First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess

”Kekekekeke!” Lucas suddenly began to laugh.

”Hahahaha!”

Something inside him snapped. The half-regenerated arm finished sealing with a sick crunch, veins bulging unnaturally as muscle packed tighter and denser than before. His breathing turned erratic, eyes wide and unfocused, saliva mixing with blood as he roared and charged again without any plan.

Xavier barely moved. He stepped aside at the last second and slammed Lucas face-first into the concrete wall. The impact cracked the surface and left a dark smear behind. Lucas didn’t even slow down. He tore himself free and swung wildly, fists smashing chunks out of the corridor walls, tearing emergency lights loose and sending sparks spraying across the floor.

”Look at you,” Xavier said, circling him. ”Calling yourself a god while throwing tantrums like a cornered animal. What a bitch.”

Lucas screamed and lunged again, faster than before. This time his fist landed, driving Xavier back through a set of security doors and into a storage corridor. Xavier skidded across the floor, boots carving lines through debris, then pushed himself upright just as Lucas grabbed a fallen metal rack and brought it down like a club.

Xavier raised his gloved hands and caught it mid-swing. The force behind it should have flattened him. Instead, the rack buckled uselessly against the Aether-Veil Gauntlets and dropped to the floor.

Lucas stared for half a second, confused and furious.

Xavier used that moment to headbutt him.

The sound was ugly. Bone cracked. Lucas staggered, regeneration flaring again as his nose rebuilt itself crooked before straightening. He slammed his shoulder into Xavier and drove both of them through the floor. The concrete gave way beneath their weight, and they crashed into the level below in a storm of dust, wiring, and broken pipes.

They landed hard. Lucas rolled first and came up swinging. Xavier blocked, countered, then ripped a steel pipe from the wreckage and smashed it across Lucas’ knee. The leg bent wrong, snapped, then slowly began to knit itself back together.

”Still regenerating?” Xavier said. ”Good. That means I can go all out. I should thank you for this, seriously. The others died too fast to sate my thirst for blood.”

Guards poured in from both ends of the level, shouting and firing. Xavier yanked a fallen rifle from the floor, fired two clean bursts without looking, and dropped them. Lucas, who should be thankful to them, began attacking them instead. He tore into the rest, ripping one apart with bare hands and flinging another into the wall hard enough to fold him in half.

Lucas’ movements were getting sloppier. Stronger, but less controlled. Every regeneration took longer now, the flesh rebuilding slower, shakier. Xavier noticed immediately.

”You’re burning through it,” Xavier said, cracking Lucas across the jaw with the pipe. ”Whatever made you like this isn’t infinite.”

Lucas roared and tackled him again. They smashed through another wall, slid down a stairwell, and burst onto a lower evacuation level filled with panicking personnel. Xavier ripped a fire axe off the wall and buried it into Lucas’ shoulder. Lucas screamed and tore it free, chunks of meat coming with it.

Blood soaked the floor. Regeneration crawled instead of surged.

Lucas swung the axe back. Xavier caught the handle, twisted, and drove his knee into Lucas’ chest hard enough to collapse ribs inward. Lucas fell back, gasping, coughing blood as his chest slowly pushed itself back into shape.

”Keep going,” Xavier said quietly. ”I can do this all night.”

Lucas lost what little restraint he had left. He charged blindly, swinging, biting, clawing, tearing at anything in reach. Xavier met him head-on and finally sighed, clearly done.

He reached up and pulled the gloves off.

They didn’t drop. They vanished, dissolving into nothing as if they had never existed.

The air around Xavier changed instantly.

Lucas didn’t realize what had happened until Xavier moved.

The next punch lifted Lucas off the ground and sent him crashing through another floor. Xavier followed, landing on him before he could recover, driving his fist into Lucas’ abdomen again and again, each blow folding him inward as organs ruptured and tried to reform.

Lucas screamed until his voice broke.

Xavier felt it then. The familiar surge. The burn behind his eyes. His heartbeat deepened, slowed, then steadied as power flooded his body. His form shifted, veins darkening, eyes glowing crimson as his vampire transformation completed.

The difference was immediate.

Lucas tried to strike him again. Xavier caught his arm, twisted, and tore it off at the shoulder. No finesse. Just brute force. Blood sprayed across the floor and walls. The regeneration tried to start, failed, then started again, slower than ever.

He ripped Lucas apart methodically. Another arm. A leg. He crushed Lucas’ chest cavity with his knee and tore organs free as regeneration sputtered and failed under the strain. Lucas’ screams turned into wet gurgles as his body stopped keeping up.

They had reached the lowest evacuation level by then.

Guards stood frozen at the edges. Lucian stared in horror. Aldric couldn’t move. Shareholders and board members backed away, faces pale. Luther stood still, eyes locked on Xavier, disbelief written openly across his face.

Rin arrived moments later, blades slick with blood, breathing hard as he cut down the last few guards who tried to interfere. He stopped short when he saw the scene and lowered his swords slowly.

Xavier finished the fight.

He tore what remained of Lucas apart in front of everyone, limb by limb, until there was nothing left that could regenerate. Then, he pulled out Lucas’ heart, raised his hand and crushed it in his fists.

Xavier’s vampire form faded as the limit hit him, his body reverting back to human. He stood there covered in blood, breathing steady, completely unbothered by the dozens of eyes locked on him.

Luther finally spoke, voice low and stunned. ”What... are you? That was a... true vampire form.”

Xavier wiped his hands on what remained of Lucas’ jacket and looked around the room.

”Someone who finishes things. ”

Rin stepped up beside him, keeping watch as alarms continued to echo through the tower.