Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride

Chapter 796: A Lingering Doubt

Despite winning the fight, Nikolai remained still. He observed the subtle changes in his blood blades and the faint difference in his Obsidian Tide. ‘This is strange…’ Although he’d grown stronger and reached closer to the pinnacle of power.

There was just something about this that made him doubtful.

“Why is it that every time I face Doctor Franz… something about me changes, or goes through a sudden evolution?”

Nikolai wanted to put it down to natural improvements, yet when he remembered Al’Qutar, the fight on the docks against the clones of his wives.

It didn’t make sense.

But he couldn’t just sit here and keep questioning everything, the distant rumbling from battle shook the underground from here.

‘Well, I should keep moving. I can’t seem to contact the others through the terminal.”

He couldn’t help but worry about Ryan, Vernan, Alexei and his wives.

‘Did something happen?’

With no one here to give an answer, he shook his head, examining the destroyed laboratory around him before finding a small, damaged doorway.

“Let’s forget it for now and keep moving forward.”

He squeezed through the damaged doorway sideways. Behind him, the destroyed laboratory remained silent. Ahead, a narrow maintenance corridor stretched underground. Several exposed pipes trembled beneath the ceiling.

‘How much further does this place go?’

Nikolai followed the corridor towards another junction. His footsteps disturbed several abandoned medical documents. Most had become unreadable beneath dried blood. However, the surrounding equipment appeared relatively undamaged.

‘Strange… They abandoned everything in such a hurry.’

A faint electronic humming caught his attention. Nikolai turned towards a nearby security station. Its monitors displayed several disconnected surveillance cameras. One screen still showed the destroyed laboratory.

“…Huh?”

He approached the desk with growing curiosity. Several recordings displayed his earlier confrontation with the clone. Even the moment he devoured its blood remained visible, it was like a massive video collection of Nikolai… from the moment he fought Sebastian a few days after he awakened.

‘So that bastard was watching everything?’

“Creepy fuck…”

Nikolai examined the surrounding equipment more carefully. A small communication terminal remained connected underneath. Its display showed several active transmission channels. Yet, every outgoing connection appeared completely blocked.

“Is this what’s interfering with our communications?”

He pressed several buttons without much success. Eventually, his patience disappeared completely, and he grabbed the exposed communication cables.

CRACK!

The damaged equipment immediately began sparking violently.

“Fucking useless piece of junk…”

Suddenly, his personal terminal released an unexpected sound.

BEEP!

Nikolai immediately raised his wrist towards himself.

“Ryan? Alexei? Can anyone hear me?”

Only an unpleasant crackling answered his call. Nevertheless, something briefly emerged beneath the interference.

“…Nikolai…?”

His expression immediately changed upon hearing that voice.

“Selene?! Where the hell are you?!”

Unfortunately, the connection disappeared almost immediately.

“…Shit!”

Nikolai examined the terminal with growing frustration. At least someone had managed to respond. However, he couldn’t establish their exact location.

‘Was that really Selene, though?’

He remembered the women accompanying Doctor Franz. Their appearances had been almost completely identical. Even their expressions carried disturbing similarities sometimes.

‘No… I can’t assume anything right now.’

Nikolai lowered his wrist and continued searching. Several cabinets contained numerous laboratory records. Most involved the earlier experiments he’d encountered. However, one particular document caught his attention.

[SUBJECT: NIKOLAI VOLKOV]

“…What?”

His expression immediately became considerably more serious.

The document contained several photographs of himself. Some appeared to originate from earlier battles. Others showed his transformations from different angles. Beneath them were several detailed medical observations.

These documents went so far as to detail the number of times he slept with each wife… the average duration and amount of semen and sperm released.

‘How and when the fuck did they record these?’

It was impossible for him to have gained this information easily.

Nikolai slowly scrolled through the available records.

There were references to his bloodline’s development. Several entries described unusual reactions following combat. Others contained measurements he couldn’t properly understand.

However, certain locations were immediately recognisable.

‘Al’Qutar… the Arena… fighting against those bastards in the west…’

He continued reading the remaining entries.

‘The docks… even that fight against Ivan’s clone?’

Nikolai felt something unpleasant tightening inside him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand these documents, and from the first glance he’d understood that something or someone had been watching, planning and guiding him through his current evolution.

‘If so, was it Alucard… or Franz?’

And to what purpose did that do this…?

Nikolai slowly narrowed his eyes at the various entries and terms, pages about his hybrid bloodlines, ability to share powers with his wives through sexual or membranous connection…

‘So that’s how the clones were made?!’

He couldn’t understand how, but Franz had managed to secure Nikolai’s saliva… blood and other fluids, which was what helped him start the clone project.

‘What exactly were you expecting, Franz?’

He remembered how his strength had increased.

Every difficult battle seemed to produce improvements. Even the recent confrontation had strengthened him considerably. Of course, fighting powerful enemies encouraged natural development. His bloodlines had always responded to danger.

Yet the repeated involvement of Franz bothered him.

‘Did he deliberately arrange those encounters?’

Nikolai shook his head after considering it.

‘No… That doesn’t explain everything either.’

He’d grown stronger long before meeting Franz. His development wasn’t dependent upon that bastard. Still, something about these experiments seemed suspicious. And the clone presented another troubling question.

‘How did he reproduce my Obsidian blood?’

Nikolai understood ordinary cloning methods only vaguely.

However, his bloodline wasn’t something easily replicated, and yet Franz had manufactured an almost perfect imitation of his blood.

Furthermore, its artificial blood had strengthened him.

‘Was that simply a fortunate coincidence?’

Then he remembered one event, something that happened far before he came along. There was someone else with the Obsidian Tide. Her purity might be a fraction of his, but if they used that as a starting point…

‘Was this why those bastards captured my aunt?!’

He desperately wanted to dismiss these suspicions. Unfortunately, the scientist’s previous actions made that difficult. Franz had always possessed frightening amounts of information.

And somehow, he frequently seemed prepared beforehand.

“Just what the fuck are you planning?”

The unanswered question continued to bother him.

Suddenly, several nearby monitors activated simultaneously.

BEEP! BEEP!

Nikolai immediately turned towards the unexpected noise.

One display revealed another enormous laboratory chamber. Several reinforced containers stood alongside an operating platform. Unlike the abandoned rooms, numerous machines remained active.

Nevertheless, the figures moving between them mattered far more.

“…Those bastards!”

Several familiar women appeared upon the screen.

Nikita, Selene, Kumiko, Amphitrite, Anya, Lunaria and Rika stood together. Some of his wives didn’t appear, which made Nikolai curious about whether they’d lost the ability to capture the DNA or required samples for the other women.

‘Or they just don’t see Clara, Sarah and Leona as worth the trouble…’

The women followed a narrow passage together. Shortly afterwards, their figures disappeared behind reinforced doors.

Doctor Franz was nowhere in sight.

Nikolai examined the screen’s remaining information carefully. A small indicator confirmed the recording remained live. Another displayed the chamber’s location inside the facility.

‘Sublevel Three…’

It was one floor below him.

He watched their movements and tried to memorize the maps while taking pictures with his smartphone, just in case he forgot.

That’s when he felt a sudden ripple in the shadows beneath him.

“Eh?”

There was a moment of silence before he shook his head and sighed, glancing down at his shadow before squatting and gently reaching out, then tapping it.

“Come out, Sarah, I know you’re in there…”

The shadow beneath his fingers rippled again before a slender hand emerged through the darkness. Sarah followed, wearing an unmistakably irritated expression. Rather than greeting him, she folded her arms.

“So, you finally remembered that I exist?”

Nikolai scratched his cheek, smiling rather awkwardly.

“Sarah, what are you doing here? I thought you were somewhere safe.”

“Didn’t you promise me something recently, Nikolai?” Her expression softened, although her irritation remained. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me behind anymore. Yet here you are, doing exactly that.”

Nikolai sighed before reaching towards her cheek.

“Sarah, you’re pregnant with our child.” His expression became considerably more serious. “This place is dangerous, even for me. What happens if something hurts you both?”

Sarah lowered her gaze towards her stomach.

Her hands gently rested against it, stroking softly, but she didn’t seem willing to retreat.

“Do you think I’ve forgotten that?” She looked directly into his eyes. “I’m carrying our child, Nikolai, but what if you die here?! What happens when they come to kill us, pregnant or not? I cannot just sit back and wait…”

Nikolai couldn’t immediately argue against her reasoning.

Nevertheless, the destroyed laboratory remained behind, and he’d nearly died fighting that monster. It made it difficult to just accept her request, but then he realised there wasn’t any way back now, the docks were damaged and the entrance ruined.

‘Shit…’

“Then promise me you won’t fight unnecessarily.”

Sarah studied his expression for several moments. Eventually, she nodded and approached him, gently wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Fine, but stop deciding everything without me. I want to remain beside you, Nikolai.”

He embraced her carefully, kissing her forehead.

“I’ll try, Sarah. Just protect yourself and our child first. Don’t try to save or help me…”

Before she could answer, another distant explosion shook the underground facility. Nikolai immediately glanced towards the surveillance monitors.

“Come on, we need to find everyone.”

Sarah nodded, her aura spreading beneath them as she vanished from sight, returning back to Nikolai’s shadow.

‘I just can’t win against my wives…’

Nikolai only accepted because he could sense the dense barrier of Amphitrite, his mother and Lunaria, protecting the child in Sarah’s womb.

Thanks to them, he could keep his promise.