Awakening Domination System: But I'm a Slave?-Chapter 298: Attack [7]

Alaric's crimson eyes snapped open.

Glowing with an inner light that seemed to burn with its own existence. Then he parted his lips and spoke in an utterly cold tone.

"How dare you touch me with your filthy hands."

The air beside Alaric began to tremble. Then lightning began to crackle.

Before Elena could react, his hand shot up and seized her wrist and twisted

CRACK!

Elena's eyes widened in shock and sudden, unexpected pain. Her grip spasmed, fingers releasing involuntarily as bone ground against bone in her wrist.

She hissed, trying to pull away.

Alaric yanked Elena's hand away from his throat and hurled her across the room.

Elena's body flew through the air and crashed into the far wall with bone-breaking force.

The stone cracked on impact, spiderwebbing outward in a radius around where she hit. She gasped, blood spraying from her lips, and slid down to collapse on the floor.

Alaric stood where she'd left him, chest heaving, blood still pouring from his wounds. But those crimson eyes were focused, sharp, utterly devoid of mercy.

ROAR!

One of the creatures broke away from the fight and lunged at Alaric. Sensing vulnerability. Sensing prey.

Its clawed hand reached for his exposed back.

Alaric spun.

His fist came up.

BOOM-CRACK-FLASH!

The punch connected with the creature's chest.

And the thing detonated.

Its entire torso exploded outward in a spray of corrupted essence and blackened fragments, the force of the blast was so violent that the remaining pieces were hurled backward to splatter against the walls.

The headless, armless torso collapsed, twitching.

Silence.

For a heartbeat, the entire room went still. Even the other elite creatures fighting Nyra hesitated, their primitive instincts recognizing something they couldn't understand but knew to fear.

Across the room, Elena forced herself to her feet, one hand pressed against her ribs. Blood dripped from her mouth, and when she spoke, her voice was strained but.

"So that's what my lady warned me about," she breathed, staring at those crimson eyes. "The thing sleeping inside you. The reason you're her favorite."

She wiped blood from her chin with the back of her hand, her expression shifting into something harder, more focused. "I should have listened."

Then she lunged.

Faster than before.

Alaric met her mid-charge.

CLANG!

Their collision released a shockwave that blew out the remaining windows and cracked the floor beneath them. Alaric's forearm caught her strike, redirected it, his other hand coming up to drive a punch toward her exposed ribs.

Elena twisted, barely avoiding the blow, her knee coming up toward his already broken ribs.

He shifted his weight, took the impact on his hip instead. pain screamed through him, white-hot and blinding, but he held his ground.

They separated, circled, then crashed together again.

BOOM-CLANG-CRACK!

Elena's corrupted essence manifested as clawed projections extending from her hands. She struck in rapid succession, targeting vitals with surgical precision.

Alaric deflected, blocked, countered. His movements were rougher than usual, compromised by his injuries, but there was something else driving them now.

Something that moved his body when his mind said it should be impossible.

"You made a mistake," he said coldly. "Coming here."

Elena laughed breathlessly.

"Funny. I was about to say you made one." She feinted left, struck right, her clawed projection carving a line across his shoulder. "Making me your enemy."

Blood sprayed.

And he increased his assault.

His fists became blurs, flame and lightning and raw kinetic force combining into a barrage that drove Elena backward step by step. Each impact released thunderous booms that shook the building's foundations.

BOOM-CRACK-BOOM-CRACK-BOOM!

She blocked, deflected, tried to create distance, but he pressed forward relentlessly. Those crimson eyes tracked every movement, predicted every feint, found every opening.

His hand caught her wrist. Twisted.

She gasped, tried to pull free, but—

His other hand struck her solar plexus with devastating force.

BOOM!

The air exploded from her lungs. She staggered.

And he was already moving, capitalizing on the opening.

He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall.

CRACK!

Stone fractured. She gasped, tried to counter...

He slammed her again.

CRACK!

And again.

CRACK!

And again.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

Each impact drove the breath from her lungs, cracked more ribs, turned the wall behind her into a crater of shattered stone. Blood began to pour from her mouth.

Her struggles grew weaker.

Finally, Alaric threw her.

Elena's body flew across the room and crashed into the ground, skidding through debris and blood until she hit the opposite wall and went still.

She lay there, gasping, blood pooling beneath her. Her hazel eyes, usually so confident, so mocking, were wide with pain and something that might have been fear.

Alaric stood where he'd released her, chest heaving, blood dripping from dozens of wounds. His legs trembled. His vision swam at the edges.

Then he staggered backward.

One step. Two.

His back hit the wall, and he used it for support, his hand pressed against his broken ribs.

The glow in his eyes flickered, still present, but dimming. Fighting to maintain itself against the reality of a body pushed far beyond its limits.

Around them, the battle continued. Nyra had finished with the remaining elite creatures, their bodies smoking ruins scattered across the floor, and was moving toward the array's edge.

But her eyes were on Alaric.Seeing something in him that she recognized.

[WARNING: EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ACTIVE]

[DEFENSIVE INTEGRITY: 45%]

[PHYSICAL CONDITION: CRITICAL]

[ESSENCE RESERVES: DEPLETED]

Alaric's breathing was ragged, each inhale sending fresh waves of agony through his broken body. But he remained standing. Remained conscious.

Because falling meant dying.

And he refused to die here.

Not like this.

Not to her.

Across the room, Elena coughed, blood bubbling between her lips. She tried to push herself up, failed, collapsed back to the ground.

Alaric stepped toward her.

Each movement was agony, his broken ribs grinding with every breath, blood seeping from wounds that should have killed him twice over.

But he moved forward anyway.

Step.

By step.

Elena's eyes widened as he approached. That confidence, that mockery, that absolute certainty she'd carried throughout the fight, it crumbled. Replaced by something primal.

Fear.

She tried to push herself backward, her hands scrabbling against blood-slick stone. "Stay... stay back—"

He stopped directly in front of her and crouched.

His hand shot out and seized a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back to expose her throat.

She gasped, tried to struggle...

"You want to know what happened to your dear friend?" His voice was soft. Almost gentle. "Lisa, was it?"

He grinned.

And his canines grew.

Lengthening into sharp, predatory fangs that gleamed wetly in the dim light.

Elena's breath hitched. Her entire body went rigid with sudden, visceral terror. "What... what are you?"

Alaric didn't answer.

He lunged.

His fangs sank into the exposed flesh of her neck, just below the jawline, where the pulse hammered frantically against his lips.

Elena's scream cut off into a choked gasp as those fangs punctured skin. Her hands came up to push him away.

But he held firm, his grip on her hair tightening, his other hand pressing against her shoulder to pin her in place.

And he drank.

Not just blood, but her essence too.

Elena's struggles grew weaker. Her eyes rolled back, her body convulsing as he took and took and took.

Alaric's wounds began to close.

Not completely. But visibly, flesh knitting together, bones realigning, essence channels repairing themselves. The pain didn't vanish, but it dulled, became manageable.

Sustainable.

When he'd taken enough, when her essence was a bare flicker, when her body had gone limp in his grip, he released her throat.

Blood dripped from his fangs as he pulled back. The puncture wounds in her neck were still bleeding, but sluggishly now. Her breathing was shallow, erratic.

His hand moved from her hair to her face, fingers gripping her jaw, tilting her head to meet his gaze.

Those crimson eyes stared into her terrified, fading consciousness.

He leaned in slowly.

His tongue extended and licked the trail of blood running down her neck, savoring it, claiming it, marking her.

Elena whimpered. Tried to speak. Managed only a broken gasp.

Then Alaric's mouth descended on hers.

Not gentle or tender but claiming.

His lips crashed against hers with bruising force, his tongue forcing its way past her bloodied lips to taste the blood and fear and broken defiance mingling there.

She couldn't resist. Didn't have the strength left. Just lay there as he took one final thing from her, her breath, her essence, her submission.

When he finally pulled back, she was barely conscious. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. Alaric stood, releasing her completely.

She collapsed to the side, her body twitching weakly. Not dead, but finished.

He stood there for a moment, breathing slowly, feeling the stolen vitality coursing through him.

He sighed, closing his eyes, letting his head tilt back slightly.

The flesh around his broken ribs continued to mend. Gaps in torn muscle tissue closed slowly, layer by layer. The gash across his shoulder sealed itself, leaving only dried blood as evidence.

CRASH-BOOM!

The far wall exploded inward.

Alaric's eyes snapped open as corrupted figures poured through the breach, not just standard ones, but more elite units. Four of them. Flanked by at least a dozen lesser creatures.

They spread out, surrounding his position, cutting off escape routes with practiced coordination.

Lightning continues to crackle around Alaric's form.

But as the creatures approached, as the pressure in the room intensified further.

The lightning changed.

The white-blue flickered. Darkened. The color shifting like a dying star, bleeding from brilliant azure to deep, blood-red crimson.

Red lightning.

It arced across his skin in violent, erratic patterns, scorching the stone beneath his feet, leaving burning afterimages in the air.

Alaric's head turned slowly to the side.

His crimson eyes tracked the creatures with predatory focus. His posture was casual despite the wounds, despite the blood covering him from head to toe. One hand hung loose at his side. The other rose slightly, fingers splayed.

The image was striking, almost theatrical. A bloodied figure wreathed in impossible crimson lightning, surrounded by monsters, utterly unconcerned by the odds.

Then...

His lips moved.

"Raize."

And suddenly, the lightning around him silenced.

Instantly.

The crackling, the arcing, the constant discharge, all of it stopped.

The creatures hesitated. Their primitive instincts screaming warnings they couldn't articulate.

One second passed.

Two.

Three. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Then the lightning crackled once.

Not around Alaric.

But everywhere.

The entire area, every surface, every wall, every inch of floor and ceiling, erupted with branching patterns of crimson electricity.

...

BOOOOOOOM!

Every point where the crimson lightning touched exploded simultaneously.

Pure electrical annihilation.

The elite creatures vanished, simply ceased to exist in the space between one heartbeat and the next. No bodies. No remains. Just scattered ash and dissipating essence.

When the light faded.

Nothing remained.