The snow whispered around them, soft and relentless.
Velra’s head tilted slightly, her crimson eyes gleaming faintly in the pale moonlight. "You wear his flesh," she murmured. "Even your silence reeks of him. I can feel it in your scent."
Freedman didn’t move. Every instinct screamed at him to end her right there—snuff out the last spark of life and be done with it. But curiosity held his hand. Something about her tone was too sure, too knowing.
"You’re delirious," he said finally, though the words came out more defensive than he intended. "There’s no king. No priesthood. My kind answers to no one."
Velra’s lips curved in a faint, almost pitiful smile. "That’s what you believe."
Her body shook with a quiet laugh, the sound brittle as glass. "You parasites... always so proud of your freedom. And yet you never notice the leash."
Freedman’s expression—or what was left of it—darkened. A ripple of unease spread through his chest, but he forced his voice to stay steady. "What leash?"
Velra lifted her gaze to the sky, her breathing growing shallow. "The king’s will still lingers. It seeps through every one of you. You think you act on instinct—feed, hunt, survive—but it’s his echo that drives you."
The snow around her seemed to still, as if listening.
Freedman felt his pulse spike, his body reacting before his thoughts could form. He stepped closer, boots crunching in the snow. "You’re speaking nonsense," he said sharply. "Our kind has no god, no ruler. We consume what we wish. We are the will."
Velra’s eyes flickered toward him again—dim now, yet still unnervingly sharp, as if piercing straight through his facade.
"That’s exactly what he would say," she murmured.
Freedman’s brow furrowed. "What?"
The words made no sense. The more she spoke, the more absurd it sounded.
He exhaled slowly, his breath misting in the cold. "You’re delirious. To survive, you’re just spouting nonsense."
But even as he said it, his voice wavered for a fraction of a second. Something about her tone—calm, almost knowing—made his hand pause midair.
He quickly pushed the hesitation aside. There was no reason to wait any longer.
And even if, by some miracle, what she said was true, it didn’t matter.
’A king that might not even exist... is not my concern.’
His goal was simple: eliminate the target, report back, and move on.
He raised his hand.
—Woong.
A deep, resonant hum rippled through the air. The snow at his feet trembled.
It was the parasite noble’s forbidden art—Emotional Absorption.
Normally, his kind needed to infiltrate a host’s body to consume their emotions—to taste their despair, their hatred, their joy. But this was different. This technique reached beyond flesh, directly into the soul.
It drained everything.
Emotion, memory, identity—leaving behind nothing but a hollow shell.
The invisible wave pulsed outward from Freedman’s palm, enveloping Velra.
Her body stiffened instantly.
"Agh—! Wh-why... why do you—"
Her voice broke apart, choked by something deeper than pain. Her eyes trembled—not from fear, but from a sense of betrayal she couldn’t name.
The torrent of emotions hit Freedman like a storm.
Rage. Grief. Defiance.
And beneath it all, a strange, unwavering faith.
Then—voices. Faint echoes bleeding through the connection.
—Dare to touch my prey.
The words reverberated in his head, carrying a weight that didn’t belong to Velra alone.
Freedman flinched.
Her memories began to spill into him—shattered fragments of a life far older than his own. Battles beneath a blood-red moon. A shadow without a face standing before her. The sound of laughter that made even her vampire blood run cold.
And again, that name.
Faceless Imposter.
’This... person?’ he thought, his grip tightening. ’She really believed he was the king of parasites?’
The connection deepened, the emotions thickening like tar.
Just a bit more. He needed to see. Needed to know.
What did she mean by "king"? Who was this "Faceless" she spoke so faithfully, even in death?
Freedman’s breath came out in uneven bursts as the last fragments of her essence began to unravel.
He pushed harder.
Just a bit more—
Freedman forced his hand down, driving the forbidden art deeper. The cold wind seemed to press in closer, as if the forest itself leaned to listen.
Velra’s face crumpled. Her eyes—so fierce a moment before—flickered like a dying flame. She tried to swallow, tried to form words, and what came out was a ragged whisper.
"Don’t... don’t take everything," she gasped.
The first wave hit Freedman like a thrown stone.
Anger — hot, immediate, volcanic. Not hers, but someone she remembered fighting beside, someone who had roared commands beneath a red moon. He felt the scent of iron, the rasp of chainmail, the certainty of a blade finding a heart.
Then sorrow, an ocean of it. Not the cowardly grief of a frightened animal, but the slow, heavy grief of someone who’d watched empires burn. The taste of lost names, of faces swallowed by time. Velra’s memories poured in jagged, shattering across his mind.
Between those shards came a cadence, a voice that did not belong to Velra: low, featureless, and intimate.
The echo threaded through the memories like a seam.
He was close—just a little bit more, and he could see everything.
The truth was right there, shimmering on the edge of his perception. Velra’s dying emotions were unraveling before him, threads of memory and madness he could almost grasp.
Just a little closer—
Swish—!
A sharp sound cut through the air.
Metal sliced past him, cold and merciless, landing precisely between him and Velra.
Right where he had been standing moments ago.
"Tch!" Freedman clicked his tongue and leapt back, snow crunching beneath his boots. "An interruption?"
A voice replied, calm yet edged with amusement.
"You seem to lack romance, interrupting such a beautiful harvest. To destroy a source that pours out emotion endlessly—how wasteful."
Freedman turned sharply, his glare slicing through the pale air like a blade. Whoever it was, they’d struck at the worst possible time.
It was a pity.
Just a little longer, and he could have finished absorbing the last of Velra’s emotions—those rich, desperate flavors that made his kind stronger. Now, all that lingered was the faint metallic scent of blood and the fading hum of power.
Behind him, the vampire’s body slumped into the snow with a soft thud.
Crunch. Crunch.
Footsteps approached through the silence.
There was something unsettlingly familiar about them.
"Lady Velra," the stranger said, his tone polite, almost elegant, "harbors a surprisingly refined taste in her emotions. Not quite exquisite, not particularly thrilling, but... satisfying. I couldn’t possibly allow anyone to ruin such a fine supplier."
Freedman froze. That voice—he’d just heard it.
Not long ago, within Velra’s memories.
And now, here it was in front of him, alive.
The figure stepped into view, wearing a perfectly tailored butler’s uniform, the kind worn by noble servants. His face was hidden behind a golden mask that gleamed faintly in the snowlight, but the shadows that rippled around him betrayed something far darker.
Freedman’s voice dropped low, wary. "Are you... the Faceless Imposter?"
There was no emotional pulse. No scent of fear, no taste of greed, anger, or hunger.
Nothing.
That emptiness told him everything he needed to know—this man wasn’t human.
He was one of them.
A parasite.
And yet, something in his presence made Freedman’s skin crawl. It was like looking at a reflection warped beyond recognition.
The speculation born from Velra’s final words now felt almost certain.
And beyond that—
Something primal stirred within him. A pull. A yearning so deep it frightened even him.
Now he understood.
Faceless Imposter.
That wasn’t just a name whispered by dying lips.
It was him.
The one who stood before him.
The being his kind had once called king.
Freedman’s breath hitched, his voice a whisper caught between awe and disbelief.
"...So you’re real."
The masked man tilted his head slightly, as if amused by the statement.
And though no emotion could be felt—no pulse, no presence—Freedman could swear that behind that golden mask, something was smiling.
The man in the golden mask didn’t answer right away.
Snow fell between them, lazy flakes catching the pale light as the silence stretched. The stillness was suffocating—not from fear, but from absence.
Even the air around him seemed hollow.
Freedman’s pulse quickened despite himself. "You’re not going to deny it?" he asked, forcing his voice steady. "Or are you just here to toy with me?"
The masked man tilted his head slightly, as if studying him. When he finally spoke, his tone was soft—pleasant, measured—but beneath it lingered something ancient.
"Deny it? No. There is nothing to deny."
His gloved hand brushed the snow from his shoulder, the gesture absurdly casual for someone standing over a dying noble.
"I am what they made me. What your kind forgot."
Freedman’s breath hitched. "You—You’re saying you are him."
The golden mask tilted again, the faintest reflection of a smile hidden beneath it.
----
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