0852 The Space
The fang shared the sa origin as that eerie mass of blood.
Bryan still rembered that when Verrence sold him this fang, he had ntioned that this vampire fang ca from a powerful vampire from the fifteenth century.
At the ti, Bryan had dismissed much of the story as the kind of exaggeration that dealers used to justify their inflated prices. But now, with the taste of power still lingering in his magical senses, those words took on a far greater significance.
The fifteenth century had been an era when the Church still had enormous influence over both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. Their Inquisition had reached beyond just 'heretical' humans to target dark creatures.
Vampires had been so of the most sought-after prizes for Church hunters equipped with sanctified weapons and sacred rituals.
The things what Verrence had described seem to make sense so now. If Church forces had managed to destroy or seal away such a powerful vampire, they would have taken care to scatter the remains, preventing any possibility of resurrection through dark magic.
A single fang, separated from its body by centuries and continents, would have seed like a safely neutralized relic.
But what if the vampire's body hadn't been destroyed? What if its descendants bound to their ancestor by blood had spent the next centuries searching for those scattered remains?
The long journey from dieval Europe to modern Arica would have provided ample ti for such a quest, especially for beings whose unnatural lifespans asured ti in centuries rather than decades.
A cloud drifted across the face of the rising sun like a funeral shroud, plunging Bryan's bedroom into untily twilight. The sudden shift from warm golden light to cold shadow seed to mirror the dark thoughts that occupied his mind, transforming the comfortable hotel suite into sothing that felt more like a tomb.
Bryan pressed his interlaced fingers beneath his chin. His sharp eyes now held a flicker of uncertainty.
These evidences point towards the probable reason behind vampires' hunting of these dangerous magical creatures. They weren't simply feeding on rare blood for nutrition or pleasure. They were after the high-concentration magical blood contained within these beings.
Compared to hunting individual wizards which would inevitably draw the attention of magical law enforcent agencies worldwide, targeting magical creatures had nurous advantages.
At least now, with both Haruto Lee and the vampire Morgans in MACUSA custody, the threat for now had been contained. The Security Departnt had both the suspects and the evidence necessary to untie the full extent of the conspiracy.
Even if Bryan's suspicions about an attempted resurrection of so powerful Vampire or other Dark creature was correct, Graves and his investigators should be able to prevent the completion of whatever dark ritual the vampires had been planning.
Yet despite this rational assessnt, a sense of unease continued to gnaw at the edges of Bryan's mind like a persistent itch that couldn't be scratched.
Sothing about the entire situation felt incomplete, as if crucial pieces of the puzzle remained hidden in shadows that prevented him from completely letting his guard down despite his intention not to ddle further.
The morning sun struggled against the encroaching clouds, sending infrequent rays of pale light through the gaps in the gray clouds. One such beam happened to fall directly upon the crescent-shaped fang where it lay on Bryan's desk, causing it to pulse with intense light.
After a mont of hesitation, Bryan's gaze grew calm again. Regardless of what larger conspiracies might be unfolding beyond his awareness, this fang was at least worth investigating.
With a subtle gesture of his finger, he caused the white fang to rise from the desk's surface. It rotated slowly as it rose and ca to rest at Bryan's eye level, hovering motionless in the space between them. In the next second, Bryan's originally calm gaze beca sharp, his vision piercing through the fang, looking deeper—
CRACK! CRASH!
The sound that erupted from the collision between Bryan's perception and whatever forces guarded the fang's secrets was like thunder breaking directly inside the hotel room.
The air itself seed to tremble and wriggle as invisible forces clashed with trendous ferocity, causing even the reinforced floor-to-ceiling windows which were designed to withstand hurricane-force winds at this altitude to shake and rattle in their fras with intensity.
The normal world dissolved around Bryan as his consciousness plunged through layers of reality that most human minds could never perceive, let alone cross.
Streams of light flashed past his awareness like falling stars, each one carrying fragnts of mory and emotion that belonged to lives long since extinguished.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the chaotic transition ended, and Bryan found himself standing in a space.
The internal space of the fang was stretched in front of him like a universe contained within a grain of sand. Here, in this impossible space that existed sohow within a vampire's tooth, an ocean of blood extended all the way to the curved horizon where space itself seed to end.
Deep red waves rolled and churned with their own currents, while darker patches moved beneath the surface like enormous sea creatures swimming in liquid nightmare. The very air above this supernatural ocean tasted of copper and despair with the psychic residue of countless deaths.
Two purple moons erged in the starless sky above, their light cold and alien as they cast their radiance down upon the blood sea.
Under the influence of that otherworldly light, the true horror of the blood sea beca visible. Thousands upon thousands of faces floated just beneath the crimson surface—n, won, children, all frozen in expressions of mortal agony and desperate pleading.
These were the victims whose life force had been harvested to create this abomination, their final monts preserved forever in liquid form.
As Bryan's presence fully manifested within the fang's space, his face gradually took shape above the agitating sea of suffering. He appeared as a figure of terrible majesty. His eyes, now blazing with purple fire, gazed down upon the ocean of atrocity.
The imnse weight of his ntal power pressed down upon this space like the hand of an angry god, causing the pocket dinsion to tremble and shake. The blood sea responded with violent upheaval, its waves rising to incredible heights as the trapped souls within sensed the presence of sothing that might either damn or redeem them.
Thousands of voices joined in a noise of wails and shrieks that would have driven other minds instantly insane. The accumulated malice and hatred of centuries rose from the blood sea in pillars of black smoke that twisted and squird like living serpents, attempting to expel this intruder from their land of eternal tornt.
But Bryan's will was superior within this space where ntal power determined reality. The attacks of malicious energy broke against his consciousness like waves against an unshakable cliff, dissipating into harmless vapor that was absorbed back into the churning ocean below.
Just as he prepared to invest even more of his ntal energy into fully exploring this nightmarish space, the blood sea underwent a transformation that caught him by surprise.
The churning crimson liquid suddenly beca as clear as crystal, its denseness vanishing in an instant as if so invisible hand had lifted a veil that had concealed deeper truths.
Bryan's vision plunged through the now-transparent dium, showing a scene that existed sowhere.
The vision that stretched in front of him was of a circular hall with walls crumbled over the centuries into piles of sandy debris that littered the floor like the bones of so enormous creature.
Through the circular glass do that ford the hall's ceiling, hills covered in vibrant green vegetation stretched toward the horizon.
In the center of the hall was a pool about the size of a private swimming pool, which seed quite out of place. Clearly, this pool was not part of the hall's original fixtures, but had been constructed later.
The pool did not contain clean or rotting water, but blood!
The deep red, nearly black blood had strange properties. It had the consistency of thick gel. Every few seconds, the entire mass would expand and contract in a rhythm that was disturbingly like that of a heartbeat or the breathing of so enormous, sleeping beast.
Bryan's gaze swept over the densely packed magical corridors carved into the ground around the pool, glowing with a dark luster, before finally focusing his attention into the pool.
Hum!
As if it could sense Bryan's peering gaze, the frequency of the blood pool's "heartbeat" suddenly accelerated greatly, and beneath the surface of the blood, bright lights began to flash rhythmically.
This pool of blood was indeed extraordinary—Bryan's manifested ntal power could not penetrate it, and he was unable to see to the bottom of the pool. Just as Bryan was attempting to invest even greater ntal power here, without any warning, a corpse suddenly floated up from beneath the blood pool!
A man of about twenty years of age dressed in dieval noble attire.
The man's skin color could no longer be simply described as pale—it was like an unborn infant still in the womb at four or five months, with skin that was semi-transparent, faintly revealing the dormant heart within his body.
Splash!
The blood pool churned!
Bryan's peering seed to offend the incompletely born or rather, incompletely resurrected Vampire. In an instant, this vampire opened its eyes, and a pair of blood-red pupils appeared before Bryan.
RUMBLE!
The mont the gazes from the deep purple and blood-red eyes t in midair, violent hurricanes suddenly surged through the ruined hall. The trendous force instantly shattered the circular glass do, and even the surrounding walls developed jagged cracks!
The shock of ntal power caused countless fragnts of lightning to streak through the dust-filled hall, while the recoiling force caused the corpse floating on the blood pool to sink back into the pool. The incomplete ntal power of Bryan, which had crossed space to arrive here, nearly collapsed entirely. Finally, with a cold snort, it dissipated into nothingness.
Thud!
The mont consciousness returned to his body, the fang lost the force supporting its levitation and fell to the floor.
The desk in front of Bryan had sohow been reduced to scattered fragnts, the room looked as if a typhoon had passed through it, and the reinforced glass floor-to-ceiling window was covered with thousands of cracks, with one corner having separated from its fra, dangling unsteadily in the thousand-foot-high air.
Bryan gently rubbed his forehead. After a mont, his vision regained clarity, and he looked down at the fang that had fallen into the cracks between several wooden boards with a deep gaze.
Bzzt. Bzzt.
The sound of teeth-grinding electrical current ca from the telephone pole. The light bulb, sticky with nurous dead mosquitoes, flickered on and off before finally emitting a steady glow.
"Dear—"
Mr. Depp, standing beside the mailbox, glanced at the illuminated streetlight. His toes unconsciously curled within his leather shoes as he breathed rapidly several tis, then looked toward his daughter beside him.
"Are you absolutely certain he'll co?"
Mr. Depp asked—this was already the eleventh ti he had asked this question today.
"I believe Bryan won't forget our arrangent."
Alia said, pressing her lips together. The corner of her vision fell on her father's anxious face, and the strange feeling in her heart grew stronger.
Her parents' curiosity about Bryan Watson had clearly exceeded normal bounds, reaching a level she couldn't understand.
"Well then, will he use your wizards' Apparition thod to arrive? Or perhaps he might possibly use the fireplace, like when your mother and I visited you in the hospital during your recovery?"
Even though Alia had provided detailed explanations for these sa questions multiple tis throughout the day, she maintained her patience and began once more to clarify.
"He won't be able to Apparate directly to our ho, Dad. One of the vital requirents for successful Apparition is that the wizard must have previously visited their intended destination. Bryan has never been to our house, so he can't appear here."
She paused to ensure her father was following the explanation before continuing.
"As for using the Floo Network through our fireplace, that was indeed a special arrangent made possible by MACUSA's dical ergency protocols.
Under normal circumstances, private Muggle family residences are strictly prohibited from being connected to the magical transportation grid. Such connections are reserved for high-ranking MACUSA officials who need secure communication channels and ergency evacuation routes as part of their official duties."
"Then how—"
Brian Depp wanted to ask more, but a taxi speeding around the street corner interrupted his words.
"My sincere apologies, Mr. Depp, for keeping you waiting."
Bryan stepped out of the car carrying a bottle of whiskey as a gift. Seeing the elderly man walking toward him with a pleased expression, he spoke apologetically.
"Oh, don't say such silly things, my boy. We still have a while before dinner begins. Before that, you can take a look at the gift we've prepared for you—"
Mr. Depp said with a hearty laugh, warmly putting his arm around Bryan's shoulder as he led him into the house, leaving Alia standing at the door, watching the two n's retreating figures with a confused expression.
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