The eastern forests of Eden breathed mist like a sleeping dragon, their canopies swallowing the pale morning light. Lito guided his horse through the fog, his gloved fingers tightening on the reins as the animal snorted nervously. The borderlands always carried a tension—like the air before a storm—but today it feels heavier.
"Last year, this path was littered with abandoned carts," he mused, spotting fresh wheel ruts in the mud. "Now traders come weekly."
Lito's horse picked its way carefully along the overgrown border path, its hooves sinking slightly into the damp earth. Six months ago, this trail had been littered with the skeletons of abandoned carts and the stench of rotting crops. Now, wildflowers pushed through the rich soil, their petals glittering with morning dew.
The change became undeniable as Blackroot Village came into view. Where once stood crumbling hovels now stood sturdy timber homes with smoke curling from their chimneys. The central well, which had run dry for years, overflowed with clear water that trickled into newly dug irrigation channels.
A crow cawed overhead, its black wings slicing through the haze as Blackroot Village emerged—a cluster of sturdy timber homes surrounding a newly built chapel. The scent of rosemary and baking bread cuts through the damp air. Villagers paused in their work to bow as Lito passed, their faces no longer hollow-cheeked but flushed with health.
At the chapel steps, a figure in obsidian robes with white long hair knelt beside a coughing child. Pale fingers pressed to the boy's forehead, their tips glowing faintly white light.
"Breathe deeply," murmured Luminos, the Vampire of one Eden's Guardian. His voice was velvet-wrapped steel. "The sickness is in your lungs, not your blood. This will sting."
The child whimpered as Luminos uncorked a vial, releasing a shimmering vapor. When the boy inhaled, his coughing stopped instantly. His mother wept into her apron.
Lito dismounted. "Since when do vampires play healers?"
Luminos didn't turn. "Since mortal physicians kept bleeding patients for 'bad humors'." He stood, towering over Lito by a full head, his crimson eyes catching the dawn like stained glass. "Though I do miss the irony of prescribing garlic."
The vampire's crimson eyes flicked up as Lito approached. "Ah. My favorite person, The king graces us with his presence. Come to see how the others are doing in this Village?"
"Of course, I'm the one who gave you the task so that this village can rise and thrive again, right?" Says Lito with a smile face.
"Let's go to my temporary home in Blackroot village that the villagers made for me," Luminos said while leading Lito with him.
Lito followed Luminos through the transformed village, marveling at the changes:
The Granary - Once empty, now bursting with sacks of winter wheat.
The Clinic - Where Luminos' handwritten medical texts lined the walls.
The Orchard - Saplings staked with silver rods that glowed faintly at night.
"How?" Lito asked, running his hand through a patch of soil that had been barren wasteland months before.
Luminos smirked. "Vampires have long memories. I have studied a lot with my pastor teacher when I was alone in the library. My Sire was an pharmacy during the Plague Wars." He produced a vial of shimmering black powder. "This contains trace elements from feces of livestock and plants. It catalyzes soil regeneration."
A child ran up, clutching a bleeding knee. Without hesitation, Luminos knelt, his fangs glinting as he whispered an incantation. The wound closed instantly.
"You've become their patron saint too," Lito observed.
"Hardly," the Luminos snorted. "Last week they tried to stake me because my 'night gardening' disturbed the chickens too."
They both laughed together and helped the child up and parted ways with the little boy. Inside the chapel—a repurposed granary with stained-glass windows scavenged from a ruined cathedral—Luminos poured wine into a pewter goblet. The liquid was impossibly dark, swirling with tiny silver flecks.
"Blackroot's water was poisoned last year but i already know to gave the medical care with antidote for them being infected," he said, pushing the drink toward Lito. "Asterik's mines area have a stone that can suck all and leach arsenic into the rivers. This neutralizes it."
Lito sipped. The wine tasted of elderberries and something electric. "You're giving them antidote and what happen after that?"
"They recovered after a few days when I gave them the antidote but instead they became hyperactive. " Luminos smirked at Lito's startled expression. "Relax. I've had been study about pharmacist to perfect dosages."
"I see.." Lito Sigh.
"What do you think of the results of my work here, Your Majesty?" Luminos asked as he drank his wine.
"Beyond my expectations, Luminos you can change this place from lifeless to alive." Lito while drinking wine he also continued to talk "but I also didn't expect that they here really want to contribute to Eden, even though they are in a border area and quite far from the kingdom."
Luminos then chuckled, "I told them about you and our past from when we were still in the orphanage until we became great adventurers together and built our kingdom."
"No wonder they immediately bowed their heads to me, even though this is my first time here," Lito replied.
"You always walk alone without any protection at all, Your Highness," Luminos said angrily.
"Sorry, I'm used to walking alone to refresh my brain from the many work reports." Lito said while sweating coldly.
Suddenly A scream shattered the moment.
The peaceful shattered when the village bell began ringing frantically. Lito and Luminos arrived at the eastern fields to find villagers backing away from a squad of Gradnetian soldiers.
Their captain, a brute with a nose like a broken axe blade, kicked over a newly planted herb spiral. "This land belongs to Gradnetia by royal decree!"
Gradnetian soldiers flooded the square, their black-and-silver banners snapping like angry serpents. Villagers scrambled as the captain—a brute with a scarred lip—kicked over a market stall.
"This land is forfeit under Gradnetian sovereignty!" he bellowed. "Resist, and we'll salt your fields!"
Lito stepped forward, hand on his element rings. "You're mistaken. This is Eden's territory, why the Gradnetia soilder in our territory?"
The captain laughed. "Eden's weakness ends today." He drew his blade—
—and it exploded in a shower of shrapnel as Luminos materialized behind him, fangs bared.
Luminos moved faster than the eye could follow. One moment he stood beside Lito; the next, he had the captain pinned against a tree, his fangs inches from the man's throat.
"Leave," Luminos whispered, his voice slithering into the man's ears like smoke. "Or I'll show you why my kind invented the word 'nightmare'."
Before blood could be spilled, a familiar voice called from the trees far away and shoot her arrows to one of the enemy soilder.
"Oi! Mister Saint! Save some fun for me!"
Yune dropped from an oak branch, her wind-forged arrow already nocked. "These idiots don't know they're standing in my hunting grounds."
"Yune, you came!" Said Lito "But, How?"
"Talk later, for now let's hunt first." Yune replied as she prepared her wind arrow to shoot at the Gradnetia horse soldiers.
As the soldiers charged, Luminos moved with unnatural speed. His light magic took form as: RadiantLances that pierced armor without harming flesh and DawnfireWhips that disarmed attackers.
Lito uses the magic barrier necklace artifact to protect the villagers from the arrow attacks of the Grandtenia troops and uses the fire ring artifact to help strengthen Yune's wind arrow attack into a large fire arrow called the Great penetrating fire arrow.
But the Gradnetians kept coming. Just as Lito, Yune and Luminos found themselves back-to-back, surrounded by them.
"PATHETIC!" roared a voice like thunder.
Gark, the red Oni Guardian, came crashing through the trees, his massive war club scattering soldiers like leaves. At his side, Yune nocked three arrows at once, her forest cloak blending with the foliage.
"Took you long enough," Luminos drawled, decapitating a head of the one Grandtenia soilder.
The four of them now fight together and Eden's army finally arrives and helps to fight Grandtenia's army to protect Eden's territory and the Blackroot villagers.
To Be Continue....