Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse
Chapter 18: A Bloody Survivor

Chapter 18: A Bloody Survivor

In the first place, there had not been much distance between the wall and where the two had fallen; thus, Dion had not had any more time to rise beyond his knees.

In such circumstances, and without the time to pull anything free from his treasury and use it effectively without leaving himself too open, he had to dodge his head one direction, away from Glen’s bite.

In that motion, Dion caught the zombified Glen across his own body.

It was an awkward position that had left him vulnerable for the next bite.

In there, one of Dion’s hands had raised towards Glen’s head, forcing it to stay one direction, though struggling against its strength.

’This motherfucker is stronger than the big one!’ His expression fell more grave at the realisation.

Dion had to hurry through his motions, slithering his body around Glen’s back as they fell to the ground without the support of his standing knee.

Straddling him, Dion’s hands immediately went for his neck and the other remaining on his head.

"Aarrhg!"

He grunted and roared harshly, and the sound of flesh ripping and its sensations churning up his forearms reverberated throughout his body, blood spraying to coat his arms.

Then he heard and felt the spine severing; however, he still kept tearing until Geln’s head was forced apart from its neck, his hand raising high inadvertently, urged by the lingering force, blood spraying from the stump, and pouring from the neck.

{ You have felled a level 10 Destitute Zombie, harvesting its essences. }

"Enhancement! You ugly beast, die! Die! DIE!!!!"

Dion heard the sound of Norman hollering, then heard and felt from the ground the stamps of the Gnoll across the ground.

The whirr of the large club broke through the air.

Dion glanced over as Glen’s head fell away to the side, and he caught the sight of Norman being hit hard.

His body bent harshly against the side of the large club, his eyes widened, hit mouth still open in what would have been the motions of what would have been another damning curse.

Then his body blasted through the space in the hallway, shattering against the wall, through the furnishing and another wall of the room that he had been struck into, and Dion hadn’t heard anything else from there.

The gnoll then turned towards him, that slobbering, mocking grin still on its face, though much more entertained.

Dion’s eyelids fell a little, and the light within them grew sharper as his gaze lowered.

There was no way that he could escape.

The only way out of here was to kill the thing.

His eyes had fallen to his weapons, the bat and the fireplace poker.

They were midway through the distance between them.

’There is no way to get them...’

Dion rose from the corpse, and he swallowed, as he bit harshly into his tongue.

Blood pooled in his mouth, and he let it spill down.

The magical ability that he had gotten from the system had not, as strange as it was in comparison to the other magical natures that he had, felt alien.

He never felt as if he needed to question how it worked, or how to use his mana through it.

He felt, simply from thinking about it, almost as if it were something like a limb that he had regained.

’I might not be highly skilled with it... but...’

The blood that spilled from his mouth had formed a thin, sharp knife, and he left it fall into his grasp.

Dion gritted his teeth, and he committed himself.

This whole time he had avoided using this ability because it created an open wound for whatever the zombies used to infect people to seep into him.

If it were to be something transmissible by their blood, then creating a wound could easily leave him open to an accident.

Dion tore his hoodie and shirt off with his free hand, leaving his skin bare, where he then cut right over his rib, from where he allowed blood to spill down his side. It didn’t wholly flow down towards his pants.

Instead, it parted from his body, swimming through the air to gather where his palm was open.

Its form stretched into a sword, and he poured into it more mana than he thought was too much.

The gnoll had only been silently watching him, releasing that ugly snicker of its.

Then, Dion cut his other arm, without forming another weapon with it, making sure the cut was far from where any of the zombie blood stains had made it through his clothing.

Perhaps recognising that his preparation was done, the gnoll suddenly burst into a run, thudding hard against the ground, and moving faster than anything its size had any right to.

The thing had been toying with everything this whole time, as he watched it suddenly burst forwards at a speed that made even his sight of it blurry.

Dion rushed off the ground as well then, and in his first couple of steps he had whipped the freely bleeding arm forwards.

Blood spilled off it, and it transformed, taking shape and hardening into a large arrow that shot forwards.

’I had only managed to recover about half of my mana this whole time; I can’t afford to waste too much.’

The arrow cut through the air, and within moments the gnoll’s club had smashed against it, piercing only faintly as it shattered and the blood splashed to the ground.

Within the next several moments, they had clashed.

Dion was internally struck with the impact of his sword against the club, as they burst into whirls of attacks, making the sound of metal clashing.

He had spent ten percent of his mana to make this sword, and it still couldn’t cut through the club!

’It reinforced it with its own mana?!’

Dion’s eyes had pried wide as he thought of the confusion with the fact of what he had clearly seen when his arrow had struck it.

’Fucking gnolls!’

Dion cursed more than just the fact that it was intelligent.

He was being pushed back, each impact thundering through his muscles and bones, spattering the blood around from his open wounds that he didn’t let close.

At the same time, his concentration was strained. It was his first time properly using his ability. Even with the naturalness of belonging, it demanded focus, as the gnolls’ attacks drove him back, creaking his leg bones.

The creature suddenly didn’t swing its club fully; it feinted, and it swung the claw of its free arm across to his side.

Dion had already committed to the swing.

He didn’t have the skill to be able to adjust himself midway, and thus, he braced himself.

At the same time, he had brought his other hand’s palm to face upwards, towards the Gnoll’s torso.

Blood gathered at his palm, and right as the creature’s arm crashed against him, its claws raking through his exposed ribs, a compressed ball of blood shot free from his palm, goring through part of the beast’s torso.