Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride

Chapter 725: Beneath His Father’s Eyes

Ivan stayed on the ridge.

“You can do it, I know you can. You’re my son, Nikolai.”

His eyes shone with a brilliant flicker of silver, glowing as if to replace the blood moon above them.

Below him, Nikolai could not hear those words.

…

The outpost thundered with gunfire, roaring flames, splitting concrete, and the crunch of teeth and claws tearing through bodies. Rain hammered the eastern breach hard enough to turn dust into grey sludge, while the blood-red moon stained every puddle beneath the broken wall.

Nikolai’s left eye was useless.

A throbbing heat spread from the back of his skull as blood constantly poured from the deep wound across his left eye, blinding him further as the world turned red. His right eye stayed locked on the fake Ivan standing ahead of him.

The clone’s ruined jaw had finished knitting itself back together.

That alone pissed him off.

“Must be nice,” Nikolai muttered, flexing the fingers of his transformed hand. “Getting my father’s face and none of his bad habits.”

The fake Ivan smirked back.

He found the stupid smile more annoying than taunts.

It looked close enough to the real thing to dig under Nikolai’s skin, yet there was no impatience in it, no rough affection, no pride hidden behind insults.

Just an empty imitation, enjoying the pressure it forced onto him.

Nikolai raised the Desert Eagle.

If he used his claws, he knew the corrupted evil god’s blood would overwhelm him in an instant, the vision, the blood moon and constant battle slowly eating at his focus.

Its claws came in low this time, aimed not for his throat or chest, but for his gun hand. Nikolai twisted his wrist, letting the claws scrape along the barrel rather than take his fingers, and fired from the awkward angle. The shot tore through the clone’s shoulder, but its other hand slammed into his ribs with enough force to lift him from the ground.

Air burst from Nikolai’s lungs.

He hit the concrete on his side, rolled, and pushed up before the next strike crushed his skull. The fake Ivan’s heel smashed into the place where his head had been, cracking the wet stone apart. Nikolai swept his leg into the clone’s ankle, but it barely shifted its weight before driving a knee into his chest.

Crack.

‘It hurts…’

Something inside him throbbed with a dull, yet painful ache.

Yet as Nikolai coughed blood, he still reached forward, burying his claws into the clone’s thigh. He dragged himself closer instead of away, pressing the Desert Eagle into the wound and firing twice.

The leg buckled.

For the first time, the fake Ivan dropped to one knee.

Nikolai’s mouth curled.

“There.”

The clone’s hand caught his face.

It slammed him backwards through the mud and resin, scraping the back of his skull across broken concrete before throwing him into the remains of a barricade. Nikolai crashed through the splintered frame, landed hard, and almost lost the gun from his blood-slick grip.

His arms trembled.

His heart’s beat unevenly.

The heat under his skin surged again, angry and eager.

No.

He dug his claws into the ground and forced himself upright.

Across the breach, the fake Ivan rose from one knee without haste. Black blood leaked from its thigh, but the wound tightened around the damage. It adapted too quickly. Every time Nikolai hurt it, the next opening became smaller.

That was exactly how his father fought.

He would learn the targets’ moves, then seek to punish and crush them.

Clack!

Nikolai tossed the empty Desert Eagle away, then spat blood onto the ground.

“You copied that, too, huh?”

The fake Ivan rushed him.

Nikolai met it halfway.

Their claws collided with a shriek of metal grating together.

Nikolai leaned into the clash with everything he had, his shoulders screaming as the clone pushed him back step by step.

The clone’s claws raked across his chest.

“Ngh, Fuck you!” Nikolai slammed his head into the fake’s face before it could pull away, splitting his own brow against its face.

The impact made his skull ring.

Black blood sprayed across his cheek as the clone’s nose broke inward, but Nikolai barely had time to enjoy it before a fist drove into his stomach.

The blow folded him around the clone’s arm and sent bile surging up his throat with an acidic burn. His feet left the ground for half a second, and when they touched down again, the fake Ivan’s claws were already coming for his blind side.

Nikolai twisted by instinct.

But it wasn’t enough.

The claws tore across his left shoulder and down toward his chest, opening three hot lines through muscle. He gritted his teeth hard enough that pain sparked through his jaw, then caught the clone’s wrist with both hands before it could pull free.

The evil god’s blood surged through his fingers.

His claws lengthened.

His grip tightened.

For one ugly breath, he wanted to crush the arm, rip it off, and keep ripping until nothing on the battlefield still had a shape.

The blood-red moon pulsed above the breach.

Nikolai forced his fingers to stop.

“Not yet…. I can still fight!”

The fake Ivan used that hesitation.

Its knee crashed into Nikolai’s ribs again, striking the same place it had already cracked. Nikolai’s vision flashed white, and the strength in his legs failed for a single step.

That single step was enough.

The clone caught him by the collar and smashed him face-first into the wet concrete.

Blood burst from Nikolai’s mouth. Rainwater flooded his nose. He drove his claws into the ground before the fake could lift him for another throw, anchoring himself with a snarl as the clone pulled against him.

The concrete split beneath his fingers.

“Fuck… off!”

Nikolai twisted his body sideways, ripped one hand free from the ground, and drove his elbow back into the clone’s knee.

The damaged joint bent with a thick crack.

The fake Ivan dropped, and Nikolai rolled out from under him, sweeping his claws across the ankle as he moved.

Ivan stumbled back several steps.

But a moment against his father had always felt like stealing from a god.

Nikolai pushed up, breathing harder with blood running down his chin. His right eye stayed fixed on the clone’s centre line, not the face, not the smile, not the silver hair.

He removed all traces of Ivan.

The body.

The movement.

The kill point.

Ivan had drilled that into him until he hated hearing it.

Nikolai laughed through blood.

“So you’re useful after all, old man.”

The fake Ivan rushed again.

This time, Nikolai did not meet power with power. He stepped inside the first claw, let it cut across the outer edge of his coat, and drove his palm into the clone’s sternum with a short, brutal strike. The impact would not break it, but that was not the goal. The clone’s weight shifted exactly as Ivan’s always did when absorbing a blow.

Nikolai’s knee rose into the damaged thigh.

The fake Ivan’s balance dipped.

Nikolai struck the same point again.

And again.

The third blow made the clone’s leg buckle.

Nikolai caught its face with his clawed hand and drove it sideways into the broken barricade. Wood, steel, and concrete shards burst around them. The clone’s fingers carved into Nikolai’s flank in return, digging beneath the ribs until heat spread through his side.

He almost screamed.

He bit it down and headbutted the clone again.

This time, the fake Ivan staggered back half a step, and his skull was crushed to a state beyond rapid recovery.

A savage grin pulled at his mouth.

“There you are, it seems you’re not so invincible, Dad!”

Then, with a brutal snap, his leg struck the downed werewolf like a meteor hammer.

…

Above the lane, Ivan saw it too.

His fingers tightened until blood beaded beneath his nails. The silver light in his eyes sharpened as Nikolai forced the clone back for the first time, not through raw strength, not through luck, but by reading the rhythm Ivan himself had beaten into him over years of training.

Ivan’s chest felt too tight until the moment Nikolai started to adapt and learn.

“That’s my boy.”

Dimitri’s golden figure crashed through the lower breach, slamming his own clone away from Nikita before it could tear into her exposed side. Nikita cursed at him immediately, but the relief in her voice was obvious even from the ridge.

“Dad, I fucking had him!”

“Yeah, sure.”

Vladimir reached Selene a heartbeat later.

“Wife…”

Purple flame roared against purple flame, and the fake Vladimir finally had to step back as the real one entered the lane beside his daughter.

Selene did not look at him for long.

She adjusted herself, fired beneath his arm, and forced the clone wearing Selina’s face to abandon the delayed strike forming near her fingers.

“Father… are you alright?”

“Hmph, what do you take me for? Your dad is no weakling, Selene.”

Ivan barely watched them.

His son was bleeding badly.

His left eye was useless. His ribs were damaged. His shoulder hung powerlessly as every breath looked painful. The thing wearing Ivan’s face had more power than his real body could currently claim.

Yet Nikolai stepped forward again.

Ivan’s lips parted slightly.

He placed his hand on his rapidly beating chest, forcing himself to calm his rage as it grew stronger each moment he watched Nikolai fight tooth and nail.

“I want to fight him…”

He wanted to fight his son in a battle like this…

Maiming, beating and mauling each other until only one stood.

The true ritual of the Volkov family when passing the mantle on to their son.

He’d fought Viktor.

Viktor had fought his father.

It was their special method of bonding between a father and son, a bloody deathmatch which reinforced their familial bonds.