Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.

  Chapter 115- Horrible History.

  I constantly moved around Positano, sneaking through dark alleyways and moving hidden in disguise through the night-time crowds, hoping to avoid detection and find somewhere safe to rest my head. And yet, every time I stopped for a moment, I felt as if my life was close to ending and something was closing in, and then I moved on again, hurrying away. I don't know if something is actually following me or if I am just overly paranoid after that old man filled my head with just how powerful my new foes were. Either way, I thought it best to stay on the side of caution, so I never let myself rest for more than five minutes.

  Eventually though, I had to stop, and I thought it best that I decide when I stopped instead of it being decided for me, whether that be through outside influences or my own stupidity. And yet, everywhere I went, I found too it all too unsecure, too unsafe. It didn't matter if I was in a high-class hotel with only the elites in it that were too busy revelling in their own money and luxury or in the slums, trying to hide in a dirty motel with people scurrying about just trying to eat and looking out for themselves. It all just felt too risky for me. Even one person was one person too many, anyone being a possible informant to the D'Arcana clan, because truthfully, they had unlimited control over the entire of Italy with no oversight.

  No, I needed to find somewhere secluded and isolated, with no one about, and it had to be somewhere no one wanted to be so I could go to sleep without fear. And that is how I somehow find myself here, in the middle of an abandoned monastery up in the hills of Italy, with no civilisation around for a couple of miles. Man, am I glad for magic because it would have been hell to get here otherwise, and I wouldn't be able to live without utilities because this place is so run down I can guarantee without even checking that nothing works.

  I sat down on one of the pews that looked stable in the main hall, looking around at the broken-down surroundings and the weird Jesus on the cross with silver hair and abs of steel(Italian Jesus?) before leaning back and closing my eyes. And yeah, I don't immediately open them again, so I feel safe at last. For now, at least. Even though I want to go straight to sleep, I can't just let it happen like that. First, I need to make sure this place is properly secure, and so I go around warding the place to the best of my abilities and setting alerts to anything that gets within a hundred meters of this building.

  After putting a few more things in place, I go and enter one of the more nicer rooms that is at the back of the monastery. It looks like it used to be a bedroom, so it must have been where the priest lived or something, or where he took the kids he used to diddle. Nine out of ten times, the priest is a diddler, and that is an undisputed fact; he diddles in some manner. Anyway, I make sure not to alter anything too much, as with the more things I change, the more chance I will forget about something and leave a trail to be followed. This is why I pick a chair and transform it into a comfortable bed in which I soon lay, and then, my eyes close, and I soon find sleep. It was not a peaceful sleep, but it was a much-needed one.

  I finish my last bite of the apple in my hand before tossing it into the bag at my side. Thankfully, I had the foresight to source some food from the town before I headed into the hills, and I also brought an empty reusable cup since I could just conjure water with my magic. Anyway, with my self-care and hunger taken care of, I can finally take this chance to look at the book the old man gave to me with the last of his energy. Placing it down on a table in front of me, I first take out my wand and quickly begin to cast spells to assess it.

  I had just gotten done dealing with a magical book, and I wasn't about to underestimate anything I came across from then on. Even if it is a bloody dildo, I wouldn't trust it; who knows, maybe it is enchanted to fuck you to death. Shit, that is even more terrifying than Horcruxes. I slap both my cheeks hard to rid myself of that thought because it is truly a dreadful throat, though now I have the thought to enchant some to see if I could use them as sexual aids to assist me with women, to heighten the pleasure.

  I slap my cheeks again and focus back on the book in front of me. It is clean, and there is nothing dangerous about it, though it is definitely quite old and magical. Grabbing it, I open it up and then start to quickly let gravity help me flick through all the pages by turning it sideways, but then 30 seconds later, I am bewildered when the pages continue to turn, not having gotten to the end yet. When it does finally end, I close it and then look at the thickness of it. It was about the thickness of two adult hands placed on top of each other. It should have taken less than five seconds to flip from one end to the other, but it took more than thirty seconds. Shit this is a long-ass magical book, and I wonder why I've never seen this effect before because half of the books I've read are thick as shit.

  God damn it, I can't just skim through this thing as it might have crucial information that is vital to my well-being and success. I will have to trawl through all of it, soaking up every little bit of information and wringing the most out of it. Sighing to myself, I reach into my pocket and pull out my luggage before placing it on the floor and enlarging it. Once I have gone through it, I find what I need and pull out a pair of spectacles, which I place on my face. Ready, I pick up the book and start to read, reading faster than humanly possible. Why? Because, of course, I am wearing special glasses that allow me to read at 100 times speed.

  I had gotten the idea from the anime Fairy Tale, where they have something called Gale Force Reading Glasses or something that allows you to read faster. So obviously, I copied it because I always have to go through tons of books to learn awesome magic, and I'm lazy and want to be efficient. Of course, I didn't make these myself. I am not an enchanter or crafter, but I am an idea man. So I gave the idea to Andromeda along with a whole other bunch I pilfered from media from my last life, and she gave it to the egg heads in R&D, who did all the hard work and experimentation to make the things I told them about.

  The Read Speeders will be released soon, though they will only be the version that lets you read twice as fast. I am not stupid enough to release the better version we developed, as I'm not about to let all the little Ravenclaws out there speed through every book because dangerous as fuck. Hell, I know Hermione will get the glasses when they are released and become ten times as dangerous. I shudder to think what she could achieve with the version I have, and that's not to mention she will have the time turner this year. I foresee rapid development for that girl in the near future, along with a lot of stress and exhaustion. Some people don't know how to pace themselves, like me.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Anyway, time to read as much of this as I can today. I'm sure I can get through all of this before the day ends, especially with my hundred times speed. Let's get to it.

  Well, it is dark now, but at the very least, I can say I have read through all of that book. And now that I have, I understand exactly what it is. It is a log of the D'Arcana clan's movements for the last few centuries. The D'Arcana Clan had a legacy of blood and domination carved into the very history of Italy, and it was only out of fear of the entirety of the rest of the magical communities across the world unifying against them that they stayed confined to Italy, biding their time.

  Over the centuries, the D'Arcana Clan had made themselves unforgettable in the annals of magical and mortal history through a relentless pursuit of unlimited power, which they disguised behind a false veneer of elegance and aristocratic charm. Their influence could be found everywhere, stretched like veins through Europe's most powerful circle. They were the unseen guiding hand behind decadent courts, secret societies and underground cults, feeding on wealth, fear, and forbidden magic. Though they themselves might not have left Italy, they certainly found a way to influence the rest of the world.

  However, this journal focused mainly on their activities within the realm of Italy, for that is where the Lunar Heart is and the D'Arcana clan themselves. The old man and his ancestors have been keeping an eye on them, making sure they never got near the heart, but never actually confronting them out of fear, to the point that eventually, after centuries of searching, the vampires are nearly upon the heart, and the best the old man could do was entrust his mission to me. I understood why they never confronted the D'Arcana; the things I had discovered about them in this journal were frightening.

  In 1462, The Florence Pact occurred. It was at the height of the Renaissance, and the D'Arcana patriarch, Lucian D'Arcana, orchestrated a mass ritual disguised as an aristocratic masquerade ball. Hundreds of nobles were lured into the Palazzo della Luna under the promise of an exclusive audience with a celestial being. Enchanted by the promise of getting closer to god. By the end of the night, every guest was either drained of blood or cursed with madness. Their souls were toyed with and ruined all in exchange for power and pleasure; the book doesn't mention how either was achieved.

  Then, there was the Sinking of Port écarlate in 1727. In a coastal town in Northern France, the D'Arcana Clan enacted a blood tide rite, sacrificing an entire fishing village to the sea in order to flood a rival magical faction's island fortress. Apparently, someone they turned got ideas above their station and gathered up others to split into a different power, and the D'Arcana had to make a message out of them. The sea rose unnaturally high, swallowing the town and leaving only scattered bones and driftwood behind. There is mention of pale figures walking on water, laughing as the moon turned crimson.

  In 1845, The Vienna Eclipse Conspiracy happened. The D'Arcana had a bizarre connection to the moon, and it was during a rare lunar eclipse that Lucian D'Arcana staged a series of elaborate midnight operas where the elite of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were hypnotised by his vampiric arias. In secret, their blood was harvested to power a magical artefact that gave Lucian immense power. It is not said what that power is or how it works, only that he was suddenly too fast to be seen, suddenly able to appear anywhere at any time, as if he was suddenly able to teleport anywhere at will. One moment he was on the stage, and then he was in the crowd, and all of the audience had their throats slit, and Lucian delighted in the blood river flowing down the auditorium.

  In the journal, there was also The Hollow Nursery Incident of 1892. This was one of those secret projects they managed to get going outside of Italy. It was in Romania, where a D'Arcana offshoot ran an orphanage for magically gifted children. Under the pretence of teaching them, the children were subjected to magical experimentation, surgeries and necromantic transmutations. Most did not survive. The few that did became mindless thralls, used in assassination rituals or grafted into constructs known as blood golems, which the Clan deployed to eliminate threats. No doubt I will be running into both at some point, and I don't know any weaknesses about them since the writers of this journal never fought them, they only observed.

  In 1933, there was The Monaco Purge, where a different clan of vampires ruled, though they were very much better rulers and vampires than the D'Arcana. It was during this time period that European magical societies debated aligning with the mortal world's emerging political powers. The magical community of Monaco was the main pushers for this, with the vampire rival clan heading the spear. The D'Arcana Clan quietly exterminated them. Over the course of a single month, twelve magical families disappeared, and their homes turned to salt and bone. Their libraries were raided, and their heirlooms melted down and added to the D'Arcana coffers. Rumour claims a siren's voice sang across the harbour each time a family fell.

  Just recently, the journal tells of The Masquerade of Ashes, which took place in 1984. At a gala in Venice, the D'Arcana hosted what they called the last true celebration of aristocratic magic. Naturally, guests included politicians, sorcerers, purebloods, and haughty magicals the world over. Over the course of the evening, every guest who refused to do something, it is not said what, was turned to ash, their deaths concealed beneath a magically induced illusion. The world outside saw a lavish party. In truth, it was a mass sacrifice to reinforce the D'Arcana claim to the Lunar Heart, which Lucian had recently begun to seek openly.

  The D'Arcana clan have a philosophy of hunger because, for them, blood is not merely sustenance; it is currency, memory, and power. They believe that through the Lunar Heart, they can rewrite nature's laws, drowning continents that didn't submit, silencing the opposers, and bringing about an era where only their will defines what is worth being defined. The journal remarks that the D'Arcana do not feed out of need. They feed to remember. Every drop is a prayer to their supremacy. I have no idea if that is just the writer waxing lyrical or if that actually means something that I should be worried about.

  Either way, those were only a few of the more memorable incidents recorded in this book, and they are all very frightening. And now I find myself in the heartland of their territory, surrounded at all times. Anonymity and stealth are my best friends right now, and I have a feeling that once I lose those, I will be very hard-pressed to keep my life. But that isn't what worries me the most right now; what worries me the most is that I went through this entire book, and while there was mention of the Lunar Heart, there is nothing that actually points to its location.

  Well, that's not strictly true, as there is something. But the thing is... I sigh, looking down at the page in front of me and reading it aloud.

  "When twin moons rise in mirrored sea,

  Seek stone above the storm's decree.

  In Fury's throat, where old waves chant,

  The Heart shall bloom where shadows slant.

  By salt and wind, by oath unspoken,

  Beneath the vow of bridges broken.

  Where time forgets and tides rehearse,

  The Lunar Key unlocks the verse.

  Mark the seventh when tide runs red,

  When Luna weeps and stars have bled.

  There, in silence, carved by flame—

  The Heart awaits, and speaks your name."

  It's a fucking rhyme. What the fuck. How the hell did the old man expect me to bloody solve this thing and find the heart before the D'Arcana get their hands on it. Not only that, but it's very clear that only someone who is familiar with Italy would actually be knowledgeable about this shit to figure it out. Not me, a Brit who's here on vacation because I haven't got a bloody clue.

  Twin moons rising in a mirrored sea? I don't know what that means. The stone above the storm's decree? In Fury's throat? Beneath the vow of bridges broken? Not a clue. I don't know about any of this, and I have a feeling that the way I went about learning Italian is working against me here. I'll have to go out and find a native, probably some scholar, who I can get to help me with this. I will even use the Imperious if I have to; it is all on the line now, and I'm not going to hold anything back.

  "My, what an interesting little ditty. Thank you for sharing it with me." The sudden voice spooks me, and then my head erupts in pain as all my alert wards suddenly sound all at once in my brain.

  Oooh, another chapter in less than a week. What the hell is wrong with me? Am I on drugs or something? Am I becoming the comeback king?

  Upcoming Chapters:

  Hero: Chapter 116- Voracious Vampire.

  Super: Chapter 118- Regroup.

  Legendary: Chapter 120- To Italy Once More.

  Galactic: Chapter 124- Where My Weasleys At!?

  Mythic: Chapter 126- Betrayal on The Bed.

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  That is all for now. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I will see you in the next one!

  Stay safe, and have fun!