My Stepmom Is A Vampire & Her Entire Bloodline Wants To Breed Me

Chapter 199: Inside The Darkness & Desperation

"What?" Diane knew what he meant, but the way he said it...

She hated it. She was indeed jealous of Maria, but saying her as useless?

"She is weak and fragile. One hundred percent useless in combat." His eyes flickered back to the screen, lingering on Maria’s cocoon.

"Though I must admit, her eyes are fascinating. They might evolve into something... useful."

Diane’s jaw clenched. "Mock her again and I will rip you apart. She isn’t weak, the fact that she didn’t even hesitate of coming here—"

He cut her off, "Brave? What is the use of it when you can’t do a thing? What an admirable sentiment," Mark replied casually, before his gaze sharpened as it returned to Diane.

"But perhaps you should be more concerned about yourself. Have you ever wondered why you cannot evolve, even after consuming Crimson Nectar?"

The words hit her harder than any blow.

Diane froze. She had wondered countless times already. Even when she trained until she couldn’t stand anymore, even when Seamus kept giving her his blood... nothing changed.

Mark watched her reaction with open interest. "Mutation Bloodstyle is indeed unlike the others. The gap between the first and second evolution is negligible, almost deceptive. But the third evolution," he continued, voice lowering, "that is where your true form will emerge. A complete divergence."

Her fingers trembled despite her effort to stay steady.

"Doesn’t that make you curious?" he pressed.

She forced herself to glare back at him. "And what does that have to do with you?"

"I am a scientist," Mark answered simply. "A doctor of evolution. I study paths, outcomes, and failures."

He gestured toward a door that slid open silently beside them. "Help me understand your evolution, and I may help you save your friend."

Diane’s heart pounded. Everything about this was wrong. He was her enemy. The architect of this nightmare. The one who probably controls the Red Zone itself.

She considered killing him where he stood.

Before she could act, Mark’s expression hardened, his voice turning cold. "You cannot defeat me, your scythe won’t ever be able to touch me."

He snapped his fingers. All the smaller monitors merged into a single massive screen, displaying Maria’s cocoon in horrifying clarity.

The webbing around Maria’s head peeled away, allowing her to gasp for air as panic took over. Her eyes darted wildly, tears forming as she struggled helplessly.

"Go through that door," Mark said calmly, "if you want her to live."

Diane bit down hard on her lip, drawing blood.

Every instinct screamed at her to attack him, to burn this place down, but hesitation would not save Maria. Rage alone would not win here.

Slowly, Diane lowered her weapon and stepped toward the open door.

She knew another nightmare waited on the other side.

And she walked into it anyway.

***

Dylan had always been afraid of spiders.

Not the ordinary kind that hid in corners or crawled across ceilings, but the kind that lived inside his memories.

They dragged him back to the dream world Seamus had once forced him into, where his friends ate the meat of each other, where fear had teeth and shape.

In that nightmare, his mother wore the body of a spider woman, towering and monstrous, and no matter how many months passed, the image still clung to him like rot.

So now his body refused to move.

Dozens of spiders, each as large as his leg, surrounded him. They clung to the walls, the floor, the ceiling, their eyes fixed on him with hunger.

He could feel their intent pressing against his chest, heavy and suffocating, as if the air itself had turned hostile.

He had already fought scavengers in this pit. He had won. He had bled. He had screamed and begged and pushed his body past the point where it should have given up.

When his mind finally began to fracture, when exhaustion hollowed him out, the fight had ended.

And another door had appeared. Now he understood that this place was not mercy. It was just another layer of hell.

"What the fuck... what the fuck," Dylan muttered, his voice breaking.

His whole body trembled. Fear, rage, shame, all of it collided inside him until he felt like he might split apart.

Then something moved within the darkness ahead, something vast enough to swallow the shadows around it. Each step it took felt heavier than the last, until the shape became clear.

"Dylan," it said softly. "Dylan, why did you leave me in this hell? Why don’t you come visit me anymore?"

His heart slammed violently against his ribs.

It was his mother.

Or rather, her head, mounted grotesquely on the body of a colossal spider. Her mouth stretched unnaturally wide, fangs longer than her jaw dripping with dark ichor. The sight robbed him of breath.

He staggered back, shaking his head violently. "No," he whispered. "This is a dream. A hallucination. Psyche Bloodstyle. It has to be."

The monster drew closer, its presence suffocating. "Dylan," it crooned. "Why won’t you answer me? After everything I did for you. You left me in that psyche ward!"

Her mouth opened, and black webbing shot toward him like living tar. Dylan dodged on instinct, the web slamming into the wall behind him. The surface hissed and melted as if it were flesh instead of stone.

"Shit!"

He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe, slow and steady. He had done this before.

He had survived her once, when he ran, when he told the police everything and burned his old life to the ground. This thing in front of him was fear given form, nothing more.

When he opened his eyes, he moved.

Blood slicked into his grip as his dagger extended, lengthening into a blade like a sword. It was the sword given to him by Andrew, a special one that could strengthen based on how much blood it fed.

He sprinted forward, slashing through spiders as they lunged at him. Bodies split, ichor splashed, and still more poured out of the shadows.

The giant monster answered, releasing a thick mist that rolled across the ground like poison fog.

Dylan reacted instantly, covering his mouth and nose with his arm, refusing to breathe it in as his muscles screamed in protest.

"DYLAN," the creature shrieked. "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME? YOUR OWN MOTHER?"

"Shut up!" he roared. "You are not real!"

He leapt high, higher than should have been possible, lifting the blade above his head and angling it downward. Gravity dragged him straight toward her skull. He screamed as he drove the weapon down.

The impact rang like thunder. The blade snapped in half. Pain exploded through his chest as the monster laughed and slammed him into the wall with a massive limb.

His vision blurred. Blood flooded his mouth. He collapsed to the ground, choking as his body refused to obey him.

"You will never defeat me," the creature hissed. "You exist to obey, to endure, and kneel in front of me! Your mother!"

Dylan lay there, shaking, barely conscious.

Then he felt it, the way the sword weighed in his hand. He blinked slowly and looked down. To his surprise the sword was intact with no cracks. fractures, and not even a scratch.

His breath hitched. "What... what does this mean?" he whispered.

The monster’s laughter faltered, just for a moment, and in that silence Dylan finally understood.

Mark’s words echoed clearly in his mind: The only thing that can save you now is courage, and a mind free from fear and hatred.

This place was not built from flesh or stone. It was shaped by fear, memory, and loathing, stitched together from everything he had tried to forget.

The blade had never truly broken. It had shattered because he believed it would, because a part of him still accepted the role of the frightened child who couldn’t fight back.

Dylan laughed bitterly. "Even now," he said slowly, "I still believed you were something I needed to fear."

He forced himself upright, pain tearing through his chest as if his lungs were on fire. Every breath burned, thick with poison and despair, and his vision wavered as weakness threatened to drag him back down.

Still, he leaned on his sword and stood, refusing to fall again.

"You keep showing up in my dreams," he continued,"You haunt me with memories I buried so deep I thought they were gone. Trauma doesn’t heal just because time passes, does it?"

His grip tightened. "But this time, I’m done running."

The monster let out a shrill laugh that echoed endlessly, rattling the walls of the nightmare.

"You ungrateful brat," it screeched. "You’re just like your father. You hated me, betrayed me, and now you want to erase me too?"

Its fangs clicked together, the sound sharp and furious.

"Then I’ll kill you first."

Dylan raised his sword fully, meeting its gaze without flinching. Fear still existed, but it no longer owned him, and for the first time, the darkness in front of him felt certain.