My Stepmom Is A Vampire & Her Entire Bloodline Wants To Breed Me

Chapter 166: What’s Left of Oprichin

When morning came, several villagers finally opened their eyes. They looked around in confusion, realizing they were inside the only hospital in the entire village.

The smell of disinfectant lingered in the cramped ward. A few of them tried to sit up but winced as their bodies protested, still stiff from the cold night that almost killed them.

Seamus, Dylan, and X had been tending to them all night. They teleported the survivors here one by one, wrapping their bodies in thick cocoons to keep the hypothermia from claiming them.

Dylan even repaired the ruined heater with shaking hands, turning the freezing building into a fragile pocket of warmth.

It had been a brutal, endless night. Three exhausted people caring for thirty barely breathing survivors, while the rest had already slipped away.

The silence that followed death never got easier, not even for the three of them.

”Where am I? How did I end up here?” a man whispered as he struggled to sit up.

Seamus blinked himself awake and approached. ”Do you not remember anything?”

The man’s eyes widened. He clutched his head as a wave of pain hit him.

”I remember... something. Voices. Screaming. Then nothing. What happened to us?”

”Well... mass hysteria?”

Seamus shrugged, unsure how to explain mind control without breaking whatever fragile stability the man had left.

He stepped away. The man looked lost, and his jaw trembled, but he stopped asking questions. His brain was likely trying to stitch together memories he did not want to see clearly.

Seamus walked into the empty hallway and contacted Bianca through the doll. She answered immediately.

”How’s the condition there?”

”Not good. Only thirty survivors. But they look stable enough. No visible side effects yet.”

”Good. Stay there. We will send more help.”

”Alright, but what do I tell them? They remember parts of what happened, but not enough to understand it.”

”If you are there, ask one of them. We need to know how much they recall.”

”Okay, I will try...”

Silence fell. Bianca was ready to hang up when Seamus suddenly spoke again.

”How’s my dad?”

Bianca hesitated. ”Seamus, you should think about other options. Maybe ask him to turn into a vampire.”

”That bad?”

”I don’t know. He has cancer—”

”He has what? Are you serious?!” Seamus’s voice rose. ”You aren’t joking right? Because he should have already told me if he is sick!”

”Great. Now I said something I should not have. Sorry. I am ending this call.”

”Wait, do not leave. Answer me!” he shouted, but the line cut off.

His hands trembled. He threw the doll across the hallway, letting it clatter loudly against the wall. The sound echoed sharply, but it did nothing to steady his breathing.

Cancer. His father was dying.

And he never told him.

Did he really keep it hidden just because Seamus chose Isolde? Or maybe Bianca was lying?

But why would she lie? They never even meet.

”Fuck...” Seamus sank to the floor, gripping his hair in frustration. His shoulders shook, and for a moment he felt unbearably small.

Dylan finally woke up after barely an hour of sleep. Without speaking, Seamus pushed the rest of the work onto him and walked away before his voice betrayed him.

***

Dylan yawned again as he slumped back in the wooden chair. At this point, the stiff thing felt like the softest couch in existence simply because he was beyond exhausted.

”Mister, if you are tired just sleep already,” the man in front of him said.

His name was Johan, and his voice carried the same heaviness as his eyes.

”I understand. That memory is something I wish I could forget too.”

Johan had been part of the mining team that found the statue. He had nearly transformed into a monster, but he managed to resist.

”Sorry,” Dylan muttered as he rubbed his temples. ”Can you tell me everything you remember?”

Johan nodded slowly. ”It started when our heavy equipment hit something. We tried to break it, but the stone didn’t crack at all. The excavator was the one that broke. So we had to dig it out.”

He swallowed and continued. ”When we cleared the dirt, we found it. A giant stone head. Pitch black, smooth like obsidian, and the eyes were red like rubies.”

Dylan leaned forward, already feeling a pit forming in his stomach.

”Our leader got greedy,” Johan said. ”He tried to pry the crystal eye out with an axe. The moment he struck it, the statue started bleeding from the eyes.”

”Then he changed. His expression, his voice, everything. It was like watching someone get puppeted from the inside.”

”Your leader was Mika,” Dylan confirmed.

Johan nodded. ”Yes. He is the one who destroyed the ruby.”

Dylan inhaled sharply. That made sense. No wonder Mika was the one who became the host.

”What happened to your village chief?”

Johan’s hands trembled. Sweat rolled down his temple. ”We killed him. Mika ordered it. I knew it was wrong but my body moved anyway. I saw everything like I was floating outside myself, but I could not stop it.”

”I see...” Dylan took a slow breath, trying not to overwhelm the man. ”Then what about the people hanging from the trees?”

Johan’s panic spiked instantly. He gnawed on his fingertips as if trying to ground himself.

”Johan, calm down. I won’t tell the police. Honestly, the police won’t even get involved. Just breathe.”

Johan released a shaky exhale, looking relieved enough to cry. ”Really? I am just scared something will happen to my sister. I do not know what I would do if I went to jail.”

”You will be fine,” Dylan assured him gently.

Johan nodded and lowered his voice. ”The ones who were hanged were people who resisted Mika’s teachings.”

”They could not be controlled, almost like they were immune to whatever power he had. They kept shouting and fighting.”

He paused, shaking. ”But then Mika screamed once. Just once. Their bodies froze. I saw their eyes widen like they were trapped inside their own skin. Then they walked into the forest.”

Dylan felt his stomach twist.

”They hung themselves with the red rope,” Johan whispered. ”Mika said that ’They’ feed on souls and that he would become the strongest among those creatures.”

Dylan nodded as he wrote everything down. The Crest was only half a whole, which meant another fragment was out there somewhere.

And if this half caused this much devastation, the other one might already be waking up too.

***

When help finally arrived, all the villagers were already awake and confused. The confusion quickly turned into fear.

Every single one of them wanted to leave the village immediately. They clung to the rescuers, begged for rides, or tried to pack their belongings while trembling.

But that was no longer Seamus’ problem. The reinforcements could handle them now.

They decided to drive back rather than teleport. X did not know the exact location of the orphanage well enough, and the distance was too great.

It was not like the mining area and the small hospital, which were close enough to move safely. Attempting long-distance teleportation with three exhausted people was a terrible idea.

During the long ride, Seamus kept rehearsing what he would say to his father. Anger, disappointment, frustration, the urge to shake him awake and demand answers.

He pictured himself scolding him, shouting at him, or at least asking why he kept such a massive secret.

The next day, all those imagined confrontations vanished.

Andrew was in a coma.

Seamus stood by the bed, gripping the cold railing. He stared at the man who had caused him so much pain. A drunkard. A gambler.

Someone who shuffled different women into their house like it meant nothing. Someone who had abandoned him over and over again.

Seamus should have felt numb. He should have felt justified. Instead, something twisted sharply inside his chest.

He thought, very quietly, ’I do not want him to die.’

The thought terrified him. It felt like a shadow pressing on his lungs, making his breath stutter. The idea of losing Andrew filled him with a dread he thought he had buried years ago.

”Seamus, Bianca called you. Everyone is already in the drawing room.”

Madeline’s voice pulled him back. She approached slowly, studying his expression.

”Are you alright?”

Seamus lowered his eyes. ”Is there another way to keep him alive? Should I turn him into—”

Madeline’s hand clamped over his mouth. ”You promised me you would never change someone without consent. Again.”

He nodded, and she let go.

”Then what am I supposed to do?” he whispered.

Her silence was heavy, almost suffocating. Finally, she said, ”Wait. That is all you can do right now.” She rubbed his back gently. ”Come on. Everyone is waiting.”

”We need to discuss important things and you need to let Andrew rest... He is already too tired to even breathe.”

Seamus cast one last look at Andrew before leaving, carrying a tangle of fear and resentment that he could not untie.