Edvard

Edvard Heimdallr is one of the thirteen Original Vampires and the longtime public leader of the Altered Hunters. Under an apparent middle-aged identity, he rises through an organization that the Settlement uses as a human proxy, but his attachment to its members increasingly conflicts with the role assigned to him. The Ruin City campaign exposes that hidden structure, leaves his body irreparably damaged, and pushes him to disband the hunters, entrust diplomacy to Blackjack, and enter slumber after advocating peace with Gary Dem.

Biography

A five-star public face and a hidden master

Edvard first appears at an Altered Hunter promotion ceremony as the apparent youngest five-star hunter in the organization, a man in his early forties with a triple-digit Altered kill count and a strong chance of succeeding its current leader. He presides over promotions, controls access to increasingly powerful Anti-Altered gear, and identifies the Red Dragon armor as a last-resort artifact reserved for an existential emergency. He also makes the black liquid a priority target after Crazed Altered incidents begin spreading from lower-tier towns, framing the response as protection of humanity rather than indiscriminate killing. (Chapters 357–358)

By the time Edvard becomes the Altered Hunters' head, growing Altered numbers and an expected war make the existing star system too slow for him. He orders a broad reassessment, uses supernatural compulsion to test whether candidates can resist a command, and exposes successful hunters to preserved beasts so they can earn stronger weapons. Blake and Innu catch his attention, and he later places promising younger hunters in accelerated training that combines combat development with actual missions. The program raises Blake to four stars and gives Edvard a generation he hopes can survive the coming change, but it also deepens his personal investment in people the Settlement regards as expendable assets. The hidden contradiction is that Edvard did not create the Altered Hunters' mission independently. Vampires infiltrated a pre-existing human society, placed him within it, and used his rise to direct operations that benefited the Settlement. Edvard accepts that he functions as its puppet, yet he also mourns hunters as individuals and protects the institution's internal integrity. That divided loyalty explains why he can mobilize the group against werewolves while still allowing Blake and Innu to return to Slough when their own people are endangered. (Chapters 648–666, 902–928, and 1301–1333)

Ruin City and the collapse of the proxy war

The Settlement's campaign against Lupus sends Altered Hunter teams into Ruin City while the Howlers transport Edvard's sealed armor. Edvard arrives before the equipment, rescues Blackjack and surviving hunters from Luzen, and uses a Blood Cannon powerful enough to strip flesh from the Ironfang. He refuses a futile chase and prioritizes the wounded, but learning that Lupus is outside forces him into a battle he knows he cannot win unaided. As an Original, Edvard can fight in daylight and regenerate better than ordinary vampires, yet Lupus surpasses him in strength, speed, energy, and healing, even condensing and returning Edvard's own Blood Cannon. (Chapters 1299–1306)

Kai delivers the Red Dragon armor while Edvard is being overwhelmed. Once it responds, Edvard can match Lupus in direct exchanges, protect Gary, and ignore the usual lasting damage caused by werewolf claws. The apparent parity has a hidden cost: drawing deeply on the armor mangles Edvard's arms and depletes the luck that keeps it active. Ylva's freezing projectiles also interrupt him, while Lupus's extreme regeneration prevents even his strongest combined strike with Gary from securing a decisive victory. Edvard eventually retreats with the survivors, his armored exterior intact but his underlying body broken. The failure makes the moral cost of the proxy arrangement impossible to contain. Edvard orders the Altered Hunters disbanded rather than continue feeding humans into a supernatural war they do not understand. In Slough, he reveals that he is a vampire and one of the thirteen originals, explains the Settlement's manipulation of the organization, and asks Gary to shelter any surviving hunters who choose to relocate. He does not claim that every vampire shares his position: Kim's attack on Kai and the long memory of vampire grudges prove otherwise. His own conclusion is narrower—that Gary is unlike prior Alphas and may offer a path that does not repeat the old cycle. (Chapters 1306–1333)

Slumber and a policy that outlives him

Edvard decides to enter vampire slumber because the armor and Lupus fight have left damage beyond what he can sustain, while centuries of watching friends and institutions die have exhausted him. Before leaving, he names Blackjack as the Settlement's official point of contact with the Howlers, promises to recommend vampire support, and argues that Gary should let the Settlement handle the Dark Guild while his pack focuses on Lupus. Gary remains suspicious of a species that historically chose to hunt werewolves, but the conversation establishes a personal policy of cooperation rather than blind allegiance to either side. (Chapters 1332–1333)

Edvard departs Slough in the armor, intending its protection and healing support to continue during his sleep. He is not shown waking before the corpus ends. His influence persists through Blackjack, gifts delivered to Blake, and the favorable report that helps the Settlement treat Gary as a potential partner during the Glutton crisis. Later characters refer to Edvard as a vampire who genuinely tried to avoid another war, and the Vampire King's eventual peace offer realizes the direction he advocated even while he remains in slumber. (Chapters 1333, 1393, 1737, 1759, and 1840–1843)

Appearance and personality

Edvard's public identity appears to be an early-forties man with curly hair, dark sunglasses, and a composed, authoritative bearing. The glasses conceal red vampiric eyes and also fit the night-vision presentation of an Altered Hunter leader. The age is a façade of appearance rather than chronology: as an Original Vampire, Edvard has lived for an unspecified but immense span. (Chapters 357, 651–652, and 1332–1333)

He combines theatrical command with genuine attachment. Edvard can address thousands of hunters, judge talent harshly, and maintain the appearance of a human leader, but he grieves Cooper and the hunters lost under his orders instead of treating their deaths as statistics. Long life has made him tired rather than indifferent. His final choices—disbanding the organization, revealing the truth, and advocating Gary to the Settlement—show an effort to reduce further manipulation, even though he never fully rejects his own people or discloses every vampire secret. (Chapters 357–358, 650–666, and 1301–1333)

Powers and abilities

Original Vampire physiology

Edvard is one of the thirteen vampires from whom later bloodlines descend. He does not age and describes Originals as immortal in that limited sense, but explicitly rejects invincibility: destruction of the head, heart, or body can kill him. He has exceptional strength, speed, senses, and recovery, can remain active in sunlight that troubles lesser vampires, and heals more effectively than ordinary members of his species. Recovery still consumes vampire energy and can require blood supplementation; sustained werewolf damage and the armor's backlash eventually exceed what his body can repair while active. (Chapters 1301–1306 and 1332–1333)

Blood aura and vampiric combat

Edvard shapes red blood aura into cutting swipes, reinforcement around his limbs, projected fists, and the Blood Cannon. The cannon gathers a large mass of stable aura into a wide beam capable of stripping an Ironfang's flesh, while close-range reinforcement lets him trade high-impact blows once armored. The technique is costly enough to injure some vampires who use it; Edvard's Original healing normally compensates, but Lupus demonstrates a direct counter by condensing the aura and throwing it back. (Chapters 1302–1315)

Without the Red Dragon armor, Edvard is still stronger than Blackjack and can force Luzen to retreat, but he cannot match an Alpha of Lupus's level. Blood swipes are broken by Lupus's claw-shaped energy, direct strikes barely move him, and Edvard acknowledges that his tactical intelligence is his only temporary advantage. Armor raises his latest combat ceiling, but the battle never shows him defeating Lupus alone. (Chapters 1302–1325)

Compulsion

Lowering his sunglasses and establishing eye contact allows Edvard to issue a command that takes control of another person's body. During the hunter assessment, “sit” forces candidates toward the floor even when they consciously resist. Qi concentrated in the legs lets Blake and Innu oppose the command, showing that strong internal energy and will can counter it. The corpus does not define its maximum duration or demonstrate Edvard using it successfully against an elite supernatural opponent. (Chapters 651–653)

Luck and the Red Dragon armor

Edvard identifies luck as his unique Original ability. It is strongest when conserved and diminishes while he relies on it. His compatibility with the Red Dragon armor is presented as the major expression of that luck: the pieces respond to his thoughts, open and wrap around him without manual fastening, and remain inert when Gary tries the same process. Edvard has not deliberately blood-bound the suit, and the exact reason it chooses him remains unresolved. (Chapters 1306 and 1325–1327)

The armor amplifies Edvard's strength, speed, durability, aura output, and healing support enough for him to contest Lupus. It also prevents werewolf claws from imposing their usual lasting anti-vampire wounds. Edvard can draw more energy for a catastrophic strike, but doing so shreds the flesh beneath the suit, and every second of dependence drains his luck toward the point where the armor will stop responding. Freezing effects can immobilize the armored body, Lupus can survive its output through regeneration, and the armor cannot erase accumulated internal damage. (Chapters 1306–1325)

Edvard recounts a legend that the armor was reforged from ancient beast materials and once belonged to a vanished hero. Later discussion connects the era's unique supernatural powers to dragon crystals, but the corpus does not independently verify every part of that history or identify the armor's exact beast. Its observed mechanics—exclusive response, amplification, anti-werewolf protection, and destructive backlash—are firmer than its narrated origin. (Chapters 357–358 and 1325–1327)

Altered Hunter leadership

Edvard has genuine combat, logistical, and training expertise beneath his cover. He evaluates talent, understands Qi and beast equipment, organizes distributed campaigns, and knows when pursuing a retreating enemy would cost more than it gains. His principal leadership failure is structural rather than tactical: the Ruin City operation separates human teams against opponents whose true nature and power they do not understand, producing casualties that persuade him the proxy organization cannot ethically continue. (Chapters 357–358, 648–666, 902, and 1299–1333)

Power progression

Relationships

• Blackjack: Edvard's trusted vampire subordinate and eventual successor as contact with the Howlers. He rescues Blackjack from Luzen, treats his wounds, and entrusts him with preserving the cooperation policy during Edvard's slumber. (Chapters 1299–1333 and 1759–1843)
• Gary Dem: Their alliance begins as a Settlement operation but becomes personal when Gary helps Edvard survive Lupus. Edvard rewards him with truth, advocacy, and advice, while accepting that Gary remains legitimately suspicious of vampire motives. (Chapters 1219–1333 and 1737)
• Blake and Innu: Edvard recognizes both as unusually promising hunters and accelerates their development. His later confession forces them to confront the fact that their organization served a hidden vampire strategy, but he also gives the survivors freedom rather than demanding continued obedience. (Chapters 648–666, 902–928, and 1332–1333)
• Lupus: Lupus is both Edvard's strongest observed opponent and the confrontation that ends his active life. Their battle exposes the inadequacy of the Settlement's human proxy campaign and leaves Edvard dependent on armor and eventual slumber. (Chapters 1303–1333)

Items

Edvard has no finalized configured inventory item. The Red Dragon armor is central to his last battle and slumber, but it is not assigned to him in the finalized inventory manifest.