UCPA Chapter 15: Blade and the Name of Memory

Chapter 15: Blade and the Name of Memory

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: PlumSauce

 

John wore insulated gloves to hold the silver shackles, his back slightly lowered, ready to attack Burton at any moment. Jumping down from a distant rooftop, Carolyn rushed over while shooting Burton directly in the leg. John dodged out of the way, fearing that she would make a shot that would deflect onto himself. Burton fell to his knees from the impact of the bullet, turned around violently and lightly recited a syllable. The bullet was blocked by an invisible barrier.

It was bloodkin magic. In the corner, Coraci watched.

He was preparing the Prison Cart. Because he did not usually do exorcism, he did not do this as quickly as Liz. Liz, who was helping to settle down the girl who was attacked, had not appeared yet.

Carolyn was already close to Burton. She threw down her gun, drew her long machete and rushed forward aggressively. John, sensing her movement, rushed to leap behind Burton and pounce on him. He didn’t want Carolyn to hack Burton to death, so he wanted to get there first to subdue him. To his surprise, Burton did not resist at all but let John clutch his throat. Carolyn also stopped in her tracks and looked at the scene with a tilted head in disbelief.

Burton fell to his knees and stared blankly at Carolyn… No, he was not looking at Carolyn, but further behind Carolyn.

In that direction, Liz was rushing over.

“Crystal, forgive me…” Burton’s lips trembled. What he saw in his eyes was not a female exorcist in a professional suit, but someone else he knew well.

Carolyn frowned at John. “You’ve got him, so knock him out and leave! In a minute, when Coraci and Liz both use Prison Cart, even if you don’t get taken in, you’ll feel as if you jumped into boiling water.”

It turns out that spell is really scary… John couldn’t help but feel afraid. Last time he was protected by a barrier and did not experience its power.

As John twisted Burton’s hands behind his back, Burton kept staring at Liz without resisting.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?” Liz asked as she approached.

“He seems to have called you ‘Crystal’,” Carolyn said.

Liz held up the frames of her glasses and took a closer look at the wretched vampire.

“Andratz Tamsin Burton?” Liz looked at him incredulously, “No way, you’re that Burton?”

“Why would you know him?” Carolyn looked even more shocked than Liz.

“I have a picture of him in my house.”

“Huh?”

“From many years ago, from the days of magnesium flash powder cameras,” Liz said, “I have quite a few old photos left in my house of people who were friends of the Blackmoon family.”

Lizbeth Blackmoon is Liz’s full name. “Blackmoon” is often taken as a pseudonym created by fans of elf fantasy games, but it really was the ancient surname of her family. She came from a family of exorcists. Rumors are that her family are the descendants of aristocratic secret spell casters of the ancient royal court. Nowadays they have a lot of scholars and professors.

Coraci also came over. “Liz, is there a female ancestor named Crystal in the Blackmoon family?” He asked as he crouched down, reinforcing the strength of the silver shackles with a spell to prevent Burton from suddenly storming up and escaping.

Liz nodded: “Yes, my grandfather’s older sister was named Crystal. Is this really Mr. Burton? Did he see me as Crystal? But… I don’t look anything like she did when she was young.”

“He’s not in the right state,” Coraci said, “not because of who you look like. Perhaps he doesn’t see what you look like at all. What he sensed was your lineage, and in his immediate illusion, presumably you are now what Crystal looked like.”

John and Carolyn lifted Burton up, who had both legs injured, while Burton kept looking at Liz, his eyes were dull but had a dark air of madness.

“Crystal, forgive me,” Burton kept whispering as he was being moved away. “I… I just wanted to end your suffering, so I made that decision for you. I’m sorry…”

Liz’s eyes suddenly widened and she went after Burton to stop him. “What did you say? It was you? You did this?”

“Liz, what’s wrong?” Coraci asked.

Liz took a few steps back and took a deep breath, “Ms. Crystal became seriously ill in her twilight years and was in a nursing home…”

“That I know.” Coraci heard it from the headless knight.

“After she died, the Blackmoon family announced that she died of cardiovascular disease–which wasn’t true. From the scene, it looked like suicide. She was a devout believer, and by definition, she shouldn’t have done that… To protect her reputation, the family lied to themselves and told everyone she had died from illness.”

The girl paused for a moment and looked incredulously at the frail Burton, “Did you kill Crystal?”

The words sent a shock through Burton’s body. His eyes were still out of focus and his shoulders began to shake uncontrollably. John and Carolyn grabbed his arms while Coraci came over carefully to check.

“Shit! He’s so hot to the touch!” Carolyn exclaimed. Burton’s skin went from cold to hot to scalding all in the space of a few seconds.

Coraci held out his hand to Liz. “Give me the silver pen! He’s turning into a blood demon!”

Hearing him say that, John and Carolyn were even more afraid to slacken their hands. Everyone in the Association knows that bloodkin who have completely lost their minds and have their souls burned away by pain, will transform into “blood demons”, monsters who only know how to destroy and feed.

In legends and stories around the world, “vampire” usually had two images: one was a calm and elegant nobleman, and one was a monster no different from a powerful blood-sucking demon. The latter was really neither a vampire nor a derivative of bloodkin, but a blood demon. In terms of destructive power, they were more powerful than ordinary bloodkin, but their lifespan was very short. They would kill as much as they could in the night, and when facing daylight, they would not know to stop until they exhausted all their power and died a horrible death.

Liz crouched down and began to draw a spell around the man on the ground, hoping to more or less limit Burton’s movements; Coraci used Liz’s silver pen to pry open Burton’s mouth, intending to use the silver pen to write a spell on his teeth. This spell could stop the blood demon from killing, but it was rarely successful; after all, casting a spell in the vampire’s mouth was not an easy task.

John felt power pulsing in Burton’s arms, as if to break free from the bones and skin. Before he could utter a word of caution, the older vampire struggled violently.

 — All this happened in less than a second, and Liz, who was on the ground drawing a spell, didn’t even see the vampire’s movements.

But John could see it clearly.

The moment it happened, he let go of Burton’s arm, because Burton was making a move to rush toward Coraci. John grabbed Coraci by the waist and leapt a dozen feet with the bloodkin’s characteristic speed to avoid Burton’s attack.

In his haste, he overlooked one thing–Carolyn was only human. She was so close that she couldn’t draw a knife or shoot in time, and she wouldn’t be able to rely only on her hands to subdue Burton.

Burton was still shackled, but his fangs had already sunk into Carolyn’s neck, pinning her to the ground on her back.

“No!”

By the time John and Liz looked up, this had already happened. John put Coraci down and turned to prepare to rescue Carolyn.

At this time, the streetlights on the far side of the street began to flicker and then exploded with a pop. The wind, carrying the scent of death, gently drifted over, and the clear sound of horses’ hooves came from afar.

A war horse, amidst smoke and flames, came galloping over. The headless knight Kimplin leapt out of the darkness and stepped between Burton and John. He clutched his charred black longsword in his hand and scanned the crowd from above.

Burton lifted himself up, a low, beastly growl rolling down his throat. Carolyn, who had been drained of blood, was temporarily paralyzed and unable to move.

Liz nervously began preparing the spell as Coraci squeezed her shoulder and gently shook his head at her. Sir Kimplin’s backpack was hanging on his chest. He slowly unzipped it, and the head in the backpack said firmly, “Once it was you who helped me out of my madness, my friend. Today it is my turn to find you… Andratz Tamsin Burton, at this moment I will harvest your soul, in the name of darkness, blades and memories.”

…

It had been a long time since Sir Kimplin had called someone by their full name. He had been out on countless night patrols, riding his black horse. His warhorse and he had both lost their heads. Hatred and blood had left them on earth, patrolling in the darkness night after night.

Before, Sir Kimplin had forgotten what he was supposed to do, what he wanted to do. He did not remember his purpose–only the hatred in his bones. Then he met the vampire who promised to help him find his head, and it only took a few short decades before they really found it.

The knight no longer hated. He embraced his head tightly and fell to his knees at the vampire’s feet. He swore loyalty to the vampire, but the pretty blond youth laughed and said, I don’t want any contracted knights, but we can be friends.

They lived together, ran some businesses together, decorated their dwellings like humans, and talked about all sorts of interesting topics. They rescued two dying Clade dogs, trained them to catch tennis balls, and after they could transform into human forms, taught them how to speak and even how to sing.

Each time he left his private territory, the knight could only say one sentence. When he used this sentence to kill, he would recite the person’s full name and thrust a charred sword or lance into their chest.

The person’s body would turn into blood, dissolve into black mist and disintegrate with a scream, their soul forever nailed to the sword or lance–a symbol of the knight’s glory.

…

On the dark streets in the early morning, there was a sudden burst of bright red light and a vampire’s scream that sounded like a howling wind. In the distance, there were several hunters who had hurriedly arrived to track down and stop the headless knight, and now they looked at the scene with shock and bewilderment.

Liz wrapped her arms around Carolyn and checked her for injuries. In front of their eyes, red and black smoke eroded and entangled. Sir Kimplin and the black horse had been surrounded by a crazy swirling blood mist. He raised his longsword, and the horse reared, letting out a long neigh into the air. The knight turned his horse and stepped away amid the black mist, disappearing into the night.

A week after this incident, at six o’clock in the evening, the staff of the Association branch gathered in a small conference room. John arrived while Coraci was having a private conversation in Instructor Jere’s office, and Smith, still a beautiful brunette today, was looking in a mirror and combing his curls.

Liz and Carolyn were sitting by the small conference room window, and Carolyn, who had been bitten by a vampire, was saying something like “I’d like to break their teeth with a dental drill…” Even though he knew she wasn’t talking about himself, John still felt a chill run down his back.

Several other exorcists and hunters were also talking privately about the events of that night. In fact, John hadn’t been involved in the aftermath during the past week. He didn’t know what the Association would do with Sir Kimplin… and the possibly-dead Burton.

“You know, we went and searched Burton’s basement,” Smith said as he leaned over and started a conversation with John, “and in fact, the other rooms upstairs. Guess what we found?”

“Can’t guess. A diary?”

“Yeah! A whole bunch of diaries and a hard drive. Technically the hard drive should be considered a diary too, since Burton has been using a computer to keep a diary for the past ten years.”

John was a little preoccupied; he believed that the diary was nothing more than a record of Burton’s pain. He was more concerned about what happened to Sir Kimplin, but Smith couldn’t give him an answer.

From the whispers of the others, John gradually realized that they seemed to be gathered here today for another matter, and not only about the headless knight and vampire.

John heard the words “mystery man”, “false identity”, “healer”, “more than ten years ago”, etc. John had no idea what they were talking about. After a while, Instructor Jere and Coraci came out. Coraci had brought his computer and Burton’s hard drive.

This little meeting was called by Coraci, who had found something in Burton’s diary. The rear projector displayed excerpts from the diary, and Coraci had marked all the key passages.

John was as surprised as everybody else. From this diary, it appeared that Burton had met an unidentified male physician at the sanatorium where the huntress stayed, and that this had indirectly led him to the choices he made later.

 

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