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310 Words
2. The Subway Station's 'Magic Stele'
She spent an entire night hiding in carriages and abandoned warehouses, finally reaching the heart of the Human World—"Imperial City"—just as the sun rose.
Daylight was lethal to her. Yulia scrambled into a massive underground passage that hummed with a regular rhythm, lined with glowing symbols she couldn't comprehend.
"Is this the lair of a demon?"
She spotted a machine glowing with blue light—a subway ticket dispenser. A line of humans stood before it, inserting cards and coins, in exchange for small paper slips.
Yulia concluded this was the "Magic Stele" her intelligence had described, used by humans to activate "spacetime displacement arrays."
She approached the machine, reached into her cloak, and pulled out a few privately hoarded ancient silver coins. Engraved with the vampire family crest, a single coin was worth an entire city in her world.
She tried to insert a coin into the machine. "Drip—Please use legal tender," a cold electronic voice stated.
"What? Are you demanding blood from me?" Yulia's brow furrowed. She cautiously retrieved a backup vial of blood serum from beneath her cloak and tried to drip it into the coin slot.
"Machine error, please contact staff."
A young woman behind her snickered softly, capturing the scene on her phone.
Yulia's pride and awkwardness flared. She felt the surrounding humans were staring at her with "contempt."
"How dare you low-level creatures mock an ancient noble!" she hissed, activating her heirloom.
Instantly, the phones of everyone within a ten-meter radius went black, emitting a sharp static buzz. The ticket machine screen flickered and began displaying corrupted code.
Yulia lifted her chin, believing her "Awe Magic" had stunned the crowd. In reality, people simply grumbled, "The signal is being jammed by that weird thing over there again," and quickly walked around her.
- Writer
