Sixth Bloodline [BxB]

CHAPTER 51: SECOND MEETING [A PRICE TO PAY FOR ONE'S FAILURE]

cHAptEr 51:

sEcOnd mEEting

[A pricE tO pAY fOr OnE's fAiLUrE]

   IT HURT.

Be it humans, vampires, or something else; the first course of action for a healthy living body to take upon regaining consciousness would naturally be to breathe..

It's also the most basic action that will prove to us that we're still alive.

Mikhael was no different.

Once his slumber was disrupted by that loud noise, Mikhael could no longer stay asleep. But opening his eyes at this moment...

In a body that's on the brink of death, that has already been forcefully kept preserved by a thin thread that could snap at any moment, that could not feel pain due to unconsciousness... What would happen in one suddenly become aware of everything happening to it?

Every single cell has long lost water and air, blood vessels have long became dried up and muscles turned to dust — when even the skin stuck close as if glued — how can it be possible to not feel any pain?

So Mikhael, following the nature of his body, inhaled the air in order to give those cells some air.

But what use was breathing here?

What could possibly make him capable of breathing in such body?

Before his consciousness became clear, he first became aware of pain. The feeling like there was sand in scratching the inner walls of his throat was too painful that he wanted to cry, but the more his body protested to move, the more painful it became.

His dry eyes wanted to produce tears, but there was nothing to make them from. He wanted to scream out, but that only strained his throat more. He wanted to move his limbs, but his skin began to tear like burnt paper with even the simplest movement.

The worst is that the more he did so, the more it hurt, the more his mind cleared, the more he wanted to breathe — making the vicious cycle repeat again and again. There was no blood in his skin so it soon became riddled with cracks as Mikhael fought harder to move.

For he knew...

    'If he didn't move — he'll die!'

So despite the pain, he continued to struggle. Everything is better then death, as long as he can pass through this — he'll survive. And so he tried and tried and tried and tried until his heart felt like it's about to stop.

He had no time to consider his situation not wonder about what happened and why was he in this state — the only thing on his mind was to keep his heart beating.

He doesn't know if he was lucky or what, but just as his heart was about to give up, a single drop of blood inside of it slowly began to merge with it making it regain some of its previous appearance.

THUMP.

THUMP.

THUMP. THUMP.

Mikhael could sense the familiar sensation of his heart healthily beating once again as the arteries and veins on his heart slowly regained their normal appearance. As if placebo, the effect continued to spread to his veins and they further revitalised his whole body. He didn't know how much power that single drop of blood had that did not belong to him, but Mikhael's instincts told him that it's fine now.

It's enough.

He'll survive.

So Mikhael, who was exhausted from previous pain finally gave up before losing his consciousness again, as that drop of blood slowly began to revitalise his body from the scratch.

He doesn't know how long he was out for from that moment, but the next time he opened his eyes, he was lying outside that coffin.

There was nothing wrong with his blood as every part grew back to normal, but Mikhael felt tired. Really tired.

Weakly relying on his hand to crawl forward, Mikhael almost tripped from his own hair that grew to be over two meters long now.

He opened his mouth, and as expected he could still breathe normally, but...

Hungry.

He was also very hungry.

He raised his head.

   "Noisy," but he didn't worry about food. As his eyes became red, he looked above towards the source of noise and his lips curled upwards into a chilling smile.

There was his food.

In the next moment, his body that appeared to be so weak like he could easily snap in two with tiniest force disappeared from that place, with a somewhat crazed expression on his face.

The place Einz constructed for Mikhael has already finished setting all the traps. Once one got under the Great Pyramid, they'd be trapped in various rooms within this maze spanning through the whole Giza Necropolis. It's depth wasn't a joke either, forget about the traps — merely by stepping foot here, one can already be considered dead.

Despite this dangers, there have been more and more people coming to try their luck on this place.

Four years ago, the existence known as "vampires" could no longer be hidden from humans. Month later, various incidents spread around the world with humans dying. In next month, it was revealed that half of the government in most countries was compromised from vampires.

War broke out.

Three months later, vampires took initiative for peace.

Humans rejected.

They didn't think much of those vampires who didn't dare to fight and wanted to 'enslave' them. Vampires naturally refused to comply, and sent Higher Nobles to fight on front lines.

A month later, existence known as "Hunters" took the stage and wanted to represent humanity — which have the other side another courage.

Humans and spell-casters stopped their war after another half year. Hunters and vampires were about to come to agreement, silently cooperating to stop some battles on smaller scale.

Humanity and spell-casters didn't think the same — they'd fight among themselves, but once even bigger mister came out, they sought to destroy it.

They joined hands to suppress vampires, flaming hunters for being old-fashioned and cowards.

Another four months later — Hunters decided to withdraw from the scene. Not long after, Purebloods made their presence known to world and made the other side finally feel a threat. But they didn't have hunters on their side anymore and were completely suppressed.

Despite being at advantage, vampires still opted for peace — but the other side didn't repent and made a move of no return around a year ago.

Now, the two sides are always at each others throat, not even bothering to think about things such as peace. Hunters acted like they were blind and surprised humanity by choosing to stand on the side of vampires.

As for this place, exactly at the same time around year ago, someone discovered an odd barrier with lot of cracks inside. The more people found out about it, the more they gathered and now both sides had their eyes on whatever was hidden here.

Vampires who arrived realized that there might be a senior of theirs here or some kind of dangerous weapon while humans and spell-casters only considered the though of finding some dangerous weapon. Naturally, if there really was some old vampire sleeping here as some rumors said, they'd do their best to finish him off. Thus, the Giza Necropolis became one of the world's most famous battlefields where countless vampires and humans lost their lives every day.

But that didn't prevent them from exploring this place — it only made then more fervent about this Underground Necropolis, as they called it. Just looking at those traps, it's obvious that something extremely valuable had been hidden here. Even the Fifth Pureblood tried to enter this place and barely escaped with his life intact!

Since then, everyone took this place seriously but those truly powerful characters didn't dare to enter. Instead, they stood guard outside and hoped that it's their own side that discovered whatever was inside.

If not.. 

Well, they are here? Will the enemy really be able to escape unscathed from this place with their abilities?

Currently, the Underground Necropolis only had four discovered levels, but they feared that they didn't even cross one tenth of it.

On the second floor right beneath the Great pyramid were three youths — two men in their twenties in a young girl.

One of the two men led the way, but if one looked better they'd notice that his situation seems to be lower than the other two. He had somewhat fawning expression in his face as he walked with hunched back; his whole body covered in wounds and dried blood.

Behind him, the other man with aura of arrogance hugged the beautiful woman by his side, but he didn't look at her and instead frowned at the man leading the way.

   "Zil, do you plan to take me around like a fool in this place for entire day?"

   "Young Master Abraxas, I don't dare. It's just that layout here is a bit difficult for me to crack and pass through." If Mikhael saw this person, he'd recognize it as the disciple of that old man who was dissatisfied with Mikhael.

   "Difficult?" The other person snorted, "Who was it that told me that there's a treasure under this Pyramid? I even helped you to get rid of that old fogey who taught you because of this — but you've done nothing but lead us around for days!"

   "Please quell your anger, young master! I was telling the truth! Six years ago, I've indeed saw a vampire enter through this Pyramid and he was saying something about his ancestor being buried here with treasures," he quickly added, "Back then  there was a similar sensation to mana like this leaking from the Great Pyramid, but once that person entered inside it was immediately sealed! Now, years later this place turned out to be filled with countless traps — that person definitely hid something here!"

   "..."

Abraxas was silent for a while after hearing his words. It's not that he didn't want to trust this lowly spell-caster who betrayed his teacher, but the allure of this place was too great to ignore even the tiniest possibility of success.

He was born with a golden spoon and had everything he ever wanted. He was even extremely talented with mana and was said that he's fated to become the most powerful spell-caster in the future, how could he not be proud of himself?

He could rule the world.

But then... Those damn vampires! He originally wanted to slaughter them and bask in glory, but what the f**k was with their battle prowess? Especially those Nobles and Higher Nobles?

They seemed to know about every spell before Abraxas even chose which one to use! He just couldn't win against them!

But how could he endure this humiliation? Upon hearing about this place, he also wanted to go but was a coward. It was then that he met Zil who was planning to kill his master and overheard about some incident from six years ago — so he believed that this person knew what's hidden here.

Hence, he helped him scheme against his teaches in exchange to this information, but since he wasn't completely sure about this guy — he took him along to lead the way.

As expected, this person was just a con-artist — using him only to kill. What treasure? This guy knew nothing! Who knows if that story is even real? And now, because of this bastard, they were stuck inside!

The pathways would often change, so it was impossible to follow the way back.

   "Trash!" He cursed out loud, but he consoled himself that he had a good female companion. As long as he met another spell-casters, he should use his identity to make them help him out.

Thinking up to that point, he turned to the woman.

   "Don't worry, Julid—" Abraxas paused in his tracks. Zil noticed that something was wrong as he raised his head, but he was just as equally surprised that a person simply disappeared under their noses.

   "Julide!" The other man yelled, but what he got was only an eerie silence in return that made him stiffen. He took out a gun from his pocket — they were all aware that talismans don't work here while vampires were extremely weakened in this place.  This gun was a special relic he obtained through underhanded means used by Hunters to kill vampires — but they didn't know much about them.

People died easily in this era: makers of AV equipment aren't that precious anymore in this war — so if one wanted to betray them, they'd rather kill them personally than hand them over to the other side.

It's because of such strict regulations that blueprints for those things remains unknown, even now. If ones lucky to obtain the weapon from a dead hunter — then that's it.

AV weapons are extremely sensitive and prone to destruction if opened carelessly. They can even kill the person that instigated that explosion.

   "Young master... This, is it a vampire?" Zil asked with fearful expression while the later only snorted.

   "Shut up!" Abraxas focused on his environment. It didn't matter what kind of a beast attacked them, the only outcome will be it's death! His reputation wasn't unbiased, he was confident in his ability to slay wild vampires.

But no matter how long he waited, nothing appeared.

   "Perhaps... She stepped in a trap and was moved to another room?" Zil hopefully commented on the side. The other guy waited for a bit longer before finally lowering his gun.

   "Probably, let's continue to move forwa—" but he was cut in the middle of his sentence as his view began to turn around. Abraxas only heard Zil scream in terror and after some time he finally saw him backed in the corner, looking at him as if he saw a monster.

Even in his death, Abraxas didn't know how he died.

But Zil saw it clearly.

A flash of white appeared out of nowhere and managed to send his head flying like a football ball with a single kick, cleanly separating it from his body.

One needs to know that spell-casters are being who reinforced their bodies with mana, so they are harder to injure compared to humans.

So he didn't dare to move when he saw a pair of naked legs step out of darkness. The body of newcomer was frail and pale, but Zil didn't dare to underestimate it after that attack. The flash of white from before was Mikhael's long hair that obstructed his face, but he didn't appear to mind it as he knelt down to that corpse and began to feast on in front of Zil's eyes.

He had heard and even seen vampires feeding on blood, but never did he see someone like this who used such violent and crude methods to drink blood, even stepping down on corpse as if it's a puddle of mud. Completely disregarding life itself.

Humanity had provoked the other side without truly understanding how terrifying their race truly is. The only reason they haven't seen messy incidents outside is simply because the Judgement Order and higher ups worked efficiently whenever such cases appear. Vampires were strict with their discipline, it would be a joke if they failed to maintain order after all those years.

It only made him even more terrified — especially how the other party didn't even pay him any attention while feeding on his dead companion.

   "Monster..."

Regardless of anything, as a spell-caster himself — he never saw violence during this time as he was treasured by humanity. People would, despite him being a weaker spell-casters, usually treat him with respect and fawn over him.

He never even saw blood, and even the death of his master was orchestrated by this young master, he never even saw his corpse!

So this kind of bloody scene only made him throw up on the side as he backed to the wall.

If someone else disregarded him like this, he would not let them off. But now he only prayed that the other party would forget about him.

Still, he wanted to live!

He didn't kill his own teacher just to die for this stupid reason!

As he thought of that, he began to look around for a weapon or something to help him.

How good it would be if he was suddenly teleported to another room in this maze and escape? Anything! Anything would be better than this beast!

He finally saw the gun the other guy took out earlier.

His eyes finally shone with hope, but as if sensing his gaze, Mikhael finally raised his head from that corpse before giving him a bloodied slothful smile.

It sent chills through his spine.

Coupled with those red eyes and long white hair, he looked not like a vampire — but a devil instead.

He immediately flinched and looked at the gun once again, but this time it was no longer there. Panicked, his eyes wandered around until they finally caught a glimpse of cold metallic gun, but...

Wrong.

Too close!

When he came to his senses, the gun was right in front of him, a slender white hand casually dangled it in the air.

As his eyes continued to widen and he to raise his head and take a look in front of him, he found out that unbeknownst to him, Mikhael already stood in front of him holding that gun like it was an ordinary toy.

   "Impossible!" He couldn't believe this. This weapon... Aren't vampires unable to even touch it? How is this thing...

What is this thing even!!!?

   "You shouldn't openly show your intention to your prey... But, how come even likes of you get to play with those guns now? This isn't a toy, you know?"

His hand began to burn where he touched the gun, but Mikhael acted as if he didn't notice anything.

It was only then that Zil had a chance to take a good look at Mikhael's face, but once he did — he felt the remainder of his hope disappear.

   "I did tell you before, didn't I?" Mikhael looked at him, but at the same time didn't. It was like he was talking to an illusion, not really taking it seriously.

To him who just wiped the third and fourth floor clean of every life, this rare moment of sanity came so suddenly that he wasn't able to adapt to it.

He knew this kid... He saw him when he first came here... 'Six years, did he say so?'

Then...

But whatever thought Mikhael had immediately disappeared as his bloodthirstiness arose again.

BANG!

   "See, you should use it like this... Without giving your enemy the chance to realize what's going on. Words get you killed, human."

Mikhael talked to himself but then threw away that gun.

   "Why did I hold onto this?"

But then he frowned again. Then his face morphed to that of rage. Or happiness. He didn't know. In the end, he couldn't resist the fresh blood in front of him as he dived in to another meal.

But undeniable truth was... Even after killing over three hundred humans on this  floor and below, his thirst could no longer be sated.

That was Mikhael's price for failing to awaken properly.