Chapter 720: The Death Elizabeth Saw
"It’s fading! The mark... It’s starting to disappear!"
Claudia’s voice echoed through the destroyed pier, and for a moment, nobody moved.
Even Nagisa stopped her usual sarcastic smile.
Though he had been their enemy a few moments ago, nothing could change the fact that Vladimir was important to each of them. If not for that oath, or their own negligence when he was suffering his greatest crisis... none of this might’ve happened.
Ivan’s claws remained beside Vladimir’s throat, but his eyes lowered to the exposed sigil carved across his old friend’s chest.
’Is it that simple?’
The red lines that had burned like molten wire beneath Vlad’s pale skin were dimming, one stroke at a time, sinking back into his flesh as if the oath itself had finally lost its grip.
To end things here was what Ivan wanted.
"Ugh..."
Vladimir stared down at his chest.
His expression didn’t change much at first, but then... after a moment of disbelief, his lips trembled, and he collapsed in exhaustion, spreading his arms out.
"Heh..."
Blood dripped from his mouth as he laughed.
"So that was enough."
Ivan slowly lowered his arms and watched his old friend in a horrid state.
"To think I just needed to get beaten up a little..." Vlad chuckled, rubbing his face in the icy cold water flooding the pier. Vladimir wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then winced as the movement tugged at his ribs.
"You really didn’t know?"
"Well... suspected something like that. But if I relied on my own belief, what if those bastards placed a nasty trick on the oath... so I had to face you seriously. If I guessed wrong, my heart would have been crushed inside my chest."
"What gave you the will to go so far?" Ivan asked.
"Don’t you also understand me?"
Vlad stared into the eyes of his oldest friend, their friendship having started with a fight, arrogance, and a touch of racism. "Leonid and the girls... thanks to your son, our family has become so large... and made that gloomy castle so bright."
’By girls, he must mean Nikita’s pups... wow...’
Ivan couldn’t believe it, the man who once claimed to be allergic to werewolves now openly bragged about his step-grandchildren... There was no blood, but seeing Vlad so openly admit they were also part of his family brought Ivan a warmth he rarely felt.
’This damn bastard... should I hit him again?’
Dimitri’s huge werewolf frame loomed nearby, still glowing with that violent golden hue as it slowly dimmed and her returned to normal.
"I see... we beat the oath out of him, then... that’s enough for me. He didn’t actually hurt Nikita, Kurone or Nagisa... let alone my cute little granddaughters."
Ivan glanced between the two men.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing... the ruthless Dimitri forgiving Vlad?!
’Have we all become idiots after growing old and becoming grandfathers?’
Nagisa crossed her arms.
"That sounds about right."
Selina rushed to Vladimir’s side and dropped to her knees, bridal gown soaking instantly against the wet pier. Her hands fluttered around his chest, his jaw, his abdomen, not knowing where to touch first.
"Vlad! Are you hurt? Can you breathe? Does it still burn?"
Vladimir looked at her.
His face softened as he took her into his arms, ignoring the pain. He kissed her cheek and kept her close as Claudia soon followed.
Then his brow twitched as he remembered something.
"Do not speak of Selene’s chest again; her biggest asset is her beautiful, lean body!"
Selina froze, her face pale when Nagisa or Elizabeth mocked her, but the moment Vlad spoke, her cheeks bloomed red, and she melted in his arms.
"Oh~ Darling!"
Behind them, Nagisa snorted.
Elizabeth covered her mouth, shoulders trembling.
Claudia closed her eyes with a long, silent sigh.
Selina’s face flushed from her throat to her ears. "That is what you care about right now!?"
"Of course, you, Claudia... or girls, Leonid and the rest of our family are everything to me."
Dimitri’s golden aura flickered as he barked out a laugh. Nagisa leaned against his side, wiping blood from her lip while grinning like a fox who had just discovered a big secret she could use for blackmail.
"Your family is fun, Vlad."
"They are not for your entertainment."
"They absolutely are, because aren’t we all related through Nikolai now?"
"W-What nonsense are you talking about, Elizabeth!?" Vlad’s porcelain cheeks bloomed slightly red as the group began to bicker amongst themselves.
Meanwhile, Ivan turned away from them and looked toward the sea.
The eastern supply line still burned behind him. The warehouse had become a black furnace, flames chewing through steel and glass while the ruined ammunition lift leaned half-collapsed over the pier. Fuel spread across the harbour water in dark, burning patches that floated like broken lanterns.
Yet the floating island had not reacted properly.
’Something isn’t right...’
That bothered him.
"They’re slow," Ivan said. "We made so much noise, even fought against Vlad expanding our Auras through the air on purpose... and yet Alucard didn’t make a move? That cannot be... that old man is sneaky..."
"You’re right, he wouldn’t have given up this chance to strike." Elizabeth’s smile faded as she moved beside Ivan.
Vladimir forced himself to stand with Claudia’s help, one hand pressed against his ribs. His eyes followed Ivan’s gaze across the black water.
"The Nosferatu should have answered by now."
Ivan nodded.
"At least with artillery."
Selina’s expression changed at once.
"Unless Alucard’s goal wasn’t us or the pier in the first place..."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Dimitri shouted.
Suddenly, Elizabeth’s eyes flickered with a sudden image of the future, and her body convulsed as she leaned against Ivan’s chest.
"Eliza?!"
Ivan caught her before she hit the burning pier.
Her fingers dug into his coat, but her eyes no longer saw him. They widened until the red veins around her pupils spread like cracks through glass and burst... with blood leaking from her nose and parted lips.
"ELIZA! OI... ELIZABETH!"
...
Meanwhile, Nikolai stood in the command room, one hand pressed against the sea chart, listening to the officer explain the situation at the eastern pier. The rain struck the reinforced windows behind him, turning the glass into a wall of moving shadows.
A second later, the eastern wall exploded inward.
Stone, steel, and bodies flew across the courtyard as a black wave poured through the breach. Nosferatu soldiers in ceremonial armour advanced behind the smoke, their faces pale and cruel.
Elders. Grand Elders and dozens of monstrosities.
And in front of them walked Alucard.
He did not hurry.
His crimson coat moved gently around his legs as if the battlefield existed only to welcome him.
"Defensive line!" Selene shouted.
Nikita was already moving, white ears flattened, claws drawn, golden eyes bright with rage.
Then the clones came.
At first, Nikolai thought Rika had somehow appeared throughout the courtyard. Her familiar black hair, feline traits... the two tails flickering freely as her emerald eyes glared at him, all fifty pairs of them...
Each one carried her face, her speed, her predatory grace.
"Shit!" Nikolai growled.
The first wave reached the soldiers, and the clones cut through them like knives through cloth.
Men screamed as black-haired bodies flashed between rifles, tearing throats open, climbing walls, dropping from ceilings, and slipping through the chaos with the same nimble brutality Rika used when she stopped holding back. One clone laughed with Rika’s voice while splitting a guard from shoulder to hip.
Nikolai rushed forward.
A massive fist struck him from the side before he reached the courtyard.
He crashed through the command table, maps and markers scattering around him.
A hulking figure stood in the broken doorway.
"F-Father-in-law!?"
It was Dimitri... or a clone of him.
Yet the golden fur and immense physical aura were undeniably his power, without a hint of falsity.
Nikolai rose with a snarl, only for purple flame to carve across his back.
Another figure stepped from the smoke.
Vladimir Tepes.
’They can use their blood arts! I have to escape... we cannot win... Selene... Nikita!"
When he turned to rush to their sides, another figure dropped from above, landing on the concrete with a thud, shattering the surface with deep cracks.
He stood with short silver hair and long, steel-like claws.
"....D-Dad?"
Nikolai’s breath caught for half a second.
That half second cost him.
The Ivan clone drove its claws into his ribs and threw him across the room. Nikolai twisted midair, slammed into the wall, and dropped low on all fours as black fur erupted across his arms.
"Fine."
His voice deepened.
"I’ll kill every fake here."
Meanwhile, outside, Selene fought her mother.
The bridal gown was stained black at the hem, her red eyes hollow, her hand moving with that same delayed impact that made every dodge feel strange and out of sync.
Selene’s blood arts tore through the air in crimson arcs, but the fake Selina walked through them with cold precision.
Able to dodge them as if reading a book.
"Mother," Selene whispered.
The clone smiled.
Then touched her chest with two fingers.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Selene’s eyes widened as she violently vomited blood.
The delayed impact of her mother’s Blood Arts rendered her ribs shattered inward in an instant.
"Selene?"
Nikolai’s hulking body froze, bloody and worn by the three adult clones, all role models of his... yet why was this happening?
His head snapped toward the courtyard as Selene staggered back, blood pouring from her mouth. The fake Selina caught her by the throat, lifted her gently, almost lovingly, and crushed her windpipe with a soft twist.
Selene’s body went limp, and something inside Nikolai crumbled as a thick, murky corruption seeped deeper into his heart.
"SELENE!"
Nikita screamed next.
He turned as fast as he could to see Nikita dodging her mother’s illusional flames and claws... trying to rip the clone apart in a rage.
"How dare you hurt Selene! Come out, bitch!"
"NIKITA!"
However, the moment he called her name, her focus broke, and she glanced over at him... then smiled, "Ah... you’re okay..." Then the real clone appeared behind her, and a hand plunged through Nikita’s back and out through her chest.
Nikita froze.
Her golden eyes looked down at the bloody fingers protruding beneath her ribs.
The fake Nagisa leaned close and whispered something Nikolai could not hear.
Then she tore sideways.
Nikita’s body collapsed in two pieces across the rain-wet stone.
Nikolai stopped breathing.
For one empty moment, the battle vanished, everything stopped... nothing mattered anymore... they were gone... even though he knew he could revive them like his mother... somehow... this felt "final", as if he couldn’t stop it.
The elders laughed.
The three false patriarchs surrounded him.
Then the Evil God’s blood answered his desires...
’I want to kill them, to kill all of them... and destroy their souls...’
Yet unlike in the past, when explosive power filled his muscles, and he grew stronger... a strange, eerie rot seeped from within.
Nikolai’s werewolf form twisted violently, bones snapping louder than gunfire. Black fur thickened into jagged armour. His spine bent, then stretched. Horn-like ridges split through his skull. His jaw widened until his teeth no longer fit properly. His three hearts pounded out of rhythm, each one screaming with a different rage.
He no longer looked like a werewolf.
He became a monster wearing grief as flesh.
The Dimitri clone charged.
Nikolai tore its head off.
The Vlad clone raised a purple flame.
Nikolai bit through its arm and ripped the shoulder free.
The Ivan clone struck from behind.
Nikolai caught its face and smashed it into the floor again and again until the skull became paste beneath his palm.
The outpost shook from his roar.
In a matter of moments, he managed to destroy half the clones and attacking forces, yet with each successive attack, his body became more deformed, more broken... his right arm hung without power as the shoulder dislocated from the flesh.
Then, as if waiting for this moment, as he killed the clone of his father, Alucard finally smiled and began to move.
Everything slowed until the world became a painting. Bullets hung in the air. Blood droplets floated above shattered stone, and Nikolai’s hulking form loomed over the Nosferatu forces like certain death.
His boots passed between suspended sparks and shards of frozen glass.
His expression held no hatred or joy.
He stopped before Nikolai.
The monstrous Nikolai tried to move.
His body refused.
Alucard raised one pale hand.
"My apologies, young patriarch... If I had been more tactful, this might never have happened."
His arm pierced Nikolai’s chest with ease as his flesh split and bones cracked. Alucard’s fingers closed around the werewolf’s three hearts and tore them free.
Nikolai’s eyes widened as the black corruption drained from his body, leaving nothing.
All his rage became impotent as he collapsed to his knees, barely able to breathe as he panted desperately with blood pouring from his chest, lips and nose.
Alucard held the three hearts in front of his face and opened his mouth.
Nikolai fell to his knees.
Then face-first into the stone, flooded with his own blood.
And the last thing he saw was Selene’s pale hand lying motionless beside Nikita.
