I Level Up Dragons with My Evolution System-Chapter 103: Traitor

Edward smiled fiercely and looked ahead. "Aurora, Arnold, now!" he shouted.

Both of them had been waiting for that signal.

Aurora’s spider appeared from behind the vampires and leaped over them, landing perfectly on the roof. It dug its sharp claws into it, causing it to shake.

At that very moment, Arnold slammed his hand against the ground. His summoned beast, that humanoid wolf, appeared above the house and slammed into the roof with all its might, causing it to collapse and spraying the spider’s venom everywhere.

The fire and venom, along with the debris, clouded the vision of all the vampires.

"Do you think the same trick will work twice?!" The vampire leader roared, sending his blood exploding in all directions.

BOOM!

The bloody explosion slammed into the debris.

Suddenly, mocking words came from behind. "Heh, I’m not stupid."

The vampire leader turned and swung the sword formed from blood, but found no opponent.

The sound of a fierce battle made him breathe a sigh of relief, and he prepared to summon all the vampires here.

But suddenly... the sound of battle ceased.

And his explosive blood ability, which had sent debris and dust flying, revealed the situation to him.

Two of his subordinates had been decapitated. Two men were still burning in flames, and... the rest were nowhere to be seen.

Even he, a legendary vampire, was perplexed by how quickly they had done it.

--

After running through secret passageways with Aurora’s help, Edward and Arnold managed to reach the central area of Silver Ash City, an abandoned house.

Albey and Andre weren’t with them.

They were dead.

As soon as they arrived at the meeting place they’d agreed on hours earlier, Edward brushed the dust off himself and walked over to a fountain where he washed his face, as if what had just happened were nothing more than a formality.

This left Aurora baffled, and Arnold looked at him in shock.

They had so many questions.

"Just ask anything," Edward said as he dried his face with a handkerchief.

"You... did you do that on purpose?" Aurora asked, in shock.

"What?"

"Albey and Andre... How long have you known?"

Edward laughed. "How long have I known they were traitors?"

Neither Aurora nor Arnold said anything. It was clearly what they wanted to know.

"When you’re constantly being betrayed, and they do it so openly, you start to get suspicious and become more perceptive," he replied.

Although that didn’t answer Aurora’s question.

"Let’s just say I suspected them when we were in that dining hall, eating. Those vampires showing up in public doesn’t make much sense. They’ve been hiding for so long to avoid drawing the full attention of the military, but suddenly they all show up... Clearly, they knew we were there."

"And that’s why you suspected them?"

"I don’t think I need more." Edward shrugged. "If they knew, then someone must have told them. So I thought maybe it was them, since they were conveniently waiting to join us on a mission we’d clearly take on, because it involves Ashford territories."

"But..." Aurora frowned; she didn’t want to say it.

Arnold understood what she meant, so he decided to say it: "Do you doubt Instructor Mervan?" he asked.

At this point, Edward frowned.

It was Mervan who found that group for them... Coincidentally, he was the same person who gave them the other mission. Even the mandatory mission had something suspicious about it.

How could the academy not know the differences between Silas and Scylas? And why, after he discovered them and reported it with verifiable evidence, did they kill Silas?

Given how careful Owen is—to the point of immediately dismissing a General for bribery and attempted murder of talented students—that didn’t make sense.

’I know something’s off, but I still don’t get it,’ he thought, shaking his head.

"We’ll see how it plays out," he replied simply.

After a minute of silence, Aurora spoke up.

"Did you kill them?" she asked.

Edward shook his head, sat down, and drew his sword to maintain it. "My fire can’t kill like that. Actually, that was just a decoy. I thought they’d do something else, but what I saw... was different."

He looked at both of them. "Don’t you feel a sense of déjà vu when you remember how they were burning?" he asked.

Aurora frowned. Confused, she couldn’t answer.

"Lander," Arnold said immediately.

Edward sighed painfully. "Yes... they were burning just like him."

"You mean someone else...?"

"No. They’re still alive."

"What?" Aurora couldn’t believe it. After that, they were alive?

They were burning completely!

"I can still sense two Terminal Sparks burning inside human bodies. They’re alive."

"A curse!" Lander shouted in shock.

Edward stared at Lander. "You know? I have no idea of any curses that use fire as fuel."

Lander nodded. "I know a little. But I’d have to see it again," he said.

Edward laughed. "That’s good. Sit down. I’ll show you something interesting."

Although neither of them understood what he meant, they sat down next to him.

Edward then performed a series of peculiar movements with his sword, and suddenly... it shattered into dozens of pieces.

"W-what?"

"Magic tools?"

"That’s right..."

Edward laughed at their reactions. "My father was that legendary toolmaker, and he left this sword to me. I don’t know when he made it or what kind of sword it is, but I discovered this feature while I was in that cell."

He picked up one of the tools in question. "And I found this."

Immediately, the "video" tool began playing all sorts of things.

Over the past few days, Edward had figured out a way to speed up the playback of these strange and peculiar "videos": by shaking the magic tool a few times, following a specific pattern.

And that’s what he did this time; although it didn’t skip the entire video, it did help him avoid watching most of it.

He stopped when they reached the scene of the raid on the mines, and the three of them watched intently.

Lander was suddenly engulfed in flames by an unknown "magic." It seemed to come from nowhere.

Edward hadn’t stopped replaying this over the past few weeks, trying to understand where that magic came from, and it was only after reaching a strange conclusion in his mind that he understood a few things.

While it’s possible that Lander died, it’s also possible that no one killed him; rather, he committed suicide. And it’s still possible that he isn’t dead.

After replaying Lander’s scene, they turned their attention to the scene they had just witnessed.

Of all the terminal sparks Edward had unleashed using the winged serpent’s new ability, several were still scattered about. Two of them landed on Albey and Andre’s shoulders.

As always, that magic didn’t burn like a flame, but instead embedded itself in the skin and began to burn deep.

But then, Albey and Andre’s bodies burst into flames as if the fire had touched fuel.

"It’s the same one." Arnold nodded, frowning. "It’s a Fire Curse. It was originally treated as the counterpart to the Theocracy’s Blessed Fire... It’s a creation of the Varhat Empire," he said.

Edward nodded and suddenly pulled something out of his inventory.

"I took this from the vampire I killed," he said, placing a token in Arnold’s hand. "I think we’ve found a connection."

Arnold frowned. "This is..."

"Do you know what it is?"

"It belongs to an organization of the Varhat Empire... Well, to be precise, it’s an Imperial Order."

Edward had suspected as much from the start. The slogan was the same as the one on the Varhat flag, but upside down.

"Why does an Imperial Order have the Varhat coat of arms facing downward?"

Arnold scoffed. "Varhat represents the fall of an empire. I don’t know which empire it is, so don’t ask me. But that’s why its coat of arms faces downward in the Imperial Orders."

’The fall of an empire...’ Edward frowned. He couldn’t help but think of the past. Varhat wasn’t supposed to have been around for very long—at most a few hundred years. The Lux had been gone for a few hundred years as well, so...

He shook his head. ’Maybe I’m being paranoid. Lately, my last name has been haunting me.’

"How do you know so much about Varhat? Even I don’t know much, despite having been taught about it for years," Aurora said suddenly, puzzled by Arnold’s knowledge.

Arnold simply shrugged. He didn’t want to answer.

"Anyway, this isn’t something we can handle," Arnold said, looking at Edward. "Powerful vampires. Varhat’s Imperial Orders. Traitors within. Even Lander might be alive..."

"I know," Edward sighed. "We should go back."

"Well, don’t feel bad." Arnold patted him on the shoulder. "Maybe the information we have now is enough to complete the mission. Besides, we still have to find out if Mervan is in on this... Ugh."

"Honestly, I should have just stayed home. I don’t know what possessed me to join a group with you guys." He sighed.

He didn’t know how many times he’d said that over the past few weeks, but now he wanted to say it even more.

Were they in trouble with Varhat?

God, it was Varhat, the largest empire in the world today!

’I must be crazy.’ He shook his head in frustration.

Edward could only smile sheepishly. He never expected things to escalate to this level.

--