Chapter 324: Night Of Blood (2)

The hall was a graveyard of flesh and gore. The pungent, bitter taste of bile, blood, and fear filled the air like a fine wine. Everywhere you looked there was nothing but carnage and suffering, screams echoed through the dark hall and the agonized whimpers of dying humans. At the center of it all stood V, her pale skin glistening with stolen vitality, her lips curled into a wicked crescent.

"HAHAHA!!" A mad laugh, low and mocking, echoed off the stone walls.

She turned slowly, her crimson eyes locking onto the four elf slaves huddled in the corner. Their delicate frames trembled, their tear-streaked faces pale as moonlight. Chains clinked softly as they pressed against the wall as if it could swallow them whole. V's boots clicked against the blood-slick floor, each step deliberate, predatory. Her shadow stretched long and unnatural, swallowing the flickering light.

"Well, well," she purred, her voice a velvet blade. "What do we have here? My little elven kin… so fragile, so sweet." She tilted her head, her white hair spilling over one shoulder like a fresh torrent of snow.

"Morgana said thralls, but where's the fun in that? No… you deserve something better."

"But... which of you should I turn first?" she murmured her voice velvet-wrapped steel. "Eenie…"

She brushed a strand of white hair behind the first elf's ear. The girl flinched, her lip quivering.

"Meenie…"

The second whimpered when V leaned in, sniffing her neck, tongue flicking out to taste the salty sweat on her collarbone.

"Mine."

She settled on the third, a slender female with light-blonde hair and eyes wide with terror. Her breath hitched as V leaned in, her bloody finger tracing the sharp line of her jaw. V tilted her chin up, forcing her gaze to meet hers.

"Such a pretty thing," she murmured, her breath cold against her skin. She sniffed her neck, her nose brushing the pulsing vein beneath. A shudder ran through her, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. V's tongue darted out, catching it with a slow, deliberate lick.

"Mmm… fear tastes like wine."

V smiled, fangs glinting in the dying light as she rose to her full height, standing over the trembling elf.

"You'll do," she said simply.

Without warning, V bit into her own wrist—hard. Black blood, thick and steaming, oozed from the wound, hissing as it hit the cold air. She grabbed the elf girl by the hair, tilting her head back like a chalice, and forced the bleeding wound against her lips.

"Drink," she ordered, her tone final.

"N-No... please." The elf resisted, squirming, and shaking her head, causing the blood to splatter on the stone.

SLAP!

Poor, foolish little thing. As if she had a choice.

V backhanded her with enough force to slam her into the stone wall, blood blooming from her split lip. Dazed, and gasping, the girl didn't resist the second time as V pressed her wrist to her mouth again.

"You'll thank me later," she hissed. "Now drink or I'll rip your heart out and feed it to the next one."

The elf choked, gagging as the bitter, burning blood flooded her mouth. Her body convulsed, limbs flailing as the vampiric essence seared through her veins. Her screams muffled against V's wrist, her eyes rolling back as her skin paled to a deathly gray. Her heartbeat thundered, then faltered… then stopped. V released her, letting her crumple to the floor, twitching violently. Black veins pulsed beneath her skin, her mouth foaming with blood.

"Shh," V cooed, crouching beside her. "The pain's just the beginning. Soon, you'll crave it."

"I offer you power and immortality," V spoke, slowly turning to face the remaining three elf slaves and offering her arm towards them. "Serve me and you'll live as predators."

The other three elves stared at her outstretched wrist, the red wound still dripping black blood onto the ground. Hesitantly, one of them crawled forward, tears streaming down her face, and gently placed her trembling lips against the bloody wrist.

"Such a good little girl," V smirked.

Once a slave, now a daughter of the night.

....

"KYAAAHH.... HELP!"

In the dark corridor of the second floor.

"NO! LET ME GO!!! PLEASE!!!"

Screamed a single maid as she was running for her life. Her footsteps pounded, frantic and futile, as a white-haired elf scaled the walls like a spider, her crimson eyes glinting in the shadows. She crashed through a door, dragging the maid into the hall. The woman's cries cut off as fangs sank into her neck, her body going limp as her life was drained.

"NOOO!" A guard tried to run. He didn't get far. One of the vampires ripped off his leg, using the bone as a club to beat another still-living man to death.

A fat mercenary, too slow to react, was tackled by two vampires. They gutted him like a pig, using their claws to scoop out his intestines. Clearly, this mercenary did many bad things to the slaves and now he's paying the price.

"GET OUT! RUN!" someone screamed.

But there was nowhere to run.

The shadows moved like snakes. The air itself reeked of copper and rot. The torches died one by one, snuffed out by the crawling dark. Moans echoed from every direction. Laughter. Screams. The wet, slurping sound of flesh being devoured.

V stood in the eye of the storm, watching the chaos with arms spread, blood dripping from her fingertips like paint from a brush.

"This is how a feast should end," she whispered. "With screaming. With fire. With teeth and blood."

"Hmm?..." Suddenly she turned to the left, narrowing her eyes using one of the vampire abilities to detect the blood of the living. "There you are!"

Her smile widened into something savage, something wicked, like the flash of a hunter that spotted prey.

She sniffed the air—once, twice—her smile growing wider with each breath. A rich scent wafted through the corridors: perfumed skin, velvet robes, and panic. Noble blood. Pretentious and ripe.

Boof!

She vanished.

No footsteps, no warning.

Only bats.

A black cloud erupted through the hallway, a screeching swarm that poured under doors and through cracks like smoke. Their wings beat with a sound like flapping meat. Down a winding stairwell, through a shattered hall, and—

BOOM!

The office doors exploded inward as the swarm burst in, scattering ledgers, parchments, and gold coins in a cyclone of wings and shrieks.

And then, silence.

The bats reformed—spinning, twisting, contracting—until they coalesced into the form of a woman. Pale. Smiling. Drenched in blood.

V stood in the doorway.

"Leaving so soon, my lord?"

The noble gasped and stumbled backward, sword drawn—poorly. His velvet robe was half-done, his eyes bloodshot with terror.

"D-Demon!" he spat, lips trembling. "Get back! I swear by the holy light—"

"Oh, hush." V's eyes flitted past him, toward the far wall, where the noblewoman—his wife—scrambled to pry open the steel-plated vault. Her trembling hands fumbled at the dial, desperately trying to retrieve her precious gems.

'Sigh... fucking nobles,' V shook her head and waited, allowing her prey to open the vault. Greed blinded the woman's eyes from the danger that was standing right behind her.

"YESS!" The noblewoman screamed, finally pulling open the vault to reveal stacks of glittering jewelry. She shoved handfuls into her gown, clutching them like a drowning woman might grasp air. And when she turned she screamed, freezing in place, staring straight at the predator that was lurking in the dark.

"Please!" she shrieked. "I can pay you—I'll give you anything you want! Just—just don't kill me!"

"Anything?" V tilted her head, mock-considering.

'If Mother Morgana was here she would definitely breed this noble bitch,' V thought, scanning the woman from top to bottom, then the man. 'Well, maybe both.'

"You want power? A title? Name your price!" the man spoke, slowly lowering his sword.

This man was the same noble that V was supposed to assassinate before. He simply didn't recognize her since she was in her daywalker form, and apparently, the eight-circled mage that almost captured her before was nowhere to be seen. That's why the lord was acting this way, offering anything to save his life.

'The last time he acted brave and tried to fight me.'

"Power and a title?" she purred, her voice a velvet blade. "You offer me what I already have. Fool."

She moved.

Faster than a thought. A blur of pale flesh and black silk.

The noble raised his sword—but it might as well have been a twig.

SHHK!

V's hand speared through his stomach, claws bursting out his back in a spray of blood. He gasped, dropping the blade, legs giving out beneath him. She leaned in close, lips brushing his ear.

"I'm V Nosferat, daughter of the goddess Morgana," she whispered.

Before the word even reached the man's mind, V flipped his body upside down and threw it toward the wall, where he stayed there unable to move due to V's blood magic.

"Hiii!" the noblewoman wailed, crawling backward on her hands and knees, her dress dragging rubies and pearls behind her like entrails.

"Mercy! Mercy please!"

"Mercy is for mortals," she said coldly, slowly turning, her eyes glowing red. "You're wearing more wealth than your slaves saw in their entire lives."

With a swift, fluid motion, V grabbed the noblewoman, her claws sinking into the soft flesh of her arms. The woman screamed, a high, shrill sound of agony and terror, as V lifted her off the ground, her feet kicking and flailing helplessly.

V carried her to the wall, where the noble was already hanging upside down, his eyes wide with shock and pain. She positioned the woman next to him, her body pressed against the cold stone, and with a flick of her wrist, she bound them both with tendrils of blood magic, their arms stretched wide, their bodies suspended in a grotesque parody of crucifixion.

"Not so proud now," V murmured, her voice a low, mocking purr. Then she proceeded to rip their clothes into pieces, leaving them with nothing to hide their body.

"Noooo Please!!" the woman screamed.

Side by side, husband and wife—naked, trembling, suspended like butchered animals from the blood-soaked chandelier hooks above the grand hearth.

"Hush now," V cooed. "I'm trying to make something useful out of you."

"Please...." the nobleman whimpered, but V ignored.

SPLASH!

With ritualistic precision, V dipped both hands into a blood sphere she collected from the corpses outside. Her long fingers stirred it slowly, reverently, as though mixing paint for a masterpiece. She turned, palms glistening with crimson, and walked toward the suspended bodies. Her footsteps were soft now—silent, almost—like the rustle of silk over a tombstone.

"You should be honored," she whispered, her voice rich with unholy devotion. "To be chosen."

Smack!.

A perfect print. Five fingers splayed wide over the noblewoman's stomach, streaking red trails across pale flesh. The woman let out a half-choked gasp, the tears and blood running from her face pooling on the floor, staining the once pristine rug. V did the same thing to the man.

"HMM!" They tried to scream, call for help, and beg for their lives but they couldn't, their throats were locked up by magic, and their voices gagged.

"Mother Morgana, Night Eternal," V intoned, voice low and devout, "I, your daughter V, and your first daywalker,"

"I offer these souls to you, their blood to sate your hunger, their lives to fuel your glory."

The flames in the torches flickered. The air thickened with something ancient—something watching.

V's lips curled, not in cruelty, but in reverence.

Then—shhhlick—her claw sliced across the throat of both of them in one elegant stroke. Blood spilled like a curtain of wine, steaming as it hit the stone.

"May the Eternal Night Mother wrap these souls in her cold, loving embrace."

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