Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse
Chapter 5: A Wonderful Apocalyptic World

Chapter 5: A Wonderful Apocalyptic World

Dion Borealis had never considered himself lucky, and neither had he thought he was unlucky.

Everything just simply... was.

Whether it was indifferent or biased, fated or up to one’s decision, none of that, through his whole life had really mattered.

The only thing that had mattered was making it through the next day, that next week, and into the future, for himself and his family. For a future that was greater than the past he had grown up in.

He had never really known luxuries. Not at least until he finally earned the scholarship here, to the Golden Valley College of Lullin City.

It was the best ranked amongst those on this continent, and within the top 5 in the world.

Countless sleepless nights studying had earned him the privilege, under that candlelight of his in the cold, when he had to keep the lights off to save the power in the house.

However, right now, he cursed his luck deep into the abyss.

Dion stepped one quivering, determined foot forwards, to whatever future now lay before him.

’I would much rather be mutilated by it than turn into a wandering, decrepit and hungering zombie.’

Suddenly, without being able to take another step forwards, Dion had been shoved to one side.

"Move!"

A broad-shouldered young man in a torn, blood-spattered GV college rugby jacket stamped forwards.

His face was slick with sweat, his eyes bloodshot and looking half-mad, and there was a strange frenzy in them.

That stupid, blazing thing called belief had come over him, and before Dion could say anything, a bright light began to spill through his skin, crawling like heat through iron beneath his flesh and off it like smoke, swelling his muscles to rip his jacket.

The man thundered forwards into a charge as a throat-tearing roar rumbled through the alley from him.

"He Awakened! He’s one of those with magic!"

"Kill it! Kill that damned thing!"

Dion’s mind rapidly connected the dots of what he had been seeing to what he had just experienced with his system errors, and as the gnoll’s attention fell to the charging man he could only follow, running behind the man.

This was his best chance!

"Berserk Impact!"

The Gnoll had deliberately stood still as a thunderous impact burst through the alley, and for that one beautiful second, it had staggered.

Its heel scraped backwards, the corpses piled behind it shifted from the force of the blow, and the blade in its grasp dipped slightly.

An ugly laugh escaped the awakened man’s mouth, and he tried to punch once more as Dion’s eyes had widened.

"Berser—"

"Stop! Pull back!"

Dion had tried to holler for retreat. The student hadn’t yet bought him enough time.

However, it was too late.

The Gnoll had caught the man’s wrist; the bright light around and within the young man’s arm flared, his muscles straining and his body bulging larger as he tried to wrench himself free.

The shatter of bone resounded, and Dion’s gut only sank as he ran forwards.

And in his movement, he had not even seen the full motion of the swing that the Gnoll had made, despite having a clear view of its wielding arm.

A wet burst resounded and blood splashed across Dion’s face and the front of his body.

The student had been cut from top to bottom, with the other half of himself drooling down and regurgitating its innards.

He heard the commotion of those behind him as they reacted to the zombies that had probably arrived at their frozen figures by now. There was the sound of their screams, someone vomiting, and another who screamed in devout prayer.

Draped in blood, Dion lowered himself, and he slid hard across the ground while the gnoll’s attention had still been on the awakened.

His hand holding the jagged-ended, broken extinguisher drove forward in his slide as he slammed it into the gnoll’s knee.

He felt the flesh give way but couldn’t tell if it had cut through anything important.

However, it didn’t matter. Dion did not try lingering to find out.

In the first place, his intention had only been to use the idiot running ahead as a distraction, and only use this in hopes that it would help him buy more time.

Thus, he immediately hoisted his body off of the ground, moments from breaking past the threshold, running past the mound of butchered and eaten corpses the Gnoll had left.

He would make it out in only a few more steps, turning the corner!

Suddenly, Dion was skewered.

The serrated blade had torn through the back of him, lancing outwards, and he screamed in agony, choking and coughing as he clawed at it.

The creature hoisted him off the ground with the lingering half strip of the male student still in its other hand’s grasp.

Then, the gnoll swiped its hand hard. It flung Dion through the air, across the alleyway, where he crashed against the wall with his side.

His head thundered against the wall. His skull shattered, as did his ribs and the bones of his arms, and he whimpered a helpless gasp for air, wheezing through blood as he thudded over the concrete, not too far from the rest of the corpses.

Having left him in this state, the Gnoll raised the lingering strip of the man high, threw its head back, and it chomped down on a large chunk of him in a single bite.

At the same time, Dion’s world had gone entirely black, flashing with searing hot white flares of pain.

His ears rang, and he felt as if his blood were fighting against him.

At the back of his head, in the distance, he still heard those abominable Critical Error messages.

If only he had gotten a magic ability!

If only he hadn’t been so unfortunate as to have a damned system error!

Why him!? Why!? Why!? Why!?!!?

And the only response he got, as he bled out to his suffering death, atop cold concrete and under the stars and moonlight of the waning winter, caressed by its chilling breeze, was from the system:

{ Critical error persists! }

Thereupon, in his dying consciousness, he felt something strange within himself.

That whiteness.... That pulsing, burning white... it felt like such a soothing rhythm for a heartbeat. And it was coming from somewhere in the immaterial of his depths, as if it were calling for him, and he, helplessly, answered.

He gave himself to the burning heart, and the system messages changed.

{ Foreign spiritual influence detected! }

{ System recalibration in process! }