Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse
Chapter 20: Can You?

Chapter 20: Can You?

A part of Dion remained indignant about having turned into a vampire. He did not want to have to be living off the blood of others.

It felt so... reductive, and even disgusting to think of, especially when—though it was disingenuous to make this comparison—he had kicked away and left behind the life of hurting others for his own pitiful self-soothing.

However, that night, his body bloodied and broken, and taken by bloodlust as he ripped into the creature’s flesh, he had begun to understand something.

He had, in his experience of the overwhelming depths of vampiric desire, begun to blur the lines between his aversions, and he found himself relishing the gnoll’s blood.

By no means did it taste good.

It was bland, if anything.

And his senses had told him that human blood, for whatever reason, tasted better than it.

However, the flavour was not the point; it was the satisfaction of desire, of need, and hunger.

It was the natural quenching of his thirst and hunger, after being malnourished through having lived in a desert.

And that gorging as he ripped through the gnoll’s body for its organs was remarkable.

He had been squeezing the heart of the Gnoll, and now lowered it as he stopped drinking.

There was still more blood in it; however, he had felt something mystical happen within him that urged him to stop and brought his awareness back to him.

Within himself, and throughout his body, he felt all of his wounds begin to heal.

It wasn’t near instantaneous as some fantasy stories led him to believe, but it was far from as slow as anything a normal human should have been able to do.

Within over a minute, perhaps nearing two, he had been fully healed.

More than that, another thing that had stunned him, raising his brows, was how he felt his mana begin regenerating rapidly.

From the dregs that he had left himself with, it rose, and rose, until it was finally full.

Dion glanced at the bleeding heart in his hand, the sound of it dribbling whatever remained of the Gnoll onto the shattered stone around him as his body, wet with blood, took the effects of the slightly chilly wind without any sensation of cold.

His heart rate had calmed, finally, and he felt his eyes shrink back to round pupils.

Those several seconds when he simply stared at it, he didn’t have any particular thoughts.

The only thing flashing through his mind were the images of his fights with gnolls, the night before, Shijo’s death, and most disturbingly, the relishing that he felt sitting so forcefully in his mind.

’...I should save some of it.’

At that thought, his other hand rose and, appearing in a brief flash of red light that took form, came a bottle.

It was a pale blue one, the same that he had usually taken with him to school and work for his water, large enough to store about a litre of water.

He opened its lid by turning it between his rib and the inside of his upper arm, against his torso, and he began to squeeze the heart dry into it until it was nearly half full and nothing else would come out.

’How much of that thing did I drink?’

The thought felt so fond, almost, emotionally, as if whatever he had drunk could have... no, it should have been more even if he did feel satiated.

Dion felt a warmth throughout his body, even despite the slow pace of his heart rate.

The stone crunched beneath his feet as he turned his head, the moon shimmering ahead of him.

He noticed that it was larger than it should have been.

But what did that matter right now?

He simply allowed it to, in whatever way, help soothe the turmoil and resistance he felt mentally.

’With how much noise was caused here, in the first place, that would mean there weren’t any zombies on the lower floor. But that won’t last long. On top of how much noise was made, they seem to be able to sense something within us beyond their hearing, so they might come here soon.’

Dion turned his head, and his attention immediately fell upon the human that he was about to drink blood from.

He had been the only one that hadn’t told him their name. And whatever he had been holding onto that kept him alive this long had left him.

’His heart has stopped...’

Then, he sighed to himself, and he closed his bottle, allowing it to disappear back into his treasury.

He walked over to the gnolls’ club and crouched down briefly, resting his hand over it.

Then, a red light flashed around its form, and it disappeared within moments.

He stood, and he went to pick up his fireplace poker and his bat then.

At the same time, all of the blood that he had spilled began to float off of the ground, gathering into a ball.

He had spilled litres in his fight with the thing, and thankfully, perhaps because of his Endurance, or mainly his nature as a vampire, it hadn’t been a debilitating loss.

Dion, having taken his weapons, then looked at the ball of blood that was hovering before him, and he separated it into three smaller ones.

One by one, he began to focus on transforming them into bracelet shapes, and then he hardened them.

’Fighting that thing, I noticed that I don’t have to always keep mana flowing in my blood for it to maintain a shape that I’ve given it. There might be a range to it, but as long as it’s near enough to me, and it still has some mana within itself, then it can maintain its own form.’

Thinking so, he put the three bracelets onto his arm, and tightened them so that they would nearly be attached to his skin, as if wrist braces.

’With this being said, even if I have to leave, I can’t do so like this.’

Dion turned on his heel, and his attention immediately fell onto the door where he knew there were people inside. The ones who were the associates of these guys that had just died.

’I need to clean up first.’

His feet carried him forward, and within moments, he had knocked on the door.

"Can you open up? The Gnoll is dead now."