Modern Cultivation : The Strongest Couple Bonded by Vampire System

Beatrice moved as soon as Alex ordered them to leave.

"Everyone through the opening," she said. "Those who can walk, help those who need it. Do not touch the red lines."

Her injured leg shook when she turned, but her voice reached the entire walkway. The civilians who had frozen at the sight of Alex's attack finally began to move.

"Rovan, take the rear count."

Rovan glanced toward the pit below. Another heartbeat passed through the buried city, and the gray veins on several survivors darkened.

Fear crossed his face. He still picked up the bent piece of metal he had used as a weapon and moved behind the group.

"You heard her," he said. "Move. If you can complain, you can carry something."

One of the guards lifted an unconscious man. The other guard helped the old maintenance worker guide two children over the broken stones.

Beatrice stayed beside the people with gray veins instead of pushing them to the back.

Alex then looked down.

The red lines covering the walls and streets no longer pulsed at the same time.

Some drew blood and qi toward the center pit.

Others reached upward, following the survivors toward the opening he had made.

His senses scanned every person on the walkway.

Beatrice's life force was weak from blood loss and exhaustion. Rovan's shoulder was damaged, and the guards were close to collapsing.

Seven civilians carried the gray corruption through their bodies.

They were still conscious. Their life force had not changed into the hunger he had sensed from the infected outside.

The formation was keeping them alive.

Alex's expression hardened.

"It seems conscious," Mingyue said.

She had reached the same conclusion without waiting for Alex's explanation.

Frost spread from the tip of her sword and covered the nearest red line. The formation pulled away before the ice closed around it.

Mingyue's eyes narrowed. "It's avoiding me."

A dark spatial doorway began to form beside the survivors.

Mingyue aimed its other end at the open ground beyond the broken foundation, but the red traces in the floor turned toward the doorway before it fully opened.

She closed it at once.

"The connection will follow them through space," she said. "If I open the path, whatever is down there gains a direct shortcut outside."

Alex thought they planned to send something outside to create more chaos.

It was speculation, but whatever it was, he knew it would not benefit them.

He raised two fingers. Thin green flames entered the cracks left by the destroyed creature and spread through the nearest section of the wall.

His flames followed the traces of corrupted life force while the Cognitive Matrix separated the overlapping patterns in his mind.

All the monsters were connected to hundreds of formation lines that gave them power, life force, and commands.

They had already begun regenerating their bodies. Alex could see three clusters of red mist gathering inside different walls.

"How long?" Mingyue asked.

"Not long enough for everyone to get out safely."

"Then we go down first."

There was no hesitation in her voice. Since the enemy was coming, she preferred to take the initiative.

Mingyue turned to Beatrice. "Do not stop until every person is outside the city. Staying will make the situation worse."

Beatrice looked at the marked survivors and understood what Mingyue was warning her against.

She believed Mingyue was telling her that as long as she brought them outside the city, the infected people who had not yet turned would be safe.

"No one kills them unless they attack," she ordered. "No one gets left behind."

The frightened guard opened his mouth, then closed it when Beatrice stared at him.

The opening Alex had blasted through the wall led straight outside. Daylight shone across the broken floor and showed everyone where to go.

The old maintenance worker helped two children across the rubble. Beatrice led the injured people behind him while Rovan counted everyone from the rear.

Beatrice followed while using her staff to keep weight off her wounded leg. Rovan remained at the rear as ordered. He looked back once.

"Master, are you going into that?"

"Yes."

Rovan stared at the blood mist below. "I thought so. I was hoping you would say something less unreasonable."

"Keep them alive, and we can talk later."

Rovan swallowed, nodded, and went after the others.

The heartbeat struck again.

This time, Alex felt his vampire blood react.

It was faint, buried under the pressure of the formation and the stolen life force, but it carried the same instinctive pull he had felt from other vampires.

Something below recognized what he and Mingyue were.

Every vampire descended from a Progenitor could feel that connection. Distance, bloodline, and strength changed its intensity, but they could not mistake it for an ordinary cultivator's pressure.

The presence under the city was incomplete. However, it was also close enough to a Vampire Progenitor that Alex's blood responded to it.

Mingyue looked at him. The coldness in her eyes told him she had felt it too.

"An artificial Progenitor. Is it really possible?" she said.

Normal people saw cultivators as immortals, or even gods. To Mingyue, a Progenitor was the same kind of existence.

Even though both of them were also becoming Progenitors, creating one themselves was different.

The idea of mortals creating a god was baffling to her.

"Most likely."

"Alive?"

Alex looked at the threads of life force moving below. Too many minds had been ground together inside the formation.

Their fear, pain, and blood made it difficult to distinguish one life from the mass.

"I can't tell yet."

Mingyue raised her sword. "Then we have no time to waste. We should kill it as soon as possible."

Her sword cut down.

A purple line split the walkway ahead of them.

The stone opened along a red formation channel, revealing a steep passage built inside the wall. Black chains ran through it toward the center.

Alex sent a thread of green fire into the opening. The flame revealed dried blood, broken restraints, and the remains of captives.

The formation reacted at once.

Red lines rose from both sides of the passage and struck at them.

Mingyue stepped forward. Three ice lotuses bloomed in the narrow space.

The first froze the formation coming from the left wall. The second locked the stone beneath their feet.

The third appeared farther down, sealing the path before the red lines could withdraw.

Alex followed her through.

His green fire burned the formation lines without spreading to the dark stains around them. Each severed formation released a brief cry.

Some sounded angry. Others sounded relieved.

Mingyue's grip tightened around her sword.

"Souls?" she asked.

"Pieces."

"Can they be saved?"

Alex examined the residue. The pieces had been stripped of memory and mixed into the formation for so long that he could barely separate one from another.

"Nope."

Mingyue frowned. She then cut through the next cluster of formation lines and continued down.

The passage ended above the central pit.

From the walkway, the shape below had looked like a giant shadow.

Thousands of black chains crossed the pit. A vast cocoon hung at their center, wrapped in red mist and layers of hardened blood.

Faces pressed against its surface. They appeared for a moment, mouths open in silent pain, before sinking back inside.

It reminded them of the spider Progenitor.

The blood grooves from the buried city entered the pit from every direction. Most ended in a dark ocean beneath the cocoon.

Alex's Cognitive Matrix began analyzing the structure.

Blood essence and life force from more than one species. Fragments carrying the power of different Progenitors.

A separate object sat at the center, hidden behind the cocoon's layers.

The object carried a familiar trace from Alucard.

Alex had already suspected that an artifact connected to him was being used as the core. Feeling it inside the completed formation changed his suspicion into something much closer to proof.

Mingyue landed beside Alex at the edge of the pit.

The heartbeat came again.

THUMP!

The cocoon shook, and the red formation lines covering the buried city grew brighter.

Alex looked down. Every red line led toward the blood below the cocoon.

This was the source.

Before Alex could examine it further, someone spoke from the other side of the pit.

"At last."