Free Web NovelChapter 723: Their Father’s Arrive!?
The battle’s flow had changed completely from the vision he’d seen, but Nikolai couldn’t help but feel a strange irritation that lingered along the surface of his limbs. Similar to pins and needles, it throbbed and pricked in sync with his breathing.
What’s wrong with me?
His fingers tightened around the Desert Eagle as the remaining Rika clones retreated into the smoke.
They didn’t scatter like frightened beasts.
Their movements seemed too clean for that, slipping backwards through the broken centre of the eastern wall while their green eyes remained fixed on the defenders. Their bodies moved swiftly and without sound. Their tails swaying behind them as if something had given them a silent order.
Nikolai hated the sudden change. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
It reminded him of the clones he killed earlier and how they eventually seemed almost human.
"Why are they backing off?" Nikita muttered, rifle still raised.
Selene’s pistol remained aimed toward the breach. "They may be regrouping for another push."
Nikolai remained quiet, thinking that it was possible.
But the irritation beneath his skin grew stronger as the smoke beyond the broken wall thickened. The sensation crawled along his arms and shoulders, as though his body had recognised something before his mind could.
However, the outpost remained standing.
At least until the pale figures walked through the smoke.
They wore black tactical coats over body armour, rain sliding across matte plates and ammunition rigs. Suppressed rifles hung from their shoulders, though none of them seemed eager to use the weapons yet. Their faces were pale, old, and calm in a way that made the soldiers behind Nikolai tighten their grips.
Elders.
Grand Elders.
The true core of the Nosferatu clan.
Unlike other clans that lost their powerhouses to battles or death, the Nosferatu could use the bodies of their strongest to create mutants and zombies, which inherited the strength of the previous Grand Elder.
However, it took generations and centuries to reach the current state.
One of them stepped over the corpse of a Rika clone without looking down. His white hair was combed neatly behind his ears, and a thin black respirator covered the lower half of his face.
"So this is the young patriarch."
Nikolai raised his Desert Eagle toward him.
"And you are?"
"A man too old to introduce himself to children."
Nikita snorted, rifle still pressed to her shoulder. "Then die without a name, grandpa."
Several soldiers looked like they wanted to laugh, but the pressure coming from the Nosferatu kept their mouths shut.
The elder’s red eyes slid toward her.
"What use is it to bark like a dog, Fenrir?"
Nikita’s ears twitched.
"Fuck you, corpse!"
She fired before the elder could speak further.
The rounds struck his chest and shoulder, punching dents into the black armour beneath his coat. He shifted half a step, more from impact than pain, and the smile in his eyes only deepened.
Nikolai fired next.
The Desert Eagle roared through the rain, smashing into the respirator across the elder’s mouth. Black metal cracked apart, exposing pale lips and teeth far too white for something that old.
"You talk too much," Nikolai said.
The elder touched the broken respirator with two fingers.
"Well, it seems the patriarch was correct to be wary of you, Volkov."
Nikolai’s irritation became worse, crawling from his shoulders into his jaw. It wasn’t fear. He knew that much. His body felt too hot under the rain, as though something inside his blood was listening to the voices beyond the breach and waiting for permission to answer.
He didn’t give it any.
"Selene."
"I see them."
The remaining Rika clones had stopped behaving like beasts. They no longer rushed the kill zones or threw themselves against the rifles above. Instead, they moved around the elders in low arcs, keeping close to the bodies of the Nosferatu and using them as cover.
Selene clicked her tongue softly.
"They learned fast."
"They were made from Rika," Nikolai muttered. "Of course they did."
The old elder lifted his hand.
The clones moved with him.
They slipped forward through the rain, without charging or screaming, just closing the distance while the elders walked behind them with the patience of men who’d experienced countless battlefields and could adjust to their presence.
Nikolai raised his voice.
"Aim for the heads! Don’t hesitate to pull the trigger!"
The riflemen obeyed with a loud shout before the crackle of gunfire filled the outpost.
Silver rounds tore through the rain and slammed into the approaching clones. Heads snapped back, skulls burst open, and black blood splashed across the broken stone beneath the breach. Several Rika copies dropped at once, their bodies twitching in the resin before the Fenrir warriors finished them with blades.
Yet the elders did not stop walking.
They let the bullets come.
Some rounds struck their faces and punched through skin, exposing old bone, dark muscle, or metal plates buried beneath pale flesh. Others sparked against armour or disappeared into bodies that should have fallen long ago. A few elders stumbled, but none collapsed fast enough to stop the advance.
Nikolai clicked his tongue.
"They’re not alive in the normal sense."
Because these were undead, the silver bullets had weaker effects on the Grand Elder level of monsters. While the footmen, clones, and weaker vampires collapsed, turned to dust, and perished, the Grand Elders could endure it.
The elder with the broken respirator spread his arms slightly, allowing another round to tear through his cheek. With his movement, dozens of clones and zombies dashed past him, overwhelming the defence forces.
"Correct."
Nikita fired again. "Then stay fucking dead!"
Her bullet struck his left eye.
The elder’s head snapped back.
For a moment, his body finally stopped.
Then one of the Rika clones moved beneath his arm, using the pause as cover. She dropped low, almost belly to the ground, claws scraping through resin as she shot toward the right side of the line.
Selene caught her first.
Her pistol flashed once. The bullet curved around an elder’s shoulder and struck the clone through the temple, dropping it inches from a soldier’s ankle.
"Watch the lower angles!" Selene called. "They are using the elders as shields!"
The men adjusted, but the Nosferatu pressed forward at the same time.
Their suppressed rifles finally lifted, and dull bursts of fire answered the defenders from the breach.
The sound was quieter than the outpost’s weapons, but the results were cruel.
A rifleman above Nikolai folded backwards with blood spraying from his throat. Another man spun away from the railing as three rounds punched into his vest and one found the gap beneath his arm.
The first Fenrir line roared and raised their shields.
Bullets hammered against reinforced plates.
Nikolai stepped through the gaps between them, firing as he moved.
His Desert Eagle struck harder than the rifles around him, each shot cracking through the storm like a hammer against iron. One elder lost half his jaw. Another had his knee blown apart and dropped long enough for two Fenrir warriors to hack into his neck with silver-edged blades.
The head came off.
The body kept crawling.
"Burn the separated ones!" Nikolai shouted.
Selene’s hand lifted at once, and a thin rush of crimson flame rolled across the ground. It did not spread widely. She kept it narrow, letting it swallow the severed body without touching the men around it.
The crawling thing thrashed inside the fire, black veins burning beneath its skin until it finally stopped.
The smell hit a moment later, bitter and rotten beneath the rain.
"Ugh...!"
Nikolai’s gaze travelled to the blood-red moon that loomed ever closer on the horizon, almost covering the entire sky as if it had moved closer to the earth.
A surge of anger spread through his body as his arm twitched.
For a fraction of a second, his claws extended too far, the bones in his fingers aching as if something inside them wanted to split open. He forced his hand closed around the grip of his gun and breathed through his nose.
’Calm down...’
He wanted to kill.
To tear everything apart.
No matter the cost to the people around him.
His ruined eye socket turned toward Nikolai, and the smile returned to his torn mouth.
"There it is."
Nikolai fired into his face again.
The elder fell backwards this time, more from the force than the damage, and vanished behind two other Nosferatu pushing through the smoke.
"Keep shooting!" Nikolai shouted. "If the head moves, shoot it again!"
The order was simple enough for frightened men to follow. The rifles above roared harder, focusing on heads, throats, and knees. The elders were durable, but they were not untouchable.
Their bodies slowed when enough silver tore through them, and their calm formation began to break as Selene burned the fallen and Nikita punished anything trying to crawl past the shields.
For several breaths, the defence held.
Then the smoke behind the elders split apart.
The pressure arrived before the shapes did.
Fenrir warriors who had been shouting a moment earlier lowered their voices without meaning to. The rain seemed heavier. Even the Rika clones shrank toward the sides of the breach, giving space to the things walking forward.
Nikolai already knew the silhouettes before the floodlights caught them.
A massive golden werewolf stepped over the rubble first, its soaked fur clinging to a body built like Dimitri’s battle form. Its eyes held no humour, no arrogance, no recklessness and only a hunger for battle.
Beside it came a vampire in a red tactical coat, purple flame curling around his hand despite the rain. His face carried Vladimir’s sharp lines, even that sense of haughtiness that made the real man insufferable remained.
The last figure walked more slowly than the others.
Silver hair.
Broad shoulders.
A back that Nikolai had been chasing most of his life...
"Ah..." He gasped, the throbbing in his chest now like a churning tide raging against the seafront wall.
"Father..."
Their father’s clones appeared on the battlefield.
