CHAPTER 50: CHILDREN PLAY

Before the knife could touch Isolde’s neck, her eyes snapped open. Viviane staggered back, startled by the sudden awakening.

But Isolde was smiling, as though she had been waiting all along for them to come, waiting for the challenge.

"Oh my, my. Starting with such a dirty trick, are we? I’m proud of you, my daughter," she mocked, her tone dripping with derision.

Viviane took another step back, her caution sharpened.

Isolde rose from her seat, and the three vampire hunters stirred awake in front of her. They looked disoriented, their eyes darting around the chamber.

One of them froze in horror as he realized the truth, they had been trapped inside her dream all this time.

None of them understood what had happened, but instinct drove them to protect each other.

Isolde turned her gaze on the four vampires before her and laughed. "You allied yourself with these losers? Really?" She sighed, her disappointment theatrical.

"I expected better, Viviane. I even stretched my dream further than usual, curious to see what kind of grand plan you had prepared for me, only to be disappointed."

"Shut up," Viviane said evenly.

This time she kept her composure. She knew her mother’s game well: the taunts, the provocations, the deliberate needling meant to drive her into a blind rage.

But she would not fall for it. Not this time.

"Oh? Is my daughter finally learning something from me?" Isolde teased, her smile widening.

Before Viviane could respond, Alastair cut in. "Isolde Velstrath, we have come to punish you. To take back what is ours!"

Isolde groaned, rolling her eyes. "Are you still clinging to that old nonsense? What is this, some tragic anthem from the 80s?"

"Tch. Enough talking! Let’s end this now!" Eve snarled as she launched forward.

Her charge was not without merit. A Psyche Bloodstyle user like Isolde, skilled in dream-weaving, was weakest against direct combat powers outside her domain.

Eve’s aggressive move could have been dangerous.

But Isolde only smirked. She slit her own arm, blood dripping down before scattering into the air as glittering Somnium Spores.

Alastair reacted instantly. His eyes sharpened as he invoked his bloodstyle. The wind rose in a violent surge, scattering the spores into nothing.

"Get her, Eve!" he shouted.

Eve grinned, her body hardening into stone. From her arms came out a long, jagged blades as she swung them with brutal force, aiming to cleave through Isolde.

At the same time, Stella moved in alongside her. Her crimson strings writhed and coiled through the air, weaving a shifting net meant to bind Isolde, confuse her movements, and cut off her escape.

Viviane’s eyes widened. She had not expected such seamless teamwork from them. For the first time, they looked almost competent.

Beside her, Alastair turned with a smug expression. "See? We’re not as useless as you thought."

He gestured toward Isolde’s wrist where the bracelet glinted. "And with half her power sealed away, victory is only a matter of time." His smile brimmed with confidence.

Viviane, however, felt only a sinking dread. Something about his certainty told her this was about to go terribly wrong.

Isolde did not retreat. She leaned back with casual grace as Eve’s blade-arms sliced past her, missing by inches.

Stella’s strings snapped forward like whips, but Isolde slipped between them with a dancer’s ease, the crimson threads grazing her sleeve and nothing more.

"You call this an attack?" she laughed softly, pivoting aside as Eve swung again.

The stone blade slammed into the floor, cracking the tiles but finding no flesh.

"Two of you, coordinated so well, and yet you still look like children swinging sticks at their mother."

Eve snarled, driving her arm upward in a brutal arc, while Stella’s threads writhed, weaving tighter and faster around Isolde to pin her in.

But each attempt ended the same, Isolde could dodge them easily as though she had already seen their strikes before they were made.

Viviane watched with clenched fists, biting down on the bitter truth. Even without her bloodstyle, she has enough power to defeat them.

Isolde tilted her head as she got bored. "Come now, darlings. Surely this isn’t the best the House of Hesse can muster? I expected at least a little entertainment."

Alastair’s eyes narrowed as he sent another gust to break the air, forcing Isolde back a step. "Don’t underestimate us!" he barked.

"Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it." Her smile sharpened. "It’s far more amusing to overestimate you."

Eve lunged again, stone blades crossing in a scissor motion. Stella’s threads shot in perfect unison to trap Isolde in place. For a heartbeat, it looked as though they might succeed.

But Isolde bent backward with such flexibility, the blades sliced air just above her throat.

With a flick of her wrist, she brushed the strings aside as if swatting away cobwebs.

Their combined assault had failed again.

"Pathetic," she said simply, her eyes gleaming with cruel delight. "Shall I show you how it’s really done?"

From Isolde’s side, dark shadows surged forward and condensed into monstrous shapes.

One of them twisted into a skeletal centipede, its enormous spine lined with human arms instead of legs, clawing and dragging itself across the ground.

The other was a crooked humanoid with too many joints, its carnival mask shifting expression every time someone dared to look at it.

It didn’t walk, rather, it bounced on all fours like a broken puppet, cackling in a way that made the air very heavy.

Viviane stared in disbelief. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if they were trapped in her domain without them realizing, but a glance at the clock behind her killed the hope.

The second hand ticked forward normally.

This wasn’t a dream.

"How?"

They were all truly, utterly fucked.

***

Seamus wrestled with the bracelet until, with a sharp crack, it finally snapped.

A rush of power flooded back into him, his body feeling whole again the moment his healing was completed.

The bracelet had been nothing more than a worthless shackle in the end.

He exhaled in relief, but as he pushed open the door, Lulu was there to meet him. Her eyes widened in shock.

"Y-you! You can’t go any further, you’ll get hurt!" she stammered, throwing an arm out to block him.

"The only one who’s going to get hurt is you," Seamus muttered as he brushed past her.

For a moment, Lulu only sighed, relieved he hadn’t lashed out at her for her betrayal.

But then Seamus grabbed the hood of her jacket and dragged her along with him.

"You’re coming with me."

"Wh-why?!" she yelped, stumbling after him.

"Because I’ll need another pair of hands if I’m going to intercept Isolde. She’s... not just a monster anymore."

He opened his system view, and his stomach dropped as he read her status:

[Name: Isolde Velstrath]

[Age: 1500+ years old]

[Race: Vampire]

[Level: 90]

[Affection: 40/100]

[Lust: 100/100]

[Evolution Stage: Prime]

[Sigil: Psyche Blood Style]

[Somnium Eternity (Stage Four: The Harbinger of Purgatory)]

[Attributes:]

[Sanguine Vein: 12,900]

[ATK: 4,500 | DEF: 4,350 | SPD: 4,440 | STR: 4,425 | CHA: 4,500 | VIT: 4,590]

Seamus’s throat tightened.

"She’s evolved..." he whispered, a cold sweat breaking across his skin.

Now he understood why he had crushed other evolved vampires so easily earlier.

They didn’t stand a chance against her.