章 37: Chains of Reason

In the middle of a calm night, a rustling of brown leaves could be heard as something ran through them.

The two figures were moving quickly, like squirrels jumping from branch to branch.

Landing on the last tree in front of the walls of Paradise, Luciel felt a lump in his throat as he grabbed the branch above him.

He observed the stillness in front of him as a random plastic bag flew through the entrance.

The vampire hunters who used to guard the gates that lead into the colony were replaced by zombies walking around.

"Don't get bitten," Melisa warned him while being on the lower level of the tree.

The two of them hadn't been on good terms ever since what happened to Kai. She still blames Luciel for what happened, but will still carry out Nosferatu's orders.

On their way towards the colony, Melisa made a detailed run down to Luciel of the happened in the last month, starting from the first reported case of a zombie attack and their mission.

Ever since starting his training, Nosferatu kept Luciel in the dark about the happenings around him.

He wanted him to focus solely on his Qi, to feel and master it so he could move on a higher level.

Getting distracted by the troubling news would just slow down his progress. So, when hearing the news, Luciel felt shocked.

The zombies managed to spread. One bite would be enough to infect a human or a vampire.

The humans fell into chaos in just two weeks and those who could, decided to evacuate, leaving only the poor behind to fend for themselves.

Seeing the nature of these strange creatures, the hunters also agreed to flee.

In Paradise, besides vampire hunters, others who would hunt other supernatural creatures, but no one had faced something like this. Where one bite could mean the end.

Running away was the only thing that they had left, even if it meant leaving the people behind them. If they all die here, there will be no future to fight for.

Only a few hunters decided to stay and protect the people that couldn't run away. Those were the ones who believed in justice and equality, fighting to protect those weaker than themselves.

The ones that stayed were hiding in the small shelter below the church. Those who could not fit in there were forced to hide around abandoned homes that were left unlocked.

"Let's go down there." Luciel went to grip the handle of his sword that Nosferatu gave him.

Vampires usually don't use weapons, so it was just collecting dust, but it was considered rare since it was hard to find a sword that was not a divine one.

Melisa refused to say anything and followed the lead of the ex-vampire hunter.

For a vampire, she was practically blind since her senses didn't develop, so even if she didn't want to, she needed to stay behind Luciel.

Nosferatu keeps saying that it was his fault for her condition, but he never told her why.

After jumping down from the tree in the crouching position, Luciel got up.

He slowly started to walk towards the two zombies that lingered around the entrance.

His black cape which was slightly ripped waved behind him as he walked while his raven black hair reflected the moonlight of the full moon.

The most striking thing about Luciel was his cold, crimson-red eyes that stood out due to his completely black outfit.

Following right behind him was Melisa with long, thick, curly ginger hair and red wine eyes.

Unlike Luciel's, her outfit wasn't anything grand. She only wore blue trousers and a white shirt with something written on it.

The zombies turned their heads once the two vampires got into their hearing range.

Without any hesitation, the gray creatures snarled at them, starting rushing towards the duo.

Their eyes were dull, dead. They had no emotions or traces of intelligence, being more aggressive and unreasonable than the bloodhounds.

Pulling out his new black sword with golden details running through the middle, Luciel managed to cleanly cut off the head of the first zombie that decided to try and leap on him.

Meanwhile, Melisa put her hands on each corner of her mouth, releasing sound waves, each shaped into a circle.

They went straight past Luciel and towards the other zombie, making it explode into tiny flesh pieces.

Luciel frowned once Melisa used her attack, placing his free hand on the left ear.

While the attack wasn't directed towards him, he could still hear the scream.

He heard the vampires referring to Melisa as a vampire banshee and he could hear why.

Without saying a word to each other, the two finally walked inside the colony.

There was no living soul to be seen. Luciel knew that the situation was bad, but not like this.

Instead of humans, undead creatures roamed around.

There were vampires, zombies, ghouls, wraiths, shades, and many more.

Luciel felt hesitant. He doesn't know how to fight any of these creatures since he specializes in hunting vampires, not the undead.

"Avoid everything except ghouls," Melisa instructed, waiting for Luciel to take the lead.

'Curse you Nosferatu.' She clenched her fist, trying to see some logic in her leader's decision.

She insisted on bringing one more vampire with them.

Luciel was inexperienced and she doubts that he will be able to navigate them with his sense of smell.

He had been a vampire for a month and a half now and there was no way he could recognize the smell of other races except humans and vampires.

Luciel inspected the area serving as a plaza. It was overrun mostly by ghouls who fed on the human bodies that were lying on the ground.

The most noticeable detail about those bodies was the fact that they were all headless and one could see traces of zombie infection on their skin.

To prevent a large number of zombies, people probably started to behead each other. No wonder that there were so many undead creatures.

It was still unknown how the undead would spread, but they were always seen around piles of corpses.

"Hey! What are you doing!" Melisa whispered, not wanting to get the attention of the undead. She didn't need to yell luckily since she knew that Luciel could hear her.

She didn't like what she was seeing. Luciel clearly ignored her as he approached the dead that were lying on the ground.

He was inspecting each one of them, narrowing his eyes. There were certain individuals he was looking for, hoping for the first time that he wouldn't see them.

He didn't want to see Alex or his party members and he definitely didn't want to see Helen somewhere around here.

It was unknown, even to Luciel, what he would done if he would see someone he cared about in this place.

Just thinking about the possible consequences made Melisa's heart skip a beat.

While being weak as a vampire, Luciel still had years of experience in fighting. Having him go into a frenzy could put both of them in danger.

Suddenly, Luciel raised his head once he heard an ear-piercing scream and looked behind him.

A feeling of terror fell onto his body when he saw that Melisa had released her sonic attack at the wraith that approached her.

Luciel scanned the area, searching for more potential threats since he was afraid that Melisa's attack would get their attention.

"Don't worry, only vampires and a few other creatures can hear my scream," Melisa explained, whipping her chin with the back of her hand.

Luckily, nothing too serious had happened, but the attack brought Luciel back into his tracks.

This wasn't the place to worry about the people close to him and all he could was hope that they were still alive.

"Let's go and search for… You know what." Luciel clenched his fist.

Even if he was this bloodsucker for a month and a half now, there were still two things he couldn't get used to, they were simply disgusting- his appearance and diet.

Luciel put his hands into his pockets and started to walk towards the residential area in the lower circle, hoping to find some scum.

It's not like he would feel regret about feeding on an innocent human, but his chains of reason were holding him back.