Ashton was surprised he actually landed a hit on the Bloodsucker. But the happiness was short-lived. He had put his all into that punch and it seemed like the new gene combination helped him a lot.

All that considered, Ashton committed the biggest mistake. He was going in to punch through Jacob’s chest and rip his heart out, which was supposedly the only way apart from decapitation and fire to kill a vampire.

“If you are outnumbered and outmatched always go for a vampire’s heart first.” Ashton recalled the Mistress telling him, “That should kill the Vampire if the attack would be strong enough to burst its heart open. If not well, then you would have revealed your only card and now they will be more careful around you. Making your chances been less than they already were.”

She continued, “In other words… you’ll be doomed. Also, this trick would not work on high ranking vampires because they have the ability to alter their bodies according to the need and most of them always place their hearts in weird places within their bodies. I once fought one who had kept his heart in his ass… talk about being weird.”

‘Looks like I’m doomed now…’ Ashton thought to himself as he realised where he had hit the punch.

The stomach was definitely not the part he was aiming for. But in his haste, he completely messed it up. Jacob was still in horrible pain though Ashton wasn’t sure why. After all, the vampires were known to be a species that feel very less… pain.

One could even rip their hands off and they would laugh it off, at least that’s what the mistress told him. But Jacob had been behaving oddly. It was the same case when Ashton scratched his thigh. Back then Ashton had gotten lucky, but now he knew there was no such thing as luck.

His attacks were clearly doing something to Jacob that he didn’t even know. However, not wanting to put himself in unnecessary danger, Ashton took his fist covered in black blood out of Jacob’s stomach and jumped back to safety.

In the meantime, Jacob fell down to his knees. His short swords lying on the floor, while he had wrapped his hands around his open stomach. Mera rushed over to him, trying to comfort and heal him, but it was all in vain.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Mera cursed under her breath as she kept trying to help Jacob, but couldn’t.

Soon Jacob’s black blood started coming out of facial openings, his eyes, his mouth, his nose., everywhere. By this time, both the bloodsuckers were aware of what was happening… much to their dismay, the ‘Coffin’ had been triggered. Making it impossible for Jacob to get healed no matter what Mera tried.

“… why are you… unaffected…?” Jacob mumbled, “We are bonded… then why…”

Mera was stunned into silence. She was so distressed about Jacob, that she completely forgot about what would happen if one of them dies… the other would have suffered the same fate, But Jacob was dying and Mera, well, she was unaffected by it. At least physically.

“I… I’m sorry, Jacob…”

Mera was wracked up with shame. So much so, that she couldn’t even look at the man who had dedicated his life fighting alongside her. The one man who had loved her more than anyone else… was the one she had cheated on from the beginning.

She had never bonded with him. She was only using the poor man for her own selfish desires. She wanted a pet who would gladly sacrifice himself in the face of danger and when he was dead she would look for another prey to fool.

After all, she had been doing this for ages. However, she did not realise when or how, but she actually started caring about Jacob as time passed. He was slowly becoming the one she had been looking for, for ages.

She had even planned on really making him his mate after this hunt, but things took a turn for the worse and now… it was all over. Vampires couldn’t cry… well, they could cry but no tears ever came out of their eyes. If they could, then Mera’s face would have been drenched in tears.

“What a way… to go out… don’t you think?” Surprisingly Jacob did not show any signs of anger or rage after being betrayed in such a horrifying way, “Next time… bond with someone… before fooling them into thinking… that you have…”

“No, you’re the only mate I ever wanted-”

However, Jacob was no longer listening to her, instead, he told her something she needed to hear more.

“That kid… is not an ordinary being…” He mumbled with his last breaths, “His fists have the blood of the undead within them… when he punched me… my skin broke his, allowing the blood to enter… my body which triggered… the coffin…”

While the two of them were busy sorting their mess out in Jacob’s last moments, Ashton decided to capitalise on the moment. He slowly crept up to them and took Jacob’s short swords for himself.

Before any of them could realise what Ashton was doing, the latter rushed behind Mera and stabbed her in the heart with the short swords. This time he had killed them for sure… because the system told him so.. Finally, the hunt had come to an end and it was time to reap the rewards.