets, near a market lane where the smell of cooked meat hung thick.
He frowned slightly.
"That is annoying," he said.
Sofia’s silver brows lifted.
"You cannot sense it," she said.
Alex’s eyes narrowed.
"I can and cannot," he confirmed.
Natasha’s gaze remained sharp.
"But you feel something," she said.
Alex did not answer immediately. He closed his eyes for a moment. Not to meditate. To listen.
A faint pulse touched his senses. Not the original. Not the source. But something connected.
His eyes opened. "Yes," he said. "I feel the ones who were turned. We have been feeling them all the time."
Sofia’s smile thinned.
"That means the original is masking," she murmured.
Natasha shook her head slightly.
"Or the original is not strong enough to broadcast," she said. "Or the original is being held down by something else outside the city."
Alex stared ahead.
"All possible," he said.
Then Sofia’s gaze shifted and sharpened.
"It is close," she said quietly.
Natasha’s lips curved faintly, not a smile, more a recognition.
"Two," Natasha said. "Two signatures. Stronger than normal vampires. Fresh."
Alex’s eyes half-lidded again.
"So the conversion happened recently," he said.
Sofia’s voice was calm.
"Which means the original is either reckless," she said, "or desperate."
Natasha’s eyes turned colder.
"Or smart," she said. "If he made them strong enough to defend him."
Alex exhaled softly.
"We do not need to sense him yet," he said. "We follow the smell of his work."
Slik was a trade city. Rumors were faster than beasts.
Alex stepped toward a nearby food stall where two merchants were arguing loudly about auction seating and bribery.
He did not ask politely. He did not need to. He simply stood close enough that his chaos energy pressed slightly into their space.
Their argument died instantly. One merchant swallowed hard and bowed.
"Honored... sir," he said, voice thin.
Alex’s tone stayed casual.
"Tell me what the city is obsessed with today."