Chapter 323: Breaking of Crimson Womb III
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Lily stared at him in open disbelief. "Do I really have Angel blood?"
"Yes."
Her mouth opened and then closed again. She wanted to say something but chose not to. She will discuss it later with Sekhmet.
Auri was looking at Lily now with a new kind of awe. Not just because she looked changed, but because the hidden shape of her bloodline had turned from a noble mystery into something much more frightening and much harder to measure.
Vera’s eyes shifted once toward Vela. The twins were saying nothing, but both had understood enough to realize Lily now stood above the ordinary ladder of true vampire bloodlines. Not an enemy. Not yet a ruler over them either. But something clearly rarer.
Lily looked back down at herself.
"Then what am I now?"
Sekhmet answered that one directly.
"A hybrid true vampire."
The system had given the word. He chose to use it.
"A Cruoraphim."
The name settled over the Void Land in a strange quiet.
Lily repeated it softly. "Cruoraphim."
She said it as if tasting whether it belonged to her or to a stranger wearing her face.
Sofia finally spoke again from the rear, unable or unwilling to keep quiet through a bloodline naming.
"A rare thing," she said.
Natasha’s mouth twisted. "Very rare."
Lily glanced toward them, only now fully seeing the sealed pair in the distance.
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
Some instincts were already sharpening in useful ways.
But her attention returned to herself quickly after that.
She touched the red-black armor at her chest, then her shoulder, then one arm. It moved under her fingers like hardened silk and living metal at once. "This is part of me."
"Yes," Sekhmet said.
She lifted one hand and watched the line of dark crimson light move subtly beneath the surface. Then she looked at him again, more shaken now that the first relief had passed. "Will I look like this all the time?"
He had the answer because the system had already given it.
After her emergence, while the others were staring and speaking, the system had quietly informed him of the practical details.
[Ding! SYSTEM Notification: Cruoraphim form stabilized.
Target Lily may shift between default human form and active bloodline form.
Bloodline form engages naturally during power use, blood awakening, combat activation, or voluntary transformation.]
Useful.
Very useful.
Also the kind of thing Lily needed to hear before panic rooted too deeply.
Sekhmet said, "No."
That caught her full attention immediately.
"You can change form."
Lily stared. "What!!!"
He kept his voice calm. "You can return to your normal human appearance. This form comes out when your bloodline is active, or when you choose to use it."
Her eyes widened.
Auri looked equally surprised.
Even Vera and Vela reacted to that. The twins, for all their composure, had not had that luxury. Their own bloodline changes were not hidden beneath human beauty at will. Lily’s path was different.
Lily said, almost too fast, "How do you know that?"
Sekhmet chose the answer carefully.
"It feels like instinct," he said. "Not ordinary vampire instinct. Yours is different. Try it."
That was true enough to pass.
Not the system truth.
But close enough to how the knowledge sat in him.
Lily looked uncertain for the first time since stepping free of the womb.
"What if I cannot?"
"Then you learn it."
That steadied her.
He stepped closer, enough that if she reached for him, she would not find distance. "Close your eyes. Feel your blood. Not the panic. Not the surface. The deeper thing."
Lily obeyed.
The red in her eyes dimmed behind lowered lids. Her breathing slowed. Her hands unclenched by degrees.
"Imagine the form you had before," he said quietly. "Not weaker. Just hidden."
The blood armor over her body pulsed once.
Auri actually leaned in without meaning to.
Nothing happened.
Then Lily opened one eye halfway and said, "That sounds less like an instruction and more like poetry."
Bat Bat would have loved that line.
Sekhmet almost smiled.
"Try again."
Lily huffed softly, closed her eyes once more, and this time focused harder. The red-black armor flickered. The wing-like aura lines at her back —faint until now, not fully formed wings but blood-radiance suggestive of them— tightened inward. The crimson lines along her arms dimmed.
Then all at once, the active form folded.
Not vanished violently. But receded.
Blood light drew inward beneath the skin. Armor dissolved into red traces and then into nothing visible at all. Her hair remained dark. Her eyes shifted. The layered crimson glow thinned until they looked nearly normal again. A touch more vivid than before perhaps, but within the shape of a mortal noble girl.
And there stood Lily.
Not armored.
Not glowing.
In the same simple dress she had worn before the transformation.
For one second she simply stared at her own hands in stunned silence.
Then she looked up at Sekhmet with actual wonder. "I did it."
Good.
He liked the sound of that much more than panic.
Auri let out the breath she had been holding. "You look like yourself."
Lily looked at her and smiled faintly. "That is good."
Then, because reality always corrected wonder quickly, she added, "I think."
Sekhmet said, "Now change back."
Her eyes snapped to him. "Immediately."
"Yes."
Lily looked personally offended by that. "What if I wanted to enjoy one success before the next demand."
"You will enjoy it more later."
That answer did something to her face.
Auri looked down very quickly at the ground. Vera and Vela both pretended they had become deeply interested in the shape of the horizon. Even Sofia’s mouth moved faintly at the edge.
Lily cleared her throat and focused again.
This time the shift happened faster.
The dress dissolved upward in thin red veins of light. The blood armor returned over her body in a smooth rush, growing out from the center of her chest and ribs before flowing over shoulders, waist, hips, thighs, and arms.