Awakening Domination System: But I'm a Slave?-Chapter 324: Hunt [3]

The soldiers moved.

Fifty vampires surging forward as coordinated wave, weapons drawn, intent clear.

Kill.

Thaddeus’s hand moved into his pocket and withdrew a crystal that pulsed with blinding light.

He crushed it.

FLASH!

Light exploded across the battlefield.

Every soldier stumbled, their vision working against them, completely overloaded.

"RUN!" Thaddeus roared.

They ran.

Serana clutched both children, Brandon’s hand in hers, Elara pressed against her chest. Her legs pumped desperately.

Brandon ran beside her, his small face set with determination despite the terror in his crimson eyes. The teardrop pendant bounced against his chest with each step.

Elara just sobbed, high, keening cries of a two-year-old who didn’t understand why everything was wrong, why her parents were scared, why the world had become nightmare.

"Shhh, sweetheart, shhh," Serana tried to comfort her while running. "It’s okay... Mama’s got you!"

But it wasn’t okay. And her voice carried the lie poorly.

Behind them, Malachai’s laughter echoed across the border.

"Oh, how adorable!" His voice carried mockery and genuine amusement. "Run, little primordials! Let’s see how far you get!"

He gestured lazily to his soldiers, whose vision was already recovering. "Follow them. Don’t kill them yet, I want to see their faces when they realize there’s no escape."

The soldiers moved in pursuit.

They crossed fully into demon territory.

Then suddenly...

Demonic hounds emerged from the twisted vegetation.

Lesser creatures, all teeth and claws and mindless hunger. Maybe drawn by the scent of vampire blood, maybe territorial instinct.

Five of them.

Serana set Elara down for just a moment, her shadows erupting outward in desperate defense.

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

Shadow constructs carved through demonic flesh. The hounds shrieked and fell, their bodies dissolving into essence that stank of corruption.

"Mama!" Brandon’s voice was terrified. "Behind you—"

She spun, shadows intercepting another hound mid-leap, punched through its skull, dropped it twitching to the ground.

"Keep moving!" Thaddeus was beside her again, his blade dripping with blood. "Don’t stop—!"

But the vampire soldiers had caught up.

And this time, they engaged fully.

A dozen soldiers crashed into their position. Thaddeus met them with blade. His weapon carved through defenses, killed two soldiers outright, wounded three more—

But there were too many. Always too many.

Serana tried to cover him, tried to keep the children safe.

But...

More demon creatures emerged. Not hounds this time, something bigger.

Corrupted things that might have once been other species, now twisted by demon realm essence into mockeries.

They attacked everyone. Vampire soldiers and fleeing family alike. No discrimination. Just violence.

The battlefield became chaos. Three-way conflict with Thaddeus and Serana caught in the middle, desperately trying to protect their children while fighting both vampire hunters and demonic beasts.

And this time... Malachai descended into the combat personally.

His blood-red eyes tracked Thaddeus with predatory focus.

"Enough games," he said flatly... and moved.

Thaddeus barely got his blade up in time to intercept Malachai’s strike. The impact sent shockwaves through his arms, cracked his weapon, drove him backward...

"You fought well," Malachai said conversationally, his next strike shattering Thaddeus’s blade completely. "Better than most. But you were always going to lose."

Serana saw them fighting. Tried to reach them. But soldiers blocked her path, forced her to defend, to fight.

She got cornered.

Three soldiers pressing from different angles, their coordinated attacks overwhelming her. Her shadows lashed out desperately, killed one, wounded another.

The third’s blade caught her across the ribs. Pain exploded. Blood flowed.

She stumbled backward, one hand pressed to her wound, the other reaching for the summoning pendant.

But...

CRACK!

It shattered in her grip. The artifact that should have summoned Lilith—that should have saved them—just broke. Fell in fragments to the corrupted ground.

No...

Brandon and Elara huddled together nearby, pressed against twisted tree, trying to be invisible, to be small. Both crying. Both terrified beyond anything children should experience.

Elara’s sobs were continuous now. Hiccupping, desperate sounds. "Mama! Mama... want Mama!"

Brandon held her, his small arms wrapping around his sister despite his own terror. "It’s okay, Ellie. It’s okay. Papa and Mama will... they’ll—!"

Then he heard it.

A sound that stopped everything.

A loud groan.

Followed by Malachai’s triumphant laughter.

Serana’s head snapped toward the sound.

And...

"NOOOOO!"

Her scream was raw. Inhuman. The sound of something fundamental breaking.

Because Malachai stood over Thaddeus’s body, his hand withdrawn from the vampire’s chest. Blood poured from the catastrophic wound. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Thaddeus’s eyes were wide. Shocked. His mouth opened as if to speak.

But Malachai pulled his hand back completely.

And... Thaddeus dropped.

Collapsed to the corrupted ground, blood pooling beneath him, his chest torn open, his life draining away with each failing heartbeat.

Serana’s legs gave out. She dropped to her knees, tears streaming down her face.

"No. No no no..." The words came out broken. Desperate denial. "Please not him... please."

Then Malachai turned toward her.

Toward the children. His eyes studied them with something that might have been satisfaction or might have been hunger.

"Well," he said, wiping blood from his hand with casual gesture. "That’s the father handled. Now for the rest of the bloodline."

He looked directly at Brandon and Elara. Studied them with uncomfortable intensity.

"Hello, little ones," his voice was gentle. Almost kind. Which made it so much worse. "Do you know what you are? What flows through your veins?"

He took a step toward them.

Brandon pressed back against the tree, his arms tightening around Elara. His eyes were wide with terror.

Elara just sobbed harder, her small face buried against her brother’s shoulder.

"You’re primordial bloodline," Malachai continued, taking another step. "Ancient essence. The kind that makes vampires powerful. The kind that’s worth absorbing."

Another step.

"Your father understood. At the end. Why I needed to hunt you. Why I couldn’t let you grow up to threaten the new order I’ve built."

Another step.

Serana tried to move, tried to throw herself between her children and the monster approaching them, but soldiers held her back.

"Stay away from them! STAY AWAY!"

Malachai ignored her. Reached out toward Brandon with one bloodstained hand.

But then...

He paused.

His entire body going rigid. He jumped backward.

Then—

WHOOSH!