Multiverse: Empyre Of Blood

[Lord Reyes]

It was a dark, beautiful night. The stars twinkled brightly overhead, unobscured by the grey clouds, and the full moon hung majestically in the night sky, streaming down soft moonlight onto the Earth.

The air was cold and almost pure, refreshing my lungs as the leaves on the trees and the corn around me whistled with the wind. It was peaceful, and it would've been perfect if it wasn't for what I saw.

There was a large scorched crater below me, with white smoke trailing from its edges into the sky. Right at the centre of this crater was this... thing.

It wasn't a meteor, asteroid, or any sort of celestial body that had crash-landed on Earth as I—or anyone else—would have expected from a crater this big. No, it was something else, something much more.

It was a tall and wide, unnatural structure that looked as though it was made up of five triangles interconnected seamlessly in a way that made parts of it seemingly appear and disappear in and out of reality at the same time.

It was made of a dark, deep red substance, almost like magnetite, releasing brief rhythmic pulses that caused the crater and everything around it to glow an ominous red.

It was almost as if it were breathing, with each pulse signalling an exhale or an inhale, like a living organism. I was speechless, wide-eyed, and awestruck watching this, so much so that I was almost afraid to breathe.

I should've been afraid, amazed, horrified, or even excited seeing this thing that was clearly of alien design. I should've bolted out of there, ran straight to the authorities, and let someone, anyone else, deal with this.

But I couldn't. The moment my eyes fell on it, all my worries, fears, troubles, and anxieties melted away, leaving me with this eerie calm. It was the kind of calm you'd feel as a baby tucked safely within your mother's arms.

As it pulsed gently, a low humming vibrating in the air as the red light flashed and washed over my face every now and then, I felt myself inexplicably drawn to it.

Before I realized it, my feet had started moving on their own, and I found myself sliding down the slope of the crater, ignoring the heat that licked at my skin.

The moment I came within a few meters of it, the thing rose and hovered a few inches above the ground, pulsing with a much greater intensity, the red light now washing over me in rhythmic waves, bathing me in it's warmth, each time it flashed.

It felt...alive, like it was patiently watching and waiting. The humming increased, and instantly, the hairs on my skin stood up as the temperature dropped drastically, goosebumps popping up all over my body.

My breath came out in ragged gasps, a thin cloud of vapour in the freezing air. My body shivered incessantly, but it wasn't from the cold.

No, it was from fear. Fear—pure, unadulterated terror— that sent shivers down my spine and nearly forced my heart to stop beating. I could feel its presence—or its nature—now. It was, for lack of a better word, wrong.

My instincts screamed at me, yelling at the top of their lungs, telling me to stay the hell away from it. My entire body rejected its presence, trying desperately to back away from the thing, the creature, but no matter how hard it tried, I just kept inching toward it.

Fear consumed me, drenching me in its suffocating grasp until my teeth chattered, my legs buckled, and my entire body trembled uncontrollably.

Tears and snot streamed down my face in an unrelenting flood, stripping away any semblance of composure. Every ounce of willpower I had left was focused on holding control over my bowels, but even that fragile thread was fraying, threatening to snap at any moment.


I screamed, yelled, begged, and cried like a child as loud as I could with each passing second, calling for help as I gradually drew closer to it.

The terror became so intense that I could even taste it in my mouth as I eventually reached it, sweat soaking my thick clothing and my trembling body beneath it, as its hums rang in my ears, drowning out all other sounds.

Like a puppet whose strings had been pulled, my left hand extended itself, and my fingers brushed against its surface. It was warm, impossibly smooth, and dense, like glass yet softer.

With fear-stricken eyes blurry with tears, I watched as my hand sank or phased into it, defying all the natural laws of physics I had grown up learning and understanding.

Instantly, the pulsation grew, and the red light that flashed intermittently from it became constant, glowing so brightly that it superseded all other forms of color, filling my vision with a sea of dark, terrifying red that made my head and eyes hurt.

I didn't know how, but I knew I was about to die. It was a certainty, a fact, like me being a man or the sun being in space.

A part of me wanted to disagree, to fight against this unexplainable feeling, to assure myself that I'd survive this—just like I'd survived all these years with my condition—that I'd come out on top and be even stronger because of it.

But that part of me faded away in a second, leaving me with nothing but my uncontrollable terror and the surety of my death.

Ever since I was old enough and smart enough to understand my condition, I'd made it a point not to fear death but to accept and embrace it.

That it would come sooner or later and that I couldn't escape it no matter how hard I tried—not with how I was born. Despite living longer than I was supposed to, surviving against all odds, I never deluded myself into thinking that maybe I'd live as long as regular people did.

That I'd grow old enough to have kids, watch them grow into adults, grow old with my wife, and die peacefully of natural causes like a large majority of people did in this world.

I knew I'd die young, in a hospital bed somewhere, alone and forgotten. I never in my wildest dreams pictured myself dying like this, but I accepted it nonetheless and forced my eyes closed, waiting patiently for the death that was to come.

...But apparently, that wasn't part of the plan. I felt something seep into my hand, and instantly, I felt a tingle, like tongues of electricity spreading from my left hand like wires to envelop every inch of my body.

Nothing could have prepared me for what came next.

Pain—unimaginable, unexplainable pain—shot throughout my body like a tidal wave. It was as if billions of hot needles buried themselves into my skin at the same time, piercing through flesh and bone to target my nerves, tissues, cells, and even my atoms.

It was as if hot molten iron was being poured into my veins, coursing through every fibre of my being. My body convulsed, muscles seizing in violent spams as the pain burned deeper.

There was nothing I could do but try to scream and howl in agony, but no sound came out. There was nothing left of my voice.

I wanted so desperately to claw my brains out with my fingers to end the torment, but my body wouldn't respond. It wasn't long before I felt my body coming apart. My left hand, the one inside the 'thing', was the first to go, disintegrating into nothingness.

I began losing all feeling as the sensation spread, devouring me piece by piece, but the pain never diminished. It only grew as I felt my mind twisting under the onslaught, somehow tearing itself at the seams and reconstructing itself back together continuously.

It didn't take long until I lost everything—my body, my senses, my feelings, and even my pain—yet somehow I remained conscious. The pain gave way to numbness, and the numbness gave way to stillness.

I floated in an infinite void of crimson light, devoid of sound and sensation. For the first time, in what seemed like an eternity, I was at peace. After a while, even that came to an end as I felt my consciousness fading, my thoughts and memories dissolving into nothingness.


Eventually, I finally felt the true end near, as only a shred of my consciousness remained, and just as I completely faded away, I couldn't help but think bitterly about how everything would've been better if I had never been born.

...Then, there was nothing.

 

[Lord Reyes]

My eyes opened as I shot up from my bed, my breath ragged. Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the room for a brief moment, followed by the mighty roar of thunder.

I shivered, my hands shaking as that horrible nightmare replayed in my head for the umpteenth time, my cold heart beating furiously. The soft downpour of rain and the rhythmic pattering on my windows helped calm me as I took long, deep breaths of the cold air.

Lightning flashed again, accompanied by thunder, as I finally calmed down, the trembling in my hands vanishing. Sighing, I shook my head with a bitter smile and turned, slipping out from beneath my silk sheets to sit on the left edge of my bed, my hands covering my face.

It had been almost forty-five years since that fateful day, but I still had nightmares about it. They were so terrible that even now, anytime I thought about it, my body would flinch, and I'd feel a sliver of that pain echoing across my being.

That day was supposed to be like any other. I'd go to school, attend all my tedious lectures, hang out with some friends, go home to take my litany of prescribed medications, eat, watch some sci-fi shows, and then sleep—only to repeat the cycle.

That was how it was supposed to happen, and that was how it started. But who would've thought I'd end up following a falling celestial body to its crash site, making first contact with an alien thing, enduring what felt like millennia of torture, getting vaporized, and then being reborn? In another universe, no less?

I chuckled at the thought and shook my head as I got out of bed, my feet landing on the polished, pristine marble floor. My eyes scanned the luxuriously decorated bedroom.

It was completely dark, not a hint of light to be found, yet I could see everything. I could make out my fireplace on the wall opposite my bed, the portrait hanging above it, my bookshelves flanking the hearth, my computer stations on the far left of the room, and the black sofas on the far right.

Everything was as clear as if bathed in sunlight on a scorching afternoon. Night vision at its finest—something fundamentally impossible for humans to possess. But thankfully, I was anything but human.

A small smile touched my lips as I stepped to my right, passing through a small arch and entering a door. A wide, equally dark, opulent bathroom opened before me, its marble floors and walls gleaming faintly.

I stopped in front of a crystal-clear full-body mirror, taking time to examine my naked form. The first thing that caught my attention was my eyes. My unnaturally glowing blue irises, framed by dark eyebrows, stared back at me, providing a faint luminescence in the room.

I had a tall, muscular body—perfectly toned and incredibly pale, without a single scar or blemish. My dark red hair fell across my broad shoulders, contrasting with my alabaster skin. My face was angular and striking, with high cheekbones, a straight nose, a strong jawline, and small pink lips.

I looked like a handsome young man in his mid-to-late twenties. And that would've been true if I were human. But fortunately, I wasn't.

I smiled, revealing a perfectly white row of teeth and pointed fangs that gleamed faintly in the dim light.

I was a vampire now, an immortal being of the night that only existed in stories. Somehow, after being tortured and killed by that "thing," I was reborn as a vampire in an entirely new world—a world that, until my death, I had thought was fictional, a mere figment of someone's imagination.

I had been reincarnated into Underworld, a world teeming with vampires and werewolves locked in an endless, bloody war to rid each other from existence.

If it weren't for all I'd been through in this cursed universe, I might still be in denial, convincing myself that it was all just a very, very lucid dream.

But it was real. Fiction had become reality—my reality—and there was nothing to do but accept my new lease on life and adapt.

It was something I had been doing for the past forty-odd years and planned to continue for the rest of my immortal life, despite how fragile the concept of eternal life was in this universe.

Fortunately, today marked a turning point. Today, was the day I'd taste the fruits of my labor. I was going to change history and ascend to higher heights. Today, I'd take one step into perfection.

A grin spread across my face as the thought of my plans for the day sent tremors of excitement through my body, causing the glow in my eyes to intensify. I turned and stepped into the shower cubicle, letting steaming hot water cascade over my body.

After a few minutes, I stepped out, dried myself with a towel, and returned to my bedroom. Opening my walk-in closet, I selected my attire for the evening.

I donned a black, long-sleeved turtleneck shirt overlaid with a black trench coat, black trousers, and black combat boots. After slicking my hair back, I moved to another closet nearby.

Opening it revealed my weapon collection: two black twin Baer 1911 pistols hanging at the top, two long silver daggers in the middle, and four full clips of silver nitrate bullets at the bottom.

I loaded the guns and tucked them into my inner coat pockets, then slid the daggers into separate pockets.

Nodding to myself, I picked up the telephone on the wall and dialed a number. After a few rings, a gruff voice answered in Hungarian.

"Boss?"

"Sergie, prepare the car. I'm coming," I replied in the same language.

"Understood," he said, cutting the call.

I hung up the phone and took one last look around the room. Lightning flickered outside, thunder roared, and rain continued to patter against the windows.

Turning, I stepped into the dimly lit corridor. Dark oak doors lined the walls, and the high ceiling bore a chandelier that cast a muted glow over the carpeted floor. My footfalls were muffled as I descended the spiral staircase to the second floor.

The sounds of idle chatter, soft moans, clinking glasses, and laughter drifted from the salon below, mingling with the distinct aroma of fresh blood and the acrid stench of marijuana.

A frown crossed my face, but I quickly smoothed it away, masking my annoyance with a neutral expression as I descended into the salon.

The salon was decorated in subdued tones of red, black, and a rich walnut brown. Lighted candelabras were mounted along the walls and hung from the ceiling, shining down on a rose-colored wool carpet bearing a floral design.

Ornamental brass lamps with opaque black shades rested upon antique mahogany end tables, beneath the elaborately carved wooden moldings running along the borders of the ceiling.

Heavy velvet curtains of the deepest burgundy were draped over the windows, keeping the place dark and protected from the deadly rays of sunlight come morning.

A menagerie of richly dressed vampires littered the luxurious room, lounging carefree on plush velvet divans or standing around, exchanging giggles and gossip.

Their laughter rang in the air as they clinked their crystal goblets filled with fresh crimson blood, pearly white fangs gleaming in the light peeking from the jaded smiles of the young and elegant vampire men and women.

In the corners of the salon, couples or partners bared their sharp fangs, sinking them into each other's flesh and savoring each other's blood in orgasmic throes, soft sensual moans escaping their blood-stained lips.

A few vampires held long pipes billowing with smoke, taking large puffs and relishing the high of their nicotine-enriched smokes.

The decadent air stank of a horrid mix of marijuana, expensive perfumes, steaming blood, and bodily fluids, making me almost grimace in disgust.

My appearance attracted the attention of most of them. They paused their meaningless chatter and stared at me with eyes brimming with interest, amusement, envy, lust, anger, hatred, and even admiration.

I was used to this, so I ignored their gazes and stepped confidently toward the foyer at the end of the room, my face as cold as ice. Seeing this, they smirked, clicked their tongues, and withdrew their attention, returning to their useless conversations.

Looking at them, all I felt was a deep sense of distaste and disappointment as I inched closer to the foyer. They were vampires, biologically immortal beings with superhuman strength, power, and influence, but they didn't act like it.

While the Death Dealers were out there risking their lives almost every day, fighting against the Lycans who would willingly sell their souls to guarantee our extinction, these vampires were here participating in blood orgies and other hedonistic pleasures.

I didn't like the war that was ongoing between my race and the Lycans. Quite honestly, I thought it was a foolish and meaningless war started by an idiotic leader with a superiority complex so massive that a black hole paled in comparison.

But I at least didn't try to pretend it wasn't happening, unlike some of these degenerates. I did my part, as did most self-respecting vampires, but these bastards did not.

They merely took everything like the blood-sucking leeches and parasites they were, hiding under those pale skins.

They had everything anyone could ever want or dream of, but they did nothing with it. They made me sick, and if I had the chance, I'd throw them all to the wolves and dispose of the waste they were.

But unfortunately, despite my status as a pureblood and my contributions as a scientist and Death Dealer, I didn't have that kind of power. Not yet, anyway...

Stepping into the luxuriously decorated foyer, I briefly glanced at the tapestries and paintings hanging on the walls and moved toward the heavy oaken doors that led to the mansion's exterior.

Fledgling vampires in dark clothing, waiting at the doors, bowed to me with reverent gazes and pushed open the doors, revealing the marble staircase that led downward to the entrance of the mansion.

Sergie, a pale, tall, lanky man in a black trench coat, stood at the foot of the staircase near the limousine, holding an umbrella. The moment he saw me, he hurriedly ascended the staircase and stood next to me, shielding my body from the rain.

I smiled and nodded at him, showing my appreciation, and together we descended to the limousine. He opened the door for me, waited for me to enter, closed it gently, and stepped across the car to the driver's seat.

"Where to, Boss?" He asked as he started the car.

I relaxed in the soft fabric of the seat. "Take me to the lab," I answered and shifted my eyes to watch the gushing fountain being pelted by the rain.

The car started moving, driving past the fountain toward the black main gates guarded by two tall, menacing vampires in dark clothing armed with assault rifles and surrounded by large Dobermans, seemingly unbothered by the rain.

As they opened the gates, I couldn't help but smile as I thought of what awaited me at my lab.

"It'll all be perfect soon."

 

[Lord Reyes]

The low purr of the engines hummed beneath me as the limo drove through the wet streets of Budapest. Raindrops trickled down the tinted windows, twisting the beautiful city lights of my hometown into a myriad of mesmerizing colors.

The streets were alive around me, congested with cars and pedestrians going about their usual lives, blissfully ignorant of the horrors and dangers that this world had to offer.

Due to the actions of the Death Dealers and myself, Budapest—and Hungary in general—was free from any major Lycan infestation. There were still some hot-blooded Lycans who didn't get the hint that the vampire capital of the world was strictly off-limits and decided to settle here.

But those errant Lycans were always quickly rooted out and destroyed, usually no more than two days after they arrived, protecting the purity of this nation and its noble citizens from Lycan scum.

The latter was propaganda those old geezers liked to tell themselves—and budding Death Dealers—to make our race seem like noble heroes of justice, when in fact, not a single one of them truly cared about humans.

Even I, with my relatively small and meager life experience, didn't care about humans anymore—let alone the older members of my society who had lived for centuries, with some living for millennia, witnessing kings, queens, emperors, empires, and kingdoms rise and fall time and time again.

It was war, and in times of war, people told themselves all sorts of things to feel better about the atrocities they had committed or were about to commit. In a society that had been waging war for the better part of a millennium, these things were told more often than not.

I smiled wryly at the thought, my cheek resting on my fist, as the car wandered through the labyrinthine streets of the city and finally entered the Andrássy district, where towering steel and glass skyscrapers dotted the skyline and filled the horizon.

We drew closer to one particular skyscraper, the tallest of them all, with Vörös Industries stylized at the apex, shining brightly for all the world to see.

It was the headquarters of the Vörös Corporation, the richest company in Europe and one of the richest in the world. It led the way in biotechnology and computer science technology, creating cutting-edge products that revolutionized the world of science.

It was a corporation created by my parents, with my help, and with them no longer in this world, it was entirely owned by me.

As I thought about my parents, sadness and anger washed over me, making me grit my teeth and clench my fists so tightly that my fingernails nearly drew blood from my palms.

"Now is not the time," I whispered to myself as I calmed down and unclenched my fists. "It's all in the past. Stay in the present."

I released a deep breath, dispelling most of my rage and sorrow, as the car turned sharply and drove into an underground entrance beneath the Vörös Industries building—a brightly lit garage devoid of cars.

The car slowed down a few meters away from the only elevator at the end of the garage and came to a halt, parking just a few feet in front of it.

Exhaling another breath, I erased any lingering negative emotions and exited the car. I didn't say anything to Sergei as I passed by the driver's seat and paused in front of the elevator.

I placed my palm on the biometric scanner next to the elevator. A moment later, the scanner released a beep, and the elevator doors slid open. I stepped inside, and just as the doors closed, I saw Sergei turning the car around and driving out.

A low whir sounded in the space, and a red wave of light washed over me, moving slowly from head to toe.

"Identification complete. Ádám Vörös verified. Starting descent," an androgynous computerized voice announced in Hungarian. Immediately, the elevator began descending.

Some would call me paranoid for having all these security measures just for a lab. But to me, it wasn't enough. If it weren't for the technological constraints of the 1990s and early 2000s, I would've installed even more features.

The kind of research I did here warranted such measures. If any of the Elders—or even the Lycans—caught wind of what I was doing down there, I'd either have my head on a spike or be torn apart by a pack of ravenous and desperate wolves.

Thankfully, with my status, contributions, and the protection of Amelia, no one dared to question me about it or follow me here. And the few who had the authority to do so didn't really care.

After all, none of them, in their arrogance and misplaced superiority, would even dream of the possibility of my research. And frankly, that was for the best.

With a ding, the elevator came to a halt, and the doors slid open to reveal the familiar expanse of my lab. My lips curled into a smile at the sight as I stepped inside.

It was a wide, long room with white-tiled walls, ceiling, and flooring that gleamed under the bright overhead lights. The air stank of antiseptic and ozone, and the temperature was almost as freezing as the Danube River in winter.

Rows of illuminated glass tanks—or growth chambers—filled with a viscous green fluid lined the walls. Grotesque, malformed small creatures or lumps of tissue mass floated in them.

Stainless steel workbenches covered the room, laden with various advanced scientific tools and equipment: thermocyclers, test tubes, scalpels, centrifuges, pipettes, large sequencers.

Monitors lined one side of the lab, displaying streams of genetic and other scientific data. At the center of the room was my personal workstation—a large, white circular table scattered with notepads, vials of blood samples, and other fluids.

At the far end of the room stood tall refrigerators and an air-sealed glass isolation chamber, their low hum barely audible despite my enhanced senses.

This was my personal sanctuary. The place I spent most of my time when I wasn't out there killing Lycans or enjoying my nigh-immortal life. This was the place where all my dreams would finally come true.

With an excited smile, I removed my trench coat and hung it on the coat rack to my left. I grabbed a lab coat from it and slipped it on, buttoning it as I strode to the sink on my right.

I washed and sanitized my hands, then moved to the isolation chamber. The hiss of pressurized air greeted me as I unlocked its reinforced door by punching in the passcode. Inside, a single glass vial filled with deep crimson fluid stood at the center of the chamber.

Steeling my nerves, I grabbed it with steady hands and stared at it, admiring the fruits of all my hard work with eyes full of pride and contentment. This little thing was the next step to my evolution.


It was the Corvinus strain in its pure and activated form. This was the ancestral strain of both the vampire and Lycan genetic lines. Both strains were created by a mutation caused by the introduction of Vampire Bat DNA and Wolf DNA into the activated Corvinus strain.

Apart from Lucian and his scientist, Alexander Corvinus, and myself, no one knew of this genetic anomaly that had unintentionally birthed two entirely new biologically immortal species.

If it wasn't for the fact that I'd watched the Underworld movies in my past life, I wouldn't have known about it at all. It was something that could change the fate of the two warring species, and only one of these species knew about it.

It had the inherent ability to fuse both Vampire and Lycan strains together to create a single Hybrid strain that had none of the weaknesses or faults of the two races and all their strengths, even boosting or powering them up to inconceivable levels.

This phenomenon was something that would only happen for a member of the Corvinus clan, like Marcus Corvinus, the creator of the vampire race, and Michael Corvin, both individuals born with the strain in their genetic makeup.

For someone like me, who was born as a vampire already having the Corvinus strain in its post-mutated form, it was impossible to become a hybrid—at least not with the level of technology I was stuck with.

This was where the beauty and magnificence of this genetic anomaly showed its face. I couldn't become a hybrid of the two races, but I could become the evolved version of my race.

Instead of fusing the two mutated strains together, it could evolve the single vampire strain to a level comparable, if not superior, to the hybrid strain.

It would completely erase the devastating weakness of the vampire strain to ultraviolet radiation and enhance the strengths or powers that the strain conferred, like immortality, superhuman physical characteristics, and cellular regeneration, to elevated levels that might seem godly to some.

It was my stepping stone to true immortality. Ever since I was reincarnated into this world as a vampire and realized the sort of place I was in, I had made the acquisition of the Corvinus strain my ultimate goal in life.

In the beginning, I wanted it out of fear for what would come in the future. I wanted to strengthen myself and my family for the events I knew were going to come from the movies I had watched—events that would almost annihilate the vampire race.

I needed it purely out of necessity. But slowly, as time passed, and I got to enjoy the perks of being a vampire—especially my immortality and eternal youth, as well as the privileges I got to enjoy as a pureblood and the son of two council members—my priorities started to change.

It changed into something else entirely the moment my parents died. My mother and father, the only people in two lives who loved and cherished me more than anything, died after living for more than a thousand years.

The two people who seemed so invincible to everyone else, including myself, died very simply in a car explosion because the Lycans weren't very happy with me introducing silver nitrate into the Death Dealer arsenal as a child.

I'd always known vampires weren't truly immortal. Sure, we couldn't die of disease, sickness, old age, or normal injuries like stabbings, cuts, or bullet wounds, depending on how old you were, but we could still die all the same.

I knew it, but when you lived and grew up with centuries- to millennia-old monsters like my parents and other vampires, in the safety of a castle, you tended to forget all these little facts.

Their death was my wake-up call. It was at that moment I knew I could still die. Despite my immortality, I could still die just as easily as any puny human. That my eternal life wasn't very eternal after all.

After that incident, I didn't just need it to survive anymore. I needed it because I was terrified of dying once again. I needed it so that I'd have the power to live through anything.

I needed it to have the power to control my destiny and make my eternal life as eternal as it could possibly be. So that I wouldn't have to die in a foolish and meaningless war started by a man who couldn't handle the concept of change.

I became obsessed after that. Even through my years of revenge and pain, it was still in my mind. I knew where I could get it. The ancestor of vampires and Lycans was very close by, watching the war and stepping in to clean up the mess always.

But it was impossible to get it from him. With his strength and resources, honed and accumulated for close to two millennia, it was impossible to meet him, let alone take his blood.

So I had to play the long game. I had to wait for Michael Corvin, the direct descendant of Alexander Corvinus, to be born and mature. I didn't like it, but I had no choice.

Thankfully, vampires were inherently patient creatures, so to me, I didn't really have to wait long. I tracked him down in the United States using my extensive inherited resources and got as many samples of his blood as I wanted, whenever I wanted.

After, it was just a matter of stimulating his dormant Corvinus strain by incorporating it with the vampire and Lycan strains, activating it as a hybrid strain, cleaving the vampire and Lycan portions of its genetic structure using nightshade- and silver-derived exonucleases, and then purifying the leftover activated portion to get the strain in its pure and activated form.

It wasn't easy to do this. I first had to sequence the vampire and Lycan genetic codes, synthesize the specialized exonucleases using nightshade and silver, purify and stabilize the needed portion, and then do a lot of tests—some unethical—to verify and observe its effects.

It took years of sweat and blood to do this, but eventually, with patience and most importantly, a relentless driving factor, I'd done it successfully.

...I just wished my mother and father were here to see and enjoy this with me...

I sighed helplessly, a sad smile forming on my face, but I shook my head and replaced it with a smile of joy. Wherever they were right now, I was sure they wouldn't want to see me sad and depressed at this critical moment of my life.

They'd want me to be happy with a smile on my face and a pep in my step, telling me to dwell in the present and leave the past to the dusty historians. And that was what I was going to do.

Chuckling, I strode to my workstation with steady hands and opened the hypodermic needle, slotting the tube into it.

"Here goes nothing," I said as I clenched my fist, exposing my pale veins, and calmly inserted the needle into one of them. With a hiss, the device ejected all of the liquid into my bloodstream, completely emptying the tube.

"Did it work?" I asked myself rhetorically and frowned as I hadn't felt anything changing within me. There wasn't any discomfort or pain as I was expecting—something that usually accompanied your genetic structure being modified or rewritten.

There was nothing. But just as I was about to take a blood sample to run some tests, my eyes widened as something started happening.

It started as a low whine at the back of my mind, but it steadily increased until it filled every portion of my mind. Then, my eyes widened in horror as I felt something I didn't think I'd feel again.

Pain. The kind I felt forty-four years ago...

"Ahhhh!" I yelled, grabbing my head as it rocked my mind once again. It was less intense than before, but this one was more acute, more concentrated, more deliberate as it tore only at my brain.

My knees buckled from the pain, and I fell on my knees, my screams louder than before as my fingernails morphed into sharp claws, piercing into my head and drawing blood that trickled down the sides of my head onto the pristine white floor.

The pain intensified, but now, I could somehow feel my mind reaching out, sending out 'tendrils' of my consciousness somewhere.

It took only a few seconds for these tendrils to 'touch' something, and the very instant they did, I felt an unexplainable connection form—a tether forever linking to whatever my 'tendrils' touched. In that instant, my pain vanished like it had never existed, my screams ceasing.

I felt the tether widening, forming a hole, and the air in front of me hummed loudly in my ears and started tearing, screeching into my ears.

I raised my lowered head at the sound, and my eyes almost bulged out of their sockets as they witnessed what was happening right before them.

It started as a notable and dense black dot in the air but gradually widened and increased in size, tearing apart the fabric of space and time to form a dark red swirling portal as tall and as wide as my body right in front of me, humming ominously.

"...What the hell is this..."

 

[Lord Reyes]

I muttered in shock as I stared at the swirling portal. Despite the fact that it was right before me, a part of me didn't want to believe it was there. In some reality-defying way, there was a wormhole or a portal in my lab, and absurdly enough, I was the one who conjured it here.

Strangely, I could feel it. I could feel it at the back of my mind, like it was a part of my body that had always been there but had just been discovered.

It felt like some kind of extra limb—one unattached to my body, but equally a part of it—a limb I could only control with my mind. And the longer I stared at it, the deeper this feeling became, until I could hear its call.

It was beckoning me, whispering to me to draw closer and enter it. The sight of this portal would've made anyone, even the most curious of scientists, wary or even scared, but there was nothing like that in me.

All I felt was calm. Not the kind of calm I felt when I saw that thing many years ago, but the kind of calm you feel when you look at a clear evening sky on a chilly night. Even my inherent primal instincts, which had been honed for years as a Death Dealer, didn't sense any danger from it.

This alone made me frown as I rose to my feet, glancing at my blood-stained, short, sharp claws that slowly receded and morphed into my regular nails, delving into my thoughts upon feeling my wounds had already healed.

I may not have felt any danger, discomfort, or hostility from the portal, but that didn't mean I was comfortable and okay with it.

I didn't know why or how I was able to do this, but I had a clue as to where it came from, and that didn't make me happy. This was clearly the work of that thing.

It seemed that apart from killing me and reincarnating me into another universe, it did something else to me—something that allowed me to casually break the laws of physics and reality.

Till now, I didn't know what that thing was. I had theories—a lot of them, actually—but there was one that I leaned toward the most.

Which was that the thing was an alien construct, an extradimensional entity, that existed in multiple dimensions—higher ones than the regular three to four dimensions—allowing it to control or manipulate them in ways that modern twenty-first-century scientists wouldn't even be able to imagine.

This was what allowed it to send my consciousness to a whole other universe to be reborn. Why did it do this? I had no idea. I could waste time speculating on it for a thousand years, and I probably wouldn't even come close to the truth.

It had happened, and I'd moved on, thinking that was the end of my connection or involvement with that entity, but it seemed fate had other plans in store. That entity had apparently left me with another parting gift.

A gift that I received the moment I evolved into something greater. Why did it wait until now to appear? Did the entity know or plan this whole thing, manipulating cause and effect even across dimensions?

Was it just waiting for me to get strong and capable enough to use it?

Was it a matter of worth? Was I now worthy in its eyes to unlock this? Had it been watching me this whole time?

Endless questions like this raced through my mind, filling me with countless doubts and worries, but I shook my head and cleared my mind of all these troublesome thoughts with an exhale.

It didn't matter how many questions I had. I wouldn't be getting any answers to them anytime soon, so it was better to ignore them, leave them for another time, and focus on the immediate issue humming in front of me.

Whatever answers I sought would come eventually with time, a quality I had in abundance in this life...

"Hmmm, now what do I do with you?" I asked no one in particular, squinting slightly at the portal.

There was no denying this thing was a portal or a wormhole of some kind. Where it led to, I didn't have the faintest clue. What I did know, however, was that if I entered it, I'd be transported somewhere—probably far away—in relatively and probably an instant.

I couldn't help the excitement that bubbled up within me at that thought. Teleportation was a phenomenon that was only theoretical at this point in time.

Wormholes, or Einstein-Rosen Bridges, were established concepts created by Einstein and Rosen, that described structures capable of connecting two distant points in spacetime and would enable near instantaneous travel between these two points.

There was no proof that man could one day achieve this feat, but just the thought of its applications was enough to make anyone dream in wonder. From space, time, and multiversal travel to military and defense, its applications were almost endless.

If this portal I created was an actual wormhole or even anything remotely similar, there was no way, I wouldn't exploit or use it. Despite my mistrust and apprehension, I wasn't going to throw this chance away. No matter what.


I might not have had positive feelings for that entity, but I was a practical man, and so far, whatever it had done to me had been to my benefit.

I was a sickly young man who probably would've died before I even reached my thirties in my past life, but now I was a powerful and unnaturally strong vampire with an unlimited lifespan and perfect health.

The difference was staggering, and no matter how much I hated admitting it, I was grateful for what the entity did, even if I still had mental scars from that experience.

So, even though there was a chance that whatever lay at the end of the portal could be dangerous and life-threatening, I still wanted to go.

I was going to bet on the chance that the entity wouldn't go through all this trouble of reincarnating me in another dimension and giving me the ability to conjure up portals, only for me to die the first time I stepped through one.

It was simply a bad investment—something not even I would do, not to mention a being of such magnitude. Nonetheless, there was no way I would go through that thing unarmed and in a bloody lab coat no less.

No matter how much I believed in that thing, I was going through the portal strapped and fully loaded for action. It was always better to be safe rather than sorry, especially when it came to the unknown...

With a determined gaze, I nodded and turned away from it, striding to the coat rack at the entrance of the lab, glancing behind me momentarily to notice the rear side of the portal blank and empty like a black wall.

Slipping out of my blood-stained lab coat, I hung it, wore my trench coat, and checked my weapons, making sure they were all in perfect condition.

Two clicks sounded as I turned the safeties of my guns off, and with their familiar weight resting in my palms, my grip on their handles strong, and my trigger fingers poised, I walked to the front side of the portal and paused just a step away from its swirling dark red depths.

I took a deep breath of the cold air, purified of the iron scent of my blood, and exhaled deeply, calming my nerves as I became battle-ready, adrenaline racing through my veins. My eyes glowed a bright electric blue.

"Here goes nothing," I whispered as I raised my twin Baers to eye level and stepped into the portal.

Instantly, my vision warped into a kaleidoscopic mess of colors, and I felt myself getting sucked gently through a narrow tunnel at barely comprehensible speeds, my mind and thoughts an incoherent jumbled mess.

The next moment, my vision cleared and returned to normalcy as I came out of the tunnel, and I found myself falling from the sky toward a forest. My eyes widened, and quickly, just as I reached the canopy of the tall trees, I raised my hands to block my face.

I fell into the canopy and crashed through several thick branches with my feet, cracking and breaking them into pieces as I descended sharply, my eyes closed with my face guarded by my arms that took the brunt of the chips of broken wood and leaves.

It didn't take long until I finally landed softly onto the ground with a barely audible thud, thick wood branches and bits thudding loudly as they fell all around me.

When the sounds ceased as the falling stopped, I opened my eyes and crouched, my hands and the guns shifting to point at my sides as my eyes quickly scanned the place for any sign of danger.

I was in a evergreen forest with incredibly thick and tall trees all around me that formed a dense canopy and made the place dim as it blocked a majority of the sunlight streaming down.

Focusing on my other senses to complement my sight, my eyes widened as I realized how sharp they'd all become.

I could see the smallest dust particles in the air and the tiniest insects, hear the sounds of animals and insects chittering or chattering all around me and even farther away as if they were right next to my ears, and smell the richness of the forest and its inhabitants so clearly that I could pinpoint the exact locations of those I couldn't see.

I could even feel the slightest touch of the wind or air and the particles it carried on my skin. It was incredible and utterly amazing. It was as if I'd now developed or gotten my senses and was now experiencing the world for the very first time.

As a vampire, I'd always had senses far superior to any human and almost comparable to a transformed Lycan's, but this was something else.

I knew and expected the strain to enhance and evolve every part of my being to new levels, but expectation could never fully describe or match reality. It was almost surreal.

"...Wait, the sun!" I exclaimed in fear as I finally remembered it was daytime upon realizing I was currently being bathed in sunlight and looked up at the hole I created in the canopy.

I saw the clear blue sky littered with white puffy clouds that swam aimlessly across it, illuminated brightly by the sun, and gradually, as I gazed upon its beauty, my fear extinguished and was replaced with joy. My hands fell weakly to my sides.

After all these years of hiding in the dark, afraid of the sun, not being able to feel its warmth and see the morning or afternoon sky without risking a complete and very painful death, I could now see and feel it all once again.

And just as I remembered, it was absolutely breathtaking.

"...I really did it," I whispered and chuckled, bursting into joyous laughter that echoed all around. I wiped the tears that gathered at the corners of my eyes with my dusty and tattered right sleeve.

"I'm finally free."