The Vampire King's Toxic Consort (bxb)

Chapter 79 The Things We Do for Love

When Gate to Hell was opened, Lewis immediately moved the still-unconscious Julian into the hidden panic room behind the High Priest's bedroom. An acolyte and two guards came in with them to guard and take care of Julian's condition.

Miraculously, Julian woke up soon after Lucius's transformation, and he woke up screaming.

"NO! LU!"

Julian went into a fit and struggled violently against any force that tried to calm him down so he wouldn't hurt himself, and the strength was unlike someone who had been in a coma for almost a month.

Eventually Lewis managed to grab his flailing arms and trapped him in his embrace.

"Shhh, shhh...it's ok. We are ok." Lewis cooed and soothed, and it soaked and dampened Julian's paroxysm. The High Priest grabbed Lewis's arm tightly and said, "Is it a nightmare? Is Lu ok?"

And Lewis couldn't answer him.

The acolyte administered a dose of tranquilizer to Julian's IV bag, and Julian went back to sleep. Lewis was slightly relieved that Julian had come out of coma, but he didn't know how to explain that reality was probably worse than his nightmare.

When Julian was taken away by the vampires, he was so scared and anxious that the Churches and Division Nine wouldn't even bother to rescue him that he was ready to agree to anything as long as he could get Julian out of the hands of his evil twin brother. So when Archpriest Benedict told him to smuggle in an anchor to facilitate a later assault on Aeros, and in return, their vampire ally from The Order would portal him and Julian out of Aeros before the attack, he didn't consider it too long before accepting the mission.

He didn't think they were planning to use the Nova bomb...He thought they would just send in some vampires from The Order to assassinate Lucius.

And now...now Lucius was alive and enraged, and his wrath was going to swallow the world, and Lewis knew the destruction of Tranta, the death, or a fate worse than the death, of countless citizens...they were his fault, even though he did it in the name of love.

Lewis left the panic room to scout around the Palace. The demons were everywhere in the Celestine Palace, and he was almost discovered multiple times. He quickly gathered some holy weapons from the trove, some medicines and provisions from the medical room and the kitchen and made his way back, and then they hid there for five days until the food was running out.

This time, when Lewis left the panic room, the palace was unrecognizable, and the situation had escalated drastically. The grand, heavenly architectures were now infested by unknown slim and some kind of organism in between plant and flesh, and the floor was covered by giant blood vessels that spewed acid from time to time.

He was soon spotted by a demon that could change its color and blend into the environment perfectly, and that thing's sharp shriek attracted more demons. Lewis's leg was severely wounded, but he made it back to the panic room alive. The problem was that his blood trail had led the demons to the hidden room, though they couldn't get in right away, as ancient magic runes protected the entrance. But they knew the door wouldn't hold for long, and they had to get out.

By then, Julian could stay awake most of the day and even walk a little, though he was still very frail. But they didn't have time to wait for him to recover further.

They waited until most of the demons outside fell asleep and sneaked out, trying to make their way to the sewer tunnel that Lucius used to rescue Dorian. Eventually, only Lewis and Julian made it, and the acolyte and the guard both perished on the way.

They hid in the storage room in a supermarket for two more days until they noticed that the iridescent shimmers had crept into the supermarket, and anything it attached itself to began to change and mutate into something unfathomable and gross. They couldn't risk being infected by those things and were forced to be on the move again.