Sixth Bloodline [BxB]

CHAPTER 19: BLUE DEATH [CORPSES THAT NEVER WITHER]

cHAptEr 19:

bLuE dEAtH

[cOrpSE tHAt dO nOt witHEr]

   IT TOOK over three hundred bullets, entire wall ridden with holes, quarter of weird medicines in bottles destroyed, various curses, Ethan finally snapping and Mikhael getting detained for the fight to stop.

Nonetheless, if there was one good thing that came out of this all is that Mikhael suddenly found Ethan to no longer be as annoying as before.

No, it's better to say that he found another use to Ethan — using him as a meat shield!

Just because Mikhael stopped trying to riddle bullets into that pest doesn't mean that the Healer chose to stop trying to cut up Mikhael's body and experiment on it. Luckily for Mikhael, the latter seems to fear Ethan, so Mikhael stealthily hid behind this OP existence, throwing threatening glares here and there.

Yes, Mikhael was that traumatized. The crazy bunch of Vatican priests were nothing compared to this madman.

   "It would appear that the two of you already know each other, but for our two guests from W.E.R.P., allow me to present you our Eden's only Healer, Yurim." Ethan casually spoke as he got closer to the blue corpse with Mikhael following behind.

He didn't forget to throw another glare to the Korean Healer before moving his gaze to the corpse as well. The face was extremely peaceful and fresh to the point that if not for him not moving at all, they wouldn't know that this vampire was really dead.

Well... The blue color was a bit weird, too.

   "It really is the same as twenty years ago," he murmured, but Ethan heard him.

   "You really saw one?" He inquired as Mikhael only rolled his eyes. Why do you think he'd know such classified information if not for seeing it with his own eyes?

   "What else did you think?"

   "You stole files or something?"

   "..."

Oi, he was a vampire hunter, not a vampire thief!

   "I'm amazed they'd let someone as dumb as you know about this, as far as I'm aware — not even all of the Esteemed Seats knew about this deal, so I assumed that you as Twentieth Seat wouldn't know either. Is there something else you're not telling me?"

   "..."

Well, Mikhael was the former First Seat, but past is past.

   "Well, I did go to investigate alone."

Ethan furrowed his eyebrow.

   "Not all of them knew because this situation was somewhat risky. If they came to know about what Blue Death could really do, there was a chance that they'd use that power to immediately exterminate the entire vampire race."

So Mikhael began to spew nonsense.

When he investigated this, he wasn't under Hunters HQ command. In fact, he sneaked out all alone and sneaked into human forces before he saw a corpse like this. What exactly did he do at that time again...

   "Although Hunters HQ hunted... our kind, we... They didn't want to break the equilibrium and exterminate us all. As the only vampire among the Twenty Seats, I was entrusted with this case because I had the least chances of doing something stupid with that knowledge," actually, the others were just stupid.

Back then during the Great War, Hunters surprisingly pulled back from the fight. Mikhael thought that it was suspicious since they ate the greatest loss, so he decided to act alone.

Mikhael was the first to find traces of this ridiculous "virus", the other didn't know — as much as he was aware. But another reason why he kept it a secret was because of Hunter on sitting on the top of that organization — in fact, he even hid his findings from the boss at the beginning — since he never knew what that man thought.

   "I see," Ethan only smiled to those words, noticing how Mikhael distanced himself with hunters and said "our" kind, "You really were alone?"

   "Yeah. Oh, I found some help later on."

The group that no longer existed.

The group that protected vampire race from inside enemies.

   "Who?"

   "...Some colleagues." Mikhael's expression seemed like he didn't want to talk about it anymore and Ethan didn't press him for answers.

But once he removed his gaze from Mikhael, his eyes turned darker. In fact, he was testing this little guy. At first, he thought that Mikhael was just pretending, but now... He was genuinely sincere when he said that he worked alone, Ethan carefully observed every detail of his when he said those words.

But he himself knew... When Mikhael saw that corpse back then, he was there by his side.

And it was on the day before they got separated.

But still, he was confident that he'll find out the reason why on his own. They had eternity in front of them, after all.

Also...

Bullying Mikhael with "Flame, what else aren't you telling me?", from time to time was quite fun when Mikhael accidentally said something important.

At that time, Yurim coughed twice, pretending like he didn't know Mikhael at all as he came closer and opened the corpse, showing them a bunch of messed up and blue organs inside. Even the sick guy on the side stopped screaming as he tilted his head to see what's going on.

   "Whatever did this, it's not showing its effects immediately. When I got this corpse, only the outer skin, hair, eyes, blood and heart were blue. However, in the mere few minutes after that, the piece of lungs began to change as well. If it goes at this rate, it will take a day or week at most to completely change."

Just like when he cut them up twenty years ago.

   "This person seems to have died a day ago, but... Seeing as vampires only leave ash behind, we can't be too sure about the day when it started. After all, we only have theories and nothing else, this remained a mystery twenty years ago as well."

   "So it really is the Blue Death?" Ethan frowned. The corpses that appeared back then were all stolen, so they had no idea what happened with them.

   "Well, I did research on my own, so I know a bit more than ordinary people, still..."

Yurim explained as everyone solemnly looked at the corpse, except for Mikhael who seemed somewhat conflicted. In the end, he gave up on whatever he was thinking as he spoke up.

   "What do you know about Blue Death?"

The situation was far worse than everyone imagined.

   "It first appeared twenty years ago during the Great War. It's still unknown who's behind this mess, but we suspect that it was a vampire with ability or a spell-caster, maybe even a witch that was responsible for their deaths. That's assuming that it wasn't some kind of virus that did this."

Back then, he did investigate it with some reliable help.

   "As you can remember, we ruled out the possibility of it being a virus and was man-made disaster."

Mikhael nodded, but somewhat confusedly.

   "At that time, we decided that it was a serial murder case, since all the victims died the same way. Moreover, there weren't any leads in our investigations, so the cause of this disease is still unknown up to this date, but..." Yurim continued while looking at Mikhael.

Because this guy was the one who helped him investigate back then.

   "As you're well aware, it's unknown how the killer got them, but his movements led to New York. But now the entire city is gone, so we can't find the traces to uncover this mystery."

   "That's right," Mikhael only thought that Yurim was speaking like that because he found out that Mikhael investigated all that and would naturally know those things. He didn't realize that Yurim was looking at him differently while he rummaged through the void in search for something.

But Ethan noticed. He saw the way Yurim who was regarded as his mortal enemy treated Mikhael like they were drinking buddies. But Mikhael ignored him, so...

   'He didn't only forget me.'

He realized at last.

   'His memory is messed up. Warped into something else or completely removed. But why?'

   "What are you doing?" He asked Mikhael who frustratingly began to search even faster through his void.

Yurim chose to save him from needlessly speaking as he pulled out a blue heart from the corpse.

   "But for some reason, not long after they appeared, all corpses were gone in less than a week. No matter how well guarded the place was, someone managed to steal all those corpses and we never saw them again." Then he turned his eyes to Mikhael.

   "Isn't that right, mister vampire hunter?"

Mikhael only rolled his eyes without looking at him.

   "I really should have killed you back then, ah— here it is."

With that, he pulled out something that looked like goose's egg covered in countless talismans, the red one on top of them all being too eye-catching to miss.

   "Twenty years ago, I saw you steal that corpse from under my eyes, and now once you came here to Eden, we have another repetition of this case, could it be that you have something to do with this? Not to mention that those corpses conveniently appeared where we stayed." He evilly grinned as Mikhael fought the urge to take out his gun again.

   "What does where you went and corpses appearing has to do with me?" Was this guy mad? Want to blame me?

Yurim frowned and was about to answer when Mikhael continued instead.

   "Stop with your misleading words. Even if I did do it and got arrested, you won't get a chance to experiment on my body, you crazy bastard," then he pointed to Ethan, "Moreover, I've been with this guy for the past week 24/7. I had no time to go and play with vampire corpses!"

   'I wouldn't want to cut you up now that you have a backing. Moreover, what happened to our friendship? What a fickle man, already abandoned me, after all the trouble I did for you...'

Throwing the mess of talismans to Yurim, Mikhael moved closer to the body and began to explain.

   "First day — well, the first day of symptoms, blood will turn blue. I do think that there's at least a day after in-taking the source of this disease before it shows symptoms, but I have no proof. Second day, hair would follow. On third, heart will become corrupted and person will die a painless death — in fact, all their senses would dull and they would appear to be peacefully sleeping, but that's only the beginning."

   "...well, it would appear that they're dead, but maybe their consciousness is still there. But again, I don't know — not enough test subjects." Yurim nodded.

   "So, you're saying that the corpse is only three to four days old?" Krull, who kept silent until now chose to speak at that moment.

   "Yeah, you guys think that this is just another serial murder case or whatnot, but if you saw what I've seen twenty years ago, you wouldn't be able to remain so calm." Mikhael loudly exhaled. In the end, as if steeling his resolution, he turned to Ethan and solemnly spoke:

   "Knock out that guy, what I say mustn't leave this room, not even your superiors can hear about it."

The sick guy behind them whom Mikhael pointed to only shivered in fear when Yurim came next to him and pulled out some weird medicine before force-feeding him.

After that, the guy immediately dropped unconscious making the two from W.E.R.P. finally realized the terror of those Healers.

   "Are you sure you want to listen? After I tell you about this, you must keep it a secret from your superiors no matter what and work with us. You're most likely to die if you chose that," Krull frowned at those words as Malèna brightly smiled.

   "Moreover... If this information leaks out, you'll be help responsible as traitors... Or perpetrator's accomplices."

   "I'm in~" but before she could continue, someone appeared and smacked her head before smiling amiably.

   "Is it too late to join this party now?" The stranger only smiled as Mikhael sighed and Ethan shrugged his shoulders. They had already noticed this guy who for some reason hid in shadows, but since they didn't know whether he was a friend or foe, neither made a move first.

This man looked to be in late thirties, had a red hair with a bearing of someone who was about to drop dead. Mikhael suddenly felt like he knew this guy from somewhere... But in the end shook it off thinking that he found a soul-mate. Their eyes really had the same listless gleam.

   "Fa-faction leader! What are you doing here?" Krull suddenly exclaimed making Mikhael curiously stared at the other guy, realizing his identity.

Marian Niche. An immortal human, just like Amelia — or so he said. He showed his worth during the Great War by eliminating over fifteen Nobles all by himself, also came from a influenced family.

Since most human leaders feared him, they sent him here to supervise Eden in hopes that he'd get killed by the vampires, yet the later guy survived and became the boss of W.E.R.P. — a random mob working under him was even better than professional W.E.R.P. agents outside.

But still, it's quite the miracle he's still alive after killing so many Nobles, not to mention ordinary vampires. He was quite famous around the time when the Great War began, since he killed vampires on the territory of Pureblood.

It's no wonder why Mikhael was so surprised to see this guy.

Does Ethan not mind him? He almost killed Mikhael with his glares when he found out about him killing former vampires.

   "Why can't I be here when you vampires are trying to poach my men?" He asked in turn making Krull pause.

   'True. It does look like Ethan and I are trying to poach them...'

But still...

   "Is he reliable?" Ethan didn't really care who came, in any case he will just beat them, but that curious look in Mikhael's eyes... He really didn't like.

   "Depends on what you need to do. If you seek power, then I can help, or if you want to protect this city — I will also be of better value than those guys, but..." His easy-going smile suddenly chilled, "But if you want to do something stupid like murder or destroy this city, then I'm afraid, but even if you're Pureblood's Blood Partner, I'd still kill you."

   "..."

   'Ah, what a pity. No breaking the barrier now.'

   "He'll do."

Mikhael had the same opinion as Ethan. If this guy turns out to be a nuisance or betray them, he can always just kill him. And a faction leader... Basically, this guy controls the entire force of W.E.R.P. stationed in Eden, right? How useful.

Just to be sure, Mikhael used a red talisman to create a sound barrier around them. With this, even a Pureblood won't be able to hear what they're talking about.

   "First of all, open that up. But be careful, it stinks," Mikhael pointed to those talismans he gave to Yurim. The later party scoffed at his words as he began to tear talisman after talisman, Ethan raised an eyebrow in surprise. So easy?

   "Were the red talismans always that easy to break?"

   "It's fine, it's just an isolating barrier to prevent the smell from spreading out. Rest are the same, but I wasn't sure if they'd be enough, so I added a red one on top of them."

Everyone else: "..."

How wasteful!

It's a red talisman, ah! RED!

Although not seriously, it can still wound a Pureblood if used properly! And you used it just to block the smell!

However, once the last layer was removed and a little bottle with blue liquid was reveal, Ethan and Yurim both moved as far away from it as possible, and even the Marian instinctively took a step back before stopping. Mikhael who noticed that smiled before turning to laugh at Ethan.

   'Hah, serves you right!'

Krull and Malena, however, couldn't understand their reaction, but they too pulled away just in case.

   "What's... This terrible smell?" Ethan was the first to speak at Mikhael who seemed unfazed.

   "You can't stand it, right?" He paused with an odd look in his eyes ignoring what he saw earlier, "No vampire can. Humans can't smell anything at all, so you guys from W.E.R.P. are fine."

   "..."

   "That's where you come into the picture, Yurim. You need to find a way how to make a vampire willingly drink this thing."

   "Who the f**k would be so crazy? I wouldn't drink this even if you offered yourself to me for free!"

   "f**k, can you think of anything else? Why don't you go and cut your own body if you want to cut things so much!"

What a pity, what a real pity that he can't kill this guy. He really needs him alive right now, though.

   "Anyway, that thing is the source of the Blue Death. But this sample was extracted from a victim, so I can't be sure how it originally looked like?"

He frowned, but knowing Yurim's abilities, he was certain that he could find out the original form.

   "It needs to get into vampire's bloodstream, but no lunatic would be willing to drink that s**t on his own, yet the victims did. Moreover, it can't just get mixed so simply, it needs to get into a vampire's special bloodstream. The one leading to their second heart."

The only thing that goes to their second heart is the blood they drink, and nothing else. Not even air, their real blood, nor does that blood travel to their bodies unless they're injured.

   "I've done my share of research, mixing it with water, then blood, and food... Nothing worked, it still stinks like crazy. But those victims didn't even notice how they got infected, since they continued their everyday life normally."

   "...so there has to be a way to hide it's smell completely." Yurim followed.

   "But I'm limited with my knowledge. On the other hand, if it's you..." He really was unwilling to work with this guy, but he was undeniably the only person that could help him right now, "You might be able to figure it out."

   "..."

There was a long silence between those present as Marian decided to ask what everyone wanted to know.

   "Where did you get that thing? And how... Do you know that?"

Mikhael glanced at him and then at Ethan with complicated gaze before finally choosing to say something. Whatever, he'll just hate him more if nothing else.

   "Do you know how New York disappeared?"

Another moment or silence reigned as Ethan spoke.

   "Obliterated. With the power of black talisman."

A terrific thought came to his mind at that moment.

Mikhael sighed again before deciding to sit down. He really didn't want to talk about the past. He would rather it never happened.

   "That's right. A black talisman." He avoided Ethan's gaze who already made some conjuncture in his head. To Ethan's awareness, only one person could use a spell of that caliber.

   "It was me who destroyed it."

Like a drop of water falling onto a calm lake, his words created the waves that stirred hearts of everyone present.

No one could stay indifferent after they heard those words as indescribable chill spread under their skin.

During the Great War, the big cities such as New York were the biggest targets of the vampires to use as their dens. Seven Purebloods took over six greatest cities — as Dante remained by Ethan's side during that period — and ruled over them. It happened after the fall of their own capital, City of Evernight.

Although there were humans remaining in those six cities — most of the population has been killed or turned into the vampires while the remainder got used like the food.

Other capitals were in no different state and it was around that time that the first traces of Blue Death began to appear on Manhattan. But before they could properly investigate, the entire city was obliterated overnight without leaving a single clue, only a month later. At the same time, the Sixth Pureblood suppressed the rebellion and obliterated the entire Crimean Peninsula - wiping it off the map.

People only knew that a spell-caster used a black talisman and destroyed the city full of humans and vampires together, and then simply disappeared forever.

No one knew who the crazy fucker was, but there is still up to this date a huge bounty on his head.

   "You better explain everything before I cut off your head, vampire," Marian was the first to break the silence as he took a sword from nowhere. Even Yurim showed some hostility while Krull and Malena prepared their own weapons, ready to attack.

Only Ethan seemed somewhat calm and collected, but inside of his mind was a raging inferno as he took time to digest this information.

Unable to control himself, he too asked why.

   "Why?"

   'You aren't that kind of person. So why?'

Mikhael somewhat bitterly smiled seeing their expressions as he turned back to that corpse. If possible, he wouldn't have wanted to be in that place and do what he has done.

   "At that time, I was following the traces of the Blue Death. Corpses that appeared were mostly around Manhattan, and over a course of single month, I've discovered more than fifty similar cases."

It was a nightmare.

   "Those corpses, the virus inside them take a single month of hibernation. Starting from outer appearance, blood, heart, inner organs and then finally even bones, every single part of their bodies become stained with blue. Although I've found over fifty of them that were randomly dropped on the streets... In sewers of the New York, I estimate that I missed a couple hundred more of them."

He was too naive. He only assumed that someone was killing vampires and didn't put further thought to the bodies. He only burned those he found after he saw the first one combust and expand virus — but rather than finding more, he sought the perpetrator of this case.

How could he have known the real purpose of those blue corpses?

   "The virus or whatever it was, did not come naturally. Those bodies were well hidden, even if they knew they'd die, those vampires wouldn't be so stupid as to lock themselves in coffins then hide in various sewers all over the city."

Mikhael would never forget the terror he felt on that day.

   "Those bodies... They were all there for a month."

Killings on the battlefields during the Great War were nothing compared to the events that dogodile in that city.

   "What happened when they reached the limit?"

Mikhael only blankly stared back at Ethan, unable to think properly as he recounted everything that he saw.

   "It only took ten minutes for Manhattan to fall. What's in that bottle is only a tiny part compared to the stench those bodies emitted. But that's not all, upon smelling that stench, vampires around it immediately went mad, then attacked the nearby humans. Upon drinking human blood, they simply perished into a thin air while humans, who'd now become vampires continued that cycle. The change of humans was also immediate."

Vampires had no consciousness, humans turned into moments. They just attacked the first human they saw like rabid dogs then died and so the cycle continued again and again. When Mikhael said that it took Manhattan only ten minutes to fall, he meant to say that it only took ten minutes for entire population of Manhattan to drop to zero in those ten minutes.

No humans nor vampires survived. Not even animals — they somehow became similar to vampires upon smelling that disgusting stench.

It was nothing like Mikhael ever saw.

   "Two hours later, over eighty percent of New York was done in. But what was worse, those monsters, upon growing in number and thirsting for blood decided to go outside. And the original thousand blue corpses, unlike those newly created one, didn't get damaged a single bit... Only continued to spread this disease."

Mikhael had to watch with his own eyes how his past comrades that took pride in protecting their kind became the weapon of mass destruction that killed vampires. Their bodies eternally turned into the source of disease, unable to think nor stop.

And Mikhael, whom they protected was helpless to save them in turn...

   "Although I didn't know if they'd ever rot or disappear from that point on, I couldn't take the risks. Even if I knew that there were people who survived, I..."

...so he had to make a choice to personally put them to eternal sleep instead...

   "...Couldn't let a variable go away."

...but in the end couldn't do it.

Before any of them managed to escape outside and spread disease, it was better to destroy them all — even if that included innocent people.

Ethan could understand, so he didn't blame Mikhael.

What if those who survived had a dormant virus in them that was yet to erupt? Or if they too, were only on the first day of Blue Death?

Then go out and spread this disaster further? What use would there be in quarantining New York? Perhaps the whole world would be gone if only a single infected managed to escape.

   "What's terrible about this aren't the first victims, but what they can do. What we should do right now is lock down the Eden and try to get rid of all those corpses if we can."

Mikhael stopped thinking about that and focused on the present instead.

   "If there is one, the second will follow soon. And then third and forth and so on —  but we can do nothing without knowing the source of this. If we're talking about the same madman from twenty years ago, then this guy won't be the only victim and Eden is most likely to become another New York."

Not to mention...

   "The person responsible for this might be someone in high position," he turned to Ethan with that same complicated gaze from before, "Perhaps even a Pureblood or..."

He didn't fear Ethan or others in this room. If they really are perpetrators of this case, he'll go down with them — and it would also be for the best. But if Eden is to become another New York because of another corpse outside, then regardless of having another month or not, he'd chose to bury this vampire city right here and now!

Ignorant of Mikhael's thoughts, Ethan only silently stared at the younger vampire, especially focusing on those blue eyes of his.

Mikhael said that they were from the times when he was a human, but could a human possibly have such odd crystal blue eyes? And Ethan clearly remembers that his eyes used to be a light peach color, almost translucent, but it appeared as if he gathered all the light around him inside those eyes of his.

Ethan fell for those eyes the moment he saw them.

Eyes that looked at the world like it was something precious and beautiful.

But now...

Although still beautiful, they carried an aura of death in them. Such blue color truly didn't belong to the world of living.

   'Moreover...'

   'If you were there, if you really witnessed the fall of New York with your own eyes...'

   'If what you said about vampires involved in this was all true, then how...'

   'How come you're still alive, Mikhael? You, who are a vampire yourself.'