CHAPTER 15 —BLOODLINE AWAKENED: VRYKOLAKAS
ELION — POV
The metal door slammed shut behind us.
Five guns pointed at my head.
Alexiy clung to my arm, trembling—not with fear of me, but fear of the situation. The bound girl on the warlord's lap stared with hollow eyes, and the man sitting beneath her looked… entertained.
Leather jacket. Combat boots. A necklace of polished shell casings. Greasy hair slicked back like he believed he was royalty.
He smirked.
"Well now… look what the wind dragged in."
I didn't respond. My eyes drifted around the armory, mapping exits, scanning ammo crates, counting guns, mentally calculating how many telekinetic pushes I could do without exhausting my mana.
"…Great," I muttered. "A wannabe warlord."
Every gun in the room cocked toward me at once.
The boss leaned forward, grin growing wider.
"Oh, this is gonna be fun."
The warlord leaned back, grin widening.
"You got some attitude for a kid with a gun to his head."
I didn't speak.
He clicked his tongue.
"You said you're here to trade," he continued. "Food and meds, yeah? Except…"
He swept his gaze down my empty hands, then at Alexiy.
"…you don't seem to be holding either."
I didn't move.
"So let's make a different deal," he said, tapping the girl's thigh. "You can pick a pistol from my wall…"
He pointed lazily at Alexiy.
"…and I take your little girlfriend. Seems fair, right?"
The room went still.
Alexiy stiffened. Her grip on my sleeve tightened. I felt her breath catch.
I raised my head slowly, finally locking eyes with him.
"At first," I said calmly, "I just wanted to trade."
His eyebrows rose.
"But now," I continued, voice turning cold and flat, "I'm taking all the guns."
Silence.
Then—
The boss burst into loud, barking laughter.
"Oh man! This kid's got BALLS. I like him!"
He waved two fingers in the air.
"Boys—shoot him."
Every gun in the room fired.
In the same moment—
I moved.
Or rather—my mana moved.
Telekinesis flared out of me in a rippling wave, weaving into a curved barrier of force in front of us. Bullets struck it with sharp metallic pings—flattening, and hovering in mid air.
The shooters' eyes widened.
I snapped my hand forward.
The bullets I'd caught reversed direction at twice the speed.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Three gunmen dropped instantly—holes punched clean through their skulls.
The remaining two panicked, firing wildly.
I ducked under the spray, shadows twisting at my heels as I invoked a half-step of Shadow Veil to blur my movement. Frostwill sparked along my palm in a thin, cold ripple as I flicked my hand upward.
Ice formed in the air—shards shaped like glass daggers.
They launched.
Two shimmering spears of frost flew forward like silent execution arrows—
THUNK. THUNK.
Both men collapsed. Frost spread across their chests in widening veins.
The room went dead silent.
Only the warlord remained.
The girl on his lap whimpered, shrinking away from him.
He didn't move her.
He didn't blink.
He just stared at me with a new expression—serious now. Focused.
"…Cute tricks," he said quietly. "Real cute."
The girl slid off his lap. He stood.
He reached into his belt.
And pulled out a pistol.
But not like the others.
A pearlescent sheen shimmered over the barrel—mana.
He spun it once around his finger.
"Let's see what you do," he murmured, "against a REAL power."
He raised his free hand.
I felt it immediately.
A crushing weight slammed onto my shoulders.
GRAVITY.
My body felt heavier than my natural weight—almost like I under more pressure—Gravity.
My knees buckled.
The floor groaned under me.
My ribs strained.
My telekinesis wobbled like thin cloth.
Alexiy cried out beside me."Elion—!"
I pushed off the ground with everything I had.
Frostwill flickered. Shadow Veil sputtered. Telekinesis warped.
"That all you got? A shame. Thought you'd be fun. Maybe your girl will be able pleasure me more." Darius smirked.
He lifted the pistol.
His mana twisted the air around the barrel—compressing it, thickening it, turning the bullet into a miniature meteor.
"Let's see you stop… THIS."
He pulled the trigger.
The bullet screamed through the air—gravity amplifying its speed and mass tenfold.
I threw my mana forward—weaving telekinesis, frost, veil—layered defenses snapping into place—
The bullet hit.
My barrier cracked.
Then shattered.
Mana ripped apart like torn fabric.
I saw the bullet for half a second—a burning point of light—then—
It punched through my chest.
The force blasted me backward into the wall.
Pain exploded across my body.
Warmth flooded my torso.
My legs buckled.
I slid down to the floor, blood trailing behind me.
Alexiy screamed.
"Elion—NO—ELION!"
She dropped to her knees beside me—hands grabbing mine, gripping my face, her tears falling in hot streaks onto my skin.
"ELION—PLEASE! —PLEASE! stay with me—don't—don't leave me! PLEASE—"
Her voice broke.
Her breath trembled violently.
I tried to lift my hand—not for me, but for her—but it barely twitched.
Her fingers clutched my shirt desperately.
"Don't go—please—Elion—please—stay—stay…"
Her voice became distant.
The edges of my vision blackened.
I tried to speak but even breathing felt impossible.
I couldn't hear Darius laughing anymore.
I couldn't hear anything.
The system flickered before my eyes—dim, glitching, like it was broken, like me.
My heartbeat slowed.
My mana collapsed inward like a dying star.
Her voice was the last thing I heard.
"…don't leave me…"
Then—
Darkness.
As I lay foaling in nothing I wonder if the is afterlife.
And a message burned through the void:
[YOU HAVE DIED]
My breath stopped.
Everything ended.
I didn't think it was true but I died.
I didn't scream or cry or get angry. I simply accepted it. After all everyone died. I learned that it's better to just accept the harder things in life. Some things are inevitable, some are born rich some are born poor. Thats a fact. Everyone dies. That's a fact.
My life was hard. My mother died when I was 10, and my father started beating me when I was 11. God my father. If I had one regret I would've said that I didn't have magic; My one wish since I was little, but that changed.
It's funny I don't even remember why I desired magic so much to begin with. I think it was the idea of limitless possibilities. The idea of power, control. But I had magic. I never thought was the Hero in a story I simply wanted to live my life without someone controlling me.
No now my one regret is that my father still might be alive out there. I wish I could've killed him. I've made so many plans so many hypotheticals about how I could kill him and get away with it.
I thought that with magic I might finally have the strength to be free. to chose my own Path do what I wanted inside of putting on a mask.
But instead I died pathetic in the first week of the apocalypse. and I left Alexiy in a shitty position. Part of me really liked her. She was strong. Sure she's scared but she just needed a little support and she was standing on her own two feet.
But I need up dying and leaving her... And she promised to come with me... I don't even know what our relationship is and it's over...
As my conciseness was just drifting through the darkness as I thought about my life, the situation, and everything I realized I didn't know whats gonna happen next.
Don't tell me I'm drifting in endless darkness for eternity, God if I'm gonna go even more insane!
Then—
A second message ignited in me vision appearing from the darkness with bloodied colored text:
[BLOODLINE AWAKENED — VRYKOLAKAS]
I felt something shift within the darkness. the void that I always seemed to be in. the missing pice that I thought mana had filled.
turned out to be something more dangerous than I thought.
Then the darkness vanished.