Vampires were everywhere. Literally in every hole. Strange creatures that needed blood to live. To drink, eat, or consume.
The interrogations lasted long. Very long. I didn't understand where such endurance came from in these creatures, but they were remarkably tolerant of pain. Perhaps they felt it less than humans. It didn't matter.
What mattered was uncovering the virus's origin. One of the younger ones let slip, before dying. Helios had decided to take matters into his own hands, turning Earth into a vampire paradise. The altar I destroyed was one of many. The virus, devouring humans, didn't just take lives—it took deaths. Every person who died from this horrific virus fueled altars worldwide. None of them knew how it worked, but all were devoutly convinced it was something vital.
As if it had been drilled into them…
Trying to locate their bases, I hit a new obstacle. If any creature dared reveal a location, it would literally burn in its own blood, melting into a puddle of vile sludge. A convenient feature for a secret organization.
I was enraged.
Their smell didn't help. These creatures had no distinct scent. Through my vision, their bodies looked human. But their blood…
They fed on it. And they smelled of it.
I'd find them. But first, I had to settle earthly matters. The virus wasn't retreating. Then I'd start the purge. Vampires had no place on my planet.
But time wasn't on my side.
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Next were the oil barons in Texas. Their bunker hid beneath the desert, surrounded by rusty, sharp barbed wire and mercenaries in camouflage, their faces hidden by balaclavas. I landed on the roof, sand swirling in a vortex from the impact, dusting my boots and grating in my teeth. Concrete and steel walls cracked under my fist like eggshells, debris falling with a dull thud. Mercenaries fired rifles and rocket launchers—smoke and fire filled the air, the acrid smell of gunpowder mixing with the heat of molten metal—but I walked through it like rain. A laser blast incinerated their ranks, leaving only charred bodies and the sweet, nauseating smell of burnt flesh. Inside the bunker, among grainy screens and crates of weapons, sat three men—fat, in silk shirts, gold chains gleaming on their necks in the lamplight. They screamed, begged, offered money, their voices blending into a shrill chorus. I didn't listen. One strike—and their heads burst like ripe watermelons, blood soaking leather chairs, mingling with the scent of expensive cologne. Their oil fueled labs, their gold bought equipment, their food warehouses fed people whose ribs jutted like strings under their skin.
These were just humans.
---
Rumors about me spread like wildfire through dry grass, carried by a wind that sent sparks across scorched fields. Weeks passed like a blink. People whispered in basements where dampness seeped into walls, leaving black mold stains, and on streets littered with brick rubble and torn wires dangling like dead snakes. They called me Destroyer, Savior, Conqueror—words echoing off peeling facades and humming in empty cities where the wind carried the smell of ash and rust. I didn't care. They'd forgotten Superman. Let them call me ash or shadow if it stopped the cries of children whose bones bleached in the mud under gray skies. The money helped. Medicine flowed like a river: we synthesized it in dozens of labs—from basements with leaking ceilings, where water dripped into tin buckets with a dull clang, to abandoned factories whose rusty pipes groaned under steam pressure. Massive complexes hummed, their walls trembling from machinery, the air heavy with the smell of chemicals and iron. Trucks with vials marked by shaky red crosses, paint dripping like blood, rolled down broken highways, leaving clouds of dust mixed with ash. The virus retreated—I saw people rise from cots, their legs trembling like dry twigs but holding their weight, their voices, hoarse from illness, blending into a hum of gratitude I heard even hundreds of miles away, cutting through the howl of wind and crackle of distant fires.
But wars didn't stop. Armies fought for power, for scraps of coal blackening pits, for moldy bread crusts in abandoned warehouses. Tanks carved furrows in the earth, their treads churning mud soaked with blood and bone shards, while rockets seared the sky, leaving scars like wounds on the gray skin of clouds. Governments, like vultures, tore at each other in moments of weakness, their orders drowned in the roar of explosions and screams of the dying. I saw it from above—fields strewn with bodies, crows circling like black commas on a gray canvas, smoke rising in thick, tar-like columns. This had to end.
I didn't touch governments, the essence of our planet's politics. If I tried to kill or remove anyone from the top, the whole Earth would turn against me. Their influence was on another level compared to mine.
But armies were different. I could stop the blood.
Over a battlefield in Eastern Europe, where the earth was torn open like a wound, I hovered in the air. Below, tanks rumbled, their barrels coughing fire, metal clanking as they ground dirt into a bloody slurry. Soldiers in gray uniforms, soaked in sweat and gunpowder, fired from trenches, their shouts—sharp, guttural, hoarse—drowned in the roar of engines. I raised my hands, the air thickening around me, humming with tension, and a laser burst from my eyes—a blinding beam, wider than a river, red as molten steel. It sliced the field in half, the ground shaking, cracking with a roar that deafened, splitting into a kilometer-wide chasm. Tanks and guns plummeted into it with screeches of metal and roars of flame, vanishing in a cloud of dust and smoke that rose like a shroud over a grave. Both armies froze—rifles fell silent, soldiers dropped cartridges that clinked against stones, their gazes lifting to me. Their eyes held terror mixed with awe, like animals witnessing lightning. I descended, the air humming around me, my boots sinking into the mud, and my voice thundered, overpowering the wind, amplified by a power that had always been with me but waited for its moment.
"Enough. The war is over. Or I'll end it for you. The ash of your bodies will be everywhere, and the wind will scatter it through your dead cities."
Most dropped their weapons—rifles fell into the mud with a dull thud, helmets rolled across stones, clanging like broken bells, their metallic sheen dulling under dust. But some—stubborn or mad—opened fire. Bullets pinged off my skin, leaving only a faint itch, a rocket hit my chest, the blast washing me in gunpowder and heat, but I didn't flinch. I stepped forward, grabbed a tank by its barrel, and crushed it in my fist—metal crumpled with a screech like a tin can, paint flaking, oil spraying the ground, black and thick as tar. Soldiers screamed, scattering, but I didn't touch them. I left the generals alive—their uniforms caked in mud, faces pale with terror as they crawled away, clutching stones, leaving trails like snails. They'd spread the word: resistance was futile.
Those at the top, pulling strings, could only twitch them weakly now. I began cutting their hands. Centimeter by centimeter, slowly but surely.
Peace followed where I walked. First in Europe, where cities rose from ashes, their streets still smelling of soot, but the smoke cleared, revealing a gray but clean sky. Then in Asia, where rice fields burned by napalm began to green, and people looked up, their faces—thin, with sunken cheeks—glowing with faint hope. In Africa, where sand mixed with blood, I saw women carrying water in jugs, not glancing at ruins, and in America, cities stopped burning, their skyscrapers standing like tombstones, but alive. I felt it—a fragile peace, trembling like thin ice over an abyss. One wrong move, and it would crack.
---
Night fell on the world, heavy as a lead cloak. I stood on the roof of a ruined skyscraper in Chicago—its glass walls shattered, jagged edges jutting like teeth, the wind whistling through gaps, carrying the smell of rust and wet concrete. Below, the city was silent, only rare flickers—survivors' campfires—trembling in the dark like dying stars. I looked at my hands: the skin was clean, scarless, but I remembered every cut, every drop of blood given to the world. The medicine worked, wars quieted, but I felt an emptiness—not in my body, but deeper, where faith once burned. I gave them life, but what next? They looked at me like a god, but I wasn't one. I was a man tired of breaking, unsure how to stop and start building. No one taught me to rule.
Ellis contacted me via satellite phone. Her voice crackled through static, but I heard the tension in every word.
"Brandon, synthesis is in full swing," she said, coughing into her fist, making the speaker rasp. "Labs are working, but people… they're starting to ask questions. Who are you? What comes next? They're afraid you'll take their freedom along with the war."
I gripped the roof's railing—metal bent under my fingers, leaving dents like claw marks. Freedom. The word tasted bitter, like ash on my tongue. I didn't want a throne, didn't want chains, but I saw how they looked at me—some with hope, others with suspicion. I stopped wars, but I couldn't stop their fear.
Ellis was my voice. I didn't want to talk to every other person.
"Let them fear," I replied, my voice quiet but firm, like a stone falling into an abyss. "The main thing is they're alive. The rest… we'll figure out."
Ellis was silent, only the rustle of her breath coming through the static. Then she said:
"You can't solve everything with force. Even you. Come here. There's something you need to see."
I cut the connection, glancing at the city. The campfires below flickered, the wind hurling a handful of debris into my face—paper scraps, dry leaves, a piece of plastic smelling of ash. I took off, slicing the sky with a roar that shook the remaining glass in the skyscraper's windows, and headed to Kansas.
The lab greeted me with the smell of chemicals and iron, mixed with dampness—the ceiling leaked, water dripping into a tin bucket, ringing like a metronome. Ellis stood at a table piled with vials and papers scribbled with formulas, her glasses glinting in the light of a lamp with a worn shade. Lily slept in the corner, her braids on a pillow made from a rolled-up sweater, her face calm, almost healthy. Ellis nodded at a large screen—old, with a cracked corner, but working. It flickered with data: graphs, molecular chains, red lines pulsing like veins.
"We synthesized your blood," she said, her fingers trembling as she pointed at the screen. "But it's more than medicine. It… changes people. Not just heals. Their strength grows, bones harden, reflexes sharpen. This isn't just salvation, Brandon. It's evolution."
I froze, staring at the screen. The red lines moved like living things, their pulse echoing in my head. My blood. My power. I wanted to save them, but instead, I gave them a piece of me—otherworldly, dangerous.
"What does it mean?" I asked, my voice hoarse, as if my throat were dry with dust.
Ellis looked at me, her eyes gleaming—from exhaustion or excitement, I couldn't tell.
"It means you didn't just create a new world," she said, tapping a nail on the table, leaving a scratch on the worn wood. "You created a new race. And they'll either worship you or destroy you. Choose, boy. Because they're already emerging."
I turned to the window, where rain drummed on boarded-up planks, leaving dark streaks. In the distance, thunder rumbled, lightning splitting the sky—thin, like a crack in glass. Suddenly, I felt them—millions, their bodies changing under my blood's influence. They were small, almost insignificant specks against my core. Like orbits around a massive planet. Humans? They lived because of me. But what would they become? Saved or enemies? I clenched my fist, feeling the skin tighten over my knuckles, and realized: my path wasn't over. It was just beginning.
My army?
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