Blood Blockade Battlefront: Echoes of Hellsalem's Lot
Three months ago, Leonardo Watch used the Gods' Eyes to help Klaus defeat Count Möbius—and the price was his little sister's sight. Now, every coin he earns disappears into an envelope bound for Michela, a silent penance he pays with a smile. But the Eyes are aching more often lately. The blur at the edge of his vision is getting harder to ignore.
In Hellsalem's Lot, a city stitched together from two worlds, Libra keeps the fragile peace. Zapp runs his mouth, Chain worries between insults, and
Blood Blockade Battlefront: Echoes of Hellsalem's Lot - A Vow Swallowed by the Mist — Unseen Screams, Beneath the Rubble
The light filtering through the gaps in the rubble was a cloudy white.
No—that wasn't it. The light wasn't clouded. His eyes could barely see anymore.
Leonardo Watch understood this, pinned beneath the cold weight of the stone.
The underground sealed chamber of the abandoned church, St. Agnes Chapel. Several hours had passed since Steven's technique went berserk. The ceiling had caved in, and where the altar once stood, a mountain of rubble now rose. At its base, wedged between stone and stone, Leo lay utterly unable to move.
His left leg was caught in the debris. There was no pain. No sensation at all. That absence was, somehow, the most terrifying thing of all.
"...Lily."
A hoarse voice leaked from his throat.
No answer. What he heard instead were intermittent screams.
"No...! Please, stop...!"
From the back of the sealed chamber, beyond the crumbling wall, Lily's cries echoed. She was being seared by the agony of the technique. The blood-arts sigil carved into her body was summoning the remnants of Count Möbius, and she was beginning to awaken as its vessel.
Leo moved his fingertips. He tried to claw at the rubble. But his fingers only grasped at empty air.
(I can't see. I can't see anything.)
Most of his field of vision was swallowed by a white haze. From the left eye that held his prosthetic, searing pain shot through in waves. The price of opening the Gods' Eye to its fullest. In the sealed chamber last night, his eyesight had taken a decisive blow.
"Leonardo...! Help me...!"
Lily's voice called his name.
Deep in his chest, something pulsed violently.
(I have to go. I have to save Lily.)
Leo tried to wrench his left leg free from the rubble by force.
The sound of flesh tearing. A beat later, a dull pain came surging up.
"...Ngh, guh—"
He gritted his teeth. The taste of iron spread through his mouth. Even so, his leg wouldn't come free.
The air in the sealed chamber trembled.
Lily's scream rang out, higher than before.
"Aaaaaaah!!"
The next instant, an eerie presence filled the room.
Cold. Dark. And somewhere in it, a smell of blood that felt almost familiar.
The Echo was stirring.
Zapp Renfro had been slammed against the wall.
"You bastard... I'll kill you...!"
The silver-haired young man rose from the rubble. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but his sharp blue eyes had lost none of their fighting spirit. Blood dripped from his ring, forming the blade of the Blood Battle Technique: Kagutsuchi.
"Hey, fish-man! You get up too!"
Zed O'Brien was trembling in the corner of the sealed chamber.
"...I—I can't. How am I supposed to fight something like that..."
The fish-man boy's voice cracked and wavered. The gills at the sides of his neck twitched violently. The sound of air drawn through his gills was ragged with fear.
The scene before his eyes was far too bizarre.
Black mist was spewing from Lily's body.
No—not mist. The remnants of the Bloodline's kin were eroding her from within, forcing her very existence to spill outward.
The black mist crawled across Lily's pale skin, moving as if tracing the lines of the sigils carved into her. Her silver hair was whipped upward by the mist, standing on end. Her blood-red eyes stared into the void, unfocused.
"...So. You're finally beginning to accept this vessel."
From Lily's mouth leaked a voice that was not hers.
A low, damp, old man's voice.
Zapp's expression shifted.
"You... get the hell out of Lily's body!"
Zapp leaped.
The Kagutsuchi blade tore through the air.
But the remnant laughed.
"Futile, boy."
The black mist extended like tentacles.
The moment Zapp's blade touched the mist, it was repelled.
"What—!?"
A tentacle of mist struck Zapp in the gut.
His body slammed into the wall once more. The stone shattered, dust billowing up.
"Guaah—!"
"Zapp!"
Zed shouted.
With trembling hands, he turned his own blood into a blade. The Blood Battle Technique: Shinatobe. But his grip wouldn't steady.
"...Calm down. Calm down...!"
He told himself, but his voice was shaking.
The remnant turned toward Zed.
"Oh? A fish-man. How rare. Your blood looks quite delicious, too."
Lily's face twisted grotesquely.
Zed took a step back.
"...Please, don't come near me...!"
"Frightened? Then stay still and be devoured."
The mist closed in on Zed.
That was when it happened.
"That's far enough."
A woman in a black suit appeared behind the remnant.
Chain Sumeragi. She had approached with her ability, "Dilution of Existence," erasing her presence entirely.
In her hand, a handgun.
"I'll be your opponent."
Chain pulled the trigger.
A gunshot.
But the bullet never reached the remnant.
The black mist swallowed it.
"...What—"
"You think a girl who can merely thin her presence could touch me?"
The remnant's mist coiled around Chain.
"...Kuh—"
Chain tried to dilute her existence further. But the mist blocked her. The mist itself was churning her presence into chaos.
"I can see you, girl. The outline of your existence is bleeding through the mist."
The mist constricted around Chain's body.
"...Ah—"
Her physical form was forcibly dragged back.
"Chain!"
Zapp charged in again.
But the remnant didn't even acknowledge his attack.
"Persistent insect. I'll crush you."
The tentacles of mist struck Zapp again and again.
"Guh...! Not yet... I'm not going down yet...!"
Zapp rose, bleeding.
Outside the sealed chamber, K·K had taken up her sniping position.
"...Tch. The mist is too thick."
She readied her sniper rifle and peered through the scope.
But around the abandoned church, the fog was unnaturally dense.
The remnant was manipulating the mist itself.
"Guess I've got no choice but to shoot through the fog..."
K·K pulled the trigger.
Blood Bullet Martial Arts. Her ultimate technique, imbuing bullets with electricity through her blood.
An electrified round tore through the mist.
But the remnant laughed.
"Futile. This mist is my flesh and blood. It is a part of me."
The mist killed the bullet's speed, absorbing its momentum.
The round fell just short of Lily's body, as if exhausted.
"...The bullet was stopped?"
Panic crossed K·K's face.
The ceiling of the sealed chamber collapsed again.
A massive chunk of rubble came crashing down toward Lily.
"Lily!"
Zed shouted.
His body was frozen with fear. But in that moment, he felt something inside him shove the fear aside.
(I'm... a member of Libra. I have to protect my comrades.)
Zed dashed forward.
To shield Lily from being crushed beneath the rubble.
But a black shadow rose in his path.
A swarm of blood-flies.
Countless blood-flies filled the sealed chamber.
"...Uwaaaaah!"
Zed was blocked by the swarm, unable to move.
"Well done, my children."
The remnant laughed through Lily's mouth.
"Now, let us complete this vessel. And then I shall reign over this city once more."
Lily's body began to glow even more violently.
Her screams were becoming something no longer human.
"...No... Nooo...!"
A frail voice.
Even as the remnant eroded her, Lily's consciousness had not yet faded.
Beneath the rubble, Leo heard that voice.
(Lily's still fighting.)
Leo desperately worked his fingers, trying to claw through the debris.
His nails split, blood seeping from his fingertips.
Even so, his eyes could barely register anything anymore.
Beyond the white haze, a faint red light flickered.
The light of Lily's sigil.
But even that was only a blur.
(No. I can't see. I can't see anything.)
A memory surfaced in Leo's mind.
That day. The day his little sister Michella offered up her own eyesight.
She had been smiling.
"It's okay, big brother. You can use my eyes for me."
With those words, she had entrusted her light to Leo.
With his prosthetic eyes, Leo gained the power to fight.
But the price was his sister's vision.
(I took Michella's light, and even then, I couldn't protect anyone.)
Lily's scream came again.
"Leonardo... I'm still... alive...!"
A frail voice, but certain.
Leo raised his head.
(Lily...)
She was still alive.
She still hadn't given up.
(I can't give up either.)
Leo pressed his hand against the prosthetic in his left eye.
A sharp pain shot through him.
The prosthetic was already at its limit.
If he pushed it further, the cost to his vision would become irreversible.
(Even so.)
Leo forced his prosthetic eye wide open.
Deep within the clouded white of his vision, the light of Lily's sigil pulsed faintly.
"...I can see it. I can see it...!"
Blood dripped from his nose.
From his prosthetic, a golden light leaked out, faint and weak.
That light brought a hazy outline of a core into relief at the center of the remnant's mist.
"...Lily, reach out your hand!"
Leo stretched his arm desperately through the gap in the rubble.
Lily's fingertips moved faintly.
Even bound by the sigil, she was trying to reach toward Leo.
"...Leonardo...!"
Her fingers touched his in the air.
Cold fingers.
But an unmistakable warmth.
In that instant, Leo's prosthetic blazed with light.
"...I see it. The Echo's core—at the center of the mist...!"
In Leo's vision, the remnant's core appeared clearly.
Not perfect. But he had certainly caught its position.
"Chain! The Echo's core is at the center of the mist! Shoot there!"
Leo's voice rang through the sealed chamber.
Chain, still caught in the remnant's mist, heard him.
"...The center of the mist... got it."
She raised her handgun.
But the mist tightened around her arm.
"I told you it was futile."
The remnant sneered through Lily's mouth.
That was when it happened.
"...This is your mess. Take responsibility."
Chain's cold voice was directed at a corner of the sealed chamber.
There, buried in rubble but still conscious, was a man.
Steven A. Starphase.
The shock of the technique's rampage had slammed him against the wall.
His suit was torn, blood flowing from the wound near his eye.
But his consciousness was clear.
"...Chain."
"You caused Lily's sigil to go berserk. You brought this about. So you end it."
Chain's words were sharp as a blade.
Steven rose slowly.
"...Yes, I know. It's my responsibility."
He activated his own Blood Freeze Style.
Esmeralda-style Blood Freeze Style. High-speed kicks that freeze everything.
The air around him froze in an instant.
"...I'll stop the Echo's movement temporarily. Leo, use your prosthetic to pinpoint the core's location exactly."
Steven charged toward the remnant.
His kicks froze the black mist.
"...Oh? Blood Freeze Style. But freezing of that level won't stop me."
The remnant's mist tried to shatter the ice.
"...So control doesn't work on it."
Steven's face twisted with bitterness.
His freezing could only slow the remnant's movement for a mere instant.
"...Leo, can you hear me? The Echo's core is at the center of the mist. If we clear the mist, the main body will be exposed. But with your eyes... I thought visual confirmation would be impossible."
Steven's voice reached Leo beneath the rubble.
"...But you saw it, didn't you."
Leo wiped his nosebleed and nodded.
"...Yeah. It's not perfect. But I saw it."
"...I see."
A faint relief mixed into Steven's voice.
"...Then we can do this. I'll freeze the mist. Just for an instant. In that gap, K·K can take the shot."
Steven grabbed his radio.
"K·K, can you hear me? The Echo's core is at the center of the mist. The instant I freeze the mist, pierce that spot."
K·K's voice came back through the radio.
"...Understood. Following your orders sticks in my craw, but now's not the time to be picky."
"...Yeah. I'm counting on you."
Steven turned back to the remnant.
"...Remnant of Count Möbius. Your resurrection ends here."
He froze his own blood, cloaking his entire body in armor of ice.
"...Esmeralda-style Blood Freeze Style—secret art."
The air around Steven reached absolute zero.
The black mist began to freeze.
"...What!?"
The remnant's movement stopped.
"...
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