The call of the powerful blood couldn’t be suppressed anymore. Drake’s eyes were glowing red. His Elder Vampire self was coming outside unrestrained.

In a moment of clarity, he yelled at his father, “Father, it would be too dangerous for you to go any further. Can you please guard this entrance so that no one can disturb me while I am inside?”

In a way, he was right to ask his father to stay behind. He could feel that the more one came close to the blood the more they would be injured by the power it released. Ultimately, being close to it could spell death for anyone, except an Elder Vampire like him. Even if he exploded he could just revive himself with just a drop of blood.

Drake continued further inside the grotto. The more he advanced the more wounds appeared on his body, but they were quickly healed by the vitality in his two bloodlines. For now, he wanted to rely on his two bloodlines rather than the wood element that would come in handy if his two bloodlines couldn’t keep up.

As he advanced, parts of his body started exploding. By now he was a mere fifty meters from the blood.

By the time he reached the blood, he was nothing but an amalgamation of gore which included blood and torn organs. He was holding on by his sheer power of will. He kept it as is because he reckoned that reconstructing his body would be meaningless at that point, it would just be torn to shreds in milliseconds.

He arrived before a red underground lake. He felt humbled by the amount of blood he saw.

‘How strong could i become if I drank just a little bit of this blood?’ He thought.

[DRINK}, he yelled in his mind.

As if called by an unknown power, the powerful blood was pulled as if a tidal wave towards the mass of gore that was Drake.

Once the powerful blood touched the mass of gore it would then fuse with it.

The next moment, the mass of gore was further deconstructed and became a ball of blood the size of a melon, and no matter how much powerful blood was fused with it it stayed the same size.

The process lasted a good hour and it was only when there were only one third of the lake left that the melon sized blob of blood stopped absorbing the powerful blood.

The blob of blood now released a pressure no weaker than the powerful blood.

***

John was still standing where Drake had left him.

He saw a shadow coming in his direction and then started feeling sleepy. He fell into a trance and then the next second collapsed on the ground and entered a profound sleep.

The shadow came into view and then turned into a young man who appeared to be in his twenties. He also looked almost similar to John with his impressive build. His red glowing eyes illuminated the grotto with a gentle red light like torches.

The young man then said, “Hello father. It feels good to see you again after all this time. Well, thanks to Silas’s power I get to see you whenever i want. I always get tempted to revive you, but then remember how you’d hate me if i did that. Let’s just hope that in this new reality you all won’t be as suicidal as you were in my life. If it comes down to it, I’ll create as many realities as it takes so that there can be at least one of you who chooses life over death.”

The young man continued on his way towards the blood lake.

When the young man arrived at the blood lake, Drake was in the midst of reconstructing his body. The latter had no idea that there was a pair or red glowing eyes looking at him from behind.

When his body had been reconstructed back to his five year old self, Drake stood before the blood lake with a contemplative look. It was now that he felt a presence behind him. He slowly turned around and a young man in his twenties almost as big as his father appeared in his vision.

“Who are you?” Drake calmly asked, but deep down he was shaken. As strong as he had become and as drunk with power he was, he couldn’t understand the fact that his senses had failed to sense someone so powerful hiding in the shadows behind him. From the looks of it, that young man had been there for quite a while.

The young man smiled and then he waived his right hand and clothes appeared in his hand like magic. He handed the clothes to Drake as he said, “Here. They should fit you. We’ll talk after you’re more presentable.”

Drake took the clothes that had floated towards him and then wore them. Just like the young man had said, they really fit him which made Drake wonder why such a grown man was going around with children clothes in his storage. Perhaps he had kids of his own?

After donning the clothes, Drake then looked at the man waiting for the latter to answer his earlier question.

The young man shattered the awkward silence by saying, “I come from the future. I am you.”

‘No wonder this young man had some resemblance to his father. So he was my future self.’ Thought Drake.

“How far in the future?” Drake asked curious to know from when this future self was.

“A few trillion years...” the future Drake vaguely answered.

“So? What brought you so far back in time?” The present Drake asked.

The future Drake took a deep breath and then waved his right hand again and a hologram appeared between them. It depicted the image of a beautiful woman...

“She’s beautiful. Who is she to us? Our wife? She seems like our type.” The present Drake said.

“Memorize his appearance! You are not to fall in love with him.” The future Drake said with some difficulty.

“Wait. You just said ‘him’?” The present Drake opened his eyes wide. Something then clicked in his mind and then he started laughing. It soon turned into a mad laugh.

The silent future Drake’s expression darkened.

The present Drake then said in between his laughter, “Don’t tell me that you fell in love with a man...and how did you find out in the end...hehehe...tell me, was hers bigger than ours?...hehehe?”

The future Drake just kept silent.

After the present Drake finished laughing, he heard, “That’s all I had to say. Just keep your eyes open when you meet him in the future.”

The future Drake then turned around to leave.

“Wait! What’s the deal with that time travelling power you have? Or is it an object that allowed you to do it?” The present Drake was curious.

The future Drake answered as he continued walking, “A friend shared his power with me.”

“So I will meet said friend in the future and get that power from him...” mused the present Drake, hyped up about the prospect of acquiring such a heaven defying power.

As if knowing what his younger self was thinking about, the future Drake then said, “Don’t get your hopes up. Our lives will be very different. You may never meet that friend.”

“I agree that our lives will be different since you came to warn me about such a funny matter...but won’t you cease to exist if your past isn’t the same as my future? That’s how it’s supposed to work, is it not?” The present Drake expressed his doubts.

“You’re right, I will be erased from existence so that you can continue living, but the one you see now before you exists outside of time and space. No power can erase my existence and those I choose to protect from time and space.” The future self was now turning blurry.

Before the future Drake fully disappeared, his last words were heard, “Live your life to the fullest...we will probably meet again in the future.”