Unknownfate
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Chapter 179
🕑 Added 2025-07-09 15:40:22 +0000 UTCWith Secace Morgan on my shoulder, and my long coat flying in the air behind me, we reached our new target, another vampire nest, one with potential blood magic.
Vampires weren’t new in the world of Marvel; they had been around since forever. How they came to be, I have no idea. I only know they have their blood god. If there is some connection with aliens or cosmic powers? I’m not aware of such things, but it didn’t matter.
Vampires are deadly to normal humans, but against someone like myself? My knights? Yeah, even the strongest of vampires were no threat at all.
Not to mention, most of the vampires we faced were weak, the lowest caste of vampires, barely a few times stronger than humans.
Few were able to use blood magic; it was a sign of their elites. So the fact that this place showed signs of such things meant that there might be someone important here.
“Seems like we aren’t the only ones who found this place.” Mordred grunted as we stood here, outside the building, blocked by none other than the Church.
“Well, it was the resistance who told us about it, so we can’t really expect anyone else to know about it.” I said, before starting to walk towards the two men standing watch at the door.
They didn’t look like priests; they looked almost like something out of one of Mordred’s games. A mix of modern gear and holy artifacts, silver blades, bottles of holy water, guns with silver bullets, and flame grenades.
The two guards didn’t flinch as we approached. One of them, tall, broad, his face hidden behind a visor, raised a hand.
“Stop. This building is under lockdown, civilians aren’t allowed inside, please return to your homes.”
“Civilians?” Mordred echoed, unimpressed. “You dumb or something?”
Mordred wasn’t the only one who looked strangely at the guy, even I was questioning his sanity, or at least his eyes.
Because, how did we look like civilians? Mordred and I had guns, Mordred looked like a racer, Lancelot had swords, and we both had large cloaks.
We screamed badass, mysterious, and everything that wasn’t a normal civilian. So, yeah, nice going for him.
Thankfully, he too seemed to realize what he had done, looking rather embarrassed and unsure of what to do.
The second man stepped forward. His voice was calm, but firm. “Please identify yourself.”
“Mordred! Yeah, that one, so step aside chumps, I got some vampire ass to kick!” Mordred wasted no time loudly declaring herself.
“Ahh, you must be the cosplayers. We were informed of your actions in Lyon, may God bless you for helping the innocents there and fighting against the demons of hell, few can do such a thing.” The second man instantly recognized who we were.
Mordred was instantly taken off her feet as she was called a cosplayer. “No, I’m not some cosplayer, I’m Mordred!” she said, waving her gun around, all around, she just looked cute.
The man clearly didn’t take her seriously, and just laughed her off, and instead turned his attention towards Lancelot and me. “Lancelot and Arthuria, a pleasure, I guess you are once more hunting down the minions of the devil?”
I gave a short nod. “We were informed of the sightings of vampires here, so we came here to deliver judgment on them.”
The same man kept engaging us while the other one stayed behind, choosing to hide and avoid further embarrassment. Not that he really did anything too shocking—he probably just didn’t pay much attention to us.
Spoke without thinking, that is something Mordred did often as well.
“Of course. But you understand, this site falls under the jurisdiction of the Church, and while we are thankful for help, we can’t just allow outsiders to walk into this mess. Honestly, if not for what you did in Lyon, I couldn’t even let you go without investigating you.” The vampire hunter apologized, he was clearly in a difficult situation.
“I understand,” I replied. I really did. This wasn’t easy; it was essentially a situation of vigilantes trying to interfere with an official investigation. “Mordred, however, isn’t as understanding as I am, and she wants to…”
“Kick some vampire butt! So get out of the way already!” she interrupted me.
The vampire hunter raised an eyebrow, looking between me and Mordred. “I can see that. She seems… enthusiastic.”
“That’s one word for it,” Lancelot muttered.
Mordred crossed her arms. “You want me to wait around while you lot fumble your way through this, getting half your guys killed and letting everyone escape. No thanks, I’m here to finish the job.”
The man sighed—not with frustration, but with resignation. “Look, I’m not the one who gets to make this call. If it were just me, I’d probably let you through. But my orders are to keep everyone away and report anything suspicious, and I’m already stretching things by not reporting you.”
I understood his situation, I really did, but I also knew that Mordred wouldn’t let us turn back now. So I too was in a difficult situation.
“Mordred, Lancelot, follow me.” I didn’t give them a chance to complain, as I dragged Mordred away, leaving the two members of the Church bidding us farewell and quickly disappearing around a corner.
“Father!” Mordred instantly started complaining, “Why are you letting them block us?”
“Lancelot,” I ignored her. “Give Nightcrawler a call, have him come and help us inside.”
Honestly, I had plenty of ways of getting inside. I could just have forced my way in or used the stolen Tempad to open a portal, but I wanted to be less mysterious, more predictable, a more tempting target for Morgana.
Which is why I wanted to leave clues behind, I wanted to project a certain level of strength, not so strong she would get overly careful, not so weak she would ignore it, just perfect for a threat she had to deal with.
Which is why I didn’t want to clash with the Church, that might make her pick up our real strength, after all, if we did that, it would signal that either we were foolish, or strong enough to ignore the Church entirely.
Neither was what I wanted.
“Nightcrawler?” Mordred blinked. “You mean the blue fuzzy guy with the tail?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s reliable. And more importantly, he can get us in without triggering alarms or upsetting the Church.”
Mordred huffed, folding her arms. “I still say we should just storm the place. It’s full of bloodsuckers, not diplomats.”
“Which is precisely why we’re being careful,” Lancelot said, already pulling out his phone. “We don’t know what’s waiting down there. We don’t want to cause a scene, we want to clear a nest.”
“Oh no, please, tell me more about how to be subtle,” Mordred muttered under her breath.
I just shook my head as Lancelot made his call, and within a moment, Nightcrawler appeared, in all his blue demon-looking glory.
“Guten Abend,” he said softly. “You guys need some help?”
“Damn right we do, we need to get inside and kick some vampire butt!” Mordred quickly said, pointing towards the building we wanted to get into, though she was slightly off, pointing towards the wrong place.
“Thanks for responding so quickly, Sir Wagner. We are hunting the mastermind behind Lyon, and we suspect a clue might be inside the building.” I explained.
“So… you want me to sneak you inside? To avoid having to force your way inside?” he nodded, “But won’t you still risk coming into conflict with the Church once inside?”
“It’s possible, but I believe that once we are inside, the Church won’t turn down our help.” I made that judgment based on what I felt, inside there, was something that most normal people couldn’t handle.
The Church, while not powerless, was also nothing like the Church in Fate, in that universe, they had countless people with superpowers, some who could easily handle even Captain America. Here? Not so much.
They had weapons, they had tools, they had some base form of faith magic, but beyond that? Nothing much, against the more powerful vampires or blood mages, they would struggle, and in there, I was sure that were both of those things.
“Well, if you are sure,” Nightcrawler hesitated a bit, but decided to help us. He believed in the Church and likely didn’t want them to get hurt. Yet, he also knew us, and knew we were good guys, so he wanted to help.
Today was all about difficult situations.
A brief moment later, and with the scent of sulfur in our noses, we were inside the building. “So, should I stick around? Or leave?” Nightcrawler asked nervously as Mordred looked ready to charge into battle.
“It’s likely best if you leave, you know yourself how your appearance can affect people,” I tried to sound nice about it, but the truth was never easy to hear.
“Yeah, no, you are right, probably just gonna cause trouble if they see me, still glad I was able to help I guess.” He said, feeling down, sounding down, and then, with a quiet bamf he was gone.
“Well, he sure knows how to piss on a parade doesn’t he,” even Mordred picked up on his mood.
“He has suffered much,” Lancelot echoed.
“Well, no time to wait around! To murder!” Mordred recovered quickly, and with Clarent II in hand, she charged off into the depths of this building, towards the sounds of battle ahead.
We moved quickly, our footsteps eerily silent against the damp floor, save for Mordred, who stomped with the enthusiasm of a gladiator headed into a championship match.
“I swear, if they’ve already killed the good ones, I’m going to be so pissed,” she muttered, Clarent II humming in her grip like it was eager too.
“Keep your guard up,” Lancelot said softly, never one to take it easy.
We rounded the final bend of the stairwell and emerged into a wide underground hall.
Three Church operatives were fighting a knot of vampires, the latter feral and twisted, faces smeared with gore, eyes glowing red with hunger and hate. Two of the vampires bore blood sigils carved into their skin, and every swing of their claws caused flickers of crimson force to ripple through the air.
All around them, bodies lay bloody, members of the church, mages, servants of vampires, and piles of dusk and blood that had once been vampires. From what we had seen so far, there had been many, and given the large door at the other side of the room, there were likely more still.
Mordred didn’t wait.
With a delighted cry of, “Oi, that one’s mine!” she launched herself forward like a thunderbolt, her feet barely touching the ground as she slammed into the vampire mid-air. Clarent II arced upward—and then downward—and the beast’s arm went flying, blood hissing like acid as it splashed the stones.
The room exploded into chaos again as Lancelot surged after her, his blade a blur of purple light.
I followed more calmly, drawing Secace Morgan free from my shoulder and letting its weight settle in my hand. The vampires noticed me too late.
The closest one snarled and lunged. I didn't even blink. I just squeezed my finger, and Secace Morgan unleashed a beam of energy, reducing the body to ash while the beam continued forward, blasting a hole into the doors at the end of the room.
The fight was once in an instant, the vampires and mage stood no chance, and the members of the Church were left stunned at the firepower we had just unleashed.
“The one who kills the least is a dirty French adulterer!” Mordred shouted and without waiting, charged deeper into the darkness, through the hole in the doors I just made.
“Let’s go, Sir Lancelot,” I sighed as I continued on. Leaving the poor vampire hunters looking like they had just seen a ghost.
