"Are you a hunter?" Serana, the vampire girl, asked the question with a fragile finality that betrayed her earlier panic. She wasn't simply asking about a job title; she was asking about his inherent nature. Zhou Yi's calculated aloofness, his effortless evasion of danger, and his very aura had convinced her.
He met her gaze, his expression softening with a profound weariness. "I am many things. A hunter of your kind, sometimes. And a protector of this world, always." He gave a small nod, a concession to the truth she had already gleaned.
Her reaction was astonishing. Serana's pale face broke into a determined, almost ecstatic smile. She flung her head back, closed her eyes, and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, burrowing into his chest.
"Then kill me," she whispered, her voice trembling only slightly. "Do it now. If I am the consequence of your weakness, then eliminate the threat. Before dawn, before separation. I don't want to be chased by you, or run from you, or forget this moment."
Zhou Yi felt a strange, wrenching sorrow for this damaged creature. Her immediate acceptance of her own elimination as a necessary evil was the purest reflection of her isolated life—a life where self-preservation had twisted into self-destruction.
He gently disentangled her hair from his armor, his voice a low, soothing cadence. "No, little one. You are not a threat, and you are certainly not a weakness. You are simply… hurt."
She buried her face in the fabric of his shirt. A moment later, Zhou Yi felt a warm, unexpected wetness bloom against his chest. They say vampires cannot cry, that their blood is too cold, their emotions too shallow.
But the tears that soaked his armor were real, warm, and utterly heartbroken. He lifted her chin and gently wiped the moisture from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb, realizing that pity alone was not enough. He needed a strategy to deal with her existence, a strategy far more complex than the simple extermination he offered to the others.
He had a sister, Sharice, whose affliction—the latent mutant gene—was a problem of human prejudice. He knew how to fight bigoted humans; they could be destroyed. But Serana's plight was a fundamental, natural law: the insurmountable sun.
As the physical manifestation of the sun's power, Zhou Yi knew that no amount of armor or defiance could change that astronomical reality. The problem was not the hunter or the prey; the problem was the dawn.
The heavy silence of their booth was abruptly shattered by a faint, rustling sound emanating from the thin wall behind them. This dilapidated wing of the structure, built decades ago, was riddled with hollow spaces—gaps large enough to hide liquor during Prohibition, or, now, something far worse.
The R-variant mutant, likely the same one Light Axe had encountered, had found its way into the partition wall.
But before the creature could launch an attack, a powerful, unseen kinetic force, possibly a stray energy pulse from the ongoing chaos downstairs, slammed through the thin plaster.
The wall flickered with an internal flash of silver light, and the R-variant behind it emitted a single, choked squeal before its biological processes were instantly and violently accelerated, reducing the beast to a handful of smoking ash and dust.
The ease of its demise was jarringly sudden, a reminder that while the R-variants were resistant to direct silver bullets, their corrupted biology was still catastrophically vulnerable to certain forms of focused, light-based energy.
The swift, incidental kill was a chilling testament to the dangers of this old, unstable building. Zhou Yi, however, paid it little mind. He was using the wall as a window, his enhanced vision tracking the real quarry.
He was disappointed but not surprised by the poor performance of the vampire guard—apart from Yukio, they were indeed mediocre fighters, relying too heavily on their inherent physical superiority rather than tactical training. They were a pathetic defense line for the alleged vampire empire.
His vision locked onto the stage area, where Chadnorma was now holding the vampire princess, Nisha, captive. Chadnorma had neutralized the princess without lethal force, and was now leaning in close, whispering something agonizing into her ear.
Zhou Yi focused his vision, scanning Chadnorma's entire body for any abnormality—any clue that would link him to the Duke. His gaze finally settled on Chadnorma's thick, muscular hand, wrapped around Nisha's throat.
There, on his finger, was a distinctive signet ring bearing a noble crest. Zhou Yi had seen that exact ring before—on Nisha's hand, as a symbol of her betrothal and lineage to the Grand Duke.
Seeing the same, specific crest on the finger of the Primordial R-variant, the monster leading this plague, confirmed every suspicion he had about the Grand Duke's conspiracy.
The two individuals, ostensibly unrelated, were linked by a shared, specific mark of authority. This wasn't a biological accident; it was a betrayal orchestrated by the highest echelons of the vampire leadership.
He had enough of a lead. Now he needed the source.
Zhou Yi gently pushed Serana away, giving her a soft, protective push backward toward the darkest corner of the small booth. He kissed her forehead, his lips lingering for a moment longer than necessary.
"Stay here, Serana," he instructed, his voice firm but tender. "No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, you stay absolutely silent and hidden. I promise. I will come back for you."
Serana, her tears dried, looked up with an expression of profound sincerity. "My name is Serana. And whether you return or not, I will be waiting."
"I'll be back," he reiterated, the simple promise feeling heavier than the entire world. The thought of how to protect her—this creature whose life was intrinsically opposed to the sun—was a devastating problem.
Sharice, despite her mutant potential, had a chance in the human world. Serana had none in the world of light.
Taking two deliberate steps back, Zhou Yi fixed Serana with one last, reassuring smile, and then he activated the wristwatch concealed beneath the cuff of his shirt.
The air around him fractured. The black, metallic mercury of the suit flowed and surged, instantly engulfing his body.
Serana watched, breathless, as her human protector was replaced by the towering figure of the Dawn Knight—a magnificent suit of adaptive black armor, shimmering faintly with captured light, the cloak settling around him like a silent shadow.
It was a unique, intimate form of comfort, revealing his inner-most, true identity to the vulnerable young woman he was leaving behind.
Seeing the magnificent transformation, Serana's surprise was tempered by relief. He possessed the power he had shown. He would be unstoppable.
No longer constrained by the need for stealth, Zhou Yi moved with the maximum force his suit could generate. With a devastating, single-minded burst, the Dawn Knight smashed through the opposing wall of the booth. Wood, concrete, support beams—everything in his path was utterly annihilated.
He tore a violent, armor-shaped hole through the structure, a path of pure destruction leading straight toward his target: Chadnorma.
Chadnorma, the so-called Primordial, was still holding Nisha, her gaze fixed on him with a fascinating, complex blend of emotions—warmth, contempt, familiarity, and burning hatred. She was an accomplished actress of the vampire court, but this complex web of feeling was too rich, too contradictory to be feigned. There was a secret here, a profound, agonizing history that begged for resolution.
Chadnorma lowered his voice, the sound a low, raspy wheeze from his transforming throat. "I know you, dear daughter of Damaginos. You were always too proud. I truly want to see if that pride will break, if a single tear will fall for the monster I have become, when I finally extinguish your light."
Nisha spat at him, her beautiful features contorted in pure rage. "Beast! I will never bow to you, or that disgusting creature you call a father. If I had my father's full power, you would already be ash."
"A beast?" Chadnorma laughed, the sound dry and humorless, his transforming jaw cracking slightly. He gestured to the grotesque insectile mandibles that marred his face.
"Do you think I chose this perpetual, agonizing metamorphosis? Do you think I enjoy living this way?" He slammed his fist into the stage wall next to Nisha's head. His arm plunged through the solid concrete like paper, leaving only shattered fragments clinging to his bicep.
The sheer, staggering power rendered Nisha momentarily speechless. Chadnorma's strength was beyond the known limits of the vampire species—far exceeding the abilities of even the most powerful R-variants they had faced tonight.
Chadnorma withdrew his fist, a dark, self-pitying amusement coloring his voice. "This is what he wanted, you know? We share the same bloodline, Nisha. Perhaps I should repay his legacy by making you exactly like me."
Hearing the threat of transformation, Nisha struggled frantically in his grip. The idea of adopting that hideous, cancerous form, that terrifying mockery of life, was a fate far worse than death for a creature obsessed with perfect beauty.
Chadnorma ignored her struggles. His terrifying jaws separated wider, preparing to clamp down on her neck, to initiate the infection that would change her forever. He moved with a speed that was almost instantaneous, a terrifying demonstration of the Primordial's lethality.
But in that fraction of a second, the world fractured.
The wall behind them exploded into a catastrophic torrent of bricks, dust, and shrapnel. A dark figure erupted from the debris, moving with impossible force.
Chadnorma barely registered the black-cloaked form before a fist—a focused, concentrated weapon of kinetic energy—slammed directly into his face.
"Dawn Knight!" Chadnorma roared the name in recognition and terror, but the sound was cut short.
Zhou Yi, utilizing the full stabilizing and force-multiplying power of the suit, drove a blow that utterly eclipsed the strength of any creature in this abandoned vampire hierarchy.
While Chadnorma had surpassed the strength of a traditional vampire, he was still operating on a primitive, biological level. Zhou Yi was operating on the level of applied physics.
Chadnorma's neck bent at an impossible, grotesque angle. His body was launched across the main dance floor like a cannonball, smashing through several interior walls—plaster and concrete—with a velocity that left a perfect, man-shaped hole in its wake.
Zhou Yi's suit diagnostics instantly displayed a cascade of failures: multiple compound fractures, severe structural damage, and massive internal hemorrhaging. The Primordial should have been instantly, violently killed.
Zhou Yi felt a momentary anxiety—not for the monster's life, but for the lead. He could not lose his only source of information about the Grand Duke's conspiracy.
But his worry was utterly misplaced.
From the smoking crater of rubble, the figure of Chadnorma rose. He was trembling violently, but he was standing.
The first sound was a series of horrifying, soft cracking and snapping sounds as the Primordial's neck violently straightened and snapped back into its normal anatomical position. Then, his entire body began to twitch, seemingly suffering an extreme seizure.
Zhou Yi's advanced visual systems tracked the process with chilling precision. The fractured bones in Chadnorma's limbs and spine were not merely knitting; they were fusing closed with impossible speed.
Where bone fragments were too small to rejoin, they were rapidly coated in a dense, chitinous layer, adding an extra, instantaneous biological armor.
The internal organs, which had been shredded by the concussive force, were rapidly and flawlessly regenerating. Within a matter of mere breaths, the effects of the near-fatal blow had vanished.
This level of trauma recovery was beyond any known mutant, transcending even the regenerative abilities of legendary, ancient beings. It was not mere healing; it was a cancerous, unstoppable proliferation of life, an immediate, total reconstruction of organic material.
If this creature were not confined to the night, the Dawn Knight would face an entirely new, terrifying existential problem—a foe that simply could not be physically destroyed.
Chadnorma straightened fully, his eyes now blazing with a predatory focus that transcended the pain. The Dawn Knight had just discovered the terrifying, true meaning of the Primordial.