Ch 44:- A Bite

All the students from the expedition were gathered and taken to the First Year Assembly Hall. They were not allowed to return to their dorms or put away their equipment. All they could do was talk to one another and speculate about why the expedition had been cancelled.

Slowly, a strange atmosphere filled the room. It was unusual for such a sudden cancellation to occur.

"I saw some of the mechs from the city leave the shelter," one student said.

"Seriously? Why would they mobilize those things? I thought they said the highest tier of beast on the planet was an intermediate tier," another student replied.

"Didn't you hear?" a third student chimed in. "A student spotted black smoke off in the distance in the desert. It seemed like it was coming from a ship."

"You don't mean—" the second student gasped.

"That's right. I heard it might have been a Dalki," the third student said.

The teachers made a head count, not once but multiple times. After the counting was completed, they wore worried expressions as they conversed with each other. Fay stood in front of all the first-years, ready to make an announcement, but she waited for more information. A soldier approached her and whispered something in her ear. They did several more head counts.

"Are you sure?" Fay asked. "Have you checked the school? Perhaps they've come back?"

The soldier nodded in response.

Fay clenched her fist upon hearing the report. They had found Hugo's and Ben's bodies in the desert and confirmed that they had died from the Dalki. However, the other three members of their group were never found. The only logical assumption was that the Dalki had also killed them. Rayne, the last missing student from Del class, apparently had a high fever and was resting in his dorm room. Fay was only mentioned about this, but she knew there was more to the story.

"Attention!" Fay's voice rang out, and the students immediately stood at attention and saluted her. A holographic screen appeared behind them, displaying the scoreboard with all the teams' scores.

"As you may know, the expedition has been cancelled," Fay explained. "This means that the points you had obtained in the first two days before the expedition ended will be your final score for this exam."

"What?!" Erin blurted out, and she wasn't the only one. Their group still had all the winged lizard crystals they had obtained from Berg's group, but they hadn't had time to head back to the shelter to have them counted. Looking at their team's position, they still had the same score as before and were placed around the middle of every other group. Meanwhile, Berg's group still sat at the top.

"Enough, there are more important things than the test!" Fay's voice rose, quelling the chatter amongst the students. "Right now, there is a high possibility that some of your fellow students have died on this test, and worst of all, it was to the threat we have all been training against - the Dalki."

The hall erupted in murmurs and whispers, but Fay slammed her weapon into the ground, causing a loud banging noise that echoed throughout the room.

"The Dalki have been swiftly dealt with, and it seems like this was not a planned attack but a stray ship. This was an unfortunate event, but these things happen from time to time. This is a reminder to you all why we need to train so hard every single day, and I hope you will remember that. You will have the next two days off to rest. After that, classes will return to normal. Rest up for the night. You are dismissed." Fay finished her speech.

At that moment, one of the students raised her hand. It was none other than Erin. Seeing her, the teacher nodded in her direction to speak. "Ma'am, do you have any information regarding Rayne? He is one of our team members."

"Ah, yes. Apparently, he is suffering from fever. Most of you students may already know about the myth revolving around a particular room. I leave the rest of it for you to figure out," saying this, she quickly exited the Assembly Hall.

Erin was confused hearing the reply, but her doubts were soon clarified when she heard one of the students talk about the myth revolving the room. The myth went like this: the room was cursed, and whoever lived there would meet a slow and painful death after their first portal expedition. Hearing this, she was worried about him, but there were more important matters at hand. Apparently, one of her teammates didn't help her in the beast hunting. If he had done that, then she would have at least gotten some good score that would have helped her in her future career. So she did the most logical thing: accuse the person responsible.

"You!" She shouted and pointed at Quinn. "Why did you hide your strength? If you had fought with us that day instead of hiding under that umbrella, we would have gotten a better score."

"Wait, calm down, Erin," Layla said as she tried to get in between the two.

"I'm not happy with you either, Layla. You knew all this, didn't you?" Erin frowned at her before turning to Quinn. "And what's with your strange power? How did you heal Peter? No excuses, I want answers for everything that happened!" She screamed.

Erin looked at the scoreboard once again, seeing that their position was in the middle, and then looked back at Quinn. This time, tears streamed down her face. "If you were that strong, then why didn't you help?"

Quinn just couldn't understand why Erin was so obsessed with scores and academics. But how could a dumb vampire like him understand the great value one would have if they got high scores in their military school? Sigh.

"I think it's best if we all head back to our room," Layla said. "We can explain everything there, and I'm sure Peter has a lot of questions of his own."

~Couple of hour later after Quinn tried to explain his situation to Erin~

Meanwhile, Rayne lay weakly on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His skin had turned a pale white, and he had a high fever. When he was found lying down in the room, he was taken to Hayley, who diagnosed him with anemia and instructed him to get admitted to the hospital outside the military school. Rayne didn't want to go, so he was currently lying in bed feeling an extreme thirst for blood, but with no blood supply nearby. Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. He slowly rose and opened the door to find Erin standing outside his room. Rayne reluctantly invited her in, and after she entered, she asked how he was feeling.

"I'm fine, I guess," Rayne said.

"But I heard from the teacher that you were suffering from a fever," Erin said as she moved forward and placed her hand on his forehead to check his temperature. Being in such close proximity only tempted Rayne more to drink her blood, so he moved backward to create some distance before saying, "Why did you come here?"

"Sigh, I just want an answer as to why Quinn didn't help us with the beast hunting," Erin said with seriousness in her voice.

"I don't know the reason, but didn't he say anything to you about it?" Rayne asked.

Erin turned around with a quick turn, causing her hair and dress to sway a little, and said, "Yeah, he talked about something like being a vampire. Like if they wanted to lie, they could have made a good one."

"They should have made a good one, but I can assure you that he is a vampire," Rayne said. Suddenly, his voice sounded too close to her and too cold, devoid of any emotion. As Erin turned around, she was face to face with Rayne, who was inches away from her.

"Is it also true that they drink human blood?" Erin asked.

"Yeah, it's true. They like to drink the blood of humans like some kind of fucking mosquito," Rayne said as he moved forward, causing Erin to take a step backward, feeling intimidated by his eerie voice. When she looked into his eyes, she saw that they had changed color to red, with cat or reptile-like slits.

"Another thing, it's not good for a lonely girl like you to enter a boy's room who lives alone in the middle of the nighy," Rayne said, causing Erin to back up against the wall. "And nonetheless, you shouldn't enter the room of a vampire." Rayne whispered into Erin's ear, causing a shiver to run down her spine. Looking at his predatory eyes caused a fight or flight situation to happen, and she pushed him away, causing him to stumble backward. She then went in for a punch, which Rayne easily caught. He spun her around and held her in such a way that she couldn't move. He then started to unbutton her clothes until they were undone up to her belly while caressing her belly and curves causing her to to squirm around in an attempt to breakfree. He then leaned forward and whispered, "Bon appetite" in her ear, before biting her just above the collarbone.

As soon as Rayne bit her, a piercing pain shot through Erin's body, followed by an otherworldly feeling that she had never felt before. The feeling became so intense that she started to moan loudly out of pleasure as Rayne kept on drinking her blood. Soon, stars began to swim in her eyes, and she fainted.

After drinking the blood, Rayne felt the control over his body return to him. Previously, he had been acting on instinct. When he looked at the fainted form of Erin, he was thankful that he didn't just outright tear her neck off. He then laid her gently on the bed, not knowing her dorm room so he couldn't send her back. Feeling sleepy, Rayne laid down on the floor and soon fell asleep.