My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

Chapter 179: They aren’t human.

Victor and Nera did not even make it to the next rooftop.

They left the alley with the prisoner on Victor’s back and Nera’s scythe dragging sparks against the stone, but the street ahead was already closed. Five vampires stood side by side, blocking the passage. All of them had the same face, the same height, the same dark clothes, and the same crooked smile. Behind them, three more emerged from a side lane. On the roof of the building to the left, four others appeared without making a sound. When Victor looked back, the path they had come from was occupied too.

Nera sniffed the air and made a face.

"They are not people."

Victor dropped the prisoner to the ground and looked more carefully. Now that he had time to observe, he understood what she meant. Those vampires smelled of blood, but they had no weight. Their presence was shallow. Copied. Like a well-made portrait of someone who had never truly been alive.

Alexa spoke in both their minds before he could ask.

"They are blood-shadow duplicates. They are not civilians, not guards, and not useful targets. But they may still carry residual information. Try to capture at least—"

Victor touched the communication ring with two fingers.

"Give up on that shit. We are killing them all."

"Victor, don’t—"

He pulled the ring off his finger and tossed it to Nera.

She caught it in the air, looked at the object, and asked:

"Can I break it?"

"After."

"Boring."

The clones attacked.

They did not come screaming. They made no threats. They simply advanced at the same time, as if the same order had entered every body at once. That was enough for Victor to understand there was no point treating this like normal combat. There was no fear, hesitation, self-preservation instinct, or emotional mistake. They were tools. Ghideon, or someone using his technique, did not want to win here. He wanted to delay. Maybe measure. Maybe tire them. Maybe force Victor and Nera to show more than they should.

Victor smiled.

"Let’s give him plenty to measure."

Nera laughed and spun the scythe.

The first clone came from the front. Victor did not use a large technique. He only took one step, let Black Lightning pass through his ankle and hip, and struck the enemy’s face with an open palm. The impact did not merely crush the head. It froze the skull from within with Black Ice and then burst everything backward, scattering dark fragments across the street.

Nera slipped under another attack, swung the scythe in a low arc, and cut both of a clone’s legs at the knees. Before he could fall, she changed her grip and struck the back of the blade against his neck, taking his head off in a dry movement.

"Does that count as captured?" she asked.

"It counts as handled."

"I prefer that."

Two clones jumped from the rooftop toward Victor. He raised his left hand and created a slanted wall of Black Ice in the air. They struck it, but Victor did not wait for the impact to finish. Black Lightning ran through the wall like a current, and the ice exploded outward in thin stakes. Both bodies were pierced through the chest, throat, and face, held in place for half a second before dissolving into liquid shadow.

The problem was that more were coming.

From every alley, door, and rooftop, new identical bodies emerged. The city seemed to be spitting out the same vampire over and over. Some came armed with shadow knives. Others carried short blades of coagulated blood. Two carried black chains that crawled across the ground like snakes.

Victor looked around.

"How many?"

Nera sniffed, her eyes shining.

"A lot."

"Great."

She smiled.

"I thought so too."

They moved together without agreeing.

Victor advanced on the right, Nera on the left. The narrow street became a corridor of massacre. Victor used short strikes, wasting no energy. An elbow to the chest, a discharge of Black Lightning at the point of impact, and the clone exploded backward. A hand on the face, Black Ice entering through the mouth and freezing the head before breaking it. A kick to the knee, then White Fire to the chest to burn the shadow before it could reorganize.

Nera was less clean.

She liked cutting.

The enormous scythe looked far too heavy for her body, but that only made the strikes more absurd. She spun in the middle of the clones like an irritated child playing with an execution weapon. She cut arms, opened torsos, tore off heads, and used bodies as support to leap to the next. When two tried to surround her from behind, she simply released the scythe for an instant, let the handle spin while held by a short chain at her wrist, and cut through both at once with the returning blade.

"They stink worse and worse," she said, landing on a parapet.

Victor grabbed a clone by the neck and used him as a shield against three thrown knives.

"Is that good or bad?"

"Bad for them."

She jumped from the parapet and landed in the middle of four enemies.

The scythe descended.

The ground cracked.

Three clones were cut at once. The fourth tried to retreat, but Victor appeared behind him and grabbed the back of his neck.

"Say hi to Ghideon if he is listening."

The clone opened his mouth, but Victor crushed his head against the wall before any answer came.

Alexa’s voice suddenly returned, not through Victor’s ring anymore, but through the one Nera was holding.

"Are you two deaf?! I said not to—"

Nera raised the ring close to her mouth.

"We are busy."

"I can see that. You are turning an infiltration operation into a slaughterhouse."

Victor dodged a shadow chain and grabbed it in the air. The material tried to bite his hand, but he covered his fingers with Black Ice and pulled. The clone who owned the chain was dragged across the entire street and received a punch in the center of the chest. His body folded inward before falling apart into a dark puddle.

"They are clones," Victor said loudly enough for the ring to catch. "I am not arresting puppets."

"Some may carry memory fragments!"

"Then search the pieces."

Alexa went silent for half a second.

"I hate you."

"Everyone says that at first."

Nera threw the ring back to Victor.

"She talks too much."

"Yes."

"I heard that!"

Victor put the ring back on, but did not apologize.

The clones changed tactics.

Instead of attacking individually, they retreated to the ends of the street. The shadows under their feet began to connect, forming a dark stain that spread across the stones. Victor felt the energy change. It was no longer only duplication. It was a containment trap.

"Nera, ground."

"I saw it."

The shadow rose like black hands.

Victor jumped before they could grab his ankles. Nera jumped with him, using the scythe as support to gain height. In the air, Victor spread Black Ice into several small plates beneath his own feet, creating false footholds. He stepped on one, accelerated with Black Lightning, stepped on another, and changed direction in the middle of the jump.

The clones could not keep up.

He fell onto the first group like a vertical blow.

White Fire exploded around his fist at the moment of impact, burning the shadow connected to the ground. The entire street trembled, and the dark stain tore apart for a few seconds. Nera used the opening. She fell sideways, spinning the scythe in a complete circle, and cut all the connected clones through the waist.

Halves of bodies fell.

Some tried to crawl.

Victor froze everything.

"You are using more fire," Nera observed.

"Shadows do not like it."

"I do not like it either."

"Do you like anything?"

"Meat. Sweets. Cutting irritating people."

"Honest list."

A larger clone appeared at the end of the street.

It was not identical to the others. It still had the same face, but the body was taller, denser, and the shadow around it seemed less unstable. Maybe it was a command core. Maybe it was only a reinforced duplicate. Victor did not know. Nera also did not need to know in order to smile.

"That one is mine."

Victor held her shoulder.

"Wait."

She looked at his hand with immediate threat.

"Remove it."

"Look properly."

The reinforced clone was not advancing. It stood still, observing. The other bodies continued appearing around them, but that one seemed more conscious. Its eyes followed Victor, not Nera. Its smile was different too. Less empty.

Victor took a step forward.

"Ghideon?"

The clone tilted its head.

"Victor Valentine."

The voice was different from the others. Clearer. Older.

Nera rested the scythe on her shoulder.

"Can I cut now?"

Victor did not take his eyes off the clone.

"Not yet."

The clone smiled.

"You are more impulsive than the reports said."

"And you are more cowardly than I expected."

"Cowardice keeps people alive."

"For now."

The clone looked at Nera.

"And you brought an armed child."

Nera disappeared.

Victor did not even try to stop her.

The scythe crossed the place where the clone’s neck had been, but he turned into shadow before the cut landed. The body dissolved and reappeared three meters back. Nera landed on the ground with her eyes wide with rage.

"He dodged."

Victor smiled.

"He called you a child."

"I am going to cut even his shadow."

"Good luck."

Ghideon’s clone raised a hand.

All the other clones stopped.

The street was full of them. Dozens. On the rooftops, windows, alley entrances, and open doors. All with the same face. All looking at Victor and Nera.

Alexa’s voice entered Victor’s mind, more serious.

"Reinforcements are on the way. Do not advance too far."

Victor answered through the ring:

"No need."

"Victor."

"Alexa, he is here."

"It is a projection."

"But a projection that talks."

"That does not mean—"

Victor took the ring off his finger again and put it in his pocket.

Nera looked at him.

"She is going to get angry."

"She will."

"Good."

Ghideon’s clone laughed softly.

"You really do not know how to obey."

Victor let Black Lightning climb up his arms.

"I know. I just do not like it."

Nera lowered her stance, holding the scythe with both hands.

"Can I start?"

Victor looked at the street full of clones.

Then at the reinforced duplicate.

"Now you can."

Nera laughed.

And the massacre began again.

This time, with no attempt to capture.

Victor advanced through the center, opening a path with Black Ice and White Fire. Each step created stakes in the ground, each blow burned shadows before they could recompose, and each discharge of Black Lightning changed his position in the middle of the attacks. The clones tried to surround him, but he crossed through their formations before they closed. When chains came from the sides, he froze them in the air. When knives emerged from the shadows, he burned the source. When three bodies tried to grab him together, Victor let Black Ice erupt from his shoulders in short spikes and split them from the inside out.

Nera was perfect chaos.

She cut at impossible angles, laughed when they missed, complained when they died too quickly, and used the scythe as blade, staff, hook, and lever. One moment she was on the ground. The next, on the roof. Then she appeared hanging from a window, kicked a clone’s face into the wall, and vanished again.

"Victor!"

"What?"

"This one screamed!"

"Then cut another."

"Good idea!"

The street became a corridor of false bodies, dark blood, and burned shadow. The smell grew worse, like old meat mixed with ink and iron. Victor realized that the more clones they killed, the more unstable Ghideon’s reinforced projection became. Its smile remained, but the edge of its body trembled.

"We found the thread," Victor said.

Nera looked at the larger clone.

"Then I cut it?"

"Together."

She made a face.

"I wanted to cut it alone."

"You cut half."

"Which half?"

"Whichever one you reach first."

That was enough.

They advanced at the same time.

Ghideon tried to dissolve into shadow again, but Victor had already spread Black Ice over the ground in a wide circle. Not to trap the body. To trap the shadow. The clone tried to retreat and met resistance. For one second, it became too solid.

Nera arrived in that second.

The scythe descended through the shoulder.

Victor arrived from the other side with White Fire in his hand.

The blade cut.

The fire burned.

The reinforced clone split in half and released a scream that did not seem to come only from it. All the duplicates in the street failed at the same time. Some fell to their knees. Others melted. The more distant ones tried to flee into alleys and rooftops.

Victor looked at Nera.

"Competition?"

She smiled.

"Whoever kills less pays for sweets."

"You do not even have money."

"Then you pay."

"That is not a competition."

"It is for me."

She vanished after the remaining clones.

Victor laughed and went the other way.

When Alexa, Mirella, and Natasha finally reached the left flank, they found the street taken over by ice, marks of White Fire, cracked walls, and dozens of identical bodies dissolving into liquid shadow. Nera was sitting on a crate, counting on her fingers with an irritated expression. Victor was leaning against a wall, wiping dark blood from his hand.

Mirella looked at the scene.

Then at Victor.

"I said arrest."

Victor pointed to a clone half-frozen near the corner.

"I arrested that one."

Natasha looked at the body.

"It has no head."

Nera raised her hand.

"Was that before or after arresting? That changes the evaluation?"

Alexa passed both hands over her face.

"I knew it. I knew this would happen."

Victor put the communication ring back on his finger and smiled.

"Good news. Ghideon knows we arrived."

Mirella stared at him for a few seconds.

"And the bad?"

Victor pointed to the burned shadow in the middle of the street.

"He also knows we did not come to talk."