Chapter 122: New Body
Damon could barely hold himself back. But in the end, he failed. A raw, guttural scream tore from his throat as the blood surged deeper into his core, boiling his insides and ripping apart every nerve with invisible claws.
He writhed in the crimson pool, veins bulging, eyes wide with agony. The pain was beyond anything he had ever imagined, sharp, relentless, primal. It felt like dying over and over again.
He had laughed off Varnyx’s warnings earlier, thinking the old vampire was just being dramatic, throwing in a bit of cultish flair to make the ritual sound grander than it was. But now? Now he knew. This bloody thing was seriously trying to kill him!
His screams echoed through the ritual chamber, but no one came. Varnyx stood at the edge, silent and watchful, the same way one might observe metal in a forge, impassive, waiting to see if it would crack or hold.
Visions slammed into his mind, memories that weren’t his. A vampire king draining an army on a battlefield of ash. A queen with hair like fire whispering to a lake of blood. A child being buried alive in a coffin of bone, laughing as darkness embraced him.
Through it all, Damon screamed.
However, all of a sudden, something unexpected happened. Something even more ancient and primal stirred awake. The chaos and storm in the blood pool abruptly quieted down, leaving both Damon and Varnyx completely dumbfounded.
One second, it was torment incarnate. The next, eerie silence. The blood that had moments ago boiled and surged like a sentient tide went unnaturally still. Damon’s body floated motionless at the center of the pool, breath shallow, skin pale, eyes open but unfocused.
Varnyx narrowed his eyes. "What...?" he muttered, stepping closer, his instincts prickling with unease. The blood didn’t reject Damon. Nor did it finish absorbing him. Instead, it yielded. It completely submitted. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
Then came the sound. Thump. A deep, resonant heartbeat. Damon’s heartbeat. The blood pool instantly surged into action. All the blood gathered in the blood pool rushed into his body as if they were afraid to be left out.
The blood that had once threatened to unmake him now surged into his body with the desperation of a starving tide meeting its master.