Chapter 49 - Dhampir

"There's something wrong. Why did his dark mana suddenly disappear?"

Master Michal was equally confused as Curtis, the latter one had already gotten fed up with the system. No one could track down Zaiden's whereabouts for some unknown reason. It seemed that the place where he was had some kind of energy masking system. 

Zaiden was literally out of their reach now and somewhere unknown, Michal immediately sat down on the ground in meditation posture and began to chant something. Whereas Curtis began to pester the system to show him the underground areas, tunnels and buried cities within a certain radius. He was sure that Zaiden wouldn't have gone really far within the time span. 

Zaiden on the other hand was amazed with the place he was trapped in. The growling sound increased as Zaiden heard some footsteps approaching in his direction. His all five senses became heightened in the place as he soon distinguished the sound of hooves. 

"Who is there? Come out!"

Zaiden shouted while suppressing his frightened emotions, he hadn't recover from the previous trauma of being eaten by the ground. Nonetheless he was ready to attack to his opponent and waited for the person to show up from the bushes. Zaiden had no clue what or who was against him in that moment, hence he couldn't properly imagine how he should react. 

He didn't know where to aim hence trusted his instincts, Zaiden could feel his blood pressure rising and could track the flow. His body was undergoing some changes but it wasn't the time to check the stats now. Zaiden cautiously stepped closer minding his every step when a huge fist threw him back. 

Zaiden collided with the tree trunk behind him and fell on the grassy land. A loud rumble resonated in the cave with the flora of the place becoming still. It seemed as if the place had detected an intruder and now had been hiding the presence of its magic. Zaiden stood up supporting himself on palms and winced in a sharp pain, the blow of the attacker was enough to break the spine of a normal human. 

A strange looking creature showed up from the purple bushes, it had green skin and four eyes with an unnatural height. Zaiden looked up and found himself no more than an ant in front of that strange creature.

"Who are you? And how did you come here?"

The question was stated with assurance and implied that the place believed to that strange thing. Zaiden took a few brief seconds to comprehend what he was, the creature had two antlers on his head while his face was no different than a human size. 

He inquired Zaiden in human language within a high pitched tone, his language wasn't any different from Zaiden's. The boy didn't move an inch to avoid provoking any wrong gesture, the creature came out of the huge bushes which were nearly as tall as a tree. Zaiden could sense some lingering fear in the creature's eyes, which assured him they both were on the same page. 

"I just landed here accidentally, I don't mean any harm."

Zaiden lifted his both hands up to the height of his head, he expected the gesture to be perceived same everywhere. The thing howled radiating a loud animalistic voice and the flora of the place began to sway once again.

'Is he like a king here? What exactly is this place?'

Zaiden comprehend the howl as some signal to other people from the same breed. Since he attempted to ensure him, hence Zaiden waited for incoming audience. 

'I can't act recklessly since I'm all alone here and can't access the system too.'

He didn't want to risk anything while acknowledging that the mystical force in the place was suppressing his emotions. He was unable to trigger a feeling of rage or hatred within him, the strange place worked opposite to the valley where the vampires had been training the disciples. 

Ten of such similar creatures appeared from all the sides of the seemingly cave, Zaiden was surrounded by then which he had already foreseen. However he spotted the mutations in them, everyone among those eleven creatures was different from each other in various attributes.

They all were armed with some weapons resembling guns, although Zaiden could see the visible blue fluorescent waves within the weapons.

"Stop!"

Another voice resonated which forced all the creatures to lower their heads. Zaiden waited for the possible chief to show up.

"He is a dhampir!"