Chapter 435:The Underground Strike II
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Raka heard that clearly even through the blood pounding in his ears.
His shoulder was open. His side felt like someone had hammered a heated bar of iron through it. The stone floor under one knee was wet, and he did not need to look down to know some of that wetness was his own blood. Around him, the underground chamber had turned into a butchered mess of bodies, broken crates, fallen lamps, and men trying not to die in front of strangers stronger than them.
Still, he was not dead.
That mattered.
The communication stone had answered. The message had gone through. That mattered more.
The woman came at him with the kind of speed that separated serious fighters from loud ones. Her first step was light. Her second carried all the killing weight. She meant to open his throat before he could rise enough to defend himself properly.
Then the stone at the edge of the floor flashed red.
A voice came through it. Calm. Cold. Not loud. Sekhmet did not need loudness.
"Raka."
That single word changed the room inside Raka’s head more than any medicine could have.
Raka bared his teeth, pushed himself up harder, and answered through blood and pain. "Young master."
Sekhmet’s voice came again through the communication stone. "Use your powers."
The woman’s eyes shifted toward the stone for half a breath.
That was all the time Raka needed.
He threw himself sideways, avoided the killing line by less than an inch, and roared into the tunnels, "Use it. All of you. No more hiding."
Then he moved his blood.
Not elegantly. Not like a noble blood mage painting patterns in the air for applause. He was no artist. He was a gutter knife given blood and permission. The blood running down his shoulder and side rose in shaking red threads, then hardened into short narrow spikes around his hand and forearm. His fingernails lengthened at the same time. His teeth sharpened. The hunger in him rose with brutal simplicity.
It was not beautiful. But useful.
That was enough.
The nearest surviving men of his line reacted instantly.
They were not all equal. Most of them were lesser vampires, low-rank creatures who had hidden themselves in human shape long enough to move through the underground without starting panic too early. But now that was over. Their bodies changed fast and uglily. Nails turned to claws. Canines lengthened into fangs. Eyes took on that wrong shine that always made mortals think of dark places and funerals. They came out from shadowed halls, side alleys, storage breaks, and tunnel mouths with snarls in their throats and blood hunger stripped of all pretense.
More of them than the woman had expected.
Much more.
The dark-clothed man saw it too late.
He had cut through what he thought was the fighting strength in the chamber already. That had been his mistake. He had not been fighting the full body of Raka’s force. He had been fighting the visible part.
Now the rest came.
From three side tunnels.
From the ledges above.
From the lower market chambers behind the wall slits.
They flooded in so quickly the chamber seemed to fill with movement all at once. Lesser vampires hit first in packs. Not refined. Not disciplined the way house soldiers wanted. But underground predators did not need beauty. They needed numbers, claws, and enough courage to die while biting.
The woman cut down the first one in a single strike.
The second still reached her.
He lost half his face to her elbow, but his claws tore her sleeve and drew blood along her upper arm before he died.
The third hit low.
The fourth hit from behind.
Then the fifth came down from the ledge above with fangs first and no concern for the cost.
The dark-clothed man had the same problem at the other side of the chamber. He killed fast enough to shame most trained fighters. One slash opened a throat. One kick shattered a knee. One narrow blade drove through an eye. But the lesser vampires did not stop because three of them died. Or five. Or eight. They kept coming. Claws. Fangs. Bad angles. Worse screams. Tunnel ferocity. One bit into his shoulder and died when he broke the creature’s neck. Another lost an arm and still tried to reach his throat with the remaining hand.
Raka rose fully then.
His side screamed at him.
He ignored it.
Two of his stronger subordinates had already changed too. They were not mere lesser creatures. Rank Three bloodline men. Crude by higher standards, but enough to use basic blood control in a real fight. One pulled blood from his own forearm and shaped it into a snapping red whip that lashed around the dark-clothed man’s ankle for half a second. That half second was enough for three lesser vampires to reach him at once. Another hardened his own blood over both hands like jagged gloves and tore through the woman’s defense line with brute force from the side.
Now it was ninety against two.
Not ninety clean, healthy, noble warriors.
Ninety underground predators, corner-rats, lesser vampires, gutter blades, and blood-crazed subordinates all crashing toward the same center.
For the first time since the attack began, the balance changed.
The woman stepped back.
Only one step.
Still, she stepped back.
Raka saw it and laughed through blood.
The dark-clothed man cut down another attacker, spun, and took a claw line across the ribs from a lesser vampire that should never have reached him if the fight had remained clean. It was no deep wound, but it was a wound. That mattered. The chamber was too crowded now. Too narrow. Too full of dead weight and living madness. Precision became more expensive with every passing second.
Raka lunged for the woman again.
This time he did not try to match her cleanly. He attacked with blood spikes from the front while one of his stronger men sent a crude red lash toward her knee and two lesser vampires came in from both sides with claws reaching for flesh instead of pride.