Chapter 58: Borders Annihilated.
Conflicts on the borders of Sangris had never, in fact, been uncommon.
Territorial tensions, silent disputes, small incursions that tested limits without ever fully crossing the line into open war... this was the natural state among races that coexisted under a constant threat of expansion.
Yet, there was a clear difference between tension and rupture. And, in recent days, that difference had been crossed with a violence that left no room for interpretation.
The werewolves weren’t just testing.
They were advancing.
Fragnted reports first erged as noise... small villages attacked, watchtowers destroyed, patrols disappearing without a trace but dried blood and deep marks in the ground.
Nothing big enough to warrant a massive response, but too consistent to be ignored.
A pattern began to form, and like all predatory patterns, it wasn’t random. It was calculated. Small border regions, less defended points, areas where the vampire presence was more administrative than military... these were the targets... Where civilians lacked protection, or were still in developing cities...
Cowardly, without warning, one of these regions simply... fell.
A city north of Sangris, small but strategically positioned between secondary trade routes and neutral territories, isolated from the map in a matter of hours. No request for reinforcents was registered.
No evacuation was initiated. The last signal coming from there was abruptly interrupted, as if soone had ripped the very existence from the place before it could react.
That was enough.
Two days earlier, the order had been given.
Serafall wasn’t soone who reacted impulsively, but neither was she the type to ignore clear signs of escalation, despite not liking her job that much. If the werewolves were advancing on a small scale, then the response shouldn’t be exaggerated... but it needs to be precise.
Surgical. And so, Squadron Six was mobilized.
Directly assigned by her, without interdiaries, without unnecessary bureaucracy. A unit known not only for its efficiency, but for its ability to operate in scenarios where the line between mission and massacre was too thin to be clearly defined.
It was a simple mission... Extermination of enemy forces and recovery of territory...
The carriage transporting the ship carried no flashy insignia nor visible escort. There was no need. The very presence of those inside was, in itself, a silent declaration that sothing had crossed the acceptable line. The journey to the affected region took hours that seed to stretch uncomfortably, not because of the difficulty of the route, but because of the expectation that accumulated with each kiloter traveled.
Because sothing was wrong.
And everyone knew it.
When it finally arrived, there was no need for confirmation.
The sll ca first.
Not the usual tallic sll of blood spilled in combat, but sothing heavier, older, as if the earth itself had been forced to absorb more than it should have. It was dense, suffocating, perating the air in a way that made it impossible to ignore what had happened there.
And then... a vision.
The city wasn’t destroyed in the conventional sense.
It had been... erased.
Buildings that once ford organized streets were now just piles of broken wood and displaced stone, as if a brutal force had swept through everything without any real resistance. There were no signs of widespread fire, which made it all the more disturbing... it wasn’t ant to destroy for destruction’s sake.
It was made to eliminate.
Bodies were scattered everywhere.
Vampires.
n, won, and children... so still with expressions frozen in surprise, others clearly trying to react at the last instant. There was no defensive formation. No signs of coordinated resistance. It was as if the actions were caught in the middle of their routines, interrupted by sothing too fast to allow any kind of effective response.
Deep marks crisscrossed the ground, wide furrows indicating impact and dragging. Claws. Many. So larger ones doing what is normal, others more irregular, indicating an unusual variety of individuals involved in the attack. It wasn’t a small group.
But it wasn’t a traditional army either.
It was... a gang.
Too organized to be savage.
Too savage to be organized.
The wind swept through the rubble carrying particles of dust and the light rustling of unstable structures, creating a constant, low sound, almost like a collective inspiration coming from the ruins. There were no visible survivors. No movent. No sound other than the environnt itself reacting to the emptiness left behind.
Squad Six advanced slowly through the area, their firm steps contrasting with the fragility of the surrounding scenery. There was no hurry. There was no need. Everything I would have been seen was already there, brutally exposed.
That wasn’t a skirmish.
That wasn’t a warning.
It was one.
And, more importantly... it didn’t seem to be the end.
Because, if that had been just an isolated attack, there would have been signs of disorganized retreat, clear escape trails, any indication that those responsible were just passing through. But there wasn’t.
Pattern.
Direction.
Intention.
The werewolves weren’t just attacking borders.
They were... testing the terrain.
And that city— It was just the first step.
The silence that hung over the ruins was unnatural. It wasn’t the kind of quiet that cos after the end of a conflict, when the world slowly begins to resu its rhythm. It was That... stagnant. As if the very air had been prompted to stop, to observe, to morize every fragnt of that massacre before allowing any kind of continuity. The wind passed, but carried nothing away. The permanent, heavy, almost solid sll of blood clung to the throat of anyone who dared to breathe too deeply.
Squad Six didn’t hurry.
They advanced as if they already knew exactly where they were stepping, as if that scenario wasn’t new, but just another variation of sothing that had already been seen countless tis. Still... there was attention. Gazes that moved constantly, analyzing every detail, every mark on the ground, every body that shouldn’t be there in that way.
And, at the center of presence in that controlled era—
Her.
A leader.
The simple fact that she was there already changed how the environnt seed to react. There was no need to announce her authority; She existed as an unquestionable truth, sothing that didn’t need to be said to be understood. Her posture was relaxed, but this couldn’t be discerned. It was the kind of relaxation only soone extrely dangerous could allow.
Her dark hair fell long down her back, slightly disheveled, as if the wind tried unsuccessfully to shape it. On her head, the military cap fit with almost symbolic precision, tilting just enough to cast a shadow over her eyes—eyes that, even partially hidden, shone with a tired... yet attentive, golden hue. It wasn’t exhaustion. It was calculated disinterest. As if few things in the world were still capable of truly capturing her attention.
And yet... this had caught it.
The mask covering the lower part of her face didn’t just hide her features—it seed to contain sothing. A reddish glow pulsed through the tallic openings, as if sothing inside was alive, breathing, waiting. As she exhaled slowly, a light, warm mist escaped, dissipating into the cold air of the ruins.
Her body was...impossible to ignore.
Not for the gratuitous display, but for the way everything about her seed molded for conflict. Her shoulders were firm, defined, maintaining a posture that wouldn’t budge under any weight. Her arms, though partially covered, revealed clear lines of strength, muscles worked not for display, but for efficiency. And then... the contrast.
Her chest stood out almost provocatively, voluminous, compressed only partially by the suit that seed designed to accompany her mobility, not to hide it. There was sothing deliberate about it—not vulnerability, but dominance. As if even that were a weapon, a presence that destabilized even before the combat began.
But the most striking thing wasn’t her body.
It was the way she occupied the space.
She didn’t seem to be amidst the ruins.
The ruins left behind exist around her.
"Report."
The voice ca out low, slightly hoarse, muffled by the mask, but still clear enough to cut through the silence like a precise blade. There was no raising of the tone. There was no urgency. But there was... command.
The other five crew mbers responded almost imdiately, not out of haste, but out of habit. Each had already positioned themselves at different points in the area, analyzing distinct aspects of the destruction.
"No confird survivors," said the first, a man with a rigid posture, kneeling near one of the bodies. His fingers, covered by dark gloves, pressed lightly into the ground. "They indicate marks of instant death in most cases. Little resistance."
"I partially disagree," replied a woman further back, observing a half-destroyed wall. "There was resistance... but disorganized. They didn’t have ti to form a defense. It was too quick an attack."
The leader didn’t move.
But she listened.
She always listened.
Another mber, positioned on a pile of rubble, spoke next, his voice carrying a more analytical tone.
"There’s variation in the attack patterns. These aren’t ordinary werewolves. So tracks indicate above-average size. Others... erratic behavior. As if they were... unstable."
"Unstable how?" the leader asked, tilting her head slightly.
"As if it weren’t entirely... natural," he replied after a brief silence. "Inconsistent movents. Excessive force in specific points. There might be external interference."
Her mask released a slight stream of warm air.
"Experints..." she murmured, almost to herself.
Other mbers moved slowly, holding a piece of torn fabric.
"There are no signs of looting," he said. "Nothing was taken. No resources, no artifacts. This wasn’t about the imdiate territory."
"It was a demonstration," the previous woman finished, crossing her arms.
Finally, the leader moved.
A single step forward.
And the sound of it seed to echo more than it should have.
Her eyes scanned the scene once more, absorbing everything, not just as information, but as pattern. As narrative. As intention.
"They’re not trying to dominate..." she said slowly.
A pause.
"...yet."
Silence.
But now, laden with understanding.
She reached for the brim of her cap, adjusting it slightly, while the red glow behind her mask pulsed once more, stronger.
"This is reconnaissance," she continued, her voice firm. "Response testing. Ti assessnt."
Her eyes then turned to the other five.
"And we just arrived late to the first response."
No one objected.
Because it was true.
She then turned slightly, already beginning to move away from the center of the ruins, like soone who had already extracted everything she needed from that place.
"Operation na changes," she said, without looking back.
A brief pause.
But laden with aning. "This isn’t border control."
Another step.
"This is pre-war." She announced and turned to one of them, "Run back to Lady Serafall. Tell her we’re going to start gathering information and begin tracking."
The one who was appointed coordinator, and with extre speed, he turned into nothing but mist and isolated.
She put her hands on her hips and sighed. "I hate werewolves. But this has gone too far. Even we, in the golden age of vampires, don’t commit such cowardly genocides to obtain blood," she said.
Beside her, a smaller figure moved with light agility, almost too bouncy for that scene of death. Alexia adjusted her glasses with the tip of her finger, pushing the fra back into place while already raising an analog cara that seed out of place amidst so much destruction—old, precise, thodical, exactly like her. The dry click of the chanism echoed through the dead silence of the city as she frad the first bodies.
"Let’s take so photos for the report, Captain Natasha," she said, her tone too casual for the environnt, as if she were comnting on the weather on a casual stroll.
Natasha nodded without even looking back, letting out a heavier, more tired sigh, as if the very air in that place had enough weight to beco a physical burden. Her fingers climbed to her mask and, for a mont, she removed it.
The effect was imdiate.
The air |
And she coughed.
It wasn’t a light cough—it was dry, deep, as if sothing inside her violently rejected that environnt. Her body tensed for a second, her chest rising unevenly before she took another deep breath, trying to stabilize herself.
"I can’t do without this..." she murmured, her voice hoarse, lower, as she put her mask back on with an almost automatic movent, like soone who had repeated this many tis before.
The reddish glow pulsed softly beneath the tal.
"Photograph everything, Alexia," I tried next, resuming my firm tone, even though it still carried that subtle weariness underneath.
Alexia nodded imdiately, already turning slightly to capture another angle, but her eyes wandered for a mont, glancing sideways at Natasha—a quick glance, but full of sothing that wasn’t just curiosity.
"And still... without treatnt?" I wanted to, almost as if I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it anyway.
The answer ca after a short pause.
Short. But heavy.
"As if there’s a miraculous blood stronger than the Primordial’s to cure this..." Natasha said, her voice low, almost dragging, as if each word required unnecessary effort. She let out a small sigh through her nose, colder now. "Not even hers works."
And then she gave birth.
For a mont.
Just looking.
Like.
The bodies.
The silence.
"When you’re finished, let
know," she added, resuming her walk without looking back, firm steps that didn’t hesitate, even though the invisible weight was still there.
Alexia didn’t answer imdiately.
The click of the cara continued.
Another photo.
Then another.
And then—
Without looking directly at Natasha, she murmured.
Softly.
Almost as if she were talking to herself.
"It’s sad to think her days are numbered..." she began, slightly adjusting the focus as she captured the body of a partially buried vampire. "She’s so hot... like, ridiculously hot..." another click. "And she’s still a virgin..."
She tilted her head slightly, as if truly reflecting on it.
"Any man would kill for her... literally... I’d kill myself twice, if that," she continued, with absurd nonchalance. "And there she is, saving herself... all proper... she’s like those humans who save themselves until marriage... imagine that immaculate, brand-new pussy..."
Another click.
"I feel sad for her, having sex and feeling a man entering her insides with overwhelming love is so~"
She didn’t even finish.
The sound was short, or before the sentence could be completed.
A blade.
Quick.
Direct.
Lethal.
Alexia drifted away. Her eyes widened the instant her body reacted purely reflexively, tilting to the side in a sudden movent. The sword passed so close to her face that a strand of hair was caught in it, spinning slowly in the air before falling.
The blade pierced what remained of a wall behind her with a dry impact.
Silence.
Alexia sat motionless for a second.
Two.
Three.
And then—
"IT WAS A JOKE, CAPTAIN!!" she blurted out, her voice trembling in a way completely incompatible with the lightness she had seconds before.
Natasha didn’t turn around.
Not a chance.
She just kept walking.
But her voice ca.
Low.
Cold.
"Keep taking pictures."
Alexia swallowed hard, her fingers still gripping the cara with a little more force than before.
"...Yes, ma’am..." she murmured, now much more composed.
But still—
When I spoke to the cara again—
"...but it’s still a waste... your breasts are so beautiful, I would suck on them every day when I woke up~... Ah... I’m wet," she whispered, almost inaudibly.
The click echoed again.
As if nothing had happened.
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