Immortal Paladin

The storm raged across the sky, dark clouds twisting like writhing serpents. Lightning flashed, illuminating the figures soaring within the storm’s embrace—two riders, one upon a beast of purity, the other upon a beast of taint.

Alice, a pink-haired vampire with crimson eyes, rode astride a Bicorn. The beast’s two horns glinted like curved daggers in the erratic bursts of light. The creature galloped through the sky as if the wind itself were its domain. Beside her, Joan, a blonde priestess with emerald eyes, guided her Unicorn forward. The creature’s single spiraled horn cut through the downpour like a beacon of divinity.

And both women were absolutely furious.

Alice muttered darkly under her breath. “This is ridiculous. Every step of the way, delay after delay. Do you know how frustrating it is to—”

“Whose fault do you think that is?!” Joan shouted over the howling storm.

Alice rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. It’s not my fault people are so enamored with me.”

Joan groaned, gripping the reins of her Unicorn tighter. “You enthralled an entire outpost, Alice! We wasted hours unravelling that mess!”

Alice placed a hand on her chest in mock offense. “I did not enthrall them. They simply fell for my natural charm.”

Joan shot her a glare sharp enough to cut steel. “You walked in, smiled, and suddenly a whole squad of knights were groveling at your feet!”

Knights?

Probably not.

Soldiers?

Most likely.

“I digress,” Alice smirked, fangs glinting. “That’s not enthrallment—that’s charisma.”

Joan let out a frustrated yell. “You turned their captain into a thrall!”

“That part might have been intentional,” Alice admitted, tossing her cerise hair back. “But I had to test if my powers were dulled in this world. How was I supposed to know he’d be so susceptible?”

Joan pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaling deeply. “We’re supposed to be covert, Alice. Covert.”

Alice waved a hand dismissively. “And yet, no one’s chasing us, are they?”

Joan didn’t respond immediately, though the look on her face suggested she was counting to ten to keep from throwing Alice off her Bicorn.

Thunder cracked around them, a bolt of lightning streaking dangerously close. Alice barely flinched, merely sighing. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll be good for the rest of the trip.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Joan muttered.

The storm churned ahead, and the two riders pressed onward.

Lightning tore across the sky, a jagged spear of light splitting the heavens. The deafening roar of thunder followed an instant later.

Joan reacted immediately, raising her staff. A shimmering golden barrier flared to life around her, deflecting the rain and stray arcs of electricity. A second later, she turned and cast another toward Alice, shielding her from the storm’s wrath.

Alice scowled. “I had it under control.”

Joan shot her a look. “You were about to get fried.”

Alice scoffed but didn’t argue. Instead, she focused on keeping her Bicorn steady as they rode through the turbulent sky. The storm raged around them, but after what felt like an eternity, they finally broke through the thickest part of the clouds. Rain still lashed against them, but at least they had some breathing room.

Their mounts surged forward, hooves striking nothing but air, carrying them at speeds that blurred the world beneath them. The city lights below were mere specks swallowed by the storm’s gloom.

Joan gritted her teeth and turned to Alice. “Where is David now?”

Alice placed a hand over her chest, feeling for the isolated drop of blood within her heart. The connection flared—distant yet unmistakable. It was part of a Blood Pact she had forged with him eons ago, a bond not even time could sever.

Her frown deepened. “He moved again. A few kilometers from where he was before.”

Joan blinked. “He moved again? Through that?” She gestured at the storm they had barely managed to pierce.

Alice nodded. “I don’t know about the storm though…”

Joan looked like she was about to cry. “Why is he so fast? He doesn’t even have a mount!”

Alice’s grip on the reins tightened as memories stirred. David was always a competent warrior. An adventurer. But the thought of him moving so quickly—without a steed—left her unsettled.

Joan, seeing her expression, quickly added, “He did find a quest to procure a mount, you know. He just never bothered to do it. He kept saying his Egress skill was enough.”

Alice arched a brow. “And?”

Joan let out a tired sigh. “And… the portal system our world follows is rather advanced. This world clearly… doesn’t have a portal system of its own…”

Alice stared at her for a long moment. Then, with a sigh, she flicked the reins of her Bicorn, urging it forward.

“He’s lazy like that,” she muttered.

Being lazy on the wrong things was more like it.

Since dropping into this world, Alice and Joan have been on one excursion after another. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another—beast attacks, cultists, demonic incursions, and more. Every time they thought they had a moment to breathe, trouble found them again.

It didn’t help that the language barrier between them and the locals was immense. Alice had a natural talent for picking up new languages, but even she struggled with the dialects here. Joan, on the other hand, relied entirely on divine intuition—and that wasn’t always accurate. More than once, she had accidentally blessed a gathering of cutthroats.

How was that even possible?

Didn’t she have a passive skill that could detect karma?

Before they knew it? Alice had slaughtered a group of black-masked thugs who were trying far too hard to pretend to be vampires.

“Honestly, it was embarrassing,” Alice muttered under her breath, recalling the encounter. They had the pale skin, the dramatic capes, and the exaggerated hissing down to an art—but the moment she actually sank her fangs into one of them, they tasted human. Utterly human. And weak.

Meanwhile, Joan… well, Joan had cured an entire settlement of vagrants and stopped a plague.

And somehow? That had angered the local aristocrats.

Alice scoffed. Typical.

Joan, riding beside her, furrowed her brows. “You’re scoffing.”

Alice tilted her head. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

Alice gave an exaggerated sigh. “Just thinking about how ridiculous it is that you, of all people, managed to stir up noble ire.”

Joan groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

Alice smirked. “Oh, I will. You should’ve seen their faces.”

She may not have spoken the language fluently, but she had seen it in their eyes—the way the aristocrats seethed, the way they bristled at Joan’s miracle. Of course, Alice knew an aristocrat if she saw one… The self-worth was too obvious…

Alice was an aristocrat herself. Not in this world, but an aristocrat was an aristocrat, no matter the language barrier. The moment she laid eyes on those nobles, she knew what they were thinking.

It wasn’t about power.

It wasn’t about faith.

It was about control.

And Joan had just taken it from them.

Funny thing, they’d probably manage to get this ‘control’ back the second she and Joan left the place. That was just the way things were…

Alice’s Danger Sense flared.

She reacted instantly, snapping her gaze toward the incoming threat. “Joan! Shield—now!”

Joan needed no further warning. With a practiced motion, she raised her staff, golden light erupting from its tip. “Shield of Faith!” she declared, forming a shimmering golden barrier around Alice. Then, in the same breath, she reinforced herself. “Shield of Eternal!” A second, far sturdier shield enveloped her, its holy radiance warding off the storm’s darkness.

A pillar of azure lightning struck down from above. It wasn’t chaotic like natural lightning—it was controlled, precise, and lethal. A divine strike. And it was fast.

It came in a straight, unerring path—too deliberate to be random.

An attack.

The moment the lightning struck her barrier, Alice felt the strain. Of course it cracked, she thought with an exasperated sigh.

As a vampire, she had fought against the Church more times than she could count. She knew their spells, their tactics, their weaknesses. She knew that an ordinary Shield of Faith wouldn’t hold against a high-tier smiting spell.

Which was why she had prepared.

With a single thought, she activated the spell stored in her Spell Resonance.

Shield Drain.

Dark energy pulsed around her, a second barrier forming in a brief flicker of violet light. The cracking Shield of Faith shattered completely, but instead of leaving her defenseless, the broken fragments were absorbed into her new defense. The lingering force of the divine lightning was drained into the void, leaving her untouched.

Joan, meanwhile, remained entirely unscathed. The Shield of Eternal around her didn’t even flicker. As expected.

Joan glanced at Alice, her eyes sharp. “That wasn’t a stray bolt.”

Alice scoffed. “Obviously.”

Joan immediately repositioned herself forward and raising her staff once more. “Shield of Faith!” Another golden shield overlapped her existing one, reinforcing her defenses even further.

Alice narrowed her crimson eyes, scanning the stormy skies. “Now then… who dares?”

A streak of lightning split the stormclouds apart. From the cascading light, a figure emerged.

A young-looking man, dark-haired and draped in arrogance, floated before them. Behind him shimmered the mirage of a massive serpentine dragon, its azure form coiling in and out of visibility like a phantom of the storm. The air around him crackled with power, the residual charge of his arrival making Joan’s unicorn shift uneasily.

Alice sniffed the air.

Dragon.

Not entirely, but enough that her instincts flared.

The man spoke, his voice firm and commanding.

Alice, naturally, understood none of it.

She sighed. “Great. Another one.”

Joan, to her credit, remained composed despite the obvious language barrier. She gripped her staff, ready but not aggressive, waiting to see how things would play out.

Alice, however, had other concerns. She observed the man closely, her crimson eyes narrowing as she activated a passive ability she’d always found useful—one that let her sense life force and vitality. It was rarely wrong.

And this man—

Alice’s expression darkened. “Joan. He’s not as young as he looks.”

Joan tensed. “How old?”

Alice pursed her lips. “Old.”

“How old?”

Alice’s gaze flicked to the stranger again, reading the layers of accumulated life force within him. “Not ancient,” she muttered, “but definitely seasoned by vampire standards. The kind of lifespan that makes common undead jealous.”

Joan groaned. “Of course. Because nothing in this world can ever be normal.”

Alice silently agreed. The lifespan discrepancies in this world were ridiculous. Some mortals burned out in forty or fifty years, barely managing a full century if they were lucky. And then there were these people—the ones who clung to life with Legacy-based powers or whatever mystical nonsense this world followed.

Centuries. Millennia.

It wasn’t fair.

Even Alice—a vampire, an existence fundamentally meant to last—felt a little envious of the sheer absurdity of these so-called “superhumans.”

She sighed, rubbing her temples. “I don’t suppose you suddenly learned the local language in the past five seconds?”

Joan shook her head. “Nope.”

Alice clicked her tongue. “Figures.” She looked back at the stranger. “Alright, pretty boy. What exactly do you want?”

”We should retreat,” Joan said, her voice calm despite the storm still raging around them.

Alice almost fell off her Bicorn.

”Excuse me?” She gawked at her companion. ”Retreat? Joan, we outnumber him two to one!”

Joan didn’t budge. ”That doesn’t matter.”

Alice scoffed. ”Doesn’t matter?” She gestured toward the dark-haired man floating before them, his aura flaring like a coiled dragon ready to strike. ”He’s strong, sure, but we are strong. And last I checked, two beats one.”

Joan shook her head. ”I won’t fight him.”

Alice narrowed her eyes. ”And why not?”

Joan sighed as if the answer should have been obvious. ”Because he’s accumulated too much good karma.”

Alice blinked. ”What?”

Joan pressed a hand to her chest. ”I follow a path of virtue. I can’t just attack someone so steeped in positive karma. It would go against everything I believe in.”

Alice clicked her tongue in annoyance. Of course she forgot about that blasted passive priests had—the one that let them see karma like some divine scoreboard.

”So what, you’re saying he’s some kind of saint?”

Joan tilted her head. ”I wouldn’t go that far. He could be a self-righteous murderer, for all I know. But if someone’s racked up that much good karma, it means they’ve done a lot of good. And I’m not about to pick a fight with a person like that without a good reason.”

Alice exhaled sharply, tapping her fingers against her thigh.

She hated to admit it, but Joan did have a point.

Not about the karma nonsense—that was just priestly superstition—but about their positioning. They were both casters.

Alice specialized in high-speed aggression and spell layering, while Joan was a defensive support specialist. Neither of them was built for prolonged melee combat, and this man reeked of someone who thrived in magical close quarters. After all, why would this man proudly present himself in front of them?

If he was an artillery mage of sorts, he would have stayed hidden and continued to bombard them with spells, instead of appearing in front of them.

Of course, that didn’t mean Alice was about to run away.

”If it does come to a fight,” she muttered, ”I can take him.”

Joan gave her a look. ”Alice—”

”I can take him,” she repeated, more firmly this time. ”If push comes to shove, I’ll handle it in single combat.”

She was a pure-blooded vampire, after all. She had her pride.

But Joan wasn’t backing down. ”We should focus on finding David,” she reminded.

That, Alice couldn’t argue with.

David was still moving. His location had shifted yet again, further out of their reach. If they wasted time fighting some random powerful stranger, they’d just fall even further behind.

Alice clicked her tongue one last time. ”Fine,” she muttered. ”We’ll play it safe.”

The dragon-kin finally grew tired of talking. His expression hardened, and without another word, he raised both hands. Azure lightning crackled, condensing into two massive electrospheres that hummed with destructive energy.

Alice clicked her tongue. ”Took him long enough.”

With a single fluid motion, she dismounted her Bicorn. Her wings—black, leathery, and bat-like—unfurled from her back with a powerful snap. As her feet hovered just above the ground, she reached behind her and unslung a parasol from her Shadow Space.

Not just any parasol. Her parasol.

Unlike the so-called ”champions of the realms,” who carried the blessings of the Lost Supreme—Item Boxes, divine artifacts, ridiculous system protections—immortal souls like her had to rely on their own power.

That was fine. She preferred it that way.

The first electrosphere hurtled forward, crackling with raw power. Alice flipped open her parasol, tilting it just slightly. A translucent barrier formed along her parasol’s curved surface as she activated Magic Guard.

The impact sent a ripple of force through her body, but she held firm, redirecting the brunt of the attack to the side.

Meanwhile, her Bicorn took the other electrosphere head-on.

The beast let out a pained shriek, its hooves scraping against the storm-wet air as the lightning coursed through it. But it was a tough creature—it held for just long enough to do what she needed.

”Go,” she whispered.

The Bicorn responded instantly, lowering its horns and charging straight for the dragon-kin.

A perfect distraction.

The dragon-kin barely had time to react as the creature slammed into him, sending him skidding backward.

Alice, hovering above, smirked.

The Bicorn would die, of course. But it wasn’t true death. As an immortal steed bound to her soul, it would simply resurrect inside her, ready to be summoned again when needed.

Joan, standing further back, raised her staff. She twirled it counterclockwise, her voice ringing out over the storm as she chanted in an ancient tongue.

A golden light enveloped them.

Alice felt the familiar pull of Mass Teleportation.

Right on cue, her Bicorn was obliterated.

A combined water-lightning spell surged toward it, colliding with such force that the creature didn’t even have time to scream. It simply dispersed into fine ash, its essence retreating back into her soul.

Alice grinned.

”You’ll pay for that,” she whispered.

She stretched out her hand, fingers weaving in a practiced motion. A dark mist coiled around her wrist before taking shape—a phantasm of a straw doll, eerily resembling the dragon-kin.

“Wretched Effigy.”

The moment she clenched her fist, the doll’s limbs twisted, fraying at the joints.

A curse.

One that would ensure he wouldn’t be catching up to them anytime soon.

As the teleportation completed and the world around them shifted, Alice gave a small wave, her grin never fading.

”Better luck next time, lightning boy.”