It was raining in the Scarlet Castle district tonight. The rain had started falling steadily as night came on, and when Murphy emerged from the top of the Midnight Tower, he could see Scarlet Castle beneath the night sky.
The lights atop the tall and short buildings scattered throughout the city flickered in the rain, veiling this bustling city in daylight with an indescribable stillness. The cheap neon signs shimmering in the rain lent it a unique quality, and together with the pedestrians sheltering from the rain and the purple glow of the ever-flickering Astral Rift high above Transia, they made for a distinctly gloomy sight.
Perhaps it was because so many vampires lived in this city.
Murphy rolled his neck and spread his wings. A flash of blood-red light, and he shot into the clouds, moving so fast that most people couldn't even follow him with their eyes. At his current speed, he was nearing the limit of what a winged creature could achieve through sheer physical flight. Every time he accelerated, he could feel that invisible barrier.
Perhaps this was the specialized adaptation granted to him by the Old Sa heart, which kept strengthening its compatibility with Murphy.
Maybe if he could just break through that barrier, he would be able to use his wings to travel through space like Old Sa, transcending everything the word "speed" could describe.
But Murphy hadn't fought seriously in a long time. The last time he'd fought for his life was when he'd faced the Midnight Matriarch in the elven forest. Since then, he'd used his "poor health" as an excuse to cheat his way through everything, taking out Dagon and Old Hei with his "cunning." It proved that Murphy was now too high-level to need to fight like some reckless brute.