Diana Watson, 16 years old — student of Trinity Academy.
Kill count: zero.
She had never taken the life of someone before. Was that why she was shaking right now?
That's what she told herself as her body quivered as she looked down at the man who had ruined her life. Bell Gideon Agnus.
Or maybe, it wasn't the fear of taking a life that was causing her to shake.
Maybe, maybe it was fear. Fear of Bell. Even as powerful as she felt, even with how much bloodlust she was trying to hold back, the fangs ready to plunge and consume, a part of her was still absolutely terrified of this man in front of her.
No matter how much time had passed, the incident never left her mind. The memories of it would replay over and over in her head.
She could recall vividly the way that her clothes were ripped, the feeling of pain on her body as she was slammed through a table, the hands that gripped her neck, choking the air out of her. She could still see his red eyes that glimmered as the moonlight entered through the window.
The cruel warmth of his body as it pressed against hers. The coldness of her tears that trickled down her face.
The excruciating pain that she felt between her legs.
She tried to fight. She tried to resist.
But he was powerful. Way more powerful than her.
But how? How was he this strong?
She's heard his reputation before, as did everyone else at school. The youngest son of House Agnus. The boy who is a genius, but that wasn't uncommon at the academy. There was plenty of genuineness. It wasn't like he stood out above the rest of his peers.
So where in the world did all this strength come from?
Unable to get him off of her, she could only cry, begging for him to stop, pleading for someone to help her.
Every passing second felt like a year.
At some point, she no longer resisted and just lay there in despair, hoping to die.
Diana remembered all of this. No matter how much she didn't want to remember, no matter how much she tried to erase it from her mind — it would never ever leave her.
Voice quivering, she asked Bell, "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you."
She didn't know what she wanted as a response.
An apology? Something vile that would remind her that this was the same monster from that night? Or maybe, she genuinely wanted to hear a reasonable excuse that would allow her to shift the blame from him over to something else, like a curse, a possession, the works of demons, etc.
"..."
But she received none of those.
Bell stayed silent, looking up at her, not moving an inch, not saying a word.
"Say something."
"..."
"Say something."
"..."
"I said, say something!" she screamed as another hole was created near Bell's head. This time, his ear was nicked and began bleeding.
He picked him up from the floor and threw him up. His body flew through multiple floors, and just as he started to descend, Diana had appeared above him. She grabbed his neck midair and began flying downwards as fast as she could.
She was using her vampiric powers of flight subconsciously and hadn't even realized it.
When Bell hit the ground below, his body sank about halfway into the concrete. His consciousness was starting to fade, his vision blurred, but he pulled himself out of it.
He wasn't going to resist.
Whatever she wanted to do to him, he was going to let it happen.
If he fainted, he would be running away from it. Even if it wasn't him who did it, Bell felt an obligation to be here, present as she dragged him around, throwing him through walls, swinging him around like a toy.
Even as she grabbed his hand and snapped three fingers out of place, he didn't make a sound or say a word.
He continued to let her express her anger, her disgust, and her sadness.
This cycle continued for about five minutes before it finally stopped.
He was being held up by his collar, but was released by Diana. Bell didn't even have enough strength or energy left in his body to land on his feet. Instead, he fell to his knees.
Diana took a few steps back, turned to the side, and collapsed to her knees as well.
'Why am I even doing this? It's not like it'll take away what he did to me? It's either I let him go… or I kill him.'
Her face slowly got absorbed into her palms as frustration, confusion, and anger took turns stabbing at her heart.
Her face, already pale in color, was even paler. Her eyes remained a constant red, and not a single hint of her original blue poked through.
A voice was whispering to her.
A voice that belonged to her — to the vampiric blood that coursed her veins.
Drink his blood. Drink until he's dry. Until he's dead.
Through the cracks in her fingers, she could see that her vision was so enhanced that she could see the tiniest cracks in the floor. She could see the smallest bug that was scurrying about.
Turning her head so slowly that Bell felt like he was watching paint dry, Diana gulped as she saw his neck.
She could see the redness of his veins underneath his skin. She could see the blood cells that were traveling about. She could even see the strings of star energy that were in his body.
"You know…" she finally spoke, "...Bell, I am a very nice person. I… even after everything you've put me through, despite how much I hate you, all it would take is an apology for me to forgive you. I would still hate you, but… you would've been forgiven."
That's exactly what Bell didn't want. That's exactly why he didn't give her an apology or an explanation for his actions.
"Even if it was a lie. Even if you didn't have a single bone of remorse in your body, I would've ignored them."
Without standing up, her body straightened and began elevating in the air, her feet no longer touching the ground.
"Why did you have to be so stubborn?" she asked, her head tilting so far to the left that her view of Bell made him look like he was sitting on the wall rather than the floor.
Within a single blink of an eye, she was in front of Bell, his body raised to meet her eye level.
"You could've given me any answers. But you chose silence. And that was all the answer I needed."
What was the answer?
Death.
Plunging her fangs into his neck, she began sucking his blood.
The moment her fangs pierced his skin, Bell's body jerked while his mind remained calm.
The body didn't jerk because of the pain. Yes, there was this sharp and burning pain, but it was nothing compared to what Diana had done to him earlier. His body jerked because of the shock that came from this sensation that something was being taken from him.
It wasn't just blood.
He knew that a vampire draining someone's blood could either serve to quench their thirst or to drain someone's life force away.
This was the latter.
Diana's grip on him tightened as she drank, her eyes closed as she was relishing in the taste and all of these fireworks going off in her head. The feeling was so ecstatic that it was similar to someone taking drugs.
This was only her second time consuming blood; the first time was when she was completely bloodlusted and had zero control over herself. This time was a little different as her vampire self had taken over but her mind was still relatively "sane".
Yet, her instincts were guiding her, making it seem like she was a veteran at this whole vampire shtick.
His blood was flowing fast, rushing into her body like they had been preparing for this moment their entire life.
Bell could feel it immediately; warmth was starting to leave his body in waves as if someone had opened a drain inside his chest, letting it all out.
His heartbeat began stumbling, struggling to keep pace, each thud being weaker than the last one.
His vision dimmed at the edges, blackness creeping in like ink dropped into a clear pool of water.
'I'm dying,' he thought. 'This is it.'
He didn't scream. He didn't struggle. He could've activated Unbound Step to phase her into his body, then repel her when the ability deactivated.
But he didn't do any of that.
He just allowed it to happen, and his hands fell limp at his sides as his strength was being stripped away, layer by layer, cell by cell.
The world was growing distant.
The sounds around him were muffled.
Even the pain caused by her in his broken body began to fade; it was being replaced by a heavy numbness that almost felt like a consolation prize meeting him at the end of the tunnel
Diana drank. And drank. And drank. And drank.
She didn't mean to savor it. She had told herself when she plunged her fangs that this wasn't for pleasure. It wasn't even for thirst. It was for justice and closure for herself.
And yet—
Her body shuddered at how rich his blood was. It was dense in flavor, and there was something strange in it. Something that made her instincts scream louder, urging her to drink more.
His blood was the second she's ever tasted, but even she knew instinctively that his blood was top-tier. It was the cream of the crop.
The whispers in her mind grew clearer, more desperate.
More.
Drink it all.
Leave him dry and end his life.
In her hands, she could feel his life slipping away. The pulse beneath her lips was getting weaker by the second.
His star energy brushed against her senses, flickering like a dying flame.
For a brief, terrifying moment, she realized that she was actually killing him.
She knew she was killing him.
That's why she was doing this.
But… she was actually killing him.
Her hands trembled.
But she didn't pull her fangs away. She didn't stop her consumption.
His blood — it simply tasted too good. And his death, it was his own fault. He should've apologized.
Bell's thoughts slowed. Memories of what he has done since he entered this world surfaced uninvited. Faces of his new family. Faces of his subordinates.
Paths he was brought to this world to walk on, but never even reached the halfway point.
He wasn't a regretful person.
But this was probably the closest thing to the emotion of regret. It piled up one after another.
Diana's revenge.
He had ruined it for her. No matter the truth, no matter what really happened that night, this was how it was supposed to end but — he wasn't Bell. He was Bell Agnus now, but he wasn't the Bell Agnus that did this to her.
If he were that old Bell, perhaps this would be a fitting end with her hands around his neck, his blood painting her lips like lipstick.
But he wasn't… Bell, the character from the novel.
He was Bell, the person brought into this world for a greater purpose.
Darkness closed in completely.
'I'm sorry.'
For the first time ever since he entered the world, the burden of being in this body, the burden of carrying the sins that he committed, he no longer viewed it as his sins to repent for.
No.
The word didn't come from his mouth. It wasn't even a thought that came to his mind.
It came from deeper.
It isn't time.
Not today.
Not now.
When?
When he serves his purpose.
Something inside him stirred. Something that he had never forgotten about but never focused too much on because when it was time, it was time.
His second star. The one that he had formed earlier, but it had never lit up because it was still dormant and unformed.
The star began to shake.
Bell didn't know what he did or why it was activating, but he knew one thing.
He still had shit he needed to deal with.
'You can kill me later when I'm done with everything, Diana.'
The star inside him ignited.
Not just light but with clarity on what purpose it existed.
Liberation was the principle of his skill tree. The core theme that he was going to live his life by.
So liberated, he was.
[Blood of the Free]: To be liberated is to be free — free from the absolute laws of blood and race. The starwalker can assimilate with other races without rejection or collapse, harmonizing multiple bloodlines within a single body. Vampiric, lycanthropic, draconic, and other racial traits can coexist in partial or full form, retaining their strengths while suppressing fatal conflicts. Assimilation does not grant subservience, curses, or loss of will, allowing the user to remain autonomous regardless of the blood absorbed.
The ability of his star took shape instantly, not asking for permission on his end, whether or not it was an acceptable ability, even though he was his own god.
Bell's body changed and adapted immediately to what the ability described.
As Diana continued to drink, expecting his life to end as he was nearing the limits of the light left in him, something suddenly changed.
The blood leaving his body no longer contained traces of his life force. There was still star energy mixed in with the blood but the most vital part, it was gone.
Diana then felt the vampiric blood in her, the essence that granted her her abilities, they began to reverse and flow into him.
Bell could feel it enter. And when it entered, it didn't reject his human core. It was absorbed. Folded in. Made part of him.
His veins burned as new blood began to form, but they didn't rupture.
His heart even seized for a moment before resuming, slower and steadier, no longer weakening like before.
Diana pulled her fangs out of his neck immediately and froze.
Her eyes widened as she felt it.
"What did you do?" she whispered against his neck. "Why do you feel… why do you feel like me?"
In an instant, something suddenly snapped into place between them.
A thread that was invisible but undeniable.
"What is this?!" she screamed as she pushed him away from her.
Emotions began flooding Bell's mind: rage that wasn't his, grief so sharp that it stole his breath, and hatred that was tangled with fear and confusion.
Diana gasped as well, falling to her knees as she stared up at him, her lips still stained red.
"What…?" she uttered.
She could feel him.
His resolve. His mental fortitude.
His sadness as he looked at her. His pity.
But no regret. No feeling as if he was at fault and was the one who had ruined her.
Their eyes met.
Not as predator or prey.
Not as an executioner and a victim who was willing to let himself be killed.
They were equals, tied together by this thread.
Diana tried to stand up, but she staggered, falling back even further away from him.
She saw how his body began to heal. It was very similar to the regeneration that she was granted as a vampire.
She could see the color of his blood. It was very subtle, but it looked like the cells that she knew were coursing in her.
"What did you do? What did you do to me?!" she demanded, her voice unsteady.
Bell could feel her still. Her anger, fear, and confusion were echoing inside his chest.
"...I didn't do anything," he said hoarsely. "But at the same time, I was the one who did this to you. Also, I'm sorry."
What? Why was he only apologizing now?
But the purpose of his apology wasn't what she expected it to be.
"I'm sorry that I didn't die."
Silence fell between them, thick and heavy.
The apology didn't make Diana feel good. It made her angrier.
She quickly got up and zoomed across the room, her fist about to punch Bell.
Her hand hit nothing but air.
She stopped and turned around; Bell was already on the other side of the room.
How was he so fast?
"It seems like I'm a vampire now. Just like you."