I woke up.
Guess an arrow through the skull wasn't enough to finish me off.
At first, I couldn't move.
My body was heavy, my limbs glued together by something thick and pulsing. The world was muffled—like I was underwater, heartbeat echoing in my ears. When I opened my eyes, everything was red.
I was inside a cocoon.
A sphere of blood.
It surrounded me, pulsing like a living organ, the surface trembling with each weak breath I took. My body was frail, brittle, useless. Every muscle screamed with exhaustion. My veins burned. My bones ached. I couldn't break free.
But I could still control blood.
With the little willpower I had left, I forced the blood around me to obey.
The cocoon trembled.
Then it exploded.
A fountain of red burst outward, splattering the stone floor. I stumbled forward, coughing, gasping for air. My knees hit the ground hard, and I stayed there, shaking, feeling the world spin around me.
My reflection in the blood made me freeze.
My hair—once jet-black—now carried streaks of silver-white. My skin was paler, my body thinner, my eyes darker. I could feel something vile crawling through my veins, eating away at my strength.
Poison.
The Fiend's poison.
I was dying.
I tried to focus my power again, to absorb the spilled blood and restore myself, but before I could, I felt it—something watching me.
Then, the blood on the ground moved.
It slithered across the floor like it was alive, reforming, twisting, shaping itself into a small, hunched creature. A Fiend. Its body was made of black ichor and sharp, needle-like bones, its face a stretched grin of mockery.
That thing…
That thing was the reason I had been trapped in the illusion. The reason my head had been splitting apart. The reason my body was ruined.
"You," I muttered, my voice hoarse. "You're the one who did this."
It twitched—like it was laughing without sound.
I didn't wait.
I lunged forward, fist raised, all my rage pouring into a single punch. But the Fiend's claw lashed out first, catching my chest and throwing me across the blood-soaked floor. My back slammed into the wall hard enough to make me see stars.
I spat out blood and looked up—and froze.
The Fiend was changing. Its form stretched and melted, bones cracking, skin reshaping. And then—
I saw her.
Yuki.
Her pale face. Her kind, nervous smile. Her gentle eyes.
The illusion wasn't clever—it was mocking.
"You shouldn't have done that," I said, my voice breaking into a low growl.
The Fiend smiled with her face. "Why not, Alucard? Don't you want to save me? Do you still love me"
Something in me snapped.
I charged.
Blood burst from my feet as I dashed forward, faster than I ever had before. The Fiend raised its claws, but I was already there. My right fist clenched, blood condensing around it—denser, heavier—until it became almost black. It felt like my bones were breaking from the pressure, but I didn't stop.
I swung.
The impact cracked the air like thunder.
The Fiend's head snapped sideways, its skull splintering open before regenerating instantly. I didn't care. I swung again. And again. And again.
Each blow shattered bone and burst flesh; each regeneration only fueled my fury. My hand was breaking, I could feel it—tendons snapping, knuckles turning to mush—but the pain only pushed me further.
"YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE HER FACE?!"
Another punch.
"TRAP ME IN YOUR FUCKING ILLUSION?!"
Another punch.
"TAKE EVERYTHING FROM ME?!"
I screamed as I struck again, my fist finally shattering. Bone shards tore through my skin. The Fiend clawed at me, but I didn't even feel it anymore. I switched hands. Left fist. Smash. Smash. Smash.
When that broke too, I used my teeth, biting into its throat, tearing chunks of flesh like a wild beast. Black blood splattered everywhere. It tried to morph again, to shift into Aiko's face this time—but I didn't let it.
I grabbed its skull and rammed my forehead into it with a roar.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Until its head was pulp.
Until I heard it—the voice of the Spell, cold and clear through the haze of blood and pain.
[You have slain a Fallen Beast: Fiend of Illusion]
[You have received a Memory: Charm of the Blood Goddess]
I collapsed backward, panting, staring at the crimson-stained ceiling. My body was a ruin—bones shattered, flesh shredded. But I didn't care about the system message. Not yet.
Still, something inside me moved.
A pull toward the charm that appeared beside the Fiend's corpse—a small silver necklace shaped like a crescent moon, dripping with dark red liquid.
It was beautiful.
Wrongly beautiful.
Instinct told me what to do.
It could heal me. If I fed it blood.
I crawled forward, hand trembling, and gathered every drop of blood in the room. It obeyed me reluctantly, crawling toward the charm, swirling around it like a red vortex. I pumped more and more of it into the necklace until the moon-shaped charm overflowed.
The blood dripped down onto my ruined body.
The Spell whispered again.
[You have activated the enchantment: Blood of the Moon Goddess]
[Would you like to be reborn?]
My vision blurred. My lips barely moved.
"Yes," I whispered.
The world went white. Then red.
The blood swallowed me whole again, dragging me into its heart. I could feel it pulsing, biting, tearing at my flesh. Every nerve screamed. Every bone splintered. It was like being eaten alive from the inside out. My body was ripped apart, reassembled, and ripped apart again.
And yet, through it all—I felt something else.
A rhythm.
A heartbeat that wasn't mine.
The moon's light flowed through the blood, burning me and blessing me at the same time. The pain became ecstasy. The ecstasy became madness. My senses exploded with color and sound and taste. I could feel every heartbeat in the city, every drop of blood in the air.
Then, silence.
I gasped and sat up.
The blood was gone. The necklace had vanished. But my body—my body was whole again. My hands unbroken. My skin unscarred. the same pale face as before, but my eyes were sharper, glowing faintly crimson. Strands of silver still ran through my hair, glinting like moonlight.
And I felt alive.
No—more than alive.
The Spell spoke again.
[You have received an Aspect Lineage]
I opened my runes instantly.
[Gluttony the sin of hunger]
"The sinners blessed by the Beast Goddess were gifted her sins.
The Sin of Gluttony guides them toward satiation, no matter what stands in their way. They must sate their hunger, for satiation brings pleasure, and pleasure brings healing.
But for pleasure, one must starve. One must bleed. One must feed.
Others shall succumb to gluttony, and you shall satiate them—even if it means giving your own blood. Feed upon their flesh, and let them feed upon yours.
Such is the demand of the Sin of Gluttony."
I stared at the glowing text for a long moment. Then muttered, "Creepy."
Still, it healed me. Who was I to complain?
I walked the corridors of the ruin, checking every cocoon. One by one, I split them open with blood tendrils.
Empty.
All of them.
No human bones.
No familiar faces.
Just the rotting corpses of nightmare creatures, their blood long dried.
They were gone.
Effie. Kai. The Cohort.
All of them.
Abandoned.
Left behind.
A bitter laugh escaped me. "Figures."
I stepped outside, into the moonlit streets of the city. After breaking free of the dream, I realized something awful.
Everything after my aspect legacy… had been a lie.
Had the dream been real at all?
I mean he helped me survive by telling me to hold my breath right?
I clenched my teeth.
No more guessing.
I activated my aspect legacy vision ability.
The world peeled open.
I saw through walls, flesh, and shadow. I saw the flow of blood in every living thing—the pulse of nightmare creatures hiding in alleys, the beating hearts of humans walking the streets.
And among them—I saw them.
Effie. Kai. Sara. Greg. Two others.
Alive. Laughing. Together.
Like nothing had happened.
My blood boiled.
"Am I evil," I whispered, "for wishing them to suffer?"
Maybe I was.
Maybe that's why they left me behind.
Because I wasn't one of them.
Because I was a monster.
A vampire.
Not human.
Just… wrong.
I turned away from the light of the cohort and walked deeper into the dark city