“No! Get off me! Help!” struggled the young man on the forest floor.

As he continued to struggle, his strength began to wane realizing this he tried to at least injure Sera with his machete.

‘Ah…I can …almost reach…it’ he thought desperately.

Sadly, it was just out of reach, the hunter stretched and stretched as Sera’s cool breath could now be felt on his neck.

“Got it!” the hunter couldn’t help but say aloud victoriously.

“Nuh uh uh darling” said Lucy

Just as he held the rusty machete in hand a hard-crimson heel jabbed aggressively  in his hand, pinning it to the ground. The young man stared in shock as he noticed that above the black haired vampiress was another breathtakingly beautiful golden eyed one.

“Be quick Sera” was all Lucy could say with a sigh as the young man released one last desperate scream.

“Aghhh” he yelled in pain as Sera began to drain the man in reckless abandon.

Lucy despaired at Sera’s lack of stealth or subtlety. This was basically out in the open and the younger vampire hadn’t even learned how to make her bites painless for the victim.

‘Oh, heavens I must teach her some table manners’ Lucy couldn’t help but think.

Lucy shook her head as she thought of all she had to teach the girl as she felt the link between the two reach a new level and Sera finally completed the change.

Sera loudly slurped as she drained the last of the contents of the young hunter’s body. His previously bronze and youthful skin shriveled up and turned grey as hers glittered and became new like a baby’s.

 The embers of the young man’s life had died out while Sera’s now burned ferociously bright.

A dark and terrifying aura seeped from her being as her eyes glowed crimson like rubies and her hair lengthened to her pert butt and darkened to a deeper black than night. 

With a shrill cry Sera’s body floated 4 feet into the air as crimson telekinetic ripples broke the branches and small trees around her.

Lucy watched the spectacle of Sera becoming a full-fledged vampire like a proud parent. Her full attention was focused on the first member of her coven being born.

‘Such raw talent and  psychic power If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she just awakened as a psionic type vampire…Wait! Did she? Is that even possible?’ Lucy wondered perplexed.

Lucy quickly racked Amara’s store of memories in search of answers but came up empty.

‘If she did awaken as a psionic vampire on her first feeding, she’d be the first vampire to do it…Or maybe Amara never came across such an occurrence?’ she guessed.

WHOOSH

Her train of thought was abruptly cut short as an arrow whistled just past her nose and continued on towards Sera. 

Quickly blocking it with her left-hand Lucy elicited an unintended hiss towards the assailant(s) who had managed to sneak up on them.

With a snatch Lucy ripped the arrow that had somehow managed to penetrate her skin out of her hand as the hole closed much slower than usually.

‘Silver?! What are the odds’ thought Lucy incredulously.

Peering through the hole in her hand Lucy eyed their uninvited guests. Though it was dark as night Lucy could see clear as day and it looked as if a group of human warriors were making their way over.

“Yikes! Talk about bad timing, they must have heard all the commotion” Lucy complained  as she eyed their approaching figures.

“We can take them master and end this once and for all, plus I’m still hungry” Sera said with a cute burp as her eyes glowed devilishly.

Lucy mentally weighed the pros and the cons inside of  her head.

The battle would be 12 vs 2 and Lucy liked the odds of vampires against humans any day, but they were armed with silver arrows and who knew what else...

“ I don’t know let’s-Urgh!” screamed Lucy in pain as she doubled over.

Out of nowhere a burning pain began to emanate from the center of Lucy’s chest. She felt like someone was carving her heart out as she attempted to bear the pain. 

At this moment inside Lucy’s body a shining red rune like symbol could be seen forming on one corner of her heart. Almost magically it seemed to be appearing out of thin air on the surface of the dead organ.

‘What’s happening to me?!’ she wondered worriedly.

“Master what’s wrong!” exclaimed Sera in anger and concern before turning her attention back to the humans, “How dare you! You’re courting death!”

Totally misreading the cause of her master’s injuries Sera took off in assault of the humans.

“Wait!” Lucy struggled to say through the pain.

Suddenly just as quick as it started the pain abruptly disappeared as the mystical looking rune finished being inlaid in Lucy’s heart. However, Lucy had no time to focus on this as she had to help Sera.

Jumping into action Lucy disappeared into a patch of nearby shadows in pursuit of Sera. Lucy  reappeared just up ahead in a patch shadows flanking the humans.

Using her claw Lucy made a slight incision on her hand as she commanded the pooling blood to form a long crimson whip.

“Come on! Please form…” begged Lucy as the blood slowly obeyed her commands, “Yes, finally!”

Just as Sera began her assault on the humans Lucy jumped into the fray as well.

“Aghhh” screamed the first unlucky human.

Lucy used her long blood whip to drag the unsuspecting villager over to their patch of bushes where she drained him immediately.

‘My turn!’ thought Sera with a malevolent smile.

Using her telekinesis, she sent a powerful psychic push that knocked half of the human warrior’s group over. All of this happened within the span of 1-2 seconds leaving the group of human warriors reeling. 

One member was missing, and something had tackled six of them without being seen. The group of warriors were terrified and decided to assume a tighter circular formation.

As they stared out into the dark forest, the stillness of the night began to coalesce into a loud ringing in their ears.

Lucy and Sera watched the shivering humans and could almost taste the fear they were exuding. Lucy threw a small stone into the group of humans scaring them senseless. 

While the group of warriors were distracted, she raised her eyes to the heavens as the gold glow in them became increasingly pronounced.

FLAP…FLAP...FLAP...FLAP...

Almost silently at first then deafeningly loud the sound of wings beating the air began to fill the night. 

Seemingly out of nowhere a large swarm of bats descended from the skies while the humans were reforming their circle.

These were bloodsucking bats that resided in the surrounding woods and caves but were mutated and under the control of powerful vampiric blood energy. 

From the skies a swarm of claws, teeth, wings, and furry bodies assaulted the group from all directions as blood splashed everywhere.

"Now!” Lucy commanded as her whip reformed into a 2-meter-long blood broadsword.

'Ugh here comes the backlash from summoning the Swarm. Brace yourself Lucy'  thought Lucy as a wave of vertigo overcame her.

 The ability to control and call upon bats was one that Lucy was still experimenting with.

After reaching the Apostle rank she noticed that she could now perform the skill she'd seen so many times in Amara's memories. 

The Swarm ability was a supreme crowd control technique that had a lot of growth potential and usability.

The only drawback is that unless a vampire had an overabundance of Blood Energy stored it could become draining very quickly, as it had a Blood Energy per use and a Blood Energy per second cost, which is what Lucy just experienced.

''It's definitely dinner time now" said Lucy as a tendril of The Thirst brushed against her psyche.

Not missing a beat, Sera extended her onyx claws as the barely satiated thirst was given free reign over her body.

The two vampires made a mess of the already flimsy circle formation the humans attempted. 

As they joined the mass of bats and humans more blood and limbs began to fly from the fray as the sounds of a cacophony of raucous screams filled the night.

After a while thanks to the instincts and experiences from her past life Lucy became a sword wielding force of nature, while Sera relied on her vampiric instincts to become a nightmare for the humans.

Throughout the battle Lucy and Sera were lost in a blood colored haze. Their claws and limbs moved seemingly purely on instinct, almost like they had done this their entire lives.

Sera gored and disemboweled enemies like an ancient desolate beast on the hunt.

From parrying, blocking, to feinting and dodging, combat moves that Lucy had never used before were completed without breaking a sweat.

 After some time the two began to enjoy the thrill from their kills and decided to seek out more.

Throughout the night Lucy and Sera encountered 3 more similarly sized groups and made short work of each of them. 

Lucy hadn't ran into anymore silver weapons but she made sure to cautious just in case. They began to use a sort of hiding in plain sight tactic to sneak upon them; the groups of human hunters stood no chance.

At first Lucy wanted to avoid any conflict with the villagers, but high on the bloodlust and anger from being attacked she decided to send a message with the large number of kills. 

According to Sera each of those groups would have definitely been searching for clues to their whereabouts and they were definitely the best the village had to offer in fighting force.

As such killing them off should tell the perpetrators to back off. Lucy hoped it would… or else.

Lucy and Sera hopped from canopy to canopy like ninjas as they made their way back to the waterfall cave.

The fresh scent of the dawn of a new day wafted around them as they hastened their footsteps. 

As the morning sun peaked over the horizon Lucy and Sera had already reached the safety of their clearing and waterfall shielded cave.

The two vampires looked positively radiant considering the night they’d had. Not a bag nor blemish was present and not a hair was out of place on either two. 

The aura the two gave off was like that of a magical beast, dangerous.

"Whew that was close" Sera said as she  dusted herself off .

”Yes, we’ll have to be faster next time. Speaking of next time who do you think is ordering all these hunting squads Lucy asked inquisitively, “because if we can get to them instead perhaps, we can put end to this matter at the root”

“I agree master, my stepfather wasn’t exactly a well-liked man and the villagers wouldn’t hunt for his killer on their own accord. There’s definitely a hand at play in the shadows who’s paying for these hunting parties. But only one possible name comes to mind and that’s perhaps Chieftain Jia, my step father was his ‘spiritual counsel”, Sera replied with an eyeroll, “he’s the only one who would have the means and a reason to look for my step father’s murderers. Plus, he was highly superstitious and probably thinks were demons or spirits or something”

As the two further discussed they came to the consensus that Chief Jia must be the one behind the hunting squads. If they got to him then the squads would cease. 

Lucy didn’t care if they ceased or not to be honest, she was however getting tired of spears and arrows being chucked at her whenever she was minding her own business. Plus, as she just found out tonight they have silver weapons which could present a real threat to her and Sera.

As such Chief Jia was now scheduled to receive a visit from two pissed off vampires once the sun set.