Chapter 34: And a Smile That Judas in Hell Might Be Proud Of, Part 3

Something mysterious had taken over Alex's body. The flow of her blood, her breathing, even her cells. Everything had become abnormal. Her heartbeats had slowed down to such an extent that they seemed about to stop. But, despite everything, her heart pumped the same amount of blood or even more. There was no contradiction. Each pump was more powerful than before, that was all. Like hammer blows. These were the hammer blows that tempered the steel of the sword called Alex.

"I have no idea how you did that, but let's see if you can repeat it."

The King of Evil issued his challenge with a smile as before. As if she had achieved nothing, dozens more bats appeared fluttering around his left arm. It was in a way a wave of evil energy. He fired that storm of bats at her. The black curtain fell with the intention of devouring her once again.

But it was undoubtedly useless. Alex knew it before it happened. No matter how many bats Dracula attacked her with. His first defeat had been the end. Those creatures no longer possessed the ability to defeat her. She shredded the bats with her sword as easily as cutting air. The shield was missing from her other hand, but she didn't need anything else to hide. She didn't need a defense, however good it might be. Alex wasn't in danger in the first place.

"Well, well. Impressive," Dracula mused. "You've exceeded my expectations. It's not difficult because I didn't expect anything, but still I have to admit it. Since I woke up in this world, I've been doing too many things on my own, but that's not my style."

Then, Dracula opened his cape. And from the inner darkness emerged a beast with large red eyes and gleaming fangs. Was it a lion or a tiger? The reality is that it was neither. It was an ultimate Beast for which there was no name in the human world. That Beast ran to kill her. There was no fear in Alex's heart, however. The power of its jaws didn't matter if they couldn't reach her.

Humans hadn't become the number one species on earth because of their individual strength, but as a collective. That's why they were naturally pushed to come together and create a society. Predators were stronger, faster, even if only over short distances. As separate individuals, humans wouldn't have gotten very far after coming down from the trees. However, the strange beings that existed on the fringes of that society defied that common sense from the beginning. Wizards and others were the ones who had pushed much more dangerous predators into the dark corners of the earth in the first place. Allowing vampires, werewolves, orcs, all creatures of the night to fade and be imprinted on the collective unconscious as nothing more than fantasies.

In other words, it didn't matter that this was the ultimate Beast, it was just an animal. There was no way it could kill her! Alex easily cracked open its skull, spilling its gray matter. Only it was no longer gray, of course. It was painted with its blood which was not red, but black as tar. She vaguely thought it was disgusting, but the sensation didn't even bother her stomach.

The next beast to come for her from the depths of the darkness of Dracula's cape was a shark. The fundamental difference is that it didn't swim in water, but in shadows. It came for her swimming in her own shadow. Its speed was more similar to a car than a shark, but that didn't really matter. A terrifying monster from which one couldn't escape. Not even by speed. Naturally, it was due to its method of transport. Alex couldn't simply cut her shadow with a sword and separate it from her, however...

"Who said anything about escaping?"

Talking was useless. If you had oxygen to speak, you should invest it in killing. But she couldn't help it. Those words came out of her in an explosion. She ran directly at the shark. Neither of them stopped. Its jaws never reached her. Before anything could happen, Alex dismantled it into seventeen pieces of flesh that melted and disappeared without a trace.

Dracula was surprised. But she wasn't surprised, not anymore. This was entirely natural. Fluidly, without losing a second, she changed direction. She shot out like a cannonball towards the enemy.

"Death!"

Recognizing that he wouldn't have time to pull out another Beast from his cape, the greatest of monsters pathetically called for help. In less than a tenth of a second, Alex literally faced death. She had no fear. She had gone crazy, and that was what she needed right now, so there was no problem.

Her sword clashed with the scythe. Sparks flew between them. For an instant. Just for an instant. Then Alex flew over the tattered cloak, landing in front of Dracula. She had never intended to waste time with minions from the beginning. Her sword flew towards Dracula's heart.

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It didn't reach its destination. The monster moved before that happened, deflecting the blow by a few centimeters. The sword slid between his ribs and didn't reach the heart. She knew it without a doubt. She would have felt it if it had happened. Still, the force of the impact pushed him against the throne. After so much fighting, so much movement, it had ended where it began. Although of course. Nothing had ended.

"You have indeed lost your mind thanks to that girl." Dracula laughed, grabbing her sword with his bare hand. The blade sank into his pale hand, tracing a scarlet line. "But I... I've only just begun."

Dracula squeezed, shattering her sword into a thousand pieces. Alex stepped back as the monster stood up. Some blood flowed, but the wound healed in the blink of an eye. Any internal damage she had inflicted would surely not take long.

"Let's change the scenery."

The throne room shook. No, all of Dracula's castle was shaking. Clouds of dust fell from the ceiling, as did a few pieces. Alex scurried around, dodging the debris. As if he simply knew where they were going to fall, Dracula had no need to move. Alex suddenly understood. The castle wasn't collapsing, just changing its skin.

The tremors reached their climax and then... They took off. The throne room detached from the main body and took off into the stratosphere. Screams and chaos. Alex had to drive the sword into the ground to avoid falling. With each tenth of a second, the distance of the potential fall increased. It had long since exceeded the distance that would definitely kill her no matter what she did, so, looking at it that way, she had nothing to worry about.

Of course, Alex made sure that Daniela's body didn't fall through the holes in the roof, tying her shadow to the ground with magic and a few copies of her sword. She had been taught from the beginning that funerals and all those little rituals were only for the benefit of the living. The dead who had left this valley of tears forever didn't care about these things. It couldn't bring them peace or fix anything. Death was death, the definitive end, nothing more. In the times when she had collaborated with other hunters, either alongside Christina or on her own, and they had died in combat, both had left behind the corpses to be devoured or worse without thinking twice. Of course not. There was no need to think about it, it was simply the nature of the job. Human lives were cheap and many of them died every day. Every day the statistics got worse.

If they thought too much about the death of others and their own approaching at a giant pace, they would go crazy, they wouldn't be able to complete the job. But to Daniela... She couldn't do that to Daniela. Although now she was nothing more than a piece of meat, she simply couldn't do that to her oldest, most special and unique friend. For her, that corpse had more value than her own life. That's why she had gone crazy beyond remedy in the first place.

"I'm going to show you why they call me Son of the Dragon."

With that ominous declaration, Dracula also began to change. It wasn't a profound revelation that made her world come crashing down. Simply, the monster finally shed his human form and transformed completely into a beast. It hadn't even solved the mystery of why they called him son of the dragon. He could transform into a dragon, okay, but that didn't make him the son of a dragon. In fact, as far as they knew, he wasn't the son of anything or anyone. He had simply appeared one day, like some kind of cosmic tumor.

She should be terrified. Fighting against that fearsome beast and against Death, who was still standing, two enemies that really none of them had been able to harm. Now that she had lost Daniela. Now that the number of her helpers... With a quick glance, she confirmed that the number of her helpers had been reduced to ten. Anyone would say that the fight had already been decided.

It wasn't a question of giving up or continuing to fight, but rather that the difference was simply too great. But she had long since stopped thinking about winning. Alex's image of victory was to kill the enemy, nothing more. What happened to her afterwards was of no importance. Her body was a tool whose two hundred percent energy was directed towards Dracula's death. It was like a reactor about to explode. Leaving no trace of anything in its wake.

The vampire transformed into a dragon took flight, destroying what was left of the roof. Alex nimbly dodged the numerous debris, having to save herself. The remaining wizards protected only themselves, forming a bright blue hexagonal barrier that barely withstood the impact of so much debris. But anyway, Alex managed to save herself and even better, under her own power. In reality, she wasn't even bothered that the wizards hadn't helped her, thinking only of their survival, when she had been risking her fucking neck from the beginning. She knew it sounded like it bothered her, but it really didn't.

Death lunged at her wielding the scythe and Alex matched that blow with her sword, silver flashes flew between the two figures like sparks from a shredder. Anyone passing through the middle wouldn't come out unscathed. The end was approaching, and it couldn't be a good one. The best ending she could hope for was one where everyone died: mutually assured destruction.

Anyway, Alex was fine with that. She had nothing to live for anyway. She would laugh in the face of death, in a horribly literal sense, and crush any obstacle in her way. She swore it by the memory of her dear friend. The tattered cloak she faced, the dragon flying above the throne room, suspended in the air thousands and thousands of kilometers high, tracing slow circles, waiting, watching. None of them could defeat her now. Death could in no way defeat someone who did not fear death. And as for Dracula, the famous and feared prince of darkness, well, it was clear: Dracula had not defeated humanity even once in thousands of years and nothing would change precisely now.

Yes, she would make sure things continued as they had to continue, that they ended well. She was the instrument, the weapon, the rage of humanity!

And a Smile That Judas in Hell Might Be Proud Of, Part 3: END