Lucious dropped heavily to his knees in the wet, blood-soaked mud of the goblin camp.
He pulled Dori’s fragile, freezing body directly into his arms, completely ignoring the burning agony radiating from the jagged wound in his own side.
Her glowing crimson eyes had faded into a dull, lifeless grey, and her chest was entirely still. The heavy wooden stick that had pierced her stomach had introduced a lethal infection to her newly acquired S-rank vampire physiology.
Wood was a critical weakness to their race, and combined with the severe solar degradation she had suffered from walking in the direct sunlight earlier in the day, her body was rapidly shutting down.
He did not have a single second to waste.
Relying entirely on his predatory instincts, Lucious brought his own pale wrist up to his mouth. He unhinged his jaw slightly and sank his sharp fangs deeply into his own flesh. The sudden pain was sharp, but the hot, metallic taste of his own pure blood instantly filled his mouth.
He tore his fangs away, creating a deep, jagged gash on his wrist, and immediately pressed the bleeding wound forcefully against Dori’s pale, parted lips.
"Drink it," Lucious commanded, his deep voice cracking with raw desperation. "Do not die on me, Dori. Drink."
At first, she was entirely unresponsive, her head lolling limply against his ruined shirt. But as the thick, glowing crimson liquid spilled into her mouth and slid down her throat, her body instinctively reacted. The ancient, potent blood of a True Vampire acted as a supreme catalyst.
A brilliant, blinding red light suddenly erupted from beneath her pale skin, illuminating the dark forest clearing. The magical glow surged directly toward her stomach, violently purging the dark, necrotic taint left behind by the crude wooden spear. The torn flesh and ruptured organs began to aggressively knit themselves back together with terrifying speed. The violent spasms rocking her frame slowly eased into a calm, powerful rhythm.
The ethereal blue system flared to life directly in Lucious’s line of sight.
[System Alert: Target has successfully consumed True Vampire blood.]
[Critical wound healed. Wooden infection purged.]
[Temporary immunity to solar degradation granted.]
Dori gasped loudly, her chest heaving as she sucked in a massive gulp of the cold night air. The vibrant, lethal crimson glow returned instantly to her eyes. She blinked rapidly, her feral gaze locking onto Lucious’s face.
The sheer relief that washed over her features was profound. She reached up with a trembling hand, her fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw.
"Master..." she whispered, her raspy voice thick with absolute adoration.
But the moment of intimate victory was violently cut short.
Now that the immediate, blinding panic of losing his only willing blood kin had passed, the massive adrenaline rush fueling Lucious’s muscles completely evaporated.
The dark, sickly green goblin poison that had forcefully trapped inside his waist suddenly surged with a vengeance.
A hot, agonizing wave of pure pain washed over Lucious’s entire body. His vision instantly split into double, the edges of the forest blurring into a sickening smear of shadows. He grunted heavily, a violent cough tearing from his throat as dark, poisoned blood spilled past his lips, dripping onto Dori’s clean skin.
"Master!" Dori screamed, her newfound relief shattering into absolute terror.
Lucious tried to speak, to tell her to stay calm, but his tongue felt like a heavy block of lead. His tall frame went entirely limp, collapsing heavily to the damp earth right beside the smoldering remains of the goblin campfire. The world plunged into a suffocating, pitch-black silence.
Dori scrambled to her knees, her hands frantically pressing against his chest. His skin, usually cool and pale, was now burning with an unnatural, feverish heat. The jagged wound on his side was weeping a foul, blackish-green sludge. He was dying. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow.
She could not lose him. He was the very first person in this miserable world to ever show her kindness, the only one who had promised to show her the beauty of the world beyond the rotting forest.
Tapping entirely into the explosive physical power of her S-rank blood master class, Dori slid her arms under his broad shoulders and his knees.
With a feral grunt of exertion, she hoisted his heavy, limp body entirely off the muddy ground, cradling him tightly against her chest. She did not bother to pick up her wooden stick or scavenge the goblin corpses for loot.
She turned her glowing red eyes toward the distant tree line, completely abandoning the ruined camp.
Dori sprinted through the dense, shadowy woods with terrifying, fluid grace. Branches whipped against her face and the wet mud squelched beneath her bare feet as she carried her master. She moved relentlessly, driven by a frantic, consuming need to reach civilization.
They had walked for hours to find the Rando village to complete their forty gold piece quest, and she knew the human settlement was just beyond the tree line.
She burst through the wooden arches of the village entrance, her chest heaving for air. The unpaved streets were dark, illuminated only by the faint, flickering light of a few torches.
"Help!" Dori screamed at the top of her lungs, her raspy voice echoing violently off the wooden houses. "Someone help him!"
Doors creaked open slightly, and a few of the grown men who had formed the desperate village militia stepped out cautiously onto the dirt road.
They held their crude weapons tightly, their eyes wide with fear as they stared at the feral girl covered in dark monster blood, carrying the pale stranger who had walked into the woods earlier.
"He fought the monsters!" Dori pleaded, her voice breaking into agonizing sobs as she fell to her knees in the dirt, gently resting Lucious’s head in her lap. "He killed the goblins for you! Please, he is poisoned. He needs a healer!"
The villagers exchanged terrified, wary glances. A heavily bearded man holding a pitchfork took a slow step forward, looking down at Lucious’s unnatural, sickly pale skin and the dark sludge leaking from his side.
"He cannot possibly be alive," the bearded man muttered, taking a quick step backward in disgust. "Look at him. He is a corpse. He reeks of dark magic."
"He is not dead!" Dori snarled, baring her fangs slightly as her feral instincts flared. "Help him!"
"We do not have the supplies to waste on a dead man," another villager shouted from the safety of his porch. "And even if we did, healing potions cost heavy coin. If you cannot pay upfront right now to stay in the inn, take your cursed friend and leave before you bring more monsters to our doors!"
The words felt like a physical knife twisting in Dori’s chest.
Her master had literally risked his entire life, marching unarmed into a camp of heavily muscled monsters to save these pathetic, ungrateful people, and they were demanding money to save him in return.
The deep, ingrained hatred she harbored for humanity spiked violently in her blood. She remembered how the city humans hunted the beasts she used to play with, slaughtering them for cores and leaving their bodies to rot in the mud. Humans were all exactly the same. Selfish, cruel, and completely devoid of honor.
She wrapped her arms protectively around Lucious, ready to pick him up and carry him back into the wild, intending to slaughter any villager who tried to stop her.
"Step aside, you foolish cowards," a frail, raspy voice suddenly commanded from the shadows.
The crowd of armed men parted nervously.
An elderly woman, her face deeply lined with age and her back slightly hunched, stepped out from a small, modest wooden house near the edge of the street. She leaned heavily on a twisted wooden cane, but her eyes held a sharp, uncompromising authority.
The old woman hobbled forward, completely ignoring the crude weapons of the men around her, and looked down at the bleeding man lying in the dirt.
She saw the dark goblin blood soaking his clothes, the absolute proof that he had marched into the domain of the monsters that had been terrorizing their homes.
"He marched into the dark when all of you hid behind your locked doors," the old woman reprimanded the crowd, her voice laced with heavy disappointment. She turned her kind, weathered eyes toward Dori’s weeping face.
"Bring him inside, child," the old woman offered gently, gesturing toward her open door with a trembling hand. "I have clean water and bandages. Let us get him out of the cold."
Dori stared at the elderly human, her feral hostility wavering for just a fraction of a second. She did not trust the woman, but she looked down at Lucious’s fading, feverish face, and knew she had absolutely no other choice.
With a heavy sob, Dori hoisted her master back into her arms and carried him across the threshold, leaving the selfish villagers standing in the dirt.