Chapter 643: Physically and metaphorically sealed

"Caius!" Athenodora yelled almost reflexively as her spawn bowed over, his arms limp at his sides.

Philip’s clawed hand not only went right through Caius with ease, but the shockwave of the attack wrecked Caius’s upper body, rupturing his organs and shattering his entire upper-body skeletal frame. But really, all that was basically pointless as without a heart in his body, he was effectively dead even before the fracturing and organ ruptures.

As Caius’s blood splattered all over his face, Philip grinned with a mad satisfaction. Considering how much weaker than him Caius was, it had taken far too long to get to this point.

Philip pulled back his hand, holding Caius’s heart in his tight grip and he smiled like he truly believed he could retrieve the Blood Matrix from it. And then a hand grabbed his wrist before he could pull away too far.

The hand belonged to Caius.

The skin of Caius’s hand was chalk-white—the pallor of death. The color spread to the rest of his body. It would probably have been an instantaneous-looking change to anyone who didn’t have reflexes as fast as Philip’s. And even to Philip, the change in Caius’s complexion was fast.

What puzzled Philip most, though, was how tight Caius’s grip was around his wrist. Philip could still break the grip and free himself but the fact that Caius could grip at all, or even move, was what boggled his mind the most.

Who ever heard of a person moving without their heart?

Philip looked into Caius’s chalk-white face and saw his eyes were open. His sclera was grey-black, and his pupils glowed the brightest red Philip had ever seen. It almost hurt to stare into those pupils directly due to how bright they were.

Caius let out a breath that was so cold, one would have thought the entire dimension had turned freezing.

"That... was unpleasant," Caius said slowly, "You could have killed me."

"I did kill you," Philip said.

"Well, apparently not," Caius said and then glanced at Philip’s hand, almost confused, and then he looked at the gaping hole in his chest, as confusion became slight horror,

"Fuck, is that my heart?"

"How do you not know you’re missing a heart?" Philip asked.

Caius blinked.

"It’s all very... hazy," Caius said and then flexed his grip around Philip’s wrist.

"Let go!" Philip growled and made to pull Caius’s hand off his wrist.

"No," Caius said, "And you stay still."

Instantly, Philip stopped moving. Veins appeared on his neck and arms as he tried to force his muscles to obey but they remained rigid. The longer they were rigid, the wider Philip’s eyes got.

"Wait, you obeyed me," Caius said in surprise and then let out a laugh.

"How are you...?" Philip started to say.

"The Blood Matrix, obviously," Caius said in a low musing, amazed tone, "Incredible, isn’t it?

And to think it was supposed to be destroyed."

The dimension trembled again. The platform wobbled, threatening to send them all sliding into the nothingness beneath it.

"What’s happening?" Athenodora asked Conscience as she threw out her arms and tried to ground herself and not slide off the platform.

Conscience didn’t answer her. He was down on his knees, wearing a dumbfounded expression.

"The dimension’s existence is tied to the Blood. Once the Blood is destroyed, the dimension falls apart," Caius explained instead.

"But you didn’t destroy the Blood," Athenodora pointed out.

Caius shrugged.

"Integrating the Blood must still count as destroying it," he said.

That was a guess. The Blood had never been integrated in the original canon so Caius couldn’t know for sure. Just as he had no real idea what the Blood is actually capable of. There were clues and hints in the original canon but the fact that the Blood could keep him alive even after he lost his heart was a welcome surprise.

Caius had known Philip would attack him once the protection of the Orb was gone. He would have been a fool not to expect it. He had just banked on the hope that an artifact like the Blood Matrix would have some contingencies that could help him. He was glad to be right.

Even then, he had still taken measures to ensure Philip would not have help. At least, not from Conscience who, once the Orb’s protection was gone, would be capable of acting as it saw fit once again. At least until the Dimension ceases to exist.

Caius stopped this by making Conscience an emotional wreck. All that talk earlier that made Conscience doubt the wisdom of Viktor trying to destroy the blood was just to make Conscience, and by extension, the dimension, a lot more useless.

"What in hell—?" Philip let out with a bit of effort.

Still unable to move, Philip watched as Caius’s heart in his grip began to flake away into red dust that melted into nothing.

"Well, how about that," Caius said. He could feel things knitting back together within his body.

Ruptured organs were getting healed, shattered bones were getting fixed. And—if he wasn’t mistaken—Caius could feel that where bone pieces were missing, new ones grew to replace them.

He was regenerating from the most recent injuries to the earlier ones. If it kept on like it was going, Caius’s heart and the missing part of his chest would be regenerated last.

Caius let out a little laugh of wonder but then he saw his chalk-white skin returning to normal. He couldn’t see it but his sclera was lightening up as well while the red glow of his pupils was becoming duller.

The strength of his order which bound Philip was also beginning to slip. But right before it went away, Caius got an idea.

"Listen to me, Philip," he said and knew, despite the hate in Philip’s eyes, that he had the vampire’s absolute attention,

"You will speak of this to no one. What you’ve witnessed, what you experienced within this dimension, and what I am now doing to you, no one will learn of it from you.

You cannot hint at it. Your memories of it will be inaccessible to anyone. Your lips, physically and metaphorically will be sealed."

Philip felt the order take hold of him. His creator’s orders, the Noble Emissary designation he carried, all tried to fight where Caius’s order contradicted them but it was useless.

"Oh, and the next time we meet, you’re to fall to my feet and grovel," Caius added just for an extra bit of sadism.

"Me? Grovel?" Philip said with distaste.

"Yes, you," Caius said, "Grovel."

And then Caius released Philip’s wrist and stumbled back a few steps, looking down at his chest. The Hole was being closed and within, Caius’s heart had reformed along with the part of his back that Philip had broken through.

He was whole again.

His eyes were back to normal vampire red and from there, back to his normal human purple as he felt a wave of fatigue overcome him. At the same time, the dimension trembled again, sending Caius sliding off the edge before he could ground himself.

A blood chain wrapped around Caius’s wrist before he was completely off the platform and Athenodora yanked him over so he could lean against her.

"You saved me?" Caius asked with a little tired laugh.

"For how much you’ve annoyed me today, disappearing into nothingness is far too easy a death," Athenodora said.

"I probably would have survived it," Caius said.

"Exactly why I couldn’t allow it. When I kill you for what you’ve done, it’ll be for good," Athenodora said with a scoff.

"Right," Caius rolled his eyes.

"Now, since you know so much about this place, how are we getting out?" Athenodora asked.

"You know, I never quite planned for that," Caius said, a bit less tired now but still leaning against Athenodora.

"What?!"

"Well, there is a way out. But it appears after the Blood is destroyed. If Viktor ever considered someone could claim the Blood rather than destroy it—"

"He may have put in measures to trap them for all eternity," Athenodora completed for him in a solemn tone.

"Yes," Caius said.

"And you still didn’t devise an effective exit strategy?" Athenodora said angrily as another tremor caused her and Caius to fall onto the platform.

"An exit strategy would require a dimension-rending ability of some kind. There isn’t any. I hoped either Viktor didn’t expect anyone to get the Blood. Or..."

"Or what?" Athenodora prompted after Caius went quiet.

"Or the Blood would offer a way," Caius said with a sigh.

"And does it?" Athenodora asked.

"Not as far as I can tell," Caius said and then grinned as he pointed, "But look. It appears Viktor’s lack of foresight remains a gift that keeps on giving."

A Gateway had appeared in midair.

Philip reacted faster than Athenodora. After just failing an important mission for his Lord and being made to never speak of why he failed, he shouldn’t have been so eager to return home. Alas, the idea of staying any longer in the crumbling dimension seemed worse.

Philip rose and flew into Gateway.

The dimension was beginning to flake away. Conscience raised his head and Caius saw a tear drop down the corner of his eye as he shimmered one last time and ceased to exist.

"Let’s go," Athenodora said and together, she and Caius stood up.

Before they could leave, however, five people appeared. They were all dressed in black suits along with sunglasses over their eyes.

"Caius Von Helsing," one of them said authoritatively,

"You’re coming with us."