"Kill me, for the love of the Night, kill me now!"
The muffled, garbled plea, horribly distorted by the Priest's rent and twisted jaw, still echoed in the confined, dark space of the transport truck. The sound, less a plea and more a choked, desperate animalistic demand, crushed the remnants of morale among the captured vampire guards.
Though they were predatory beings themselves, imbued with an ancient callousness, they were not immune to the sight of such protracted, biological torture inflicted upon a comrade. Even the most hardened among them flinched from offering the mercy the Priest begged for.
Chubba, the physically imposing but emotionally sensitive guard, hid his face in his hands, his massive frame shaking with frustrated grief.
He was a creature of camaraderie, finding genuine connection among his unit, and watching this brutal degeneration of a friend—a man who had shared midnight patrols and dangerous skirmishes—was agonizing. He knew the logical answer was immediate execution, but the sheer, moral weight of being the executioner paralyzed him.
Reihart, his face a mask of controlled fury, slammed his massive, leather-gauntleted fist into the aluminum skin of the truck wall. The metal shuddered, protesting the immense impact. A thin, rapier-thin sliver of the brilliant, lethal daylight speared through the tiny crack his blow created.
The sunbeam, harmless to a human, was instantly agonizing to the purebred vampire. Where the light touched Reihart's knuckles, the skin blistered, smoked, and blackened with terrifying speed, as if immersed in molten metal. He did not cry out, clenching his jaw against the searing pain.
This self-inflicted agony was an act of brutal self-punishment. Reihart, the commanding officer, was the instrument of Grand Duke Damaginos's treachery.
He knew the entire mission was a grotesque, deliberate sacrifice—a carefully laid plan to expose the true contagiousness of the R-variant and, ultimately, to capture Blade. His loyalty had led his men, now bound and terrified, toward this horrific fate. He could not forgive himself, and the ritual of pain was the only penance he could manage.
The sole female guard, Vilian, was utterly broken, her face pressed deep into the shoulder of Light Axe, who held her awkwardly, his own eyes darting nervously between her frightened form and the writhing Priest.
It was Yukio, the vampire samurai of impeccable, almost inhuman discipline, who broke the silent deadlock.
Without a word, the swordsman took two steps forward. His movement was fluid, effortless. With a soundless shing, the longsword was drawn from its sheath.
The blade itself, a masterpiece of forged steel, caught the dim, ambient light of the truck, reflecting a dazzling, hypnotic gleam that momentarily drew every eye. It was this dazzling, precise focus that ended the Priest's pathetic, gurgling cries.
The sweep was breathtaking in its speed and its surgical accuracy. The gleaming katana cut diagonally across the Priest's throat, slicing through the ravaged jawline and ascending sharply to the back of the skull.
The blow was so clean, so powerful, that it completely decapitated the head, splitting the skull into two ragged, separated halves. The effect was absolute silence. Such swordsmanship possessed a stunning, lethal clarity—the spirit of the blade fulfilling its intended purpose without hesitation or collateral damage.
Yukio, calm and collected, returned the sword to its sheath with a whisper of steel on lacquered wood. He stood over the newly silent corpse, his expression inscrutable, and addressed the enraged Chubba, who immediately lunged, grabbing the samurai's collar.
"You psychotic bastard! What the hell did you do? You just executed one of our own!" Chubba roared, shaking the smaller man.
Yukio's hand shot out, pushing Chubba back with surprising strength. He remained utterly composed, his voice flat and devoid of any human warmth. "I did what was necessary. I merely offered a soldier the swift, peaceful rest he rightfully earned."
"Necessary? You call that necessary? You monster!" Chubba surged forward again, but was arrested mid-stride by a sound that defied logic, originating from the recently 'silenced' body.
A faint, but undeniable thrashing began.
The Priest, his head severed and split, his brain matter clearly exposed, was still moving. The body convulsed like a decapitated reptile, its astonishing vitality rejecting the concept of death. Even the half-skulls lay on the medical trolley, their single eyes blinking with disconcerting regularity.
This grotesque defiance of biology terrified the guards more than the mutation itself. Chubba, abandoning his critique of Yukio, scrambled for his own weapon—a custom handgun loaded with silver-plated bullets. He opened fire in a frantic, wild burst, shredding the immobilized corpse.
Bullets tore through the torso, pulping organs, shattering bone, and turning muscle tissue into crimson mush. Yet the corpse continued to pulse, its ruined heart maintaining a strong, steady rhythm. The damage was catastrophic, but the relentless, awful vitality persisted.
In the midst of the chaos, they noticed a terrifying structural anomaly. Beneath the ripped and tattered chest muscles, a complex series of fused bony plates had formed—a thick, anatomical armor that tightly encased the heart and major pulmonary vessels.
If not for the loud, rhythmic thumping of the heart within, they would never have suspected the organ was shielded by such a formidable defense.
Yukio, confirming his suspicion that the head was a feint, drew his katana once more. His movements were now slow, methodical, focused on the bone cage. He carefully cut away the remaining muscle and fascia, completely exposing the calcified, armored heart chamber.
He then meticulously searched the perimeter of the bone plate, his eyes looking for a flaw in the terrifying, viral engineering. He found it: a small, almost invisible gap in the fused bone near the armpit.
With a serious, concentrated breath, he drove the longsword tip into the minute fissure.
The penetrating steel hit something hard, feeling like tough cartilage or muscle, and the entire corpse convulsed wildly, a final, immense spasm as if electrocuted. Yukio felt the shock resonate up the hilt of his weapon, confirming this was the viral core—the central anchor of the creature's immortality.
With a grunt, he violently twisted the hilt, the razor-sharp tip tearing through the deep, vital structure.
The thrashing immediately ceased. The corpse went limp, the dreadful heart ceasing its beat. Then, an eerie, blue-tinged flame erupted from the sword wound, spreading instantly over the body.
Within moments—four or five breaths, no more—the entire, bullet-riddled body was reduced to a mound of fine, gray ash, the quintessential and final death of a vampire.
"I destroyed the heart," Yukio stated, his voice ringing with grim finality. He turned to the other remaining anomaly: the half-head he had severed, which still lay pulsing on the trolley.
"But this… this still lives." He stared at the piece of skull and brain matter. Even his masterful swordsmanship could not locate a fatal weakness in a fragment of consciousness.
Suddenly, Reihart moved. Ignoring the pain in his hand, he seized the severed head, holding it up, his dark glasses obscuring his intense, mournful stare into the living eye of his former friend. A moment of silence passed between the commander and the abomination.
Then, with an immense, guttural cry of anguish and rage, Reihart brought his hand down, slamming the skull fragment with all his strength against the truck wall, precisely on the crack he had made earlier. The brain tissue was violently expelled from the shattered bone, and the crack widened just enough for a sword-tip's width of deadly sun to pour in.
The sunlight touched the head. The result was instantaneous and total: the severed skull instantly vaporized into ash, a process far faster and more violent than the controlled combustion of the body.
Reihart yanked his hand back, roaring as the intense UV exposure burned away massive chunks of flesh, leaving the bone of his hand blackened and smoking. Ignoring the horrific wound, he addressed his teammates with unusual gravity.
"You saw it," he bit out, his voice raw with pain and certainty. "Beyond the bone armor, the sun remains the only sure thing. Remember this. I will not have this happen again."
"Heh," Whistler scoffed, his hands bound but his spirit unbound. He grinned weakly at the enraged commander. "Words of wisdom, vamps. Just remember, that sun is equally deadly to you too."
Reihart merely sneered, already mentally categorizing Whistler as a problem that would soon be permanently solved. "None of your business, old man. You should worry about your own fate and that of your daywalking friend."
He convinced himself that the capture of Blade and the coming power of sun-walking vampires would justify the monstrous cost. Everything was worth it, he silently vowed, for the future of their kind.
Time, measured in the silent passing of shadows across the floor-to-ceiling windows, began its familiar crawl again. When Serana finally stirred, the vast living room was cloaked in the soft, secure gray of twilight.
She awoke on the plush sofa, feeling a profound, unfamiliar sense of unburdening. The tension that had been her constant companion for years—the fear of exposure, the hunger, the desperation—had momentarily evaporated.
The room was lit by a single, carefully placed floor lamp, its glow bathing the area in a warm, intimate amber.
Zhou Yi sat nearby, deeply engrossed in a dense, leather-bound book, the image of calm, intellectual power. Her quiet, unconscious movement brought him instantly to attention. He lowered the book and smiled gently.
"You look well rested," he said, his voice a low, comforting rumble. "How are you feeling? Are you beginning to acclimatize to the environment?"
Serana blinked, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. The action, innocent and completely unguarded, pulled the hem of the loose, silk T-shirt he had given her slightly higher. She felt an ease she hadn't known she possessed.
"I feel… amazing," she whispered, her voice still thick with sleep and wonder. "I've never felt so relaxed. It still feels like a dream."
"This is no dream, Serana, it's simply your new reality," Zhou Yi assured her, sitting on the cushion beside her. He reached out and gently stroked her shoulder-length, golden hair.
She had finally shed the complicated, hated braids after her restorative bath, and the soft, smooth texture suited her far better. "This is just the beginning. I promise you, things will only improve from here."
Serana didn't respond immediately, instinctively moving closer to him and burying her face against his chest, a gesture of absolute, pet-like trust. She inhaled the scent of clean fabric and faint ozone that clung to him.
After a long silence, the crucial question, the one that had been churning in her mind since he first lifted her from the stall, finally surfaced. She pulled back slightly, her eyes meeting his with an intense, vulnerable clarity.
"Why, Yi? Why did you bring me here?" Her voice trembled slightly, raw with the need for truth.
"And why are you treating me this way? I'm not foolish. There's no such thing as kindness without motive. You are too powerful, and this… this is too much for anyone to simply give away. I need to know the reason, even if it's one I don't want to hear."
Zhou Yi looked at her, his expression turning thoughtful. He knew she needed more than a simple, sentimental answer. He chose his words with deliberate weight.
"You are correct, Serana. Beauty is a factor, but never the determining one," he began, resting his hand gently on her head. "My actions are driven by something far more arbitrary, yet far more binding, than simple logic or desire. Destiny is a curious thing."
He leaned back, his eyes gazing toward the veiled windows, seeing beyond the glass to the city he protected.
"You see, Serana, I am a creature of choice. I operate outside the usual complaints people have with fate: 'Why are they favored? Why do they get the advantage?' My power allows me to change the trajectory of lives on a whim, to be the hand of chance itself. When I saw you—small, trapped, an innocent caught in the machinations of others—I saw a flicker of something that resonated with my own commitment."
He shifted, turning fully toward her, his gaze intense. "Some of your actions, your small resistance in that terrible place, caused a minute, but real, shift in my consciousness. It was like a piece of cosmic machinery locking into place. I accepted your existence. I chose to keep you by my side. There is no grand, rational scheme for it. There is only this: Fate chose you, and I, the Dawn Knight, accept its choice."
He concluded with an iron certainty that admitted no argument. "Even if you suspect that my intentions are selfish, that I merely want a rare, exotic pet, or an object to study—it does not matter. I have acted. Keeping you by my side is a fait accompli. And I, Yi Zhou, will not regret this choice."
Serana listened, motionless, utterly captivated by the philosophical gravity of his explanation. His words, though complex, offered an elegant, undeniable truth: his power allowed him to act beyond consequence, and she was the recipient of a powerful, irreversible decision. She realized he wasn't looking for reciprocation; he was stating an unchangeable law he had created.
She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, burying her face into the curve of his shoulder. After a long, silent moment of acceptance, she responded, her whisper filled with a powerful, nascent loyalty.
"Then I won't regret it either."
Zhou Yi's immediate concerns shifted from the philosophical to the existential.
Sustenance and Security: He had established temporary safety, but Serana required a consistent, reliable source of sustenance. He needed to activate his network to acquire medical-grade, ethically sourced blood supplies from a secure facility, a delicate operation that required discretion and speed.
The Countdown: The twenty-four-hour truce with the Maginos clan had begun. He now had less than a day to prepare for the inevitable confrontation with Asa, the rogue geneticist whose R-variant creation was now terrorizing the city's infrastructure and capturing its heroes.
Public Exposure: The photograph taken by Peter Parker—a 'scandal' that shattered the mystique of the Dawn Knight—would be plastered across headlines before morning. While media exposure rarely deterred him, it created an unnecessary distraction and might draw the attention of organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. or government agencies.
He pulled Serana closer, a plan already beginning to form in his hyper-efficient mind. He would deal with the media fallout later. Right now, Asa and the safety of his sanctuary were all that mattered.