23 Chapter 23

"Is... Is it over...?" One of the human hostages asked as he peeked down the tunnel.

Before looking over at the decapitated corpse on the train tracks, the hostages looked over at the Vampire corpse on the platform to verify it was dead.

They had been mummified and dried of their blood, there was no doubt that they were dead.

Xavier's crystalized body was what scared them the most, as it was standing up, encased in a large crystal that had come out of the crystal vampire he had killed.

As it turned out, no one had won the battle, they all managed to take themselves out.

"Does... Does that mean we're free now?" Another hostage asked, a young man who stood beside his girlfriend.

-

Xavier's eyes were forced shut, he couldn't breathe, and he couldn't feel or smell anything. Only darkness surrounded him.

'Did I die again...?' He wondered.

The thought was erased from his mind as he felt a sharp throbbing pain around his heart and lungs.

He desperately began trying to gasp for air and move only to find that it was futile.

In the worst way possible, he was suffocating.

'AARGH..!!!!' He groaned internally.

[You have killed a Pureblood Vampire!]

[+200 XP!]

[XP: 990/800]

[LEVEL UP!]

[LEVEL UP OPTION AVAILABLE!] (New!)

[XP: 190/1000]

,m [LEVEL UP OPTIONS AVAILABLE] X3

*BADUM!* *BADUM!*

The echoing sound of his pulse accelarating and the notifications forced his memories back just in time.

He was currently crystallised, trapped within a crystal.

Unless he did anything, he would die by suffocation, a first for him.

'S-Show the options..!'

[LEVEL UP OPTIONS 1 AVAILABLE!]

[1 - 4 Stat points.]

[2 - Full Body Recovery.]

[3 – 300 Coins.]

[4 - Mysterious Wheel Roulette.]

[LEVEL UP OPTIONS 2 AVAILABLE!]

[1 - 3 Stat points.]

[2 - Full Body Recovery.]

[3 - Mysterious Pill.]

[4 - Mysterious Wheel Roulette.]

[LEVEL UP OPTIONS 3 AVAILABLE!]

[1 - 3 Stat points.]

[2 - Full Body Recovery.]

[3 - 500 Coins.]

[4 - Mysterious Wheel Roulette.]

Xavier's consciousness began to fade as the screens appeared before his closed eyes. Were he to lose consciousness for even a second, it would be over.

Despite this knowledge, he chose to go ahead with the options without a second thought.

'TWO, FOUR!!'

[Options 2: Full body recovery, selected.]

[Options 4: Mysterious Wheel Roulette, selected.]

[No third option selected, one option will be available for future use.]

And just like that, Xavier stopped moving.

Or so it seemed.

With the flick of a finger, a glowing green light enveloped his body.

And in that moment.

*Crackle*

-

*SHATTER!*

The light from outside crashed against Xavier's body as he emerged from the crystals. As he exhaled, his eyes opened wide.

The first thing he saw was a short brown haired girl with a white hat and tiny bag crouching in front of him.

She held her hands together in some sort of prayer gesture.

Xavier's sudden escape from the crystals left her petrified in fear. Her mind was all over the place as she struggled to think of what to do.

Unknowingly, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind in her state of confusion.

"F-Fhank you... F-For helping us..." She suddenly mumbled, tearing up as she did so.

"What?"

Xavier's question was interrupted by the girl's father, who suddenly rushed to her side. In front of her, he held a sword and pointed at Xavier.

Xavier recognized the sword immediately, it was a Vampire's blade.

'Did he get it from the corpse of the first Vampire i'd killed?' Xavier wondered

In order to gain a better sense of his surroundings, he looked around and discovered that he was on top of the train tracks with countless other people.

As the human hostages had surrounded a map of London's underground rail lines with an outline of where they would be going, it seemed that they were planning a route for where they'd go next.

Xavier, who had broken free from the crystals, was now the focus of their attention.

Xavier ignored this attention and continued looking to the right. Now that he was actually seeing it, it had confirmed what he had noticed from the corner of his eye.

Right then and there, a huge dark flaming wheel with a variety of options and rewards was floating through the air.

A button read [Spin] in the middle of the wheel.

The wheel was familiar to him, it wasn't the first time he had used it. This was the mysterious wheel roulette.

'Looks like I made it out safely... And I haven't rewinded yet...' Xavier thought to himself.

"Slowly walk away towards your mother, Tina..." The man whispered as he kept the edge of his blade pointed at Xavier. "I told you not to go near the crystals...!"

"I-I'm sorry... Dad... But he's not a bad Vampire... H-He was trying to help us..."

"Help? What do you know about him?! Look at his eyes, he's one of them!"

A sigh escaped Xavier's lips.

"I wouldn't keep shouting if I were you... Their ears seem to be more sensitive to a human voice than anything else." Xavier pointed up.

The ghouls eyes were slowly opening. On seeing this, the father, the girl, and others watching from the railroad tracks shut their mouths.

Xavier found it odd how the eyes opened just by that; the Vampires made far more noise while fighting.

Xavier had concluded that either they were nearing the end of their sleep or they were very sensitive to sounds made by humans.

*Swoosh*

Within a blink, the Father's blade disappeared from his hand.

He looked up to find Xavier holding onto it and raising it into the air.

As Xavier swung his sword down, the man felt his life flash before his eyes.

*Shatter!*

To his surprise, Xavier had not swung the sword at him but rather the crystals that were preventing him from moving.

*Shatter!* *Shatter!* *Shatter!*

He watched Xavier break free from the crystals with a confused expression on his face.

"S-Shouldn't we stop him?" A person amongst the crowd ask.

"You want to stop a Vampire who took down four Vampires on his own? Are you mad?" Another person responded.

When Xavier forced his legs out of the crystal entrapment and stretched them alongside the rest of his body, tension rose in the air.

"Spare my daughter... She's still a kid..." The girl's father pleaded as he suddenly lowered his head to Xavier.

Xavier ignored him and everyone else before leaping onto the platform and sitting on its edge.

When he glanced to the left, he saw the black-haired girl who had been bitten lying on the ground with bandages around her neck. She was fast asleep.

The people who had been making plans for what they'd do next avoided looking into Xavier's eyes but were occasionally glancing at him.

"Is... Is he sparing us...?"

"He doesn't seem to care about us... Should we just continue?"

"With him there? Are you crazy? What if he just wants to listen in on our plans."

No one trusted Xavier, and it made sense. Especially considering how he was a Vampire.

No one except the girl who had thanked him.

"H-He's not a bad vampire... He's a good one... He saved us from the bad vamp-"

The girl was interrupted by her Mother and Father who suddenly covered her mouth.

"P-Please forgive my daughter, she doesn't know what she's saying at times..." Said the mother with a fearful look.

As Xavier stared at the three, memories of his father, mother, and younger sister flooded into his mind. They looked nothing alike but seeing the three of them together reminded him of it.

"Hey, you." Said Xavier as he pointed at the young girl. "Don't thank me, I didn't save anyone... I only killed my enemy."

Xavier's words lit up the girl's eyes. She happily nodded her head as if not having understood his words.

'And besides... Once I rewind all of this. You'll all just go back to being hostages again... So don't look at me with those grateful eyes."

Xavier's decision to speak gave her father the opportunity to ask the question they all had been dying to ask.

"So... What are you going to do with us?"

Before turning to look at the other hostages standing close together, Xavier glanced at her father.

"I'm waiting... For the Vampire noble to come."