The small, dark chamber was silent except for John's heavy breathing and the low, pained groans of the Clan Lord. Leonidas, slumped against the cold rock, managed a dark, weak chuckle. Cough, cough. "And how are we going to escape? I am already good as dead."
John, however, smiled, his youthful defiance firm. "But I have a plan."
Leonidas's eyes snapped open, his gaze laced with bitterness and disbelief. "Don't be stupid, boy. If I weren't present, you would have died five times over! You were scared for your dear life moments ago. Tell me, how are you going to kill the troll and move the boulder afterwards? Accept your fate, boy; we are just delaying the inevitable." Leonidas closed his eyes, sealing himself off.
John felt profoundly discouraged by the dismissal, but then he remembered his only potential asset. He searched through his storage ring, pulling out a vial. "Hey, Grandpa, what about this?"
Leonidas slowly opened one eye, focusing his blurred vision on the small vial of clear liquid. "Uhm, an antidote? Where did you get it?"
John's face lit up with a gleeful pride. "Well, after the werewolf incident, I went to Porto and asked him for an antidote in case I ever came across a werewolf again. Now, my forward thinking has come in handy! Here, take the antidote, Grandpa, and get us outta here."
Leonidas smiled lightly, but the amusement was dark. "Hehehe. Unfortunately, that antidote is only going to work for a low-level werewolf. It will not touch an Alpha Werewolf's venom. You really think a normal werewolf venom can stop me that easily?"
Suddenly, a massive surge of pain enveloped Leonidas's body. "Aaaahhhh!" He couldn't help but scream, his body convulsing wildly. John began to panic. "What is wrong, Grandpa? What can I do?"
Blood began to leak from Leonidas's ears, eyes, and mouth. He was in extreme agony, his eyes starting to glow a furious red, and his fangs elongating past his lip. Thick black veins appeared starkly on his neck. "It fu**ing hurts!" Leonidas roared, twisting on the ground. John quickly decided to take off his jacket and coat, throwing the fabric over his grandfather's spasming body, trying desperately to provide some comfort.
After an hour of agonizing twisting and turning, Leonidas finally fell silent and unconscious. "Damn, is a werewolf's bite that effective?" John muttered, scratching his cheek, stunned by the vampire Lord's suffering.
He looked around the dismal area and saw a huge cloth covering something in the corner. He walked closer and carefully removed the cloth. "Lucky," he breathed out.
Another hour passed. Leonidas slowly opened his eyes, the red glow receding. He heard a crackling sound nearby. He turned his head and saw John sitting calmly near a bonfire, poking the small, clean fire with a long wooden stick.
Cough, cough.
John quickly left what he was doing and rushed to his grandfather. "Hey, Grandpa, are you alright? Here, drink some blood." John retrieved a bottle of blood from his storage ring, but as Leonidas took a sip, he instantly spat it out. "My body is rejecting the blood."
"Oh" John then slowly put the bottle of rejected blood back into his storage ring and returned to sit near the small, comforting bonfire. He decided to use the brief respite to question his grandfather about the painful history that led them here. "Grandpa, what happened to Decker's daughter? What did you do?"
Leonidas was silent for a long moment, the crackling of the small fire filling the cavern. "Why do you want to know? It won't change the fact that we are going to perish in here."
"I want to at least know why he hates you so much," John insisted, leaning forward. "I could see the anger and pain in his eyes. I am here because of you—I have the right to know."
Leonidas went silent for a moment and let out a heavy sigh, realizing the truth was owed to the boy who was risking his life for him. "Well, it is not a long story."
"Tell me," John urged.
"It was many years ago; I cannot remember exactly how long. It was daytime, and I was visiting a friend from a long time ago. We were sitting and chatting about the good old days until we saw dark clouds coming out of nowhere. He told me that this is the result of dark magic and that we must find the origins and stop it before it can cause a great catastrophe."
Leonidas paused, gathering his strength. "We decided to split up and look for the source of the dark magic. I managed to find a small wooden house in the woods, and sensing the energy coming from deep inside the house caused shivers to creep up my spine."
He paused for a few seconds, the memory clearly agonizing. "I knew that I couldn't wait for my friend to arrive, and I decided to act quickly. When I opened the door, a great deal of dark magic and energy enveloped me. As one of the strongest vampires at that time, it had been a long time since I felt that much fear. I saw a girl standing in the middle of the room, holding a book."
John's mind raced, connecting the terrifying pieces. "I guess the girl was Decker's daughter?"
Leonidas nodded his head once. "Correct. And the book she was holding was no ordinary book; it's as if the book were alive; it had eyes that looked at me, staring into the depths of my soul. I started to move closer when the girl spoke, but it was not her own voice that spoke to me."
"What did she say, Grandpa?" John asked, his voice hushed with dread.
"It said, 'Stay away, creature of the night.' I ignored it. I tried to take the book from her hands when she suddenly screamed, and a huge force blasted the house into bits. I would also have been blown away if I were an ordinary vampire. I managed to snap the book from her hands, but the book also began to let out a terrible screech, and a huge portal started to form behind her. I looked at the little girl, and her eyes and teeth were black as coal. She spoke again, but this time it sounded like multiple deep voices; she was possessed by demons."
John's eyes were wide as saucers, his mind reeling from the scale of the revelation. "Wait, what? Are you telling me that demons exist?"
Leonidas continued with the harrowing tale. "Black liquid leaked out of her eye sockets, and she began to speak in a sharp, guttural language I had never heard before. I did not know what she, or, should I say, the demons inside of her, were truly doing, but it did not take me long to realize the consequences. Creatures from the other side began to claw their way through the developing portal. Luckily, my friend managed to find us just in time, and he used his powers to send the creature back through the swirling abyss. He then yelled at me to kill the girl to close the anchor, and I did not hesitate; I pierced her heart. But it did not have an effect."
John leaned forward, horrified. "What do you mean, Grandpa, with no effect?"
Leonidas let out a low, painful sigh at the memory of his failure. "She laughed."
John was completely confused. "She laughed?" he asked, tilting his head.
"Yes, the demons inside her laughed; she screamed, but there was no sound—a terrifying, silent, internal screech. I felt something powerful surging toward me, and I decided to block the attack with my hands. My friend yelled out to dodge, but it was too late; both my arms were instantly blown into bits." Leonidas paused, flexing his hands, a habit gained from the instantaneous power of his regeneration. "My arms quickly regenerated, and I retaliated by burning her with one of my fire techniques."
The demon within the girl screamed in pain. "My friend used that momentary diversion to seal the portal. Then, something else happened: a huge demon, its skin blacker than pitch, came through the shrinking portal. It grabbed the girl and spoke to her in its demon language. I could see the pure terror and fear in the girl's eyes—she was just an innocent victim. The demon then instantly bit her head off and returned with her to the dissolving portal. We managed to seal the portal completely before anything else could come through it."
Leonidas finished the agonizing confession. "After that horrific incident, I sensed someone was watching us. I used my senses and found out it was the girl's father, Decker. Furthermore, I acted like I didn't see him, and we left with the book. We later discovered that this book could bring someone back from the dead, but it came with a terrible cost. We assumed that Decker's wife had died and that he wanted to bring her back to life at some point. The little girl most likely found the book by accident while he was gone, and she became possessed."
John was utterly shocked by the grim history. "Damn, he probably saw his daughter get eaten by the demon, and now he blames you for what happened."
Leonidas nodded his head, the truth a heavy weight. "Afraid so."
John's confusion deepened. "Damn, then how did you meet him?"
Leonidas coughed, the black blood rattling in his throat. "Many, many years later, he came to me as a businessman, and out of pity, I decided to work with him. It never crossed my mind that he would betray me like this; I should have killed him back then, but this is life."
"Thank you, Grandpa, for telling me the story," John said. He picked up more wood and threw it into the bonfire, the flames immediately licking higher in the small cavern.
Leonidas looked at John's back, then closed his eyes briefly before opening them, resolving to speak the final, most bitter truth. "John, there is something else I want to say."
"What is it, Grandpa?"
Leonidas sighed, the sound heavy with both remorse and arrogance. "That time when you and the maid were hunted by the wolf in the forest… I could have saved you… but to tell you the truth, I was hoping for you to die."
John froze, the revelation striking him like a physical blow. "What?" The single word was sharp with disbelief.
"The first time you came to my castle, I wanted to kill you, but your father saved you. I was disappointed in my daughter for breeding with a werewolf. To this day, I don't know how this is possible, I…"
John was consumed by blinding, righteous anger. He thought about the trauma and the struggle he had endured, realizing his own blood relative had been waiting for his death. Being born a hybrid is not my fault, he thought, the injustice fueling his rage. He stood up and walked the few steps to where his grandfather was sitting.
Leonidas looked up at John and saw the fury blazing in his eyes. "Are you going to beat up a dying old man?"
John gazed down on the Clan Lord and answered with cold, absolute rage. "Yes. Fu** you."
John launched forward, kicking Leonidas hard in the stomach and following up with a brutal series of punches to the face. Leonidas roared in extreme pain, the venom amplifying every blow. "You little fu**er, I will kill you!"
John ignored the threat, his fury focused. He pulled the Clan Lord's legs open. "This is for me," he growled, kicking him savagely in the groin. "This is for Elena," he said, delivering a second, brutal kick to the same spot, and then kicking him again and again in his family jewels. Leonidas screamed in agonizing pain, the paralysis preventing him from protecting his core. "Stop, please," he begged, his voice broken.
John continued to kick, his voice strained with fury. "You don't abandon your family, you piece of sh*t." John kicked Leonidas until the Clan Lord finally passed out from the excruciating, localized pain.
John retrieved a dagger from his storage ring and, with great difficulty, forced himself to cut open his wrist. He quickly poured his hybrid blood inside his unconscious grandfather's mouth, forcing the potent liquid down his throat. John then retrieved the useless antidote vial and poured the clear liquid into Leonidas's mouth. He knew the antidote was worthless, but he used it as an excuse to wash down the potent hybrid blood that was still clinging to Leonidas's lips.
He then took out a clean white piece of cloth and wiped the blood from Leonidas's mouth, meticulously making sure there was no evidence that he had used his own cursed blood to save the Clan Lord's life.
John clenched his fist, the rage now cold, replaced by fierce, protective determination. "We have to get outta here."