I Awakened The Ancient Vampire System

Chapter 88: Chapter 88: Getting Information

Lucian walked into the building where he’d dragged the scarred man.

"Give me a few minutes," he said over his shoulder.

Declan raised an eyebrow. Amira opened her mouth as if to object, then closed it. Something in Lucian’s flat expression told her arguing would be pointless.

They walked to the other side of the square. Lucian disappeared through the doorway.

Inside, the room was dark. The scarred man was slumped against the far wall, still unconscious from Declan’s beating. Blood matted his hair. His arms were bound behind his back with Scarlet Threads.

Lucian crouched in front of him. Placed two fingers against the man’s temple and pushed a small pulse of mana into his brain.

The scarred man’s eyes snapped open with confusion and pain. Then recognition as he saw Lucian’s mask.

"You—" His voice was hoarse.

Lucian didn’t let him finish. He grabbed the man’s left hand — the one with the broken fingers — and squeezed.

The scarred man screamed.

Annnnhhnn!

"Now, I don’t what to waste time. So there e are two ways to do this.

The hard way or the easy way.

Where are the children?"

"I don’t—"

Lucian squeezed harder. One of the broken fingers shifted under his grip. The man’s back arched off the wall.

"I don’t mind. We can do this all day. Now, let’s try again."

"I don’t know! Hasaan moves them! We don’t—"

Lucian released the hand. The scarred man gasped, tears streaming down his blood-crusted face. His chest heaved while snot ran from his nose.

Lucian using blood manipulation created a blood needle. He held it up so the man could see it in the dim light.

"This goes under your fingernail," Lucian said quietly. "One at a time. You have ten fingers. That’s ten chances to tell me what I want to know. After that, I move to other parts. You have your toe nails too then I can go cutting your body parts."

The scarred man’s eyes locked onto the needle. His breathing became ragged.

"The children," Lucian said. "Where?"

"I swear I don’t—"

Lucian took the man’s left index finger. Positioned the needle against the nail bed. Applied pressure. Just enough for the man to feel the point.

"Wait! Wait wait wait—" The scarred man’s voice cracked. "The Sunken Fortress! Thirty kilometers southeast! Underground military installation! That’s where they keep the kids we grab!"

Lucian held the needle steady. "How many defenders?"

"Eighty! Maybe more! Two Core Realm fighters! Rashid and Khalil!"

"How strong?"

"Khalil is Early Core. Rashid is almost there — Late Neophyte, pushing the boundary."

Lucian eased the needle back slightly. "Where is Hasaan El-Masri?"

The scarred man’s face shifted. Genuine confusion this time, not resistance. "I don’t know. Nobody knows. He moves between bases. We only see him every few weeks. He sends orders through runners. Nobody knows where he sleeps."

"Liar."

"I’m not lying! I swear on my life! Only his inner circle knows his locations — men like me aren’t trusted with that!"

Lucian studied his eyes. The dilation was consistent. The heartbeat — rapid, erratic, but steady in its rhythm. No spike that would indicate deception.

He believed him. Or at least, he believed that this man didn’t know.

"Are there other bases?"

The scarred man hesitated. Lucian pressed the needle. The man yelped.

"Yes! There’s a third base! Bigger than this one! But I don’t know where! Only Hasaan’s top people know! I’ve never been there!"

"How many bases total?"

"Three that I know of. This one. The Sunken Fortress. And the third one. There might be more. Hasaan doesn’t tell us everything."

Lucian stood as he looked down at the man with a smile 😊.

"That wasn’t hard, was it? You’re lucky I need your boss alive more than I need you dead," Lucian said.

He turned and walked out.

Outside, Declan and Amira stood near the edge of the square. Both of them were very still. Neither looked at him directly.

Amira’s face was pale. Declan’s expression was complicated.

"Children are at a second base," Lucian said, wiping his hands on a cloth. "Thirty kilometers southeast. Place called the Sunken Fortress. Old underground military installation. Eighty defenders. Two Core Realm cultivators — one Early Core, one almost at the late Core realm.."

Declan whistled low. "Four minutes and you got all that?"

"Hassan isn’t at either base," Lucian continued. "He moves constantly. Even his lieutenants don’t know his location. There’s a third base — bigger — but nobody here knows where it is."

"Three bases," Amira said quietly. "If we take out the Sunken Fortress, he’ll just consolidate at the third one."

"One problem at a time. The kids are the priority."

Amira nodded. She pulled out her Knight communicator and typed a coded message — coordinates for the bound rebels, a brief situation report, a request for Egyptian military pickup.

"The military can collect these three," she said. "They’ll be tried under Egyptian law."

"If they live that long," Declan muttered.

Lucian was already moving. "We go now. Night is still on our side. The Sunken Fortress is thirty kilometers through beast territory. If we leave immediately, we reach it before dawn."

They moved southeast.

The desert changed gradually. Sand gave way to cracked earth. Cracked earth gave way to rock. Jagged outcrops rose from the ground like broken teeth, and narrow canyons cut through the terrain in directions that didn’t follow any natural logic.

The temperature dropped. The air changed. It smelled metallic — like licking a battery — with an undercurrent of something organic and wrong.

Lucian’s Eyes of the Eternals flickered gold. The first beast signatures appeared on the edge of his perception. Burrowed beneath the rock. Perched on canyon walls. Circling high above in the darkness.

"Dozens of them," he said quietly.

"Beast territory," Amira confirmed. "This is why the government abandoned the region. The mana density here is higher than the surrounding desert. It attracts them."

Declan cracked his knuckles. Golden light flickered across his skin and faded. "How big are we talking?"

"Mostly Neophyte rank. Some burrowers, some flyers. Nothing Core Realm yet."

"Yet," Declan repeated.

They moved in formation. Amira took point — her plant sense detected root systems and buried life beneath the rock, giving early warning of underground threats. Lucian walked center with Eyes of the Eternals active, mapping everything within range. Declan covered the rear with his senses on full alert.

The first attack came fifteen minutes in.

Six shapes erupted from the ground simultaneously — Sand Wyrms, serpentine beasts with armored scales and heads the size of small cars. Mid to Late Neophyte rank. Fast. Aggressive. Their mouths were circular rings of teeth that could swallow a man whole.

Declan laughed.

He activated Golden Body fully. His skin blazed with light. His muscles swelled. He grabbed the nearest wyrm by the head — both hands around its skull — and squeezed.

Crack.

The wyrm’s scales buckled. Its body went limp. Declan threw the corpse at a second wyrm, knocking it out of the air.

Amira’s hands glowed green. Massive thorns erupted from the sand — mutated cactus spines she’d found buried beneath the rock. They wrapped around two wyrms and constricted. The beasts thrashed, but the thorns only tightened. Bone crunched. The wyrms went still.

Lucian drew the Moon Shattering Blade. Two wyrms charged him simultaneously. Crescent Moon Slash — a single horizontal arc that extended a meter beyond the blade. The mana edge bisected both wyrms cleanly. Four halves hit the ground in a spray of black blood.

The sixth wyrm tried to flee underground. A Blood Needle through its skull stopped it mid-burrow.

Six dead wyrms. Under a minute.

But the noise echoed through the canyons like a signal flare.

"Move," Lucian said. "Now."

They ran.

Flying beasts appeared five minutes later — four Winged Desert Stalkers, bird-reptile hybrids with six-meter wingspans and claws that gouged stone. Early Neophyte rank individually. Dangerous in a pack.

Lucian dropped them with Light Bolts from range. Three bolts. Three kills. The fourth tried to flee. Amira wrapped it in vines and slammed it into a canyon wall until it stopped moving.

They pushed deeper into beast territory. The creatures came in waves — pack hunters, lone predators, things that slithered and things that crawled. Core Realm cultivators didn’t slow for Neophyte beasts. The three of them carved a path through the territory like a blade through cloth.

After two hours of continuous movement and combat, they reached a ridge.

Below them, half-buried in rock and sand, was a massive concrete structure. Ventilation shafts poked out of the desert floor at irregular intervals. One main entrance was visible — a heavy steel door reinforced with scrap metal and crude barricades.

The Sunken Fortress.

Lucian’s Eyes of the Eternals swept the structure. Eighty-two signatures inside. Most Neophyte. Two Core Realm — one almost at the boundary, one solid Early Core.

And seven small, faint signatures clustered in the deepest part of the installation. So faint they barely registered.

Children.

Lucian lowered his eyes. The golden glow faded.

"Found them."