Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride-Chapter 355: Fighting Oneself

Nikolai narrowed his gaze at the opposite figure shimmering into existence. "So this floor's the psychological type..."

He watched silently, waiting for the enemy to make a move. A shape stepped forward from the mist. The same build and coat, just a different colour... ice-blue eyes, in place of his crimson red... jet black hair instead of silver. The figure wasn't just a reflection.

It smiled wider.

"You've become soft."

Nikolai rolled his shoulders.

"Not soft. Focused."

The copy tilted its head.

"Then prove it."

The arena began to shift — the floor peeling away to form a circular platform, runes igniting along the edge, with both of them stepping forward onto the white painted marks. Steel slid free from twin hilts at the same time.

Nikolai's stance was regular.

The clone faced him in southpaw.

They bounced lightly off the ground, an audience of spectres, a strange illusion of the crowd that watched him fight Alistair Faust.

"Let's settle things, once and for all. Nikolai!"

"Heh, do your best. Fake."

——Woosh——

The clone shot forward.

So did Nikolai.

They collided in the centre of the ring like bullets fired from opposing guns.

Crack!

Palm against palm — claws out, fingers digging into the other's wrists, trying to find grip, dominance, anything.

But each other's perfect match.

Muscle strained.

Veins bulged.

The stone beneath them cracked from the pressure of their stance alone.

The clone grinned. "Even your heartbeat's slower now."

Nikolai snarled. "Yours'll stop first."

They broke.

Nikolai twisted into a high left hook — savage, fast.

The clone ducked and countered with the exact move from the other side — a mirrored right hook that slammed into Nikolai's jaw.

His head snapped sideways. His feet skidded, and his body absorbed the hit.

He didn't fall.

He answered with a spinning back elbow.

Crack!

The clone met it with his own, both strikes colliding mid-air. A sharp bone-on-bone sound rang through the arena.

They bounced.

Both dropped into crouches, feet dragging small trenches across the stone floor as they circled.

The spectres around them didn't cheer — just watched. Silent.

Ghosts of a crowd that had once screamed for blood.

Nikolai launched forward again — a feint low, then a sudden shoulder slam up into the ribs.

The clone mirrored it. They hit shoulder to shoulder — boom — the entire platform trembled from the impact.

Neither of them gave ground.

They twisted in opposite directions, claws slashing out in wild arcs — dodged by hairs, slicing through air, missing skin by inches.

Fast. Brutal. Endless.

Their claws collided in mid-air again, sparks of aura flickering off their fingertips.

They were bruising each other now.

Every move was an echo.

Every strike read and returned.

Nikolai panted, just once.

The clone grinned, lips stained red. "You can't beat yourself."

Nikolai lowered into a crouch, one hand pressed to the floor.

His aura pulsed low, slow, and subtle.

He breathed in.

"Good thing I don't fight like myself anymore."

Then he moved, not with perfect form, not symmetrical.

He twisted into a chaotic lunge, dropping to the side mid-charge and sweeping his leg behind him. Not a martial move. Not elegant.

Just nasty. Street-fight dirty.

The clone blinked — a hesitation. A beat too long.

Nikolai's sweep connected.

Crash!

The clone's legs went out from under him.

Nikolai didn't wait.

He followed it with a full-body slam, claws digging into the clone's chest — teeth bared, eyes wild.

For the first time—

The mirror bled.

The clone hit the floor like a sack of rocks, snapping his head back-first, with a bang, and the breath knocked out of him for a second.

Nikolai didn't hesitate.

He was on him instantly — hammer fists slamming down into the stone as the clone rolled aside just in time, shards of broken floor flying into the air.

The copy leapt to its feet.

But something had shifted.

Nikolai's breath came heavier now, not from fatigue, but release.

His aura rippled across his skin, black and fluid, like oil being pulled across metal by unseen hands.

The clone circled again, breathing sharply, eyes flashing ice-blue.

Then both of them moved—

Claws collided in mid-air—

And both began to change.

Their bones cracked almost in sync — backs arching, muscles bulging beneath their skin. Hands twisted, fingers lengthened into black claws. Teeth shattered and regrew as elongated fangs. Their legs bent, reforming into the crouched, monstrous limbs of the Volkov's cursed form.

But halfway through—

Nikolai's transformation changed course.

Where the clone's fur gleamed silver, bright as moonlight—Nikolai's body turned black.

Not dark. Black.

Like ink poured over his skin.

Like the abyss peeling itself open and wearing his shape.

His claws thickened.

Spines emerged along his back — jagged ridges pulsing with an unnatural glow. His chest wasn't furred — as if armoured, layered with overlapping plates of what looked like obsidian slate, shimmering faintly with red cracks.

The clone's shift stopped.

It stared, jaw parted, a flicker of confusion behind those blue eyes.

Nikolai stood over one foot taller than the silver wolf, his body a size larger.

The dungeon had built a perfect mirror—

But it couldn't copy what it didn't understand.

It couldn't copy the Obsidian Tide.

Or rather... the blood it represented.

——

The clone took a half step back — instincts twitching in panic beneath the programming.

It didn't understand what it was seeing.

This wasn't in the pattern.

This wasn't coded into the dungeon's logic.

The creature in front of it wasn't Nikolai.

It was something that wore him like a coat.

The obsidian werewolf took a slow breath, steam rolling from its nostrils. The black mist surrounding Nikolai didn't rise — it sank, curling around his feet like chains made of smoke.

His red eyes pulsed.

The clone roared and launched forward, fast.

The silver blur streaked through the space between them, claws raised, fangs bared.

Too late.

Nikolai moved with no sound, no grace. Just force.

He stepped inside the lunge like it was nothing — and punched straight through the clone's guard, his claws sinking into its shoulder and driving it into the stone floor with a shattering crunch.

Boom!

The ring fractured beneath the clone's body, spiderweb cracks forming where it landed.

The silver beast howled and twisted, snapping at Nikolai's throat with razor fangs.

Nikolai took the bite. Let the teeth hit.

But his armour didn't break.

Instead, the red glow across his chest plates flared — and the obsidian cracked beneath, releasing a burst of heat.

The clone recoiled in pain, jaw dripping with its scorched blood.

Nikolai slammed his palm into the side of its head, dragging it across the arena's stone like a ragdoll.

Scree—Slam!

The clone bounced off a standing rune pillar and staggered to all fours, panting, limping now.

Its left eye was burned shut.

But it didn't stop.

It charged again, this time lower, faster, claws extended wide like a wild animal.

It went for the stomach — the weakest point.

Nikolai didn't sidestep.

He leapt straight up, twisting mid-air, and came down with both feet on the clone's back.

Crack!

The clone collapsed flat, shoulder joints crumbling beneath the weight. Its claws scraped at the floor, legs kicking.

But Nikolai wasn't done.

He grabbed the clone by the scruff of its neck and lifted it — the entire beast — off the floor with one hand.

"Is this all they could make?" Nikolai's voice wasn't human. It rumbled out like it came from below the earth, deep, cold, godless.

The clone growled, foamed, snapped—

Nikolai tightened his grip and drove it headfirst into the ground.

A burst of blood. A flash of bone.

Then silence.

The silver beast twitched.

Then it moved again — slowly, crawling, trembling with broken limbs. Its form was already unstable.

BANG!

Nikolai stomped on its head, crushing the bones with one crack at a time, forming as the silver wolf desperately struggled. Its regeneration was slowing. Not that it could not endure that constant damage that overwhelmed his regeneration speed.

The illusion was fading.

It wasn't a person. It never had been.

Just a memory with teeth.

It looked up with one eye. Blue. Clouded now.

"You... changed," it croaked.

Nikolai walked toward it.

Each step echoed.

"I evolved," he said.

The clone tried to stand — and failed.

It looked like it wanted to speak again.

But it never got the chance.

Nikolai crouched beside it. His claws pulsed with black light. The edges shimmered like folded obsidian blades.

He drove them forward—Not into the chest.

Into the head.

Straight through.

The skull didn't resist.The light in the arena died.The spectres vanished.

The clone twitched once—

Then it was gone.

The silence that followed wasn't peaceful.

It was hollow.

Like something sacred had just been torn apart.

Nikolai stood alone again in the centre of the broken floor, steam rising from his shoulders. The obsidian tide rippled once more... then settled.

His claws retracted slowly with a wet, slimy pop... the disgusting flesh fading into the air like dust, but the initial sensation lingered.

"Phew..."

Nikolai took a deep breath while kneeling on the ground, his body trembling as a huge amount of essence flowed into his body from the destroyed mirror image.

Not long after, he finished absorbing the strength of his enemy...

Then silence.