I stood my ground as the first masked man lunged, his torch flickering like a dying star in the cramped sewer air. I couldn't risk revealing my true form, no wings, no brown hair, no bounty hunter. To the world, I had to remain Zenni, the lowly dealer who had suddenly discovered a terrifying, latent talent for survival.
As the blade swung toward my neck, I didn't flinch. I reached out with my right hand, and the blood beneath my skin surged. It didn't erupt, it stayed contained, hardening my palm and fingers until they were as cold and sharp as tempered steel. With a flick of my wrist, I molded the blood into a jagged, serrated blade that extended from my fingertips like a biological rapier. My weapon, blood sword.
The masked man didn't even have time to blink. I stepped inside his guard and sliced upward in a clean, diagonal arc. The sound was a wet, heavy shlick. His head slid from his shoulders, a fountain of crimson spraying the white-tiled walls of the lab.
"What the… ?!" the leader barked, but I was already moving.
I didn't let the blood hit the floor. As the body slumped, I activated my sixth evolution Blood Siphon. I felt a hot, electric pull in the center of my palms. The spraying blood didn't splash, it curved through the air in mid-flight, drawn toward me as if I were a magnet for the very essence of life. It surged into my pores, a rush of metallic warmth that fueled the blood in my chest. My mana reserves, drained from the flight to Sisiphon and the shapeshifting, flared back to life. My health mended instantly, the small aches of the night vanishing in a heartbeat.
[Blood Siphon activated Extraction Completed consumed three liter of blood]
The remaining four men stepped back, their bravado replaced by a primal, stuttering terror. They had come to raid a meth lab, they hadn't expected to find a vampire in a dealer's rags.
"He's a monster!" one of them screamed, fumbling with his crossbow.
I looked at Gary's cooling body for a split second. I couldn't save his family, and I couldn't bring back the prodigy son's father. But I could make sure his killers never saw the sun rise over the desert.
I turned my gaze back to the Eastern District Clan, my eyes glowing with a faint, predatory green light behind Zenni's cap. I didn't need wings to end this. I just needed their blood.
The room exploded into a chorus of agony. As the crossbowmen leveled their weapons, I didn't wait for the bolts to fly. I planted my boot against the base of the massive simmering cauldron I had just helped cook. With an burst of strength, the heavy metal vessel tipped forward, sending a tidal wave of boiling, neon-pink sludge across the floor.
The liquid hissed as it struck their boots and leggings, melting through leather and fabric instantly. The Eastern District Clan members screamed as the scalding heat peeled back their skin, but the physical burn was only the beginning. The concentrated Lotus Dust, absorbed through their open wounds and inhaled in the rising steam, hit their nervous systems like a lightning strike. Their pupils dilated to pinpricks, their bodies jerking in a horrific cross between euphoric seizure and excruciating pain. They were overdosing on their own raid.
The leader, standing just outside the main splash zone, watched his men melt into a twitching heap. He saw the way the blood from the decapitated corpse was still swirling around my hands, and he saw the cold, unblinking focus in my eyes.
"Blood manipulation… A shifter? No... an S-rank threat hiding in the gutter. You aren't Zenni."
He realized in that moment that he wasn't fighting a drug dealer; he was standing in the presence of a predator that could turn his own life force against him.
"Retreat! Forget the crates! Fall back to the Eastern Gate! We need to report this to the Elders… there's a Blood-Witch in the Sewers!"
They were scrambling now, slipping over the slick, pink-stained floor in a desperate bid for the exit. If they escaped, the rumor of my presence would reach Oksana before I did. I couldn't let the Blood-Witch story get out, I needed to be Zenni the Loyal Survivor, not a legendary monster.
I stepped over the twitching bodies on the floor, I didn't use a blade this time. I reached out toward the heavy iron door they were trying to reach and clenched my fist. The blood pooling on the floor obeyed my command, rising up like a crimson curtain to bar the exit.
"No one is reporting anything," I said
I morphed my sword into a crimson bow, it solidified into a warm and solid structure, with the use of Zenni's new hands, I pulled the bowstring.
I watched as the leader of the Eastern District Clan dodged my blood-arrows with desperate, jagged movements, slicing one in half before disappearing into the winding tunnel. I pursued him, my boots splashing through the shallow, chemical-stained water. I couldn't let him escape, but the bounty hunter warned me of a sudden shift in the mana ahead.
Before I could fire the final shot, a black-feathered bolt whistled through the dark, burying itself with a wet thud in the leader's skull. He crumpled forward, his momentum carrying his body into the muck.
Light flooded the tunnel as a dozen torches appeared from the gloom. Heavy boots crunched on the gravel,
"Alchemist Guild Reinforcements". I said
They fanned out instantly, their crossbows leveled at my chest. To them, I was just a hooded figure standing over a pile of bodies, dressed in the tattered rags of a street dealer.
"Down on the ground!" one of them roared, the tension in his trigger finger visible.
I felt my blood-bow dissolve, the crimson fluid seeping back through my pores to maintain my disguise. I slowly raised my hands, keeping my head bowed in the submissive, shaking posture I had observed in the real Zenni.
"Wait! Please! I'm one of you! I'm part of the Guild... a cook! I'm Zenni Roy! They attacked the lab... they killed Gary and Anastasia!"
I cried out, using Zenni's nasally, frantic pitch. The enforcers didn't lower their weapons, their eyes scanning the carnage behind me. But then, the man in the center, a tall, broad-shouldered figure with a jagged scar running across his chin, stepped forward. He held up a hand, signaling his men to stand down.
"Lower your weapons, I know this boy. He's a newbie, a student I recruited personally last week. He's one of our dual-threats, a dealer who can actually handle a vat."
The tension in the air evaporated as the soldiers lowered their bows. The man walked toward me, his heavy leather boots thumping against the stone. He stopped a few feet away, looking at me with a mixture of surprise and grim respect.
"Sorry about the trouble, kid, ee met last week, if you've forgotten in all this chaos. My name is Dorin Meyer, Captain of the Sisiphon Alchemist Guild Security."
He looked past me into the lab, his eyes widening as he saw the three intact crates of Lotus Dust sitting amidst the bodies of the rival clan.
"You defended the shipment? Alone?"
He let out a low whistle, clapping a heavy hand on my shoulder, the same shoulder Gary had touched only minutes ago.
"Oksana is going to want to hear about this. You didn't just save the product, Zenni, you saved our reputation."
I nodded quickly, playing the role of the traumatized but loyal survivor. My plan was working better than I had hoped. I wasn't just a face in the crowd anymore. I was a hero of the crime syndicate.
"Come on, the Eastern Clan is hitting us all over the city. We're consolidating at the Emerald Spire. You're coming with us. You deserve a reward for this."