Our swords clashed with sparks flying as we, the two angels, one with raven black wings and the other with wings of light; met in battle above the battlements of the Willendorf fort.

The tremendous clap of thunder that accompanied each strike resonated through the entire city and the revolting peasants now occupying the courtyard, glanced up in amazement as they became witness to the battle.

"Come to give me your soul?" Sabre asked with a cruel smile, parrying aside the thrust of the empowered Reaver with ease and driving in close, his own sword slicing a feather in half as I flew backwards.

"No. I've come to claim yours!" I stated, rebounding off the side of a tower and spinning through the air back at his opponent. Before Sabre could retaliate, I managed to grab him by the throat and dragged him close to the two of us were level face to face.

"You still hunger for blood. The wings and blue skin mean nothing." Sabre stated still with a grin. He kicked me in the stomach, forcing him to let go. I gagged out from the blow.

Freed from the grip, The Sarafan Leader soured high into the sky and once he had ascended high enough held up his free hand and gathered magical energy. Lightning sparked between his fingers before he unleashed the spell directly at me.

I held up his own hand, creating a barrier of light before him. The bolts of deadly magic coursed around him but did him no harm, flying off either side harmlessly.

"You're wasting your time Sabre, I have more power and strength now then I know what to do with." I declared confidently, holding up the Reaver Blade.

"But do you have the control?" Sabre retorted, retaining his smile. His fingers blurred as they drew runes in the air and he unleashed a torrent of fireball spells. "Lets see, vampire!"

The spells were easily countered.

Unleashing the elemental power contained with the sword, I called upon the power of Water. The air around me was instantly flooded with moisture and the fireballs dissipated long before they impacted.

"Tell me vampire, can you hear the voices murmuring in your head yet?" Sabre asked, dropping down so the two of us were at the same level.

As a matter of fact I could. The voices that had been bothering me were now beginning to grow louder. Now, instead of whispers, I could make out little bits and pieces of words. Nothing coherent but still enough to distract me.

"Do you know what they are?" Sabre carried on, looking a little too smug for my liking. "They're the voices of every single person you have killed. Can you hear them all? The cries of the young assassins that first took your life? Countless Sarafan… peasants by the score… even other vampires.

Many have fallen before you Kain… and now their screams of anguish are finally coming back to haunt you."

The volume of the voices rose for a moment before dipping again, almost as if to reinforce what Sabre was telling me.

Trying my best to ignore him, I drove directly at him with the Sword; calling forth the power of light. The blade became a beacon of light so intense it could be seen even from the clan armies marching towards Willendorf. I had left Vorador in charge of it, much to a chagrin of the pre-fallen Raziel. Vorador and Malek made a great, if extremely unlikely, pair of strategically minded generals

They had pursued the remains of the Sarafan down and with them destroyed, where marching on the city. While this boded well, the clans would fall upon the city and devour it if they remained as they were.

The time for the unleashing of the cure was now. That is if I knew how to open its damn container.

"Umah… open it! Quickly!" I called down to the battlement, turning back to face Sabre in time to block one of his strikes.

"And just how am I supposed to do that?" Umah demanded, trying to break the container open several ways including attempting to break it over her knee.

"I think not, Kain." Sabre told me as we attempted to overpower each other in mid air. "The vampires are cursed and cursed they will remain." He parried me aside, using his sword to flick me out of the way and then aimed his own free hand directly at Umah. Bolts of magical lightning sparked down his arm as the spell began.

I tried to intercept but I was too late. The lightning shot through the air past me..

"MOVE!" The Princess Alicia pushed Umah out of the way, knocking the female vampire to the ground. The vial containing the cure spiralled out of her hands and scattered across the battlements until it spun to a stop at the feet of the king.

The Princess received the full force of Sabre's attack, the lightning causing her to cry out in pain as he clothes roasted around her and her skin blistered. Her hair blackened and steam started rising from her body.

With a scream, I kicked Sabre across the mid section; interrupting the spell before it could kill her. I was too late to save her from great harm however.

"NO!!!" Her father declared in utter horror. William struggled to get up despite his injuries and somehow he managed to catch Alicia as she toppled back, her body gripped in powerful seizures.

"Let me through!" The seer declared, attempting to reach the princess to heal her. Before she could, a shape came hurtling out of the shadows at her. It hit her squarely in the face, sending her flying back across the battlements until the Hylden slammed against a railing.

"She dies Seer, it is her time."

I growled in announce to see another of Sabre's cronies attack them. This one was a woman, at least in flesh. I could sense more to her. She was a Sluagh incarnate… more of the Elder's handiwork.

I did not know it at the time but her name was Anubis, the enemies' candidate for the Pillar of Time.

"Brother, tend to the princess…" The seer told the Hylden T'kral who accompanied her. The Hylden female hoisted herself back up and confronted her challenger head on. "This one is mine!"

Anubis cackled insanely and, holding her sabre blade in one hand charged at the Seer. The seer doubled back across the roof tops of the fort and out of sight behind a tower. As they fought, I tried to disengage myself from Sabre; or at least wound him to give me the opportunity to do something about the princess.

Down below, the king looked upon the helpless and charred form his only daughter and then, in that instant, he realized how mistaken he had been. The weight of his sin crashed down upon him like a tidal wave.

Feeling ashamed, he tore the crown from his head.

"I don't deserve to wear it!!" He dropped down to his knees, consumed with despair. As he did so, he hand fell upon the vial containing the cure.

The seer led upon to a suspended platform just over the courtyard. A large clock was slowly ticking away below them and the bell tower stood above.

"The bell toles for thee!" Anubis cackled, clearly insane. Either the imprisonment in flesh had driven the Slaugh mad or it had been like this before, the Seer didn't know.

Either way this fight was over before it began. The deranged Anubis barely had any concept of the world around her.

Anubis charged at the Seer, attempting to drive her Sabre through the Hylden's body.

"Fool." The seer simply sighed and then at the last second, stepped aside; letting the deranged creature fly past and topple over the edge of the railing.

Anubis didn't crash into the courtyard below. She managed to catch ahold of the large minute hand of the massive clock face, holding on for dear life.

"The flesh doesn't suite you." The seer called down to her. "I believe you'll be a lot more successful ferreting out lost souls in the spectral realm once more." Without another word, the Hylden cast a compressed telekinetic bolt up at the bell tower behind it. The bolt past through the large window and struck the massive bell.

It rang loudly once and the resonation past through the air like a shockwave and unable to hold on under its intensity, Anubis was forced to let go. Screaming, she dropped from the clock and plummeted down to the courtyard below.

The peasants below scrambled out of the way as she came down, her body rupturing at the high speed impact.

The guardianship for the Pillar of Time had been decided and with that, the Pillar began to restore itself, the pieces coming together.

Sabre growled in profound irritation and glanced off towards the bell tower.

"Not another one!" He snarled.

Using this as an opening, I head butted him, leaving him stunned for a moment. That was enough time to call forth the elemental power of spirit, the most powerful element within the blade and come at the Sarafan leader with everything I had.

I struck him directly in the chest. That should have been enough to destroy his entire body. But instead, by some enchantments no doubt, he escaped death. My blow merely shattered his armour, exposing his chest.

The metallic shards flew off in all directions, the pieces clattering to the flour of the courtyard far below.

I knew that the ability to harness light came from the soul enchanted armour and I guessed that meant his wings would disappear as well.

I was wrong. The wings weren't coming out the armour. These wings of light were protruding out of the Sarafan leader himself as if they were part of his being.

Below, on the battlements, while T'kral tended to the princess as best he could; her father stood up again, holding in his hands the vial containing the cure.

I supposed he recognised the puzzle for I have since been told that the king had been very good for puzzles of all kinds. With his eyes firmly fixed upon the maimed body of his daughter, his hands worked upon the complex lock and parts of it began to click back into place.

Bronze pieces slide back and forth, some rotating around until they fit together in a far less complex pattern and the vial began to completely expose itself.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Sabre demanded, turning to face the king in mid air. The Sarafan leader had lost his cool and calm exterior now and appeared quite panicked.

The King of Willendorf now finally saw clearly.

"Leaving my daughter something to remember me by." He replied angrily. Sabre gripped his sword like a javelin and tossed it down through the air directly at him.

Unable to move that quickly all the king could do to defy the man who had lied to him for so long was to unlock the cure the moment before the sword sank into his chest.

"YES!" I cried out.

As the vial dropped from the king's hands, its restraints freed, it shattered upon the stone of the battlements and the white liquid was exposed to the air.

What happened next was so phenomenal there was no place in Nosgoth where its affects were not felt.

A flare, like the early rising sun erupted from the broken vial and it engulfed everything as it expanded outwards. The battlements and those upon them were consumed instantly and I quickly followed, my arms outstretched to embrace it.

Finally… it began.

"Ewoden look!" Sally declared, glancing back across the river as the two of them were making their way to where the battle for the city was still raging. The former knight stopped and stared the light engulfed the entire island upon which the fort had been was now awash with light.

"What's…" Ewoden started in wonder but paused when he noticed some strange event was taking place.

Sally was changing.

Her skin, it was changing colour. Ewoden stared at her in utter wonder as her skin changed; from pale white it became darker and darker. She was turning blue.

Through the city, people in the midst of fight; even the remains of the Sarafan militia who were on the verge of surrender, stopped and stared at the Cabal in their mix started changing. Their skin was quickly becoming blue.

One by one, wings started emerging from their backs. It wasn't a painful transformation as the expressions on the vampires showed. They looked more stunned and awed than in the midst of extreme pain as the wings sprouted from them.

The clan army marching on Willendorf had more warning that something was happening before the affects of the cure, spreading out across Nosgoth, hit them.

Turelim and Melchiahim alike dropped their sword and shields in astonishment as their skin changed, becoming blue and their fingers and toes melded together to form the cloven hands and feet of the ancients.

"He did it…" Janos Audron declared in glee, feeling the blood thirst recede from him for the first time in eons. "He actually did it!!"

Vorador's ears became less pronounced, shrinking pack to a more appropriate size. Malek, who had been standing beside him at the time, jumped to the side in alarm as Vorador's clothes spilt apart; wings spreading out behind him.

"What is this… what's happening?" Raziel demanded, holding his hands out in front of him as his skin turned blue.

"I feel…. I feel strange…" Zephon declared, dropping down to his knees and putting a hand over his stomach as the wings sprouted from his back.

"That's what it feels like not to hunger for blood." Janos told them all, tears flooding his golden eyes. "Our race… our race is reborn…"

All across Nosgoth, had cure had the came affect. Each and every single vampire, hidden or otherwise, began mutating. Their skin turned blue, their new wings sprouted and they blood hunger vanished.

No longer would the sun burn or the water scold.

From this on, no longer would the name Vampire mean 'parasite'. Now it was simply the name of a race, a race as legitimate as either mankind or Hylden.

It felt strange, not be constantly hungering for blood.

I hadn't felt this sense of non-predatory peace since I had been human, but I didn't feel human exactly either. I felt stronger… stronger than I had ever been as a blood drinker.

I had lost my immortality… but strangely that did not strike me as overly important. Besides, I had lived for thousands of years already and there was only one important thing left for me to do.

The murmuring in my ear, of the voices Sabre claimed were the voices of those I had killed, were still there but for the moment I could put them aside.

Sabre's face was filled with an emotion had had not seen him display up until now.

There was annoyance, frustration but most of all there was fear!

As the light receded I risked a glance down to those on the battlements.

"Oh Kain… Kain its so…" Umah started below in bliss. She looked… divine. There was no other word for it. She was so beautiful .Her wings were graceful and sleek and her hair was longer than it had been before and was now glistening like starlight.

Sabre pressed his lips together, silently fuming.

"You've failed." I stated, shooting a hostile glare at him. "We are free and now only you remain. The final enemy candidate." I held the Reaver up. "So… shall we decide the fate of the Pillar of Balance right here?"

"Hardly fitting." The Sarafan leader stated, managing to regain some of his composure. "No…not here. Let us meet a location far more appropriate for this battle. I think you know where." He wrapped his wings, made of sunlight, around himself. "Enjoy this short victory. I'll be waiting for you once you're ready to face me."

Without another word he teleported away.