CHAPTER 68: WIPE OUT

Seamus’s fight was impressive... or maybe not. In Dylan’s eyes, it was a mess of contradictions. He moved too fast to follow, yet his steps looked clumsy, almost reckless, like someone half-tripping forward but never falling.

Even the dagger in Dylan’s hand felt more precise than those wild arcs of Seamus’s blade, only Seamus wasn’t holding a blade at all.

A pale sword jutted from his arm, grown out of his body like sharpened bone. It looked wrong, unnatural, but it cut the air like a predator’s claw.

Dylan crouched behind a cracked concrete pillar at the edge of the garage, sweat stinging his eyes, trying to keep track.

"What the hell? Isn’t he a human just like me?’ he murmured.

Though, he heard from his senior that a hunter with impressive skill could get Vitalis Core. A crystal that was basically a vampire soul and a source of power that could give even humans a powerful ability.

The Scavengers, more like animals than vampires, lunging and shrieking. One of them leapt at Seamus, claws out. He didn’t dodge cleanly; he simply leaned aside, let the claw scrape his shoulder, then rammed the bone sword up through the creature’s ribs.

He didn’t even look at the wound. Red strings unfurled from his other hand like liquid threads, flicking across the room. Wherever they touched, skin smoked and blistered because of the fire.

Dylan blinked, and the strings were already inside another Scavenger’s chest. The creature froze, shuddered, then collapsed as if its heart had been pulled out from the inside.

"No... I don’t think Vitalis Core can do all of this at once." he gulped, "Is he a vampire too?"

Maria’s voice cut through the chaos, steady and cool. "Seamus, two more on your left. Vitalis Core behind the sternum.

Seamus shifted without hesitation. He didn’t parry; he simply stepped into the attack, letting a claw graze his arm while his fingers punched straight into the Scavenger’s chest. When he pulled back, something wet and black pulsed in his grip.

The creature sagged, dead before it hit the floor. He hurled the Core aside and swung his bone sword at the next one, too fast for Dylan to track.

"Nice, Maria." He threw the crystal at her and she put it in the pocket.

Another flick of his wrist and the red strings lashed out, threading through the air like veins of fire. They speared into three different Scavengers at once.

Dylan’s stomach lurched as he watched the creatures jerk upright, their eyes going blank. With a small twitch of his fingers, Seamus turned them on their own kind.

"It’s Dominion bloodstyle? He has two blood styles? Is it even possible?"

They attacked without hesitation, tearing into their pack mates, shrieks echoing off the metal walls. It was hell in motion.

Dylan gripped his dagger tighter, frozen. The fight was brutal but there was something off about it, Seamus didn’t look careful or trained.

His sword arcs were big and heavy, like someone swinging a club or someone who was ready to die. He left openings everywhere, shoulder turned, throat exposed, as if he didn’t care.

More than once Dylan thought he’d see Seamus get torn apart, but somehow the man slid between the claws at the last instant, moving faster than Dylan’s eyes could follow. Clumsy but fast., too careless.

Maria called again, her tone sharper now. "Core at the back of the neck, Seamus. It’s moving!"

Seamus spun, strings snapping out from his palm. They slithered under Scavenger’s skin, glowing faintly red. The creature screamed as if boiling from the inside.

Seamus clenched his fist and the strings ripped free, dragging a glistening lump of flesh out with them. Scavenger dropped and died just like that.

"This is too easy..." he said, "Where is your boss! Show yourself!"

Another one tried to flank him. Seamus caught it with his sword arm, impaling it through the stomach without slowing down. He yanked the blade free, spun it awkwardly, and backhanded another across the face.

His movements weren’t elegant, they were jagged, violent bursts, like someone fighting on instinct alone.

Blood sprayed in arcs across the concrete floor. The garage reeked of burned meat and ozone where the red strings had scorched walls and bodies alike.

This was chaos. Seamus waded through the mob as if it didn’t matter whether he lived or died, tearing Cores out with his bare hands and throwing them either to Lulu who didn’t even have a chance to fight, or to Maria.

The Scavengers fell one by one, some screaming, some still under Seamus’s control and tearing each other apart like rabid dogs.

For a moment Dylan thought Seamus stumbled, a claw raked his back, tearing his coat. Seamus didn’t flinch.

He twisted his sword arm behind him and sliced the Scavenger in half without even looking, then drove his fingers into another’s chest before it could run.

His face stayed expressionless, green eyes cold and empty.

Maria kept feeding him directions, "Left flank, two more. The core is low in the abdomen. Watch the ceiling." Her voice was the only anchor in the madness.

Seamus obeyed each call without a word. Strings hissed, bone blade flashed. Another Core ripped free, another body fell.

Dylan couldn’t tell how many were left. The floor was slick with black blood that smelled rotten. Controlled Scavengers still fought each other in blind rage, dying under Seamus’s orders.

It was like watching a butcher at work. A fast, clumsy, fearless butcher. Dylan swallowed hard, dagger trembling in his grip. Whatever Seamus was, human or not, he wasn’t someone Dylan wanted to fight, they were now on different levels.

"I... I can’t repay what he did to the two of you," he murmured, eyes closing.

Marcus and Connor — Dylan’s friends — were gone. Both had died differently, but for the same reason: suicide.

At first, Dylan hadn’t been sure Seamus was behind that nightmare. But watching him now, at full strength, wielding multiple bloodstyles like some monster, he was certain.

It was impossible, yet his eyes still burned with the need to kill Seamus, even knowing he couldn’t. Not yet.