The dam was guarded by New Federation soldiers—a complication that grated on Lu Qiu's nerves. Tripling human strength meant little when bullets still tore through flesh. He crouched in the forest's shadow, eyeing the Wenhan Dam: a hulking steel behemoth asleep in the dark, its flanks dotted with searchlights that swept the night like giant, glowing fingers. Patrols marched in rhythmic cadence, rifles shouldered, shadows stretching long against floodlit concrete.
Why station a garrison here? The world had become a powder keg since the Third War, tech advancing in fits of violent innovation: exoskeleton armor, plasma weaponry, prototypes of machines that vaguely resembled the "Gundams" from old anime—clunky, impractical, but symbolic of a civilization hurtling toward self-destruction. This dam, perched above a historically flood-prone river, held both the city's lifeline and, potentially, its death sentence. Blow it, and Wenhan would drown in a wall of water.
"Damned checkpoint." Lu Qiu gnawed his lip, studying patrol patterns. As a nightkind, he melted into darkness, but the electrified fence—three meters tall, crackling with 100,000 volts—was a literal and metaphorical barrier. No bat-form, no mist-teleportation; as a low-level vampire, his only perks were strength, speed, and an unholy tolerance for pain. Real bloodkind wielded magic, commanded shadows… but he was still just a fledgling, hunted and hungry.
Then the garrison gates creaked open.
Soldiers dragged a battered man into the light: broken nose, split lip, uniform torn to reveal a torso crisscrossed with (whip marks). A rotund sergeant in officer's stripes followed, boot connecting with the man's ribs. "Think I won't put a bullet in you? Your wife's thriving under my care. Come back, and you'll join the fish in the river."
The man collapsed, blood pooling on gravel, then staggered to his feet, face ashen. A local farmer, Lu Qiu guessed—no (female soldiers) in this garrison. The sergeant had likely taken his wife by force, using rank as a shield. Out here, justice bent to power; even the police turned a blind eye.
"Now that's despair." Lu Qiu tracked the man's stumble into the forest, posture hunched like a man carrying a coffin. An idea flickered—dark, delicious.
"System: What happens if I inject undiluted Blacklight Virus into a human?"
Warning: High-concentration exposure will rewrite biological structure. Result: Irreversible mutation. Aggression levels exponential.
"Does it grant power?"
Power… and madness. Subject becomes a vector of annihilation.
"Perfect." Lu Qiu smirked, exchanging his single Despair Point for a syringe. The vial's contents glowed like molten lava as he drew the liquid, eyes locked on the approaching man.
Perching on a branch, he let his voice drip with honeyed poison: "You… want revenge?"
Vampires were predators of the soul as much as the body. Their very presence whispered temptation, gnawing at fractured minds. The man froze, head snapping up, eyes wild with fear and—something else. Hope, twisted into a blade.
"Who… who's there?"
"Your wife stolen, your dignity trampled. And you'll let them get away with it?" Lu Qiu's words slithered into the man's mind, a serpent uncoiling. "You have nothing left but your life. Give it to me, and I'll give you the strength to rip them apart."
Images flashed: the sergeant's smug grin, his wife's vacant stare as she clung to the abuser. The man's fists clenched, nails biting blood from palms. Revenge wasn't a choice—it was a scream waiting to be unleashed.
"Give me… power."
Lu Qiu's pupils dilated, predator's thrill racing through dead veins. Yes, fall.
A silver flash—the syringe plunged into the man's neck, virus flooding his bloodstream like liquid fire. He convulsed, collapsing into leaves that hissed and blackened at his touch. Death was quick; rebirth, agonizing.
Bones cracked like gunfire. Skin rippled, splitting to reveal pulsating crimson muscle beneath. Fingers elongated, bones splitting to form meter-long claws of jagged bone. His torso swelled, spine warping into a hunched horror, tongue stretching into a corrosive whip that melted grass on contact. When he rose, he was no longer human—Huntsman, Lu Qiu decided, a fitting name for this abomination.
"RRRAAAGH!" The roar shook the forest, (shaking loose) snow from branches. The Huntsman dropped to all fours, claws tearing furrows in the earth, then launched itself toward the garrison like a living missile, concrete crumbling under its impact.
Lu Qiu trailed to the forest's edge, eyes closed, savoring the symphony of chaos: alarms wailing, bullets pinging off mutated flesh, screams curdling into gurgles as the Huntsman's claws tore through steel and sinew alike. When he opened his eyes, the dam's floodlights painted the scene in stark chiaroscuro—monster versus man, despair made manifest.
"Just the first step," he murmured, voice lost in the carnage. "The apocalypse doesn't knock, after all. It roars."
Somewhere in the distance, the Huntsman let out a final, triumphant howl—then silence, broken only by the distant rush of water from the dam. Lu Qiu smiled. The curtain had risen on the first act of the end.