Chapter 231: From the Shadows

Cassian clenched his fist tightly. The veins in his arms bulged. This was the first time since this battle that he was actually showing his anger.

“I killed them. Do you wish to inspect their remains?”

He sunk his foot into my broken ribs, causing a wave of pain to wash over me.

“You are nothing. We were wrong to be worried about you.”

“Then why don’t you just kill me?”

Cassian reached out his steel-like hands and lifted me off the ground by the throat.

“Maybe I should,” he mused, and as he spoke, his fingernails grew long and pointed.

He aimed it towards my chest in a motion that implied he was going to rip out my heart.

“Trash like you aren’t even worthy of being tortured. You’re nothing. Someone like you isn’t a threat to anyone.”

He looked as if he had his mind made up as he drew back his hand to deliver the final blow. He shoved his hand forward, ready to end it with one blow, but at the last second, he stopped.

“Allucard?”

His hand grasping my throat began to tremble. At this moment, when he stared at me, what he saw was his son, bloodied and beaten. My eyes of deception were at work. He was much harder to deceive than Allucard, but being this close to him made it easier.

“What trickery is this?”

He might’ve known that I wasn’t his son, but who has the heart to kill a person that looks exactly like their son? His hand, which was about to take my life, trembled, and his grasp on my neck slackened.

This precious few seconds granted me enough time to heal. Just like that, I slipped from his grasp and switched places with the shadow hound I used to sneak up behind him.

I appeared behind him, my eyes locked on the bulging vein in his neck. He was too shell-shocked from seeing his son that he couldn’t react. My claws planted on his neck, and using every strength I could summon, I tore through his flesh as easy as tearing paper, spraying clean lines of blood across the ground.

He acted instantly and swung the back of his fist towards me. I ducked below his fist just in time, causing him to miss. My legs felt as if they were made of spring. I launched myself upwards, causing the ground to crack from the force.

Using the force, I planted my claws deep into his stomach, so deep that my wrist was nowhere to be seen. A thick gush of blood plopped on the ground below. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t make a sound.

Being an old vampire, he probably had been stabbed countless times. I could tell at a glance that pain was something he was used to.

What surprised him was the fact that my claws were able to pierce his skin.

“How?”

That was the single question that was on his mind.

“It’s simple,” I answered, looking him dead in the eyes. “Every time you break a bone and it heals, it comes back stronger, doesn’t it? Every time my claws break, they grow back stronger and harder.”

He didn’t even notice the change until it was too late. He might’ve thought he was being calm and composed, but all he was doing was burying his anger. His son’s death was going to cloud his decision no matter what he did.

Me inflicting a wound on him was more of a warning. Warning him not to underestimate me. He gritted his blood-soaked teeth and thrust his sharp fingernails towards me, but in the next instant, I was gone. I switched places with my shadow hound as easy as flipping a switch.

His back was unguarded, but my instincts told me it was left so on purpose, so of course I decided to attack. Doing exactly what your opponent expects you to do can be a good strategy in a battle.

It allows them to fight at a set beat and rhythm, and it works perfectly because they think they are the one dictating the battle. I attempted to attack from behind just as he expected.

A heartbeat later, his large hand was reaching out towards my face. Using my high agility and reflex, I ducked below the attack, feeling a strong gust of wind rustle my hair. He didn’t skip a beat and swung his fist below into an uppercut.

’He expected me to duck below his attack. Now that I think about it, his first attack was slower than usual as if he wanted me to dodge.’

The moment his fist impacted my face, everything went black. My neck snapped back from the hit, sending an indescribable pain throughout my entire body. My nose broke instantly, and so did my jaw. The metallic taste of my own blood filled my mouth as I was sent flying.

Somehow, the realization that I had been outsmarted hit harder than any of the previous blows. During this brief back-and-forth between me and Cassian, I had learned a lot. I watched his movements carefully, picking up on every cue no matter how slight.

When I impacted on the ground, I broke two more bones. I also realized that the sheer force of the blow was enough to break my neck. I was paralyzed from the neck down. I could only stare up at the full moon in the sky as I tried not to drown in my own blood.

“I can’t control your blood, or else I would’ve made your head explode by now. That must mean you possess blessed quality blood,” he grumbled as he walked towards me.

“That is against the way of things. Werewolves shouldn’t possess enough mana to have such high quality blood. It’s against nature, but I’ll correct it by getting rid of the anomaly.”

He stood above me, looking at his wounded enemy struggling for survival, but in the next second, that image of me disintegrated into nothing.

’Reality isn’t always what it seems. As I said, doing exactly what your opponent expects you to do is a good strategy. It was especially good for deception.’

Cassian’s eyes darted around, realizing that he had been tricked once again. He searched for the real me, but before he could even find him, my transformation was already complete. I had transformed into a giant black wolf. My fur blended in with the darkness, and from the shadow, I launched my attack.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep