Chapter 373: A Whole New World
A lone hover car zoomed down a deserted road, breaking the speed limit of this particular road.
On both sides of the road, stretching into the horizon was a wasteland of dirt and nothing else. Six months ago, it had been a lush, giant forest but that was before the world changed.
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With the new changes came anarchy and with that anarchy came a new way of life.
He sighed as he drove, his attention fixed on the road. In the passenger's seat was Red and in the back seat was Olivia. Both were asleep, Red having driven all through the day and with Olivia being pregnant, she had been experiencing frequent loss of energy.
His only companion was the car's radio which kept reporting bad news after bad news. A tsunami wiping out an island. The wave of humans with powers committing crimes and the waves of humans with powers committed to stopping them.
A lot of countries were in a state of martial law with the military walking the streets with weapons out and a curfew imposed on the people.
Luckily, the Republic was handling the changes well. Mostly because it was the home of vampires and vampires do not take kindly to others showing force in areas where they rule.
By killing Nicodemus' he had irreversibly changed the world. And the worst part? The Vampire Society had caught on.
They'd somehow traced the changes to Faewall and after receiving Anya's statement, deemed him the culprit. They had come to him, saddling him with the murder of their Attendant, Michelangelo, and their City Lord, James Harlow.
Just when they thought they had him, he had escaped and taken his wives with him. Now, it's twenty years since he left First City and six months since he left Faewall, and here he was, a fugitive.
With the forces of the Vampire Society chasing after him, he had only one destination.
The Monarchy.
It was time for him to join his fellow princes and take his place in the court of Nightmares. Just as things should be.
He sighed, keeping his Aura on the road. Red had told him that there was no moon out tonight and he took advantage of this by going as fast as he could.
If the moon had been here, it would have been the same silver orb that it always was. It hadn't changed. But the sky has. Up above was a sky that instead of being a dark blue, was a deep, deep, red.
It was as if someone had taken a brush and painted the sky to look like a rug that had blood splashed over it.
Due to all the changes in the world, there had been different conspiracy theories and cults crying out that the world was coming to an end.
Ezra didn't care. All he wanted was safety for his wives and his coming child.
The child was also one of the reasons the Vampire Society was after them. They wanted to know just as Ezra did, how a vampire had been able to get pregnant.
Ezra couldn't attribute it to the changed world because he'd noticed the baby's thread before the world had changed. This left only one option.
This was because he was an Eternal. There was no other explanation.
He sighed, his hand coming up to brush his blindfold. Ever since he'd burnt his eyes out by looking at things he had no business viewing, the eyes had been taking its sweet time regenerating.
In the past six months, his eyes had grown back. All that was left was his actual vision. It was slowly coming back but Ezra didn't know when it'll be back.
His regeneration worked properly but his eyes? They were different.
Over the months, he'd been able to use his Aura to feel the world around him but even that wasn't easy.
Due to the rewriting of the laws of this reality, vitality was everywhere. The amount of vitality present in the very air had skyrocketed and it had affected not just physics but also the life expectancy of humans. Normal humans were now expected to be able to live up to one hundred and fifty years. And the humans who had awakened powers? Some say they could be immortal.
As for Ezra, he didn't care. Because the change in vitality present in the air had removed the one ability he needed the most. The fourth ringed ability, teleportation, was no longer possible. Due to the thickness of the vitality, vampires could no longer tear holes within reality and move from one place to the other.
And that was why he was here, forced to drive a car in order to take his family to safety. There was one advantage to all this though. With his eyes out of commission and the vitality making vampire abilities harder to work, he had what he was confident was the biggest Aura one would currently be able to find.
Others would rather save their vitality by not using Aura but with his soul creating vitality like child's play, he was able to see in a mile's radius around him. Though he couldn't keep it up for too long at a time.
He expanded the radius of his Aura and that was when he noticed them.
Two vampires, zooming towards him in a sports car that was moving much faster than it had any right to. They had to be using a tattoo of some kind to achieve this.
By his estimate, they would be on them within minutes. Which left him with only one option.
He sighed.
"Red." He said and the woman jolted awake.
"What?" She asked him, instantly alert. She knew he wouldn't wake them up.
"Two pursuers." He said as he pressed the brakes and the car slowed to a stop. "Take the wheel. I'll stop them."
"Are you sure?" Red asked.
"Yes." He said as he opened the door and got out. "Go." He glanced at the sleeping Olivia in the backseat. "If I don't show up at the checkpoint in 12 hours, go on without me."
"Alright." Red said with a sigh. This wasn't the first time this would happen.
"See you." Ezra said and closed the door. He turned to face the direction the car would be coming from as Red got into the driver's seat and drove off.
Calling up vitality from the ocean resting inside of him, he raised both hands up and dark mist began pouring off him in large quantities to form a giant wall that stretched from horizon to horizon, blocking the way.
Then, he took three steps forward and stood there with his arms crossed.
Time to wait and greet his guests.