Beyond the Bloodline

[This place's about to]

“Tonight, we're takin' over,

No one's getting out! 🎵”

“[This place about to blow, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh]”

“Well, something’s certainly about to blow.”

“…Huh?”

David let out a dumbfounded voice upon hearing Jamie’s sudden words, while his twin sister and Jorin who were in the room reflexively flinched as they hadn’t even noticed the Hybrid walk in.

The man looked over the Karaoke machine in front of David and traced the wires to the microphone in the boy’s hands with a hint of curiosity in his eyes.

“Um…Lord Jamie. You said something’s about to ‘blow’?”

If it was any other person who said this, then Davina would have believed they were referring to the result of her brother’s horrible singing, but when it came to Jamie, she had a feeling he was talking about something completely different.

“Hmm? Yeah.

Something’s about to blow up. Estimating the distance…”

The man placed a hand on his chin with a pensive look on his face as imperceptible waves of energy radiated from his body.

“…about 300 kilometres out.”

Just as the three vampires were confused as to why he was telling them about something they might as well not be able to do anything about, he continued speaking.

“You should be able to feel it in less than a minute.

And given how fast you guys transmit information around these days, you should be seeing it on your news channels shortly after.”

The man completed his statement before walking over to the Karaoke machine and asking David to explain how it works.

He wasn’t even done speaking when the ambient magic power in the surroundings suddenly began to tremble.

At first, it was a soft, barely perceptible vibration, like a distant drumbeat reverberating through the area.

But with each passing second, it grew in intensity and the Vampire trio finally understood what Jamie was talking about.

“Wait, this feels like a-!”

*THRUM!

Davina’s words were cut short as a wave of magic power cascaded over them, leaving a strange tingling sensation in their bodies.

The wave washed over the entire city of Swuyle, causing collective gasps of surprise to echo all around, as anyone who was sufficiently powerful and experienced instantly figured out what had just happened.

“A Magic power explosion…”

“No, David. This is just like ‘that time’. It’s a Dungeon Break, no doubt about it.”

Hearing the girl’s conclusion, Jamie clapped his hands twice and gave her a thumbs up to signify she was correct, before starting the song on the Karaoke machine.

Indeed, what they had just felt were the magical waves released by the explosion of a dungeon break, a situation where the glorified monster traps, a.k.a. dungeons, break down due to excessive energy concentration, most often caused by overcrowding of monsters within them.

In such a situation, the dungeon explodes and all the monsters trapped within are released into the world, and naturally, they’d all be very obviously pissed at having been locked in the dungeons for heaven knows how long.

Basically, all the sentient living beings in the area around the exploding dungeon might as well be fucked.

“[You don't wanna beg for your life, put your neck on the line 'cause you know you can't do it like this.] 🎵”

Jamie finished his first Karaoke session with a satisfied smile on his face, before pulling out his phone and searching for the song that the machine had just randomly picked for him.

“I’ve gotten a bit bored after watching movies for the past 2 days so Imma go over when I’m done searching for this song.”

His words drew the attention of Wanete who just walked into the room with a news stream playing on her tab, talking about the dungeon break that just happened in the next city over, Clurg.

But before the girl had any chance to even comment about it, Jamie continued.

“You all are coming too.

I recall Nelo saying something about you guys taking the time you were supposed to be using to get stronger to come over and wake me up from my slumber.

Then you can make up for that lost time with this, there’s bound to be tons of non-sentient monsters in a dungeon break like this; plenty of experience for you guys.”

“But, Lord Jamie.

The fact that we could sense the magic power waves in the next city over, means that the monsters there are bound to be more powerful than anything we can handle.

My guess, at least Epic Realm.”

“You’re not wrong. But who said you were gonna fight against Epic Realms? I want you guys to get stronger, not die.”

He tapped the download button on his phone before locking the screen and placing it in his pocket as he continued.

“If anything happened to you guys, Evangelista would be on my neck, literally. I don’t want to deal with her stress.”

The two ‘Evangelistas’ in the room, David and Davina, turned towards Jamie with questioning gazes when they heard his words, but it didn’t take them long to figure out he was probably referring to an ancestor of theirs.

Their great-grandmother, to be specific.

Anyway, Wanete was against them going into a battlefield where there were potentially hundreds of Epic Realm monsters out for blood, but Jamie countered her by citing the other S Rank adventurers (Grandmasters) like them who were flocking towards the battlefield.

“They don’t have two heads now, do they?

Besides, you would not always get the chance to choose your battlefields in life.”

Pointing out the window and at the star that was sinking below the horizon, Jamie added.

“You’d also not be weakened too much since the sun’s going down.”

Jamie gazed down at the floor, tracing his gaze for the life sign in the room below and locking onto it, before snapping his finger and teleporting the last member of the Vampire Quintet over.

“Wha?!”

Suddenly finding himself in a different room from the one where he was just about to open up his blood bags, Nelo reflexively roused his energy and conjured a wind blade.

“Good reaction. Now get yourself ready, we’re going to the next city to fight the monsters from the dungeon break there.

Worry not, I’d protect you all to the best of my ability.”

The Hybrid then snapped his fingers and sent the Vampire boy back to his room before he could even object.

“You guys too. Hurry up before all the weaker monsters die, there are quite a few Legendries heading over there as we speak, they might wipe out all the grandmaster realms.”

Seeing that they were being provided with an opportunity to gain hands-on combat experience AND increase their levels, the eighteen-year-olds did not hesitate to take it, except for Wanete who was still scared about the possibility of getting caught in a powerful monster’s stray attack—a perfectly reasonable concern.

Even though the sun was down and they were able to access more of their full power, that didn’t make her any less concerned.

Part of her worries were relieved when Jamie said he’d protect them, but the girl was still worried, both for her sake and that of her friends.

It did not take them long to switch their regular clothes for more battle-suited attires, after which Jamie wrapped their bodies with his energy and teleported to the Hotel’s roof.

“Now then…You guys should brace yourselves.”

The Hybrid spoke as he enclosed them within a cube-shaped spatial construct, locking his gaze in the direction of Clurg and taking a deep breath.

‘Let’s see what my top speed right now is…’

With that thought, Jamie took a deep breath, before jumping up into the air. He easily reached a height of 100m from the hotel roof, before creating another small circular platform of aura to serve as a foothold.

‘Instant Acceleration.’

The spell activated and he crouched low and inclined the platform, kicking off it with all his strength in the next moment.

**BOOMM!!!

The Hybrid’s body was propelled forward with so much speed that the world around him seemed to warp and compress, colours blending into a blur of motion.

In an instant, his velocity reached the sonic threshold, prompting a compression shockwave to erupt from his presence, reverberating omnidirectionally.

And in the next instant, he was already long gone from the area, streaking through the sky as a flash of bluish-white light that left the sound of his movements behind.

He generated other platforms which he used as boosts to maintain his speed, the kind where a kilometre of distance was blitzed in less than a second.

Approximately four minutes later, the Hybrid arrived at the city gates of Clurg.