My SuperVillain System: Building Legion of SSS-Ranked SuperHeroines
Chapter 123- The Battle’s Beginning

Chapter 123: Chapter 123- The Battle’s Beginning

...unamused.

"But you’re wrong, boy."

And that was the final word before the air cracked—truly cracked, like glass shattering under pressure—as the vampire launched forward again, no longer holding back.

His speed was absurd now. The kind that blurred vision and twisted the laws of motion. The floor beneath him dented, marble tiles exploding under the sheer force of his leap.

His fist was already halfway into Cruxius’s face before the latter even tilted his head to the side.

Boom!

The wall behind exploded into rubble, Cruxius crashing through it—sent hurtling like a cannonball, smashing through support beams, rolling through the splinters of plaster and steel, blood misting the air.

His arm twisted—shattered—and then, in an instant, reformed, the bones snapping back with sickening pops.

He stood up.

His shirt was torn. His jaw was cracked, hanging awkwardly, but even that slowly pushed back into place.

He wiped the blood off, spitting a thick red line across the ruined floor.

The vampire tilted his head, watching.

"Regeneration. Some awakened talent, I assume?" he muttered, stepping through the hole he’d created. His eyes scanned Cruxius’s stance again, narrowing thoughtfully. "That footwork... fluid, grounded... Silat? No... too refined. Maybe Ba Ji Quan...?"

Cruxius didn’t answer.

Instead, he rushed forward.

Fast.

Not vampire-fast, but too fast for a normal human—his body blurring just enough to disorient. The clash was brutal, bare-knuckle, bone-on-bone savagery.

Cruxius spun low, his leg sweeping under the vampire’s knee, and then came upward with a sharp elbow to the ribs. The vampire twisted—catching the blow—but his expression flickered.

He felt that.

He blocked, but the shock rattled through him.

And again.

And again.

Cruxius’s fists didn’t stop. Every hit was wild but calculated, each blow blending into a brutal symphony of Krav Maga, Muay Thai, and something ancient... something dirty, street-learned and perfected through near-death.

A fight born not from style, but from survival.

"You fight like a cornered animal," the vampire muttered between gritted teeth, catching Cruxius’s wrist mid-swing. "No elegance. No discipline."

"But it hurts, doesn’t it?" Cruxius grinned, blood still dripping from his brow. "That’s all that matters."

The vampire’s smile cracked wide. "Perhaps."

Then he ripped Cruxius’s arms off.

Both of them.

With one swift, brutal yank.

Cruxius gasped—chest heaving from pain, the tendons whipping and snapping like wet ropes—as blood gushed, spraying the wall behind him.

Mark Dunn—the vampire—chuckled, licking the blood off his hand with a sickening slurp.

"It doesn’t matter how many times you grow them back, little human. You’re just a chicken waiting to be slaughtered again and again." He leaned in closer, voice dark and breath like frost. "Let’s see when your ability finally fails you."

Then his hand shot forward—clean through Cruxius’s chest.

A red explosion of flesh and bone.

Fingers plunged deep into his torso, wrapping around his still-beating heart, clutching it.

Cruxius’s eyes widened—shock clear in his trembling pupils.

He had no time to react. The vampire leaned closer, lips brushing against his ear.

"Remember my name, boy."

The vampire’s voice dripped with power, regal and raw:

"Alath Remenol Dravik—Bloodline of Cirethein, of the Nightspire Throne. Scourge of the Fourth Eclipse. Slayer of White Suns. And your executioner."

And with that—

Cruxius’s heart was crushed.

His body went limp. His head slumped. His spine shattered from within.

Alath dropped him like trash—lifeless, broken, splattered across the cracked floor.

Silence.

Only the sound of blood dripping.

A beat passed.

Then two.

And then...

Cruxius moved.

No heart. No pulse.

But the torn flesh wriggled.

The bones reknit.

The lungs hissed back to breath.

His crushed chest rose... and fell.

He sat up, groaning—his expression twisting not in pain... but in mocking satisfaction.

"That was good," he rasped, voice raw, lips twitching into a crooked smirk. "But guess what?"

He rose to his feet again—arms regrown, chest healed, only a few blood trails marking the place he was seconds ago dead.

"You missed the reset window."

Alath’s eyes twitched—just slightly.

And that’s when Cruxius turned to the side.

"Kill him, Ytrisia."

"You—!?"

Before Alath could finish his growl of disbelief—

CRACKKK!

A sonic boom split the air. A purple blur surged in, cutting through the tension like a thunderclap. And in the instant between his shock and his turning, she arrived.

A woman crashed into him like a meteor.

Not metaphorically.

The impact literally flung the vampire’s body off his feet—his torso convulsing as a gut-punch of seismic force crashed into his ribs.

His feet barely scraped the ground before his body was airborne, a blur of black leather and crimson streaks, rocketing toward the far wall.

BOOOOM!

The entire corridor shuddered. Wall cracked. Cement cratered. Dust mushroomed. The vampire’s body embedded itself into the structure like a bullet into meat.

The stone behind him caved, the metal rods snapped, and blood sprayed in a splatter across the shattered floor.

He coughed. Hard.

"Kurggh! Cough!"

Red spurted from his mouth as he slumped forward—chest crushed, ribcage mangled. His eyes widened in disbelief, crimson pupils trembling.

Then he saw her.

Standing in front of the misted rubble.

Purple hair cascading in waves to her waist. Fierce violet eyes glowing beneath heavy lashes. A tight, seamless black latex bodysuit wrapped around every inch of her—shining, wet-looking under the emergency lights.

Her figure was a masterpiece of sin—hips wide and swaying, thighs tight and muscular, her chest heaving with breath, barely contained by the curve-hugging suit.

Every motion—every step she took—sent a ripple across her body. Jiggles. Bounces. A predator in the shape of temptation.

But what stood out more than beauty—was pressure.

Overwhelming kinetic energy radiated from her body like heat off a bomb.

"You hit like a tank..." the vampire muttered, pulling himself free from the crater, voice rasping. "No... not a tank."

"A train," she corrected, cracking her knuckles, voice smoky. "And you just took it head-on."

His eyes narrowed. "You..."

"Ytrisia," Cruxius called casually from behind, brushing blood off his shoulder. "Took you long enough."

Ytrisia tilted her head slightly, looking at him as she blinked, recalling how it was him who told her to arrive here slightly late, "But you told me to come here late?"

"...." Cruxius, seeing how he shouldn’t have said it to her like that, just sighed, shaking his head as he turned towards the vampire, finding him much more sensible to his words than Ytrisia.

"Haah!" The vampire growled.

"You... filthy humans think a little trickery and brute strength will—"

She didn’t let him finish.

Ytrisia moved.

Another burst—BOOM!—the air cracked again as her fist drove forward, a palm strike this time, but no less devastating. The vampire raised his arms to block—bad call.

CRASH!

The sheer velocity of her blow launched him again, this time through the next wall—his body disappearing into the concrete like a ragdoll tossed by a cannon.

Screams from the floors beneath echoed as debris and stone rained down.

Ytrisia exhaled, purple eyes focused like daggers. But as she took a step forward to finish it—

A chill ran through the air.

The wall rippled where the vampire had vanished. And from it—he emerged. Hair disheveled. Suit torn. Blood dribbling from his mouth.

But smiling.

"You think you’re strong..." he whispered. "But let’s see how your mind holds up."

His hand rose.

And with a cruel grin, he whispered—

"Just die."

A pulse.

A shriek of invisible pressure launched through the hallway, screaming like a banshee, crashing straight into her.

Except...

Nothing happened.

Not a twitch.

Not a blink.

Ytrisia stared at him, expression flat before turning toward Cruxius, observing him, then back at the vampire, blinking as she was clearly surprised.

Surprise not because of the vampire again standing after so much attack. Instead, because Cruxius, before arriving here, had already told her how there could be a mind attack involved, so she needed protection.

And that protection is what made her more surprised.

The vampire blinked. Then again.

"What?"

A snort came from the side. Cruxius couldn’t hold it in.

"Pfft—" He laughed.

The vampire turned slowly, eyes gleaming. "What?"

Cruxius pointed lazily at Ytrisia’s neck.

"Can’t you see what she’s wearing?"

The vampire’s gaze dropped, narrowing.

And then he saw it.

A locket.

Small, silver, elegant—clasped around her throat like a collar. Within it, through the clear casing—swirled a small vial of dark red liquid.

Blood.

Not just any blood.

His.

The vampire’s face twisted.

"You... You gave her your blood!?"

Cruxius shrugged. "What, you thought I’d send her in blind? "

"H-how?" Alath’s face contorted in rage and sudden panic, given he had expected that, since the abandonment of this young man, he would be unaware of the true property and the strength his blood held, but seeing such a use of it made him realize how dangerous this man was and the potential danger he held.

"Damn you!" He let out a scream—lunging forward again in a wild, reckless blur—but Ytrisia was already moving.

They clashed.

Fist against claw. Shockwaves blasted the hallway apart.

And as the battle between vampire and woman exploded into chaos behind, Cruxius turned.

Unbothered. Bloody. Smiling.

He walked forward, past the shuddering walls, leaving the fight to echo in the distance. Through the next doorway. Into the ruined hallway of the upper office levels.

His boots crunched glass.

Smoke trailed behind him.

He muttered under his breath:

’Who might have been injured....’

Cruxius was thinking that the marks of blood on the vampire’s cloth were good enough to indicate that at least someone had been injured there. As he moved, he finally arrived outside his room. When he did, his eyes widened, and he halted.

He saw the grim sight of death.