Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride

Not long after their conversation, Ivan’s gaze became serious and after a long sigh he turned to Nikolai with a strange gaze. His eyes soft, yet filled with concern. He reached out, as if to stroke his son’s hair, before stopping halfway.

”Nikolai.”

”Yeah?”

”You were right to be worried about the strange corruption.”

The moment his father mentioned the corruption, images of the caves filled with gunk appeared in Nikolai’s mind. His eyes widened, knowing this wasn’t the same level of talk compared to before.

”Did you discover something, dad?”

Ivan rarely smoked after he recovered, but this time he flicked open a packet of his red stars and placed one of the death sticks into his lips. Then he snapped his old metal lighter with two flicks. The scent of tobacco filled the room.

”Forgive me, I cannot calm myself after learning this truth myself.” Ivan’s voice sounded hoarse while he blew smoke into the sky. ”The tower, we never tried to understand it, treating it like some kind of gift from the gods or whatever people believed. But, why didn’t we doubt it?”

’Dad looks worn out suddenly…’

”How could people have known, it gave them gifts but wasn’t worth completing for most monsters?”

”That’s right! But humans, if humans learned about such a thing, they would have cleared it by now for sure. I bet my life on that.”

Ivan became excited and slammed the table, exhaling in frustration while sucking on his cigarette, almost exhausting it in a few intense puffs.

”Nikolai, that tower… the Nexus, why did everyone assume it was safe? No, why did our ancestors assume it was built for us and never doubt that?” Ivan’s voice trembled, and his eyes almost appeared to be searching for something.

”Dad, what did you learn?” Nikolai could feel the tension and tangible fear his father felt, which made his spine tingle because his father wasn’t the type to become scared like this, even facing against dozens of men.

”The tower is alive, which is something many scientists believed, but the royals and nobles laughed at them and drove them away.”

After this, his father spoke of a story that Nikolai already knew, from Alexei’s wife, about how her entire race was destroyed. However, his father told Nikolai that this wasn’t the first time and that hundreds, maybe more, worlds have already vanished in the past two hundred years.

”The nexus, isn’t a safe haven… but a source of invasion!” Ivan grunted, his hand crushing the empty pack of cigarettes.

”I don’t understand, why would something that has helped us for so long, be dangerous suddenly.” It made no sense to Nikolai. His knowledge of the place was quite limited, but it never caused him any danger and was quite helpful.

”Then, why do you think the worlds suited each race so well? Do you have a solid answer?” Ivan’s eyes, filled with conviction, gazed into Nikolai.

”I thought the gods created them to help the Supernatural races survive after being hunted and engaging in wars for so long?”

Nikolai’s skin filled with bumps the more they spoke. He could feel something itching the back of his head, a thought, or feeling, that he couldn’t help but deny. Also wondering how his father learned this kind of information.

”I don’t know everything Nikolai, what I learned was from an old friend many years ago, but until now, I have thought it was nothing but a fantasy, a fairytale.”

”Then what made you convinced?”

”I entered the Nexus from that cave you mentioned. The nexus, the tower’s corruption and the worlds which suit each race are perfectly connected.” Ivan closed his eyes before leaning back and continuing with a gruff voice. ”This made me confused, so I started looking into our clan’s history books and learned something shocking.”

”What did you learn?”

”Thousands of years ago, before our clan met other races and clashed with humanity… there was no Nexus and no mention of many races that exist currently.”

”But dad, Selene said that the nexus has existed for over ten thousand years.”

The conversation began to make little sense. Every word felt like a lie or trick. However, Nikolai couldn’t see a point to it.

”It took me some time to learn the truth, rather… thanks to the old and doubtful men who led our family, there were records dating back to the dawn of man’s rise. When their religions started to form.” Ivan pulled an old, tattered book from the shelf, slamming it on the table, creating a storm of dust, causing Nikolai to cough.

”That book records the first known contact of Supernatural’s and humans, a vampire the first head of the modern Tepes family, who was killed by the eastern soldiers, and ’rose from the dead’ after he regenerated, drinking the blood from corpses left in the tomb with him.”

”This sounds pretty normal, vampires are undead, after all. They won’t die from simple stab wounds, and they avoided decapitation.” Nikolai stroked the surface of the book while flicking through the pages covered in ancient words, but strangely he could read it.

But what he noticed is that the text spoke of an evil tower that swallowed the world.

”The humans called it the tower of Babel.”

Ivan and Nikolai quietly read several books.

The tower was referenced many times, but with different names, Tower of demons, Tower of god, Tower of Death.

”However, here is where it becomes complicated, the humans claimed that the tower helped create miracles and formed an almost magical city that couldn’t be attacked or destroyed.” Ivan started to cross-reference the history of Volkov, with the myths and religious texts of humans from their early advancement.

”I see, but… here dad, it says they destroyed the tower, or at least ’God’ did.” Nikolai flicked to a page regarding the destruction of such a tower and spread the races and people across the world. Then it spoke of the world’s people starting to war and fight one another.

”Not possible,” Ivan shook his head while he flicked through countless more books. ”No… wait? Nikolai, what if the people who were spread among the world weren’t humans, but…” His voice paused, his fingers flipping the pages of another Volkov history book, and his face twisted. ”Nikolai, look at this page.”

”Hmm?” Nikolai caught the thrown book and started reading the passage. ”The humans were mercilessly killed, our food source almost vanished. Devoured by that eerie darkness, so we abandoned the mountains and joined forces with them. All to defeat the thing inside the tower.”

The passage spoke of a great war as the Volkov family created the Alliance of Moonlight. A gathering of werewolves who fought beside humans, forming bonds that eventually led to the current Volkov and other clans.

He noticed that Fenrir and Silvara (Silver) were all noted in these older journals.

But things weren’t all positive. There were monsters who enjoyed seeing humans suffer, those who obeyed the tower. ”At least that’s what this book says, Father.”

”It does, but there are far older journals than this, maybe two thousand years ago. There you will learn that the alliance formed before that, not against some mysterious enemy but… against others of the same kind. Because they suddenly changed, and became hostile.”

Nikolai and Ivan spent hours, although they didn’t read all the books from the past. Some were too damaged and others missing.

However, they put together several points that happened in the past.

The Tower and Past Strife

• In the past, there were two towers that seemed to have significant influence on human and monster culture and religion and power.

• One of these towers was called Babylon by the humans, and caused a great war.

• Humans, werewolves, vampires and many other monsters lived in Babylon peacefully co-existing.

• The tower suddenly started to ooze a black corrosive mist that tore apart the city, killing millions, and records end here saying that all races were split around the world. (Maybe related to the Nexus?)

• Once the first tower became corrupt, new monsters and horrific beasts started to leak from the tower, and caused an era of strife and chaos where most vampires and werewolves dwindled. This created the need for a special method to increase numbers.

• Thus, the Squire and Knight system was created. This turned former allies who fought together into pseudo supernatural beings to fight against the enemy. (Enemy unknown at this point!)

• After the great war, records became damaged and there is a 100-year gap between journals, but after the war, suddenly the Nexus appeared, and monsters now inhabiting 60% of the world’s land.

”Interesting, this is what you’ve put together from the books…” Ivan’s eyes looked tired. The sun didn’t leak into this room, so neither of them knew two days passed while they became immersed in their research.

”Father, I still can’t make heads or tails of everything, but is the tower inside the Nexus Babylon, or… is the place we call Nexus actually the ancient city of Babylon?”

”I don’t know… we need to get more people to help, I will call Nagisa and Selina, you should have Selene and those girls help you.”

The father and son looked at each other, dry skin, dark sunken eyes before they suddenly started laughing at each other. The bottles of whiskey now empty and hundreds of books lay on the table between them.

”I need to speak with Vlad, I think that his family would know more about this because the enemy they spoke about…”

”Those who raise the dead and use them as weapons? Is this the quote that worries you?”

Nikolai couldn’t blame his father, if this referred to the Nosferatu, or a family that existed before them and somehow became linked to the modern-day vampires. Then, with the appearance of corruption in S-City, they might be attempting something dangerous like in the past.

”It’s not just that, do you remember how they referred to the two armies fighting? The Moonlight alliance, and the other one hidden in darkness, formless. Does it not remind you of the Day walkers, at least it fits logically?”

”Dad, aren’t we taking this too far, we should get the clan’s intelligence division to work on this.”

”Hah… you’re right, but when there are so many coincidences, it’s difficult to believe it’s not linked in some form.”

”We should have a rest… I’m exhausted.” Nikolai’s eyes stung from all the reading, and after drinking only whiskey, he desired actual blood.

Nikolai wouldn’t linger on these thoughts, but kept them in the back of his mind. They lacked too much information. Currently, he needed to discover if the Tower was indeed babel, then he would take things step by step.

’Imagine searching for answers, only to have more questions than when I started…’

The only thing that made him confused is the history of squires and knights taught to people now, was because of a selfish war between monsters.

In reality, it was a war to protect the world from invaders…