Modern Cultivation : The Strongest Couple Bonded by Vampire System

Chapter 730: Other Sovereign

The cocoon burst before Soren could lift his hand.

A black-red hand shot through the opening and closed around his throat.

Soren’s feet left the platform. His eyes widened, and both hands grabbed the thick wrist holding him. He tried to speak, but the fingers tightened before any sound came out.

Thepes pulled himself through the torn cocoon.

Pieces of the dark red shell broke around his shoulders. Blood and thick black liquid ran down a body that had never stood before. He was taller than Soren, but his arms and legs were thin. Red light moved beneath his pale skin with every beat of his new heart.

Soren struggled once.

Thepes stared at him without mercy.

"You made me hear all of them," he said.

His voice was no longer weak. It still carried several tones, but one voice had become stronger than the others.

"You gave me their pain. You gave me their hatred. Then you decided what I would become."

Soren’s mouth opened. Only a dry breath escaped.

The blood inside his body began flowing into the hand around his throat.

His face sank inward first. The skin across his cheeks tightened against the bones. His fingers lost their strength, and his arms fell to his sides. His robes became loose as the flesh beneath them shrank.

Alex watched Soren’s life force disappear into Thepes.

There was no struggle for control. Thepes took the blood, qi, and life force as easily as breathing. The ritual had created his body from the same power. Soren was only another part of it.

Within seconds, nothing remained inside the robe except a dry body.

Thepes opened his hand.

Soren fell beside the broken cocoon. His body struck the stone and did not move again.

Mingyue’s sword was already raised toward Thepes. Frost covered the blade, and the space around its point had become still.

Alex did not need to tell her that Thepes was dangerous. She had felt the same pressure he did.

Thepes had been alive for less than a minute, yet the power inside him was already close to theirs.

The red light under his skin grew brighter after absorbing Soren. His thin body filled out. Muscle formed over his arms and chest, and the bent shape of his back straightened. The torn cocoon behind him collapsed into the blood below.

Thepes looked down at Soren’s remains.

"You wanted a god who would obey you," he said. "You should have made another corpse."

The chains around the pit shook.

The formation reacted to Soren’s death. Red lines lit across the walls and floor, then pulled toward the platform. The blood below rose around Thepes’s legs. Broken voices came from inside it as the ritual tried to continue the task it had been created to perform.

Thepes lifted his head and roared.

The sound struck the chamber like a physical blow.

The nearest chains broke first. Pieces flew away from the pit, tore through the surrounding platforms, and buried themselves in the walls. More chains snapped a moment later. The red lines on the floor split apart, and cracks raced through every part of the formation.

Alex formed a barrier of runes in front of himself and Mingyue. Broken stone and metal struck it, then fell into the blood.

The roar continued.

Every remaining chain broke at once.

The formation beneath the pit flashed so brightly that the entire chamber turned red. The light then bent toward Thepes. Blood rose around him in long streams. The power inside the broken chains, the floor, and the ruined cocoon followed it.

Thepes spread his arms.

The ritual entered his body.

His new skin split across his chest and shoulders under the pressure. Each wound closed as soon as it appeared. His heartbeat became louder, and the walls shook with every beat.

Alex searched for the lines that had reached the people above.

They were breaking too.

The power inside them rushed downward, but the living people at the far ends were no longer being pulled with it. The formation had lost the parts that chose its targets. It could only surrender what remained stored inside the buried city.

The last red line disappeared into Thepes.

Silence returned.

Dust and dark blood fell across the chamber. The platforms around the pit had collapsed, and broken chains covered the stone below. The cocoon was gone. Only Soren’s empty robe and dried body remained where Thepes had dropped him.

Thepes lowered his arms.

His body had changed again. The thin limbs were gone. He now looked like a young man who had spent years training, but there was nothing young about his red eyes. Too many memories moved behind them.

Alex ignored him for a moment and spread his senses through the ruined chamber.

The broken ritual no longer hid the people beneath its power.

Most of the bodies around the pit were dead. Their blood and life force had already been removed. Damaged soul fragments remained in some of them, but there was no living body left to save.

Then Alex found a heartbeat.

It was so weak that it disappeared between the stronger beats coming from Thepes. Another followed from beneath a pile of broken chains. A few more remained around the far side of the pit.

"There are survivors," Alex said.

He sent his life force outward before the last heartbeats could stop.

Green light moved through the dust and entered the barely living vampires. One lay facedown near the edge of the blood. His skin had dried against his bones, and the ritual had taken so much from him that he looked dead.

Marcell’s heart moved again when Alex’s life force reached it.

The first beat was weak.

Alex sent more life force into him. It spread through the damaged heart, entered the empty blood vessels, and gave the body enough strength to continue. Marcell’s fingers moved against the stone.

Alex divided the flow between him and the other survivors.

One Sovereign had lost an arm. Another had been buried beneath part of a platform. A woman near the far wall still had a chain through her side. None of them recovered enough to stand, but their heartbeats stopped fading.