Chapter 603

On the other side…

Shia remained bent over her father as the hunger loosened its hold… then her tongue moved against something caught between her teeth.

Flesh.

Her gaze fell to his neck, his torn shoulder, and the blood coating her hands as she held him against his greatsword’s blade.

“Dad…?”

She pulled away, exposing the bites… and recognized what filled her mouth.

Shia spat it out, dragging her fingers across her tongue while a broken, horrified sound escaped her throat.

His blood remained everywhere… on her lips, in her mouth, drying along her chin.

“No… no, no…”

Her hands hovered over his wounds, unable to choose where to touch him.

The memories of her crime flooded her mind with brief, harrowing flashes of what she had done to him.

The images were so graphic, so gory, so sickeningly vivid that Shia could do nothing but scream at the top of her lungs while pulling at her hair.

The sound collapsed into a sob before she screamed again, shaking her head as though the sight might change if she refused it hard enough.

“Dad! Dad, I didn’t… I didn’t…”

His blood filled her stomach.

She couldn’t finish.

“Shia…”

His faint voice reached her through her cries.

“It’s okay, dear… I know…”

Shia stared at his face until she caught the slight movement of his lips… he was still alive.

She summoned the highest-grade recovery totem she possessed, nearly dropping it as she struggled to hold it between her shaking fingers.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Dad…”

She eased him away from the blade’s surface and lowered his helpless body onto the ground, settling his head across her thighs.

One hand supported his face while the other brought the totem to his mouth.

“Please… take it… please…”

She fed it to him, watching his throat until he managed to swallow… only then did she press against the wound in his neck, trying to stop the blood while her tears fell over his face.

If Idriss’s evolutionary path hadn’t been blood-based and that of a physical enhancement specialist… with everything he had gone through, he would have died from blood loss days ago.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

As Shia tried her best to seal his wounds with external medical tools, she kept apologizing over and over and over, akin to a broken radio station.

Inside the Dominion, Fang tore her apart until she lost count… and she felt every moment.

His claws separating her flesh, his attacks crushing her bones, her own blood forcing everything back together so he could do it again… her body kept returning, but nothing spared her the agony.

But all she could do was laugh through it.

For she knew that crying would tell Fang how much every attack hurt, giving him another way to torment her.

So she laughed through the reconstruction and fought him over and over and over… she was terrified of how badly the next death would hurt; she wanted badly to cry, to scream, until she no longer felt anything but a frenzied desire for murder.

She thought that the circle of pain and deaths had broken her at last… but she had no idea that with each reconstruction, with each rebirth, the Blood Moon Curse was written deeper and deeper into her genetic code… until it was part of her.

Fang did nothing to warn her about it… Instead, he knew that Cruor’s moon would activate the curse and make her feast on her own father and friend.

A final vicious gift for what she had done to him in the Dominion.

And now… she couldn’t force out a breath without sobbing.

She bent over her father like a broken doll, her trembling hands trying to protect what she had nearly destroyed.

And every time she tasted his blood lingering in her mouth, another apology escaped her.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

Above them, the clouds still concealed the Blood Moon.

But the curse remained inside her blood… waiting for its light.

“Shia!”

Suddenly, Nurah let her concealment fall as she hurried towards them, her distressed gaze passing over Jasmine’s motionless figure before settling on the bloodied girl kneeling beside her.

Shia lifted her head at the familiar voice… and the sight of Nurah broke whatever little control she still held over her sobs.

“Nurah… Dad… please…”

She couldn’t make the words come out properly. Her hands remained pressed against her father’s wounds, but her whole body shook as Nurah dropped beside her.

“Let me help.”

Nurah placed her hand over the blood-soaked dressing, taking over the pressure without making Shia release it first.

Only when she felt the wound covered did Shia loosen her fingers… then she caught Nurah’s sleeve instead.

“I hurt him… I…”

Nurah looked at the torn flesh, then at the blood drying around her friend’s mouth.

Whatever happened here, Shia could barely endure looking at it herself.

Knowing that it wasn’t time for questions, Nurah comforted her, saying that as long as he had a breath in him, they could save him… and she made sure to make it happen.

Earlier… Jasmine’s call reached them the moment Levi entered the Hound’s Dominion.

Rain was dead, while the Hound and Fang both remained inside their separate Dominion battles… the three threats that kept the others away from Cruor no longer stood between them and their friends.

Following Levi’s instructions, the moment they received Jasmine’s call for help, they teleported over as soon as they received the coordinates… uncaring that each teleportation cost them more than fifty thousand credits.

But the Spatial Jammer forced them to arrive outside its range… Idriss had assumed that it was twenty kilometers, but it was much more.

Nearly forty kilometers still separated them from the battlefield, and they gave it their all to arrive here as fast as possible.

As for the mercenaries? As Levi assumed, none of them bothered to entertain such a dangerous mission without preparation.

Soon, Arthur and Jojo reached the area.

Jojo went straight to Jasmine, while Arthur stopped beside Idriss.

“He’s taken three recovery totems in total…” Nurah frowned. “We can’t use any more without them impacting his health negatively.”

Recovery totems weren’t meant to be abused nonstop… three were too many, and their effects only lessened.

“Leave him to me.”

Arthur knelt on the other side and summoned his shield… then he brought the pink Aurikara’s Gemheart to the center of his shield before resting his free hand against Idriss’s chest.

“Aurikara’s Restoring Touch,” he murmured.

The Gemheart drew upon Arthur’s vitality, turning it into a gentle pink light that flowed down his arm and entered Idriss through his palm.

With every pulse, Arthur felt his own strength diminish as he transferred more vitality into the pride of the Blood Hunters Agency.

Torn flesh slowly knitted together around his hand, easing the bleeding while Nurah secured the dressings.

His deeper injuries remained, but Shia watched the first wounds begin to close through her tears, her apologies faltering as a little hope returned.

A few steps away, Jojo brushed Jasmine’s brittle hair away from her face.

The dry skin, the cracks along her lips, the frightening weakness of her life force… Jojo recognized enough to feel sick.

She knew what burning away one’s own years cost, as she had done the same… but her condition hadn’t been as severe as Jasmine’s.

’Jasmine… we’re here.’

Her dimensional message received no answer… and the fact that Jasmine’s spiritual energy was at a critical level left her more than worried.

“We need the Academy’s healers here… her life force has been stripped away, which is damaging everything else.”

“They’re near,”

Nurah said as she noticed multiple black dots fast approaching over the horizon… Shia followed her gaze as though she could drag them closer by staring hard enough.

A few moments later, the Academy’s Dean arrived with several instructors and medics, riding giant dark bats with narrow scarlet eyes.

Their pale faces, sharp features, and slender figures made them resemble vampire nobles… fitted black coats hugged their frames, with crimson silk lining their high collars and silver clasps gleaming at their throats.

They descended next to them and scanned the situation.

Following Idriss’ updates, they knew that everyone around was an ally of Idriss, which meant, under contractual obligations, they weren’t allowed to hurt his guests in any way or form… under the Host’s Oath term, the same one that Levi signed with Madam Crowglass.

Swiftly, the medics moved between the wounded, opening cases and preparing stretchers as the others secured the battlefield.

“Head out and hunt down the assailants!”

The Dean ordered the academy’s instructors coldly, pointing his slender finger at the last remaining Dominion Tree across the battlefield.

The same gigantic, horrifying Soulleech Maw’s Tree inside Levi’s Dominion was reflected outside in a spiritual form, attracting everyone’s attention.

The fact that nothing about it remained still left them with slight shivers… or it might just have been the aetheric flames burning across it.

Whatever it was… its sight left no one’s soul at peace.

“Start with that abomination of a tree.”