The return to the portal almost felt anticlimactic.
Without the gunfire and bombing, it appeared that the Nosferatu had got whatever they needed and pulled out of Al’Qutar, but what troubled Nikolai most was the damage done to the royal library.
’Verna ntioned the place related to the fairy heritage suffered great damage.’
Nikolai couldn’t help but picture Franz’s face and clenched the arms wrapped around Lunaria and Sarah’s waists tightly.
He would have to visit again in the future, but for now, Nikolai needed to focus on his own issues. S-City couldn’t remain peaceful. From the mont the Nosferatu appeared in Al’Qutar, Nikolai realised they’d been the source of all his troubles.
From the mont he awoke as a hybrid, to the current situation of Al’Qutar.
Everything to so level or other involved those bastards.
"What’s wrong, Nikolai?" Lunaria tugged on his arm, pressing her warm curves against his exposed stomach tightly.
"Darling, you’re going to pull my pants down..." Sarah blushed, holding her pants.
"My bad, just thought of sothing really irritating and it got my blood pumping..."
"Oh my." Sarah’s eyes lowered, peeking at his crotch, only to slide to his face with a look of disappointnt when nothing was there. "Got my hopes up, how boring."
"Ahem! Let’s not waste any more ti. The portal is quite unstable due to attacks. If we miss the coordinates, there might be a chance to vanish forever." Lunaria cleared her throat and scolded the slightly playful Sarah.
"Y-Yes, sister!"
’It looks like this journey wasn’t all bad, although my thralls were injured from the sudden biological weapon used by those bastards. Sarah and Lunaria seem to have bonded well with each other and the new maid captain, Brunhilde."
Though he couldn’t help but feel a little wary of her.
She didn’t hide her desire to beco his woman, as Leona did.
That kind of approach was new even to Nikolai.
"Let’s have a good al tonight. I’ve missed Western cooking." Nikolai joked as they entered the nexus platform, then froze.
"This..."
"Wow, they really did a number on them."
The once-beautiful marketplace, where dozens of vendors offered their hot, steaming naan or curries with secret, treasured recipes handed down for generations, vanished.
Deep craters from the bombardnts and fresh blood still stained the sands blowing harshly in the silent alleyways and streets. A few brave Djinn pushed their carts, but with almost no one travelling the city, they were in the midst of packing up and leaving.
"To think that it would beco this barren and devastated."
Nikolai glanced at the portal itself and saw countless deep indentations in the dark steel, which could resist most modern weapons.
"It seems they’ve been improving their weapons..."
"The portal looks safe, but the platform and stage where people used to rush around is gone... how sad and lonely." Lunaria’s silver eyes scanned the half-destroyed city before she glanced at Nikolai. "Is it really okay to leave like this?"
He couldn’t give the right answer, but only his answer.
"The Nosferatu ca here for sothing, and my hunch reminds of the reason Clara was created in the first place. Do you rember?" He asked both Sarah and Lunaria in a low, careful whisper.
There could still be spies lingering around, wanting to test the damned thing on him.
Right now, he needed to pretend it failed to buy more ti.
A painful ache constantly throbbed beneath his shirt; if soone could see underneath, they would find several layers of bloodstained bandages stained bright red. The wound couldn’t heal and constantly bled due to the black growths.
Thus, he soon soaked four of the five wrappings in dark blood.
"Isn’t it to kill all monsters?" Sarah raised her hand as if they were in the middle of school.
But the mont she answered, it was Lunaria’s face that twisted and snapped back at Nikolai with a look of utter heartbreak.
"No, it can’t be for that reason?!"
"Do you truly not think so?
Nikolai faced her with a stern gaze while stroking her supple cheeks.
"Do you not realise their biggest enemy isn’t Volkov as a whole at the mont, but ? I am like a glue that binds many of the great families who would never support each other, thanks to you, wonderful won.
If the poison works on , it’ll work on my father, grandfather and any werewolves or vampires who share similar blood.
Once they know it works on and is lethal enough to stop our entire function.
Nosferatu will rain down upon us like a hail of stone."
Lunaria’s lips trembled as she nodded, her eyes gathering water as she rested her cheek against his chest. He slowly removed his hands from her cheeks, watching her eyes swirl with an endless stream of thoughts.
"Then why not stay here, where it’s safe. We can summon the others here and—!"
"Lunaria, what about Nikita, Selene and my children? Soon, it will be Kumiko and Rika’s turn to give birth, and then it won’t be long until it’s your turn.
I cannot stop, and we cannot use this place, look, it’s already in ruins!"
The truth wasn’t debatable. Nikolai couldn’t count on a nation that couldn’t protect itself from such a weak, low-level rebellion. At least that’s how cold and calculating Nikolai needed to beco to face Alucard.
He wanted a single thing, immortality for his dying wife.
Alucard would stop at nothing.
’However, it feels like there’s sothing more than that. If it were just about keeping Mikaela healthy and young, he could have made a proposition to when he learned of my mother’s revival, but they didn’t.
Instead, they opened gates to hell and tried to destroy S-City."
Nikolai shook his head, the mission and his experiences in Al’Qutar might’ve been a failure, but eting Yun’fa and the many Djinn wasn’t.
He would definitely co back soon after resolving the issue with Alucard and help them rebuild the capital for his wife’s peace of mind.
"Let’s go, the portal is finally free."
"I feel bad for the Djinn, most of them don’t have the right to leave this world..."
"Yeah..." Lunaria beca glum ever since Nikolai scolded her.
’Though is it truly another world...’ Nikolai thought to himself, considering the strange truth he’d learned while in Al’Qutar.
He still struggled to believe that all these worlds had once been a single world, and that the gods in the past had sohow split them apart, like peeling an onion, leaving countless shells, with Earth as the original or core.
This was why those on Al’Qutar couldn’t travel to Earth without a certain level of power or clearance; the Nexus wouldn’t allow those of an outer shell to enter the core without good reason, which was why the Arena existed.
The arena linked all worlds through small tunnels and passageways, bypassing the Nexus’s security.
But that didn’t matter.
’If they take the core, it’s over...’
The trio gathered their belongings and stored them in Nikolai’s item ring before stepping up the damaged stairs to the shimring purple Nexus.
"It almost feels colder than usual."
"The colour is a little strange..."
"Imagine they managed to spread their bio-weapon into the nexus and contaminated it."
"Huh?!"
"What?"
Sarah’s off-hand comnt stunned both Nikolai and Lunaria; both of them glanced at her while expecting an explanation.
"How did you co to that kind of conclusion?"
She shrugged, stepping closer to the large bubble of sticky liquid. "Isn’t that how all zombie movies go... the bad guys find a way to disperse the virus or infection sohow. If the Nexus were a bio-weapon, wouldn’t we all die?" She touched the surface, letting out a sigh of relief, "It seems I was just being overly dramatic."
However, neither Nikolai nor Lunaria took this as dramatic or a movie plot.
The two leaned closer and whispered.
"When did the colour start to darken from the bright blue or the turquoise green?" Nikolai asked Lunaria because he hadn’t been able to use the gates until recently.
Luna stared at the dark pool, which cast an eerie atmosphere.
"It started darkening around fifteen years ago, because that was the first ti dad took Selene through the portal... at the ti I was still a loose soul, sleeping in my sister’s body, watching her life in the dark."
Nikolai felt his heart palpitate, the sudden pain in his chest growing as he pushed into the soft, gooey surface and let his body float into the cold water.
’Yes... the Nexus used to be warm and comforting.’
He couldn’t believe that everything shared a link with the day of the ceremony; there had to be sothing else.
’I am not the centre of the world.’
Although he was confident in his importance, he knew so things and people trumped him, a re mortal hybrid.
However, things certainly didn’t happen by chance.
’Will I have to attack Alucard to find out?’
While floating forward, slowly rolling through the Nexus, he spent the ti thinking, putting his thoughts together.
At the sa ti, Sarah and Lunaria both remained silent, holding each other’s hands with forlorn expressions.
Ti passed ever so slowly.
And eventually the Nexus parted and spat them out.
But returning ho in this manner only left a bitter and humbling taste in the trio’s mouths.
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