My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible

Chapter 763: The Two Siblings

Two figures, a man and woman, stepped out from the shadow of a stone archway and blocked the path ahead.

They moved with the same smooth, floating stride Clone One had seen down the street. Both looked young, with pale skin as smooth as polished marble and not a single mark on it.

The woman stood half a step in front. She had long black hair pinned back with silver combs, high cheekbones, and sharp crimson eyes that looked him over observantly The young man beside her looked a little younger. He stood stiff and straight, with his right hand resting on the handle of a thin dagger at his hip.

They looked him up and down.

Clone One’s robes were covered in dust and torn open at the shoulder from the fight in the canyon. Rock dust clung to his hair, and dried blood flaked along his collar. Even so, he kept his head up. He stood with his shoulders relaxed and his feet planted, and he looked straight into their crimson eyes with equal calmness and interest.

The young man frowned, clearly annoyed by the eye contact.

"What is a human doing walking these streets alone without his master?" the young man asked.

Their language was smooth and cold, full of soft vowels and sharp edges.

Thanks to his Universal Linguistics, Clone One understood every word, and the right words came to his tongue just as easily.

"I don’t have a master," Clone One said in their own language, keeping his voice light.

The young man took a quick step back, his eyes wide. Even the woman raised an eyebrow, and her crimson eyes narrowed as she studied him.

A human speaking their language was clearly not something they saw every day.

"You speak our tongue," the woman said with a smooth, measured voice. She had far more control than her companion. "Where did you learn it?"

Clone One shrugged, playing naive and harmless.

"I’m not from around here," he said with an easy smile. "I was in a canyon when a round, blood-red portal opened right in the middle of the rocks. It smelled like fresh blood and gave off heat. I got curious and stepped through, and it closed behind me. So now I’m here."

The young man let out a sharp breath. "A portal? Do you take us for fools? That’s impossible."

"Felix, quiet," the woman said, raising two slender fingers. The young man shut his mouth at once, though his hand stayed tight around his dagger.

The woman turned back to Clone One, her eyes fixed on his face. "No door to the outside has opened in centuries. This world has been cut off from the human worlds since before my grandfather’s time. The seals are ancient, and nothing gets through them. There are no crossings left."

Clone One listened and his Universal Linguistics translated every one of them with even their intent, and there wasn’t a trace of a lie in any of it. She believed every word. As far as she knew, this whole realm was locked away from everything else.

The woman leaned closer and searched his face for the small signs that usually gave a liar away.

She found nothing. Clone One looked back at her with an open, honest face.

That clearly troubled her more than an obvious lie would have. Her lips pressed into a thin, pale line.

***

Behind his calm smile, Clone One was putting it together.

’So the crossing is a secret here too,’ he thought.

If people like these believed the realm was sealed for good, then nobody had ever allowed that portal in the canyon. Someone was using it as their own private back door.

He thought of the panicked leader running across the black plain, straight to the walled estate with the tall spires. Whoever lived in that manor had kept a secret door into the rest of the magic universe hidden in a canyon nobody dared to enter, and they had been using it while their own people had no idea it even existed.

Clone One kept his face pleasant and simple. He said nothing about the dead beast, the other vampires he had fought, or the manor in the basin, as he let them think he was just a lost wanderer who had stumbled through a hole in the world.

***

Felix shifted his weight, impatient. "We should report this right away, Clara. If a door has opened, the seal has failed. The people in charge need to take him in and question him."

"And what will you tell them?" Clara asked without turning her head. "That a dusty human in torn rags walked through a door that hasn’t opened in centuries, and you dragged him to them on a whim?"

"He has no master, and he speaks our tongue!" Felix said in a low, sharp voice. "That alone breaks the law. We can’t leave a stray human loose on the streets."

"They would take him, lock him away, and we would never hear another word about it," Clara said with a cool voice. "If someone has opened a door to the human worlds, I want to know why before they bury the whole thing."

Felix frowned, but he lowered his chin and said nothing more. It was clear Clara had the final say between them.

Clara took a slow step around Clone One and circled him like a scholar studying a strange old object. She noticed how steady his breathing was, and that there was no fear in his eyes at all.

A human slave in this city spent their whole life staring at the ground, terrified of catching a master’s eye. This man stood in front of two nobles without a single shred of that fear in his eyes. Everything about him was wrong for a human here, and the curiosity in Clara’s crimson eyes was plain to see.

"What’s your name, traveler?" she asked when she stopped in front of him again.

"Liam," Clone One said.

"Liam," Clara repeated, testing the sound. "A short, strange name. Tell me, Liam, do you have anywhere to stay in this city?"

Clone One looked around at the dark, silent buildings and the empty black sky. "No. I got here about an hour ago. I don’t know anyone."

Clara gave a small nod, and the corner of her mouth curved into a knowing smile. "I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said yes."

She pulled her dark wool cloak a little tighter around her shoulders and folded her hands in front of her. "A human walking these streets without a master won’t last the night. The city guards would arrest you, or someone with a cruder appetite than ours would eat you. Either way, you’d only be inviting trouble for yourself. And it would be a waste of a very interesting mystery."

She tilted her head toward the street behind her. "Our family estate is a few distance from here. You will come with us and stay there. We can talk about your story once we’re behind closed doors."

Felix’s eyes flashed with displeasure. "Clara, you can’t bring an outsider into the manor."

"I’m bringing a guest, Felix," Clara said with a quiet, icy voice that ended the argument. "Father is away in the upper province, and I run the household until he returns. If you have a problem with it, you can take it up with him next month."

Felix pressed his lips together and looked away.

Clone One glanced back down the dark, empty street. He had come here to find out who was using the secret portal, and walking into a noble estate as a guest was far easier than sneaking over walls in the dark.

"Thank you for the offer," Clone One said with a polite nod. "Please lead the way."

As he fell in beside them, one of Liam’s old memories from Earth came back to him, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

’In the stories, a vampire has to be invited in. Here, it’s the vampire inviting the human.’

He kept the thought to himself and matched their quiet pace as the three of them walked down the empty black street under the cold light of the four moons.