Cazimir froze in place because of the whistle, which was Lyre, a unique grade artifact given to him in the beginner's village by the elven representative as a gift.
It can stun any individual below fourth Rank for up to sixty seconds and, in just thirty seconds, summon a fully-fledged king-grade spirit with peak third-rank capabilities.
A costly one-time item made using a law crystal that allowed the summed spirit to use the law crystal energy to build a suitable vessel and aid the summoner.
It would shatter after its use, but the price was worth it to acquire more information on the Deceiver.
As the runes carved into the whistle began to glow, a thin stream of white energy rose from it, swirling upward like smoke. The whistle itself began to dissolve, its once-lustrous color fading, as fine cracks spread across its surface like a web of glass about to shatter.
The air began to stir, at first a low whistle, quickly turning into a raging howl, growing in force until it roared like a storm.
Wind coiled in spirals, devouring the surrounding mist and picking the loose stones and dust into the air as the force built to something greater.
But Vlad's attention was fixed elsewhere, on Vel.
Vel, hovering in the distance, was showing strange changes. Her eyes, once a soft emerald, had darkened into bottomless voids.
An abyssal aura bled from her like thick smoke radiating in pulses that swallowed the surroundings. The darkness clung to her form, slowly devouring her small figure.
A chill ran down Vlad's spine as he felt a suffocating aura, dark and gloomy, slowly engulfing him.
The wind in the mine howled like a beast as the raging tornado grew larger and denser by the second.
Cazimir stood frozen, his previously raging eyes now appearing dull.
Vlad's eyes remained fixed on Vel, her form devoured by the pulsing mass of darkness. The aura pouring from it felt suffocating, cold, and wrong in a way that reached past instinct and into something more primal.
'This... this is Death Elemental Aura,' Vlad murmured, knowing that presence too well to mistake it for anything else.
The tornado began to shift, its form collapsing inward, coalescing into the shape of a towering, four-legged beast. It stood well over four meters tall, its body resembling a stag or horse, lean and muscular.
Its long and serpentine neck led to the head of a goat, crowned with two enormous, curved horns.
As the Wind Spirit took form, so too did the darkness. The flowing darkness began to shift, twisting into rough, jagged shapes that swiftly took the form of skulls and bones.
Human, animal, beast... hundreds if not thousands of pitch-dark skeletons took form from the darkness. A small pile suspended mid-air, quickly shaping into what could only be described as a throne resting atop a mountain of skeletons.
A deep, guttural voice echoed from the wind-beast as glowing eyes ignited in its goat-like skull.
"Who summoned me?" it growled, its voice like howling wind.
Its eyes fell upon Vlad, sensing the crumbling spirit artifact in his hand. But seeing Vlad ignoring its presence entirely, rage sparked across its proud face.
A spear of spiraling wind took form as it prepared to remind its summoner of the power it embodied as a proud spirit king and the respect he deserved for it.
But then it felt it.
That presence.
Heavy. Cold. Gloomy.
The wind slowed down as the spirit king, a being of great power, turned its gaze upward. In all but a small instant, all its pride was gone, replaced with terror.
Pure Primal Terror that came from deep within his very being.
In the distance, seated upon a throne of darkness, was a woman, her form still cloaked in darkness. Her eyes, cold, distant, and endless, stared down like two bottomless abysses.
Just Looking into her eyes froze Aros where he stood. Darkness began to cover his eyes, and he felt as if his flesh was being peeled from bones, even though he was a pure elemental at this moment.
The pressure of death itself pressed down on him, not as an enemy but as a truth that no matter how he resisted, he could not shake off.
An invisible aura radiated from the female, making the very world around her lose its color, turning to shades of black and white as if the reality itself was accepting the embrace of death.
Aros tore his gaze away, breath ragged, stumbling backward with his head down, eyes wide in horror, as the realization of what he saw hit him.
Without a word, without care for his dignity, his contract, or the decades of pride he held for having grown to the status of a spirit king, Aros shattered his own elemental vessel and fled, his form dispersing like dust in the wind.
Vlad was in no better condition, though just an illusion of mind, but it felt as real as it could be for him. His flesh had long turned to dust, his body lay still, lifeless, stripped of strength.
Every breath tasted like ash, every thought, only growing the strange and suffocating terror of losing himself.
There was no pain, only the growing, silent horror of death. The fear of losing everything he held dear.
The dreadful realization that life was slipping from his grasp, and he was drifting helplessly into the cold, unknowable embrace of the end.
'The Harrowed Empress,' Vlad thought, closing his eyes to calm his troubled mind.
She was called the harrowed Empress precisely because of the dreadful aura she radiated, far surpassing the presence of any other Sovereign Ranked spirit.
But there was something wrong because Vlad remembered the illusion to be one of rot and ruin, a sickly haze that showed one horror of disease, pestilence, and Decay.
The illusion her presence brought was not cold and terrifying like death but heavy with the stench of spoiled blood and festering wounds. One did not feel the terror of impending doom but the pain of living in the worst of conditions.
'Did the shard of corruption change her?' Vlad questioned before quickly putting those thoughts aside.
He opened his eyes once more and was welcomed to the breathtaking beauty.
She was pale as the moon, her face a flawless mask of beauty, unnatural and distant. She had a thin, elegant nose, full lips, high cheekbones, and features carved with unnatural precision.
But it was her eyes that gave a glimpse of her nature, twin abysses, dark and bottomless, offering no warmth, no expression, only a cold, indifferent void that gave away nothing.
Her hair, black as midnight, flowed over her shoulders like a living shadow. She wore a form-fitting dress that traced her figure gracefully, hinting at her curves yet leaving much to the imagination.
In an instant, Vlad once more fell to the illusion, not because he was mentally weak but because he was physically too weak to withstand it.
Their eyes met for a long moment, only closing his eyes once his vision was cloaked in pitch darkness and his mind consumed with the horror of approaching silence.
"VVRRRRAAAARRRRRRR"
A guttural roar tore through the cold silence, snapping Vlad's attention forward.
Cazimir stood, his form undergoing the magical metamorphosis of his spirit convergence, his body writhing as the transformation overtook him. The merging was nearly complete, and the creature before Vlad was no longer the vampire he had known.
He now stood at least a foot taller, his hands and feet wrapped in writhing blood-red energy that formed into razor-edged claws. The same energy cloaked his wings, widening their span and sharpening their edges like curved blades of flowing crimson steel.
But the most striking change was his tail, which extended nearly three meters around him. A serpentine head had formed at its end, its eyes glowing blood-red.
The predatory snake hissed, baring fangs that dripped with blood, its jaw flexing as if eager to strike.
However, Cazimir had no intention of fighting, as while he could resist her nightmarish presence, he knew better than to test her strength.
So, he turned and ran, his wings bending back as he bolted forth. His figure turned to a crimson blur, but he came to a sudden stop, his form frozen mid-air.
Vlad watched as Vel...No, the Empress, vanished from her throne of skulls. Her alluring form reappeared in a ripple of darkness, materializing silently behind the fleeing Cazimir. In her hands, she held a weapon as dreadful as her presence.
A massive scythe, pitch-black from hilt to edge. The blade's spine was adorned with skulls, some human, others far less so, while the edge shimmered with a strange, unnatural darkness, like starlight swallowed by the night.
Cazimir only had a heartbeat to recognize his fate.
The Empress pulled the scythe back with fluid grace, and the long, curved blade swept forward, slicing through the vampire's neck without resistance. The motion was as effortless as it was final.