Chapter 27: Chapter 27: The Bite
The clearing was quiet.
Dean sat with his back against a tree, wrapping his ruined knuckles in strips of torn cloth. Clara lay beside Lucian, eyes closed, mana slowly replenishing. Ryan watched over Rose, who still hadn’t woken from her bloodline overexertion.
Lucian stared at the new notification floating in his vision.
╔══════════════════════╗
║ ⚠ BLOODLINE MILESTONE ⚠ ║
║ Bloodline seal has dropped below 90%. ║
║ New function unlocked: ║
║ ◀ VAMPIRIC CONVERSION ▶ ║
║ Convert a human into a vampire by feeding them your blood while they are near death or fully drained. ║
║ SLOTS: 0/3 ║
║ Note: Slots increase with bloodline progression. ║
╚═══════════════════════╝
Turn others into vampires. Three slots.
He closed his eyes and let his head rest against the frozen ground. The Eternal Regeneration was working — his BE had climbed back to sixty a few blood bags — but his body still ached from the fight with Victor.
Rest. Just for a few min—
Then—
Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle.
Hundreds of feet. Moving in unison. Coming from every direction.
Lucian’s eyes snapped open.
"UP! EVERYONE UP—"
They poured into the clearing like a flood.
The zombies that had surrounded the forest — the mindless drones left leaderless after Victor’s death — had regained something. Not intelligence. Not coordination. Just instinct. A primal drive that had drawn them toward the only living things in the forest.
Lucian hadn’t noticed because he’d let his Blood Sense drop. Stupid. Careless.
"RYAN! DEAN! MOVE!"
They fought. Weakened, exhausted, low on mana — they fought.
Dean slammed his fist into a zombie’s skull, density already increasing, but his movements were sluggish. Clara threw ice lances with less precision than before, her mana reserves nearly empty. Lucian cut through bodies with the Sword of Aikis, but each swing cost him more than it should have.
Ryan grabbed Rose — still unconscious — and pulled her backward, ice lances forming weakly around him to keep the nearest zombies at bay.
A zombie lunged at Dean from his blind side.
"AAHHHHHHNNAHHHN—"
Teeth sank into his shoulder, tearing through flesh and muscle. Dean roared and grabbed the zombie’s head, crushing it with increased density, but the damage was done.
"DEAN!" Clara screamed.
She turned— and a zombie lunged at her. Its jaws closed on her shoulder, biting deep, and Clara screamed.
"AAAAAHHHH—"
Dean’s response was immediate. His hand came down on his own shoulder — directly above the bite wound — and squeezed. Density manipulation compressed the flesh, the muscle, the bone, and with a sickening crunch, his left arm separated from his body at the shoulder.
Blood sprayed. Dean staggered but stayed standing, his face white, his jaw locked against the pain.
"Cut it clean," he gasped. "The virus was spreading. I had to—"
Another zombie hit Lucian from behind. Teeth found his forearm, biting deep. Lucian spun and decapitated it, but the wound was already throbbing.
And Rose — unconscious, defenseless — had been bitten on her calf by a zombie that had slipped past Ryan’s guard.
Ryan was overwhelmed. Ice lances shattered around him as zombie after zombie pressed forward, and he was running out of mana fast.
Clara dropped to her knees. Her hand shot to her bitten shoulder, ice spreading across the wound — freezing the flesh, trying to halt the virus’s progress. But the infection was fast, spreading through her bloodstream with terrifying speed, bypassing the ice like it wasn’t there.
Her eyes rolled back. She collapsed.
Lucian’s attention snapped to Rose. The unconscious girl’s body was glowing. Her Bastion bloodline was active, fighting something inside her.
The virus.
Lucian looked at his own forearm. The bite wound was... healing. Not just healing — the skin was knitting back together faster than normal regeneration should allow. The virus was entering his bloodstream and being destroyed almost instantly.
Why am I—
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Gunfire.
Zombies dropped around them — one, two, five, ten — each one taking a bullet to the head with surgical precision. A group of armed figures emerged from the treeline, military uniforms, mana-powered rifles, moving in coordinated formation.
Twenty soldiers. Mid Neophyte to Early Core Realm.
"Clear the area! Move, move, move!"
The soldiers flooded the clearing, putting down zombies with brutal efficiency. In under a minute, the immediate threat was eliminated.
Their leader — a stern woman with short-cropped hair and captain’s insignia — approached the group. Her eyes swept over Dean’s missing arm, Clara’s unconscious form, the blood, the carnage.
"Identify yourselves."
Dean, pale and swaying, reached into his pocket with his remaining hand and pulled out a Hunter Guild ID. The captain examined it, nodded, and barked orders.
"Medic! Stabilize the amputation! Reduce blood loss — now!"
Two soldiers rushed to Dean, applying pressure bandages and a mana-infused clotting agent to the stump. His face was grey, but the bleeding slowed.
"His arm," the medic said. "We can’t restore it. That would require an A-rank or S-rank healing ability. Someone like the Saint of the Church."
"Just keep him alive," the captain said.
Then she turned.
And saw Clara and Rose.
Both bitten showing early signs of infection — grey discoloration spreading from the wound sites, skin paling, veins darkening.
"Captain—" Dean started.
The soldiers raised their guns.
"Captain, don’t—"
"I’m sorry," one of the soldiers said, his voice tight but firm. "They’re turning into zombies already. You know the protocol."
"No." Dean tried to stand. A medic pushed him back down. "No, you can’t—"
Lucian moved.
He stepped between the guns and the two unconscious girls, his body blocking their line of sight.
"Move," the captain ordered.
"No."
"Soldier, I will not ask again—"
"Light Shield."
A dome of white light exploded outward from Lucian’s body, enveloping Clara and Rose in a protective shell. The bullets that followed bounced off harmlessly.
Lucian scooped Clara over his shoulder.
"Ryan! Rose! NOW!"
Ryan grabbed Rose and ran.
Lucian ran after him, Light Shield holding against the hail of bullets behind them. The soldiers cursed, reloaded, fired again — but the shield held, and the two figures disappeared into the forest.
The captain raised her hand. "Let them go."
"Captain?!" A soldier stared at her. "They were infected—"
"They’re kids." She lowered her arm. "And they’re already dead. The virus will take them within hours. We have bigger problems."
Dean grabbed the captain’s collar with his remaining hand, blood soaking through his bandages.
"How can you attack kids?!"
The captain looked at him with calm, empty eyes.
"Do you know there is no cure for this virus? Every zombie we eliminate is another step away from this disaster. Over ten million people — maybe more — have been lost across the world. And the numbers keep climbing." She removed his hand from her collar. "We don’t have the luxury of sentiment, Mr. Moreau."
Dean stared at her.
Then he looked at the forest where Lucian and Ryan had disappeared.
God help them.
Meanwhile, Lucian and Ryan were in an abandoned building.
Clara and Rose lay on makeshift beds — old mattresses pulled from a back room, blankets layered over their shivering bodies. Both were sweating profusely, their skin grey, dark veins spreading from their bite wounds like spider webs.
Ryan paced the room, his hands in his hair.
"What the fuck. What the fuck. What do we do? We don’t even know much about this virus. They only have maybe a few hours left before they turn — maybe less. Clara’s already—" His voice cracked. "The grey is spreading so fast—"
"Ryan." Lucian’s voice was calm. "Panicking doesn’t help."
"Don’t tell me to calm down! That’s my sister—"
"I know."
They stood in silence. The only sounds were Clara and Rose’s labored breathing and the distant groans of mindless zombies outside.
Meanwhile , Rose swayed in the doorway like a sailor on a storm-tossed ship, her eyes half-open, her red hair plastered to her sweaty forehead. The grey discoloration was still visible on her calf, but it had stopped spreading. Her skin was pale.
She took two steps forward and collapsed against Lucian’s back, her chin resting on his shoulder.
"Where are we now?" she mumbled.
Ryan and Lucian froze.
"She’s..." Ryan whispered. "She’s awake?"
Lucian’s eyes shifted to gold.
╔═══════════════════════╗
║ ◀ EYES OF THE ETERNALS ▶ ║
║Name: Rose Chevalier ║
║ Age: 19 ║
║ Race: Half-Zombie / Half-Human ║
║ Status: STABILIZING ║
║ Cultivation: Peak Neophyte Realm ║
║ Mana: 800 / 5,800 MPU (Critical) ║
║Infection Status: Zombie Virus detected in bloodstream.
║ Infection rate: HALTED. ║
║ Cause: Bastion Bloodline (10% awakened) is actively suppressing the virus. ║
║ Bloodline acts as an immune barrier, preventing full conversion. ║
╚═══════════════════════╝
Her bloodline is fighting the virus.
And then the realization hit him — cold, sharp, undeniable.
That’s why the virus didn’t affect me.
He looked at his own forearm. The bite wound was completely healed. Not a trace of infection. Not a single grey vein.
The Ancient Vampire bloodline. A bloodline that predated all known vampire clans. Something inhuman, something that had existed long before humanity. Of course a zombie virus — a mutated human disease — couldn’t touch it.
He was immune.
And Rose... Rose was halfway. Her Bastion bloodline was holding the virus at bay.
against his back like a broken doll.
I can turn her into a vampire. The virus wouldn’t stand a chance against the bloodline.
His crimson eyes glowed faintly in the dim room.
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
