CH 023: Shattered Trust, Shattered Crown

The blood - red moonlight, like a viscous, otherworldly liquid, poured through the shattered dome of the ancient castle.

Its intense, crimson glow filled the air with an eerie warmth that tickled the skin.

Suddenly, it contracted, shrinking into a pinpoint of searing crimson intensity, a blinding flash that made one's eyes water.

Victoria's mineralized body, just moments ago a formidable statue of gleaming stone that reflected the moonlight like a mirror, disintegrated with a soft, grinding sound into a shimmering cloud of moonstone dust.

The dust sparkled in the air, like a million tiny stars, and the soft, powdery texture could almost be felt on the skin as it floated by.

But the dust didn't settle.

It swirled, caught in the eerie, almost electrical glow emanating from Nathaniel's crystalline left eye.

The glow hummed softly, like a distant electrical current.

The dust slowly reformed into a translucent, humanoid shape, a wispy figure that seemed to flicker in and out of existence.

"Eternal night doesn't need an ending, it needs a catalyst!" His voice echoed from every corner of the crumbling castle, a disembodied and chilling sound that sent shivers down the spine.

Suddenly, Alexander's mechanical arm, a whirring, gleaming menace, lashed out with a loud metallic clang.

The air around it seemed to vibrate with its power as it aimed directly at Lily's back.

The symbiote, the insidious parasite binding them, was deciphering the fragmented Covenant Stone, turning Alexander against her.

He's being controlled!

The realization slammed into Lily with the force of a physical blow, making her heart skip a beat and her breath catch in her throat.

With a guttural snarl, she rolled away, the rough stone floor scraping against her fur.

Her wolf tail whipped out with a sharp swishing sound, coiling around Alexander's wrist.

The cold, metal surface of his wrist sent a jolt through her tail as she pulled him off balance.

Her fangs bared, she pressed them against the pulsing artery in his neck.

The scent of his blood, metallic and electric, filled her nostrils, making her mouth water.

"My venom's in your blood, you overgrown bat!" she growled, the words a venomous hiss that seemed to hang in the air.

As a bead of her blood seeped into the mechanical joints of his arm, a spasm wracked Alexander's body.

The right side of his face twitched violently, and his voice was a strangled whisper.

"She's… controlling my pain receptors…" Before he could finish, Nathaniel's spectral form rose from Victoria's reforming body.

His ethereal fingers traced the moonstone veins pulsing beneath Alexander's skin with a soft, ghostly touch.

"Soon, my host. Her blood will complete the fusion."

Fragments of the Covenant Stone, scattered across the floor, levitated with a soft humming sound.

They aligned themselves in a perfect circle, and a warm, almost magnetic energy radiated from them, a feeling that could be felt on the skin.

In Lily's palm, the tattered pages of Elara's ancient grimoire burst into flames.

The heat seared her skin, a sharp, stinging pain, and the words etched upon them glowed with a ghostly light.

My mother's blood, she thought, the realization hitting her like a lightning bolt.

It can neutralize the symbiote, but it will strip me of my wolf… forever.

Alexander's pupils flared with an intense violet light, his expression a horrifying mix of agony and determination.

With a ragged cry, his claws ripped through his own flesh, the sound of tearing skin and muscle making one's stomach turn.

He tore open his left pectoral to expose a network of glowing veins.

"Use mine… non - symbiote blood!" He stumbled towards the levitating stone circle, his body shaking with the effort.

But before he could reach it, Nathaniel's crystalline eye erupted in a blinding flash of light.

And then Lily saw it.

Victoria's mineralized form, no longer translucent, but solid and menacing, was coalescing, not in front of Nathaniel, but behind him.

It fused with his spectral body with a loud, booming sound, becoming a horrifying extension of his will.

"Alexander, no!" Lily screamed, her voice raw with fear and desperation.

She lunged towards him, but the force emanating from the merging figures slammed her back against the cold stone wall.

The air was knocked from her lungs with a loud whoosh, and the cold, damp stone pressed against her back.

Alexander, bathed in the unholy glow of Nathaniel's power, turned his head towards her.

His eyes were now fully mechanical, glowing with a cold, alien light.

A cruel smile twisted his lips.

"Now, Lily," he whispered, his voice no longer his own, but a grotesque parody of it, echoing the chilling resonance of Nathaniel, "the fun begins."

在经历了前面一系列紧张的对峙后,接下来的情况将更加疯狂.Okay, buckle up buttercup, because things are about to get WILD.

Lily's world went from zero to "oh hell no" in about 2.

5 seconds.

Her usually sleek, silver fur, something she usually took pride in, basically threw a tantrum and went full - on goth, turning black as midnight coffee.

The air crackled with raw power, like a damn metal concert was about to start.

A sharp, static feeling could be felt on the skin.

"Alright, you overgrown crystal meth addict!" she snarled, her voice laced with a guttural fury that would make a drill sergeant nervous.

Her claws, now obsidian daggers, went to work with a scraping sound, tearing through Victoria's borrowed skin like it was cheap toilet paper.

Underneath, instead of your run - of - the - mill spooky vampire stuff, was a nightmarish latticework of moonstone veins, pulsing with Nathaniel's creepy, ethereal light.

"You're not just crashing the party, you are the party… a walking, talking Covenant Stone battery!"

But wait, there's more!

Just when you thought things couldn't get any more sideways, Alexander's usually reliable, albeit a bit steampunk - y, mechanical arm decided to stage a mutiny.

With a groan of tortured metal, it backhanded its own damn self, ejecting a pulsating, black heart - looking thing – the symbiote core, apparently – right into the center of the levitating Covenant Stone fragments.

Cue the blood ballet!

A geyser of Alexander's violet - black vampire juice erupted with a loud splashing sound, meeting Lily's own shimmering, silver werewolf ichor in mid - air.

It wasn't pretty, more like a Jackson Pollock painting gone horribly, horribly wrong.

The two fluids twisted together, forming shimmering chains of light and shadow that lashed out with a cracking sound, pinning Nathaniel to the blood - moon fresco that adorned the back wall.

He was basically moon - nailed.

Then, during the intense battle, a surge of energy from the merging of the bloods and the power of the Covenant Stone fragments caused a strange vibration in the ancient grimoire.

As if triggered by this energy, Lily's mom's ancient grimoire decided to pull a Gandalf.

The last page flipped open on its own accord, floating in the air with a soft fluttering sound, like a goddamn advertisement for a mystical mortgage company.

Etched upon it was the original Covenant, the fine print that everyone conveniently forgot to read.

Spoiler alert: it's a doozy.

"Hold up...what?," Lily thought, her mind reeling.

According to this ancient Twitter post, both vampire and werewolf bloodlines were, like, totally related.

"So, we're basically fighting over who gets the last slice of pizza at a family reunion? Seriously?!" And the 永夜引擎 (Eternal Night Engine)?

Not some doomsday device, but a "重启之门 (Reboot Portal)"!

Time to smash the system, literally!

Before anyone could file a complaint with the interdimensional homeowner's association, Alexander, bless his gothic little heart, ripped his malfunctioning mechanical arm clean off.

Humanity shone through his pain as he grabbed Lily's trembling hand with his remaining flesh one.

With a determined grunt, he slammed their bloody wrists against the Covenant Stone surface.

The air crackled, not with the threat of annihilation, but with the promise of something...

else.

The ancient runes on the stone began to reverse, flowing backward like a rewind button pressed on the very fabric of reality.

The whole castle started to shake, crack, and generally throw a temper tantrum of geological proportions.

The loud rumbling and cracking sounds filled the air, and the vibrations could be felt underfoot.

Nathaniel saw his chance, his crystalline eye glowing nuclear, ready to unleash a final, desperate blast.

But Lily, fueled by adrenaline and a healthy dose of "screw this noise," wasn't about to let him ruin their Pinterest - worthy moment.

With a primal roar, she used her tail as a grappling hook, snagging Alexander's detached mechanical arm.

Swinging Tarzan - style, she launched them both towards the rapidly disintegrating exit.

As she swung, she unleashed a torrent of wolf fire, a blazing concoction of her silver blood and Alexander's black, vampire blood.

The heat from the fire could be felt on the skin as it engulfed Nathaniel and the Covenant Stone fragments.

The molten stone solidified into chains, binding him in a prison of his own making.

They crashed through the crumbling archway, landing hard on the jagged rocks outside.

Coughing and bruised, Lily looked back at the collapsing castle, now a swirling vortex of dust and moonlight.

The last thing she saw was Nathaniel, trapped in his obsidian cage, his crystalline eye exploding in a shower of sparks.

Lily stared at Alexander, his face pale, human hand clutching his bleeding arm.

His voice was a raspy whisper.

"Where do we even begin, Lily?"