I Awakened The Ancient Vampire System

Chapter 164: Chapter 164: Come Back to Me

Clara appeared between Lucian and Rose.

She caught his descending claw with both hands.

BOOM!

The impact drove her boots into the ground, cratering the earth beneath her feet. Her palms bled instantly — his black claws had pierced straight through her skin, through muscle, scraping bone. Blood welled up between her fingers and ran down her forearms in thin red streams.

But her Moon Vampire body healed the wounds the instant they formed. The bleeding stopped and started and stopped again in rapid cycles — his claws still embedded, preventing full closure.

She looked up at Lucian’s face.

What she saw wasn’t Lucian. His crimson eyes were empty. It was just a predator’s stare. A beast wearing the face of the boy she loved.

Rose watched from the ground, tears streaming down her face. Her wounded shoulder throbbed. "Clara, stop! He’ll kill you!"

Clara didn’t move. Her voice was calm and unshaken. "He won’t. I know he won’t."

Lucian grabbed Clara by the throat. His clawed hand closed around her neck and lifted her off the ground. Her feet dangled. His grip tightened. Claws pierced the skin of her neck — puncturing the surface, drawing thin lines of blood that trickled down her collarbone. His fingers pressed against her windpipe.

Clara didn’t struggle.

She looked into his empty crimson eyes. The eyes that had looked at her with warmth. With desire. With clumsy, awkward affection that he could never quite put into words.

"Lucian. It’s me. It’s Clara."

Her voice was a whisper. Strained by the grip on her throat.

"You promised you’d never let anyone take me from you."

Something flickered in his eyes. The crimson dimmed for a fraction of a second.

"Don’t let the beast take you from me."

She placed both hands on his wrist. Her fingers wrapped gently around his clawed forearm.

"I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Come back to me."

Lucian’s grip loosened slightly. His mouth opened.

Then his claws moved.

His free hand drove forward.

SHLIKT!

The claws pierced Clara’s side. The tips exited her back, emerging through the flesh just above her hip. Blood bloomed around the wound — crimson spreading across her white shirt in a growing circle.

"NOOO!" Rose screamed from the ground. She tried to move. Her body wouldn’t respond. Tears blurred her vision.

Clara gasped. Her eyes went wide. Blood spilled from the wound in warm waves, running down her side, dripping onto the ground. Her mouth opened. Blood trickled from the corner of her lips.

Silver light glowed around the edges of the wound — her Moon Vampire regeneration fighting to heal the damage. But Lucian’s claw was still inside her. The healing couldn’t close the wound while the object remained. Blood continued to flow.

Ryan, from behind, launched himself forward. His suit’s remaining thruster fired. He raised his gauntlet, charging an ice blast — but Lucian’s will pulsed outward without him even turning. Blood Chains erupted from the ground beneath Ryan. The crimson chains wrapped around his arms, legs, torso — pinning him in place mid-charge. Ryan struggled.

Clara wrapped both arms around Lucian’s neck.

She pulled him against her. His face pressed into her shoulder. His fangs brushed against her skin — close to her neck. The predator’s instinct screamed at him to bite. To drain. To feed.

Clara held tighter.

"I’m here," she whispered into his ear. Her voice was fading. Blood loss was making her dizzy. Her regeneration was working overtime, fighting to keep her conscious. "I’m right here."

Lucian’s body shook. A violent tremor ran through his frame.

Then, slowly, his fangs retracted.

His claws shrank. The claw embedded in Clara’s side slid out. Blood gushed from the wound — but her Moon Vampire regeneration closed it within seconds. Silver light flared around the injury, flesh knitting together without scar.

His hair faded — the black tips receding, climbing upward, replaced by pure silver. The crimson haze around his body thinned before finally dissipating.

His muscles deflated.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

Predator Form Deactivated.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

Mental exhaustion: Severe.

Recommendation: Immediate rest.

Lucian’s crimson eyes flickered as they finally closed. His body went limp. He collapsed into Clara’s arms.

She caught him. Her legs buckled under his weight. She lowered him gently to the ground, his head resting in her lap. Blood covered both of them — his and hers, mixed and indistinguishable.

Clara stroked his silver hair. Her fingers trembled. Her eyes were wet, but no tears fell. She bit her lower lip until it bled, the only sign that the mask of calm she’d worn was held together by will alone.

Rose crawled over. Her shoulder wound was still bleeding, her minor regeneration far slower than Clara’s. She knelt beside them. Her hands hovered over Lucian’s unconscious face, wanting to touch but afraid to.

"I wanted to be the one," Rose thought. "I wanted to be the one who brought him back."

She wasn’t as close to Lucian the way Clara was close to him. They grew up together for more than two years at the orphanage.

Rose leaned against Lucian’s shoulder. Her eyes closed. The three of them sat in silence among the ruins.

The Blood Chains holding Ryan dissolved. He pulled himself free, stumbling forward on his shattered leg.

He limped over to the group. Ryan didn’t say anything. He sat down beside them. Stared up at the sky with a grim expression.

His inner thoughts were dark. This cursed bloodline. It’s clinging to Clara. To Lucian. It’s turning them into something they’re not. I have to hasten the research. I have to find a way to control it. Cure it. Something. Before it takes them both from me.

He clenched his fist. The cure for the zombie virus had been his first step. But this — vampire bloodlines — this was something else entirely. Something that might not have a cure.

But he would find one. He had to.

In the distance, the Titan Ape’s roar echoed across the city. ROOOOAAARRR. The ground trembled. Dust fell from the ruins around them.

The battle for New Geneva wasn’t over yet.

The Guild Masters vs Grimveil

At the southern wall, the Grand Core masters had been fighting Grimveil without pause.

Their combined attacks — wind, ice, earth, blood, lightning, fire, kinetic force — hit the Titan Ape continuously from every angle. The air was a symphony of destruction.

CRACK! BOOM! FWOOOSH! CRAAASH!

Darius Cole’s Tempest Strike split the sky with concentrated wind blades. Kael Morrow’s blood blades screamed toward the ape’s face. Helena Vance’s ice storms crystallized against its fur. Rothgar Ironside’s earth spikes erupted from the ground beneath its feet. A dozen other Grand Core masters added their attacks to the assault.

Grimveil barely acknowledged them.

The red aura surrounding its body deflected everything.

The masters were spending mana at an alarming rate — not just on attacks, but on maintaining their barriers against the ambient pressure of Grimveil’s presence. The sheer gravitational weight of the Titan Ape’s existence pressed down on everything within range.

Darius screamed over the chaos: "Target the eyes! The eyes!"

Kael Morrow channeled blood mana into concentrated blades and fired them directly at Grimveil’s face. The blood blades streaked through the air aimed directly at the burning eyes.

Grimveil tilted its head. The blades bounced off its brow ridge like pebbles off a cliff face.

TING-TING.

Helena Vance created a localized ice age around Grimveil’s left leg. Ice crystallized up its calf in thick layers — blue-white frost spreading across the matted black fur, freezing the joint solid. The temperature dropped so fast that the air around the leg became visible — a sphere of absolute cold.

Rothgar followed immediately. Earth spikes erupted from the frozen ground beneath Grimveil’s foot. The spikes drove into the frozen limb, attempting to pierce through.

Grimveil flexed its leg.

KRRRR-CRAAAACK!

The ice and stone shattered simultaneously. Fragments rained down on the soldiers below like hail made of frozen earth.

The Grand Core masters stared. Every technique they had — techniques that could level city blocks, that could shatter mountains — meant nothing before this S rank calamity beast.

Then Grimveil’s eyes narrowed.

Its chest expanded. A deep, rumbling inhale that pulled air from across the entire battlefield. The wind shifted. Debris lifted from the ground and spiraled toward the ape. The red aura around its body intensified, shifting from passive defense to active output. The air around it distorted — space itself bending under the weight of its power.

It raised one hand. Opened its palm. Massive — wider than a city bus.

And pushed down.

GRAVITY.

An invisible force slammed into the entire southern district. The ground buckled inward. Buildings compressed — walls folding, ceilings collapsing, foundations crumbling into themselves. The earth itself dipped, forming a depression centered on the Titan Ape’s palm.

Soldiers standing on the walls were crushed flat. Their bodies flattened under hundreds of times normal gravity. Armor crumpled. Weapons bent. Bones pulverized to powder. Hundreds of soldiers died in a single instant.

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