1787 The Dhampir Urge

Without a doubt, what Layla was looking at right now was the Boneclaw. One of the Four Kings of the Familiar World. Once again, someone she hadn't seen in a long time had stirred long-forgotten memories.

'The Boneclaw…he was initially linked with Quinn. But when Quinn went into slumber, this Familiar left him. Later, the vampires were less and less inclined to use Familiars due to all the deaths that kept occurring with them.

'I heard the rumours but didn't think it would be true. What do Erin and Quinn have in common for them both to be able to link with the Boneclaw?' Layla thought.

Staggering a bit, Layla could see that her vision had faded slightly. It was not because of the wound on her hand that had already been somewhat sealed. Instead, it was because of the energy of the Black Sword.

'You are close to your limit of containing the power. If the celestial energy from me consumes you completely, it's unlikely that you could get out. Who knows what will become of you then.' The sword warned.

When the sword said these words, Layla felt a stinging pain in her left eye, which was now already half black.

Boneclaw lifted the Demon tier sword with its large claws and teleported, appearing beside Erin and then handing her sword back. Seeing this as an opportunity, Layla used her telekinesis powers to pull her hand and bring it back towards her.

Eventually, she reattached the hand with her green flames again. She rotated her wrist a few times to ensure everything was in working order, but she didn't have much time to do anything else as a claw was heading her way.

Immediately using her black sword, which had long since reverted to its original shape, she clashed against the long claws of Boneclaw. There seemed to be a struggle of powers, but Layla won out as she pushed through.

Before she could follow with strength in her attack, she felt like the pressure against her had disappeared, and that was because it had. The Boneclaw was no longer in front of her.

'Behind you!' The sword shouted.

Listening to the words, Layla spun around and tried to block the attack. Her manoeuvre was extremely lucky as she pushed back the incoming attack.

'Let me take over. I'll protect you. You trust me now, right? You trust that I can take care of both of us and make it out of this alive. So you just focus on not letting the energy take over, and I'll protect both of us.'

There was no other option for Layla, and the veins that were shooting up her arms, although others couldn't see them, had now shot to her heart and partly up her head towards her brain.

One of Layla's eyes was still one-third white. When Boneclaw went to attack again, Layla parried him away and even went on offence by sending a strike at him.

It hit the beast, causing it to push its shoulder back in an attempt to diffuse the blow as the attack's impact also caused it to stop the relentless teleporting attacks.

'I taught you everything I knew about swordsmanship, but you never were meant to use the sword. In the end, you can fight better with your own powers, which is why we decided not to go down this path. However, this damned monster is weaker than the other two you were fighting, so I will at least beat him for you!' The sword shouted, giving itself confidence despite no one being able to hear it.

——

Erin started to spin her sword, and as she did, the momentum would create heat waves, and suddenly, they would change to frost as well. She had long mastered the attachment demon tier item and the sword to switch between the two seamlessly.

"Now that the other one is no longer distracting us, the two of us can fight to our fullest!" Erin shouted while tightening the grip over her sword.

Although Laxmus didn't say anything, every cell in his body was at boiling point. There had never been someone in the whole universe he wanted to crush more than her.

The shadow dome surrounding them started sinking as it returned to Laxmus. Since it wasn't working, there was no use for it. His arm was still bleeding, and so was his stomach.

The first to act was Laxmus, as he threw out both of his fists at the same time toward Erin. He was too far from her for his attacks to work, but halfway through his attack, enormous shadow fists had come out and went straight to crush Erin.

Jumping in the air, Erin avoided the incoming blows and allowed them to hit the ground, creating a mini crater. Then, she activated the first ring of her sword and shot out an ice spike towards the shadow.

On the other hand, while still in the air, Laxmus attempted to use his blood breath. But by this time, Erin had twisted her wrist and directed the attack towards him, but instead of snow spike, it was a fire breath.

When landing on her ice spike attack from earlier, it didn't affect her, and she used it as a footing to push off from, heading straight towards Laxmus without any hesitation.

Laxmus threw his fist again from a distance, his shadow extended, coming at Erin like a large pole. Although this attack once again completely missed Erin, it didn't matter.

The shadow expanded and quickly spread out like a spider web. The same thing happened with the other fist, and both were beginning to get inter-linked. It happened so fast that some of it even brushed Erin before she could react.

And the moment the shadow came in contact with Erin, she felt her movements slow down. It looked like the shadow web from all around was slowly enveloping her and was decreasing in size.

Just then, Laxmus had pushed off the second his spider web caught Erin, and his fist was glowing red as he threw it right towards her head, intending to finish her off in a single attack.

'I can get out of here if I activate my armour, but that's going to take some time.' Erin thought, so instead of taking a risk with the armour, she did something else. Right before Laxmus's fist could hit her, an object appeared in between the two of them.

It glowed before bearing its shape, but a dark purple shell materialised, bracing Erin from the impact.

——

Now far away from this fight, on one of the half-destroyed buildings, Lucia was looking at the whole fight, and she wasn't alone as captain Ni was with her as well. They had fought together and defended themselves from anyone who attacked them and when the shadow dome disappeared, it caught many people's attention, including these two.

"How...how does she have the Familiar that once belonged to the Graylash family." Lucia clenched her hand.

"I don't know, but I will find out once that fight is over." A voice replied, and it was one Lucia had become familiar with.

"Peter…and...and.."

She had recognised him but not the three others by his side. After Xander had explained himself, Peter allowed him to come with him, and Peter surprisingly remembered him well. At first, Xander thought he might get hit, but Peter had asked if he was okay, leading them to this.

Xander had truthfully told Peter that although he wasn't heavily injured, Layla was in big trouble, and Xander then even asked a favour, even though he knew he didn't deserve one, and he had requested Peter to help Layla, and save her life. By the time Peter reunited with Lucia, Xander had explained everything he could to Peter, enough for the latter to understand the ongoing situation and make his own judgments.

However, after looking at the ongoing fight in front of him, Peter decided it was better to not jump into it straight away and let the two faction leaders weaken each other and then, on the right moment, he would swoop in and deal with the weakened one. Since none of the two were really their allies, he didn't care who the weakened party away, as long as Layla was alright.

"It's a Dhampir!" June said, baring her fangs and ready to attack, but Lucia quickly stood up.

"It's okay.. she's not hurting anyone. We saved each others' lives a couple of times...I can vouch for her. She's not going to do anything." Lucia said.

"What about their urge?" Kev pointed. "You vouch how many times you want, but we all know they can't help themselves against the urge."

"That's not true," Ni answered. "Although we indeed have an urge when we are near vampires, we can use this to either strengthen us or simply suppress it. Trust me, not just I, but all the Dhampir can control themselves."

Upon hearing this, a strange look of confusion appeared on everyone's face, including Xander, because this was not what they had been made to believe.

"Wait, what about your Queen? Is she the same? Can she control this urge?" Xander asked.

Ni nodded. "Of course. After all, she was the one who taught us how to control it."

*****

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