Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride

Chapter 665: Caught in a Web

Not long after Tanya left with most of the Thralls to speak with the royal guard, Yun’fa returned with a limp and one of her arms wrapped in a bloody bandage. Nikolai remained sitting against the building wall with Lunaria’s head resting on his lap, and Sara hugging his arm in a deep sleep.

Yun’fa smiled. "Nikolai, it’s good to see you alive!"

"A-Ah..." Nikolai hesitated with his response, uncomfortable with Yun’fa being so friendly.

"What’s wrong?" She tilted her head, scanning his face. A moment later, she grimaced and rotated her wounded shoulder in slow circles.

"Nothing, just rare to see you smile. It’s quite beautiful."

Her skin’s colour deepened as she pointed at him with a sharp retort. "Hey! Don’t try to seduce me too... my body cannot take that thing." When she mentioned his manhood, her eyes darted from side to side, avoiding his gaze.

"Stop being strange, besides... you’re not my type."

"W-What?! Why not!?

"Hah? You told me not to flirt with you, so why complain?! Unreasonable woman!"

Nikolai curled his lips and purposely dragged his eyes over her figure. He couldn’t say he felt nothing while oogling her. His blood pumped faster when it came to her subple, muscular abs that curved like a professional athlete.

"What’s with that look, huh?"

He shook his head and poked her nose, squashing it flat. "Shush, I’m too tired. You’re just fine as you are."

"Awawawa..."

The two played around for a short while until the distant group of Tanya and the royal guard started approaching.

"It seems they’re done." He shook Lunaria’s shoulders to wake her.

Her eyes snapped open as she snuck a glance at Yun’fa, then alternated between her and Nikolai before sighing to herself. Unable to change him, she hopped to her feet and asked a question. "Are we leaving for a better place now?"

"Wait, where would we go when the palace is in ruin?" Yun’fa butted in.

"Look, we’ll hitch a ride with the royal guard." Nikolai pointed to the group behind his Thralls.

Yun’fa narrowed her eyes and quickly glanced at the distant group with a faint purple glow in her eyes. When Nikolai saw her using Soul Force to examine them, he suddenly felt a drop in his stomach and snapped towards Tanya.

Ba-Dump!

Ba-Dump!

His heart began racing, somehow... something wasn’t right.

"No..." He mumbled.

"What’s wrong, babe? Do you need a hug?" At some point, it seemed even the exhausted Sarah woke up, now clinging to him with an intoxicated atmosphere. "Heh heh, I did so much today, you’re surely going to reward me, right?"

"Stop!" Yun’fa’s sharp tone made everyone freeze.

Nikolai glanced at her, his heart thumping the inside of his chest like a hammer.

"Nikolai... hurry and call those girls back, they’re in danger... those Djinn, they’re not from Al’Qutar or Balthazar! I’ve never seen those people before!"

"How do you know that?!" Sarah snapped back.

"I am an elite member of the Shadow Guard! Our main forte is NOT combat but intelligence gathering—and those men ARE dangerous Infidels who reject both Ishatar and Shamash!!"

Time seemed to move slowly as Nikolai saw the unaware Thralls; some waved or smiled at him as Tanya led them with a bright face.

His heart ached as if someone crushed it in their grasp.

Behind them, the false royal guard raised their weapons, simple rifles like those used in the past human wars on Nikolai’s world.

They cocked the old-fashioned rifles while aiming at the girls’ backs.

Nikolai rushed forward, his body transforming mid-air and... "Tan—BANG!" The gunshots drowned out his bellowing shout.

Tanya shook as her head flung back, before collapsing to the floor like a rag doll. Most of the other thralls also dropped.

"Ahhh... no.... not like this.... no way...."

’They saw me... I know it! They waited for me to realise... bastards!’

His mind turned white as he flew across the battlefield, his feet stomping the ground and leaving deep crevices from his immense strength.

Thud!

He lunged several metres at a time and drew his magnum, taking potshots at the warriors as he reached Tanya’s body.

Deng! Deng!

His Desert Eagle rang out, blowing apart the skulls of the filthy terrorists.

Despite feeling their link remaining to him, the explosive bloodlust and rage overflowed his brain, driving him into a frenzy. With one arm, he scooped Tanya into his arms, her small body barely coming to his chest in werewolf form.

The other thralls lay flat, silver shell casings rolling on the ground.

"Die... you must die, nosferatu... djinn.... anyone who follows... I must kill."

He covered most of Tanya’s body with his arm, dashing after the fleeing Royal Warriors who appeared to be confused and terrified of his current state.

Their old, shoddy rifles lanced him with special silver rounds, but Nikolai growled, tore them out with his claws and chased further.

’Drive them away.... keep my thralls safe!’

His mind returned to basic and almost instinctive tasks and thoughts as he emptied several magazines in five minutes.

The red rage soon faded. His heart palpitated wildly as he returned to human form, his clothes torn from the gunfire... and a delicate maiden in his arms.

"Haa....Haa.... Nggh....W-Wha...!?"

Nikolai gasped for air, clinging to his chest, where dozens of black veins writhed and wriggled beneath his flesh. His arms dropped without power, and he struggled to remain upright.

Tanya slid down his body and curled against his thighs as he knelt on the hot sand while leaning back.

The strange pain intensified into a throbbing ache spreading like cracks in broken glass, and he endured a sharp stabbing pain in his throat with each breath.

"Ngh... Luna..." He called his wife... struggling to reach out as the black lines spread from his chest to his shoulders... like an infection, they spread throughout his entire body in less than five minutes.

The same black veins appeared beneath Tanya’s shirt, peeking from her neckline and formed a strange mass above her heart.

"Nikolai, wait... Nikolai, are you for real?!" Lunaria’s shout sounded distant and playful at first, but he struggled to hear as everything sounded like he was underwater.

While clinging to Tanya, he reached out... calling both their names.

"Sarah.... Luna..."

Then flopped over, his body covering Tanya completely.

.

.

.

Nikolai suddenly collapsed.

Lunaria watched the scene, and her jaw dropped. "Is this some kind of strange joke...? Nikolai, he wouldn’t fall to trash like them..."

Sarah struggled to her feet, quickly taking off at a full sprint. "Does it matter?! He needs us right now, come on!" But she offered her hand to Lunaria, instead of rushing for brownie points and being the first to arrive.

"Mhm... Sorry, forgive me. I was too rash and...."

"I know, hurry."

The two rushed across the wasteland that was a city not too long before, and reached the bodies of the strange fake warriors and Thralls.

"They’re not dead... but what the hell are these black lines under their skin?" Lunaria reached out, but Sarah quickly shouted. "Don’t touch them!"

"Eh?"

When she turned around, she saw Sarah’s hand touching one of the Thrall’s cheeks...

"Oh my god, what is that?!" Lunaria gasped at the sight of Sarah’s hand rapidly turning darker as the black lines spread from the Thrall to her.

"...this pain... isn’t from a silver bullet... but it’s similar," Sarah muttered as she staggered to the floor, half-conscious. Then she glanced up at Luna with a pale face, with black lines spreading through her cheeks.

"Lunaria... this is bad... I think their target was Nikolai all along... this thing targets anything related to Nikolai... or his blood..." Sarah convulsed before dropping face-first into the dirt, unable to speak further.

"W-What should I do...?"

Luna asked the wind and gained no answer.

She stood silently, watching the Thralls suffer, releasing agonising cries as their skin became covered in the strange markings.

"I can’t help it..." She stroked her stomach and apologised. "Sorry..."

Lunaria rushed to Nikolai’s side, her eyes shaking as she glanced at the infected wound on his chest, constantly pulsing with a disgustingly foul black pus. The scent drove her senses mad, like sulphur and rotten fish left in a hot classroom.

"N-Nikolai!"

She took a knife and cut her wrist, letting the blood drip from the air onto his face.

Her wound instantly healed, which forced her to keep slashing her wrists... The first time it didn’t change much... but then his throat sounded. He swallowed her blood, and colour returned to his face.

"Eh... the strange lines are moving away from his face?"

Because she missed a lot, his face became covered in her blood, and where it fell, the black lines writhed, curled up and then faded.

"What the hell is this..."

"Kuha... Ueeeeeeeeeh!"

A vomiting sound came from behind, and when she turned to see who it was, she found Sarah vomiting a thick, black goo profusely.

However, the thralls continued suffering.

She shook her head, unable to understand it wasn’t her speciality... but something about her blood and Sarah’s body rejected the strange virus.

"Ugh... what happened...?"

After feeding him her blood for what felt like an eternity, Nikolai’s eyes fluttered open, though his chest remained covered in the writhing dark veins that no longer reached past his neck or the places she dripped her blood.

"Honey, we need to return home.

There’s something we have to speak to Sasha and Aunt Anastasia about..."

He looked up at her with glassy, dazed eyes and nodded.

"W-Whatever you say..."

He barely felt like Nikolai at all... as if the usual invincible aura was completely stripped and rooted from his body.