My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

Ghideon did not respond to Rowena’s warning, although he obviously could not hear her. His hand remained pressed against the tank while the open scars across his chest drew in the blood gathered inside the channels. The liquid climbed his legs in thick streams, entered through the wounds, and passed through his muscles like fuel being injected directly into a machine. At the same time, the gigantic body trapped behind the glass began losing volume. The darkened skin sank over the bones, the muscles dissolved into red strands, and the contaminated lunar energy slowly abandoned the corpse to feed Ghideon.

Victor understood the process before Rowena explained it. Ghideon did not intend to release the creature inside the tank. It was only a reserve. A body preserved for who knew how many years, maintained somewhere between life and death so that every part of it could be used when the other experiments were no longer enough.

"He is burning the body from the inside," Rowena said inside his mind, keeping her voice steady despite her obvious disgust. "Flesh, blood, lunar channels, and everything still left inside that corpse. If he absorbs all of it, his vampiric body will not endure for long, but it probably will not need to."

Ghideon moved his hand away from the tank.

The black glass shattered.

There was no outward explosion. Every fragment was pulled toward him, dissolving into the layer of shadow covering his body. The lupine arm grew first, developing a second joint and black plates over the muscles. Then part of his spine tore through his back and formed an external bone structure connecting his shoulder, ribs, and hip. His face remained human, but his jaw lengthened enough to leave his fangs exposed even with his mouth closed.

Nera positioned the scythe in front of her body.

"He got uglier."

Victor allowed Lilith to dissolve. Maintaining the weapon would consume energy that could be used more efficiently during the next few seconds.

"He also got stronger."

Ghideon disappeared from the platform.

Victor felt the displacement of air, but his body did not respond as it should have. The open wounds in his chest and abdomen were still sealed with plates of Black Ice, and the shadow left inside his muscles prevented his regeneration from fully recovering. He tried to turn, but Ghideon appeared first, seized his face with the claw, and threw him into one of the side columns.

The stone exploded.

Victor tore through the structure, continued flying, and struck the chamber wall with enough force to sink several meters into it. The impact crushed the plates being used as internal support. Fragments of Black Ice pushed even deeper between his organs, trapping one lung and pressing against his heart.

Ghideon did not stop.

He appeared in front of the opening and struck with his human arm. The fist hit Victor in the center of the chest, broke through the improvised protection, and shattered what remained of his ribs. The wall behind them gave way again, opening a passage into a smaller gallery filled with tubes and reservoirs.

Victor tried to seize him, but the difference in strength had increased too much. Ghideon caught his wrist, twisted the arm until the shoulder dislocated, and used it as leverage to throw him back into the main chamber.

Nera advanced before Victor reached the floor. The scythe descended against the bone structure on Ghideon’s back, but the blade met far greater resistance than before. The metal entered only a few centimeters. Ghideon turned his body, ripped the weapon from her hands with the movement itself, and struck Nera with the outer side of the claw.

She flew across the entire platform.

Her small body struck the empty tank, broke through the remaining glass, and disappeared among the fragments. Nera tried to stand immediately, but one of her legs did not respond. The bone had pierced the skin below the knee.

Ghideon opened his mouth.

The energy stolen from the tank began concentrating inside his throat. It was not only shadow or lunar force. There was compressed blood, fragments of consciousness, and growing thermal pressure that made his teeth crack while the attack was being prepared.

Rowena noticed first.

"Do not let him release that. The entire chamber will disappear."

Victor tried to place one hand against the ground.

His arm gave way.

The Black Ice plates keeping his body functional could no longer support the accumulated damage. His heart beat against frozen fragments. His left lung was trapped. His right leg had lost sensation after the impact against the column.

Then the shadow inside his wounds died.

Victor felt it before he understood.

Ghideon’s energy, which had been blocking his blood since the beginning of the fight, lost its support when the Specialist absorbed the contents of the tank. All of his concentration was now focused on maintaining the new body and preparing the attack. The remaining contamination inside Victor’s wounds dissolved like ownerless smoke.

His regeneration returned completely.

Victor’s blood reacted violently.

His heart expanded against the Black Ice plates and pushed them outward. Black fragments tore through the flesh of his chest, abdomen, and back as his body expelled everything that had been used as support. New ribs grew beneath the skin. The destroyed lung regained its volume. Muscles closed around the bones, and the shoulder returned to place with a dry crack.

Victor stood while pieces of ice covered in blood fell around his feet.

"Finally."

Ghideon released the attack.

A column of black and red energy crossed the platform, wide enough to swallow Victor and destroy the entire section behind him. The floor disappeared before it was even struck, dissolved by the concentrated pressure. There was no room to evade without leaving Nera and every gallery above them exposed.

Victor opened both hands.

White Fire appeared in front of his body in a thin, almost transparent layer. Instead of launching the flames against the attack, he made them rotate in the opposite direction, creating a core of consumption directly in front of his chest.

The column struck the fire.

The impact shook the entire facility.

Victor slid backward, carving two deep marks into the floor. His arms began burning from the inside, but the White Fire did not attempt to block the energy.

It consumed it.

Compressed blood, shadow, lunar force, and fragments of spiritual flesh were pulled into the flame and destroyed layer by layer.

The pressure was absurd.

Victor’s skin opened across his shoulders, and the muscles in his arms began to dissolve. He regenerated at the same instant, keeping his hands raised while the attack continued pushing him. The White Fire grew with everything it absorbed, becoming denser, brighter, and more difficult to control.

Ghideon increased the force.

Victor smiled through clenched teeth.

"That’s it. Put everything into it."

The fire began advancing against the column.

A few centimeters at first.

Then half a meter.

The energy launched by Ghideon lost consistency when it touched the flames, and Victor realized he could pull even more. He opened his arms, allowed the White Fire to surround the entire width of the attack, and absorbed the discharge until nothing remained except black sparks being devoured near his face.

Ghideon closed his mouth, surprised for the first time.

Victor gathered the flames in his right hand.

"My turn."

He launched the accumulated White Fire.

Ghideon crossed his arms in front of his body. The explosion struck him head-on, tore away bone plates, burned the fur from the lupine limb, and pushed him to the edge of the platform. He managed to remain standing, but much of the energy absorbed from the tank had disappeared in the failed attack.

Nera stood among the wreckage and pulled the broken leg back into place. Her regeneration was inferior to Victor’s, but still enough to close the wound after several seconds. Before she could retrieve the scythe, the blood gathered below the platform began climbing along the sides.

Ghideon had prepared another attack.

The red lines gathered above the chamber, forming an enormous sphere supported by dozens of shadow threads. Inside it, Victor could see faces appearing and disappearing. They were remnants of the consciousnesses used in the clones, compressed together with the blood until they formed an unstable mass.

"Does this bastard never get tired?" Nera shouted as she limped toward her weapon.

The sphere began to fall.

If it struck the platform, it would not destroy only the chamber. The entire underground facility would be swallowed, along with the prisoners, both squads, and part of the port above.

Nera reached the scythe, grabbed the bent shaft, and jumped. She used a chain attached to the end of the weapon to pull herself toward a column, ran several steps along the wall, and launched herself directly at the sphere.

Victor realized what she intended.

"Nera, do not cut through the center!"

"I know!"

She spun the scythe before making contact and used the curve of the blade to strike one of the supporting threads. The first one broke. Nera continued circling the sphere, cutting the outer connections while dodging the discharges leaving its surface.

One thread struck her arm and burned the skin down to the bone.

She did not release the weapon.

Another pierced her thigh.

Nera attached the scythe’s chain to a protrusion in the ceiling, changed her trajectory, and severed three connections at once. The sphere lost stability and veered sideways, striking one of the chamber walls instead of the center.

The explosion opened a hole dozens of meters wide.

Salt water immediately invaded the facility, entering under pressure through the rocks near the sea. Nera was thrown backward by the shockwave and fell onto the platform, rolling until she stopped near Victor.

She stood with blood running down her arm and leg, looked toward the ceiling, and shouted:

"WHY THE FUCK DO THE REINFORCEMENTS NEVER ARRIVE?"

Victor pushed aside a block of stone falling toward him.

"Shut up and fight."

"I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING SINCE BEFORE YOUR LEGS STARTED WORKING PROPERLY AGAIN!"

Ghideon advanced once more. Even wounded, he still possessed enough strength to cross the platform in a single step. Victor allowed Black Lightning to descend through his hips, thighs, and ankles. The electricity did not spread through the rest of his body. All of the energy was compressed into his feet, forcing muscles, tendons, and bones beyond the limits they could withstand.

Rowena noticed the concentration.

"If you do that, your leg will explode."

"It grows back."

Victor ran.

The first impulse destroyed the floor beneath his left foot. The second tore the muscles in his calf. On the third, Black Lightning released all the energy accumulated inside his right leg and propelled his body at a speed even Ghideon could not follow.

Victor appeared in front of him with his hips already turned.

The kick struck the center of his chest.

Victor’s leg exploded below the knee at the instant of impact. Bone, blood, and fragments of flesh were thrown backward, but all of his speed continued forward through Ghideon.

The external bone structure shattered.

The chest collapsed inward.

Ghideon left the ground and crossed the entire chamber. He passed through the hole in the wall, broke through several underground galleries, and disappeared into the distance, leaving a sequence of explosions behind him as he tore through stone, metal, and the ancient structures of the port.

Victor fell onto his remaining leg.

Blood was already gathering below the destroyed knee. A new bone grew first, followed by muscles, veins, and skin. Within seconds, his foot touched the floor again.

He moved his toes and smiled.

"It is much better being able to regenerate completely."

Nera stared at him with an irritated expression.

"You exploded your own leg."

"It worked."

"You are an idiot."

"You jumped into a bomb."

"That worked too."

Far away, a violent pressure crossed the destroyed galleries.

Ghideon was returning.

The roar no longer sounded human. All of the Specialist’s elegance, control, and calm had disappeared after Victor destroyed his chest and launched him through the facility.

"VICTOR VALENTINE!"

The voice made the ceiling tremble.

Victor formed Lilith again.

"He sounds irritated."

Ghideon appeared at the end of the open gallery, running on four limbs. His face was deformed, his jaw completely lupine, and his eyes covered in shadow. His chest was beginning to rebuild around an exposed red mass, but the regeneration was irregular. Human parts mixed with animal muscles, external bones, and pieces of the destroyed clones.

He had lost control of his own transformation.

That made him less intelligent.

And far more dangerous.

Ghideon jumped.

Before he reached the platform, the ceiling collapsed.

A white blade tore through the stone first. Then tons of rock were cut apart and thrown aside as two figures fell through the opening. Mirella landed with her sword driven into the floor, using the weapon to reduce the impact. Natasha fell beside her, surrounded by dark blood pressure that pushed the debris away before it could strike the platform.

Ghideon changed direction in midair and landed farther away, dragging his claws across the floor.

Nera pointed the scythe toward the two newcomers.

"WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?"

Natasha looked at her without any patience.

"Shut up, little girl. We had several complications."

Nera bared her fangs.

"Call me little girl again and I’ll—"

"Nera," Mirella interrupted, keeping her eyes on Ghideon. "Later."

Victor observed the blood covering Mirella’s uniform and the deep marks across Natasha’s arms. Neither of them had been delayed by incompetence. They had faced something large enough to hold back both squads while he and Nera fought Ghideon.

"What kind of complications?" Victor asked.

Natasha wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth with her thumb.

"The kind with werewolves."

Rowena became silent inside Victor’s mind.

Mirella pulled the sword from the floor and took position beside them. Her white uniform was torn at the shoulder, three parallel cuts crossed her abdomen, and her expression had lost all of its usual provocation.

"This bastard is conspiring with werewolves," she said, pointing the sword toward Ghideon. "We and the others were caught in a trap before reaching the laboratory."

Victor looked at the deformed lupine arm, the empty tank, and the contaminated blood spread throughout the chamber.

"How many?"

Natasha answered without taking her eyes off the enemy.

"At least twenty on the surface. Perhaps more in the tunnels."

Nera adjusted her grip on the scythe.

"Then they came to retrieve him?"

Mirella shook her head.

"No."

A roar echoed through the upper galleries. Then came another, closer, followed by the sound of claws tearing through stone. The presences moved in several directions, descending rapidly toward the chamber.

Mirella tightened her grip on the sword.

"They came to finish the experiment."

Ghideon raised his deformed face and began to laugh. Madness had replaced whatever control remained, but his scars continued glowing as the roars approached.

Victor allowed White Fire to travel across Lilith while Black Lightning gathered once again inside his regenerated legs.

"Good."

Natasha looked at him.

"Good?"

Victor smiled as he felt dozens of new presences entering the range of his perception.

"Now I can fight to kill."