Steve Chapter 878: Dead, Hopping Zombies.... (Patreon)

“You… you bastard!”

With pain ripping through him, Jan Valentine’s face twisted in agony. He clung to Fang Mo’s ankle, desperately trying to pull that crushing foot away. But Fang Mo’s leg was immovable—like an unyielding mountain. No matter how much strength Jan poured into it, the foot wouldn’t budge.

He could only watch as that piece of spinal vertebra got stomped, bit by bit, into his eye socket.

“Ugh! Aaargh—!!”

Tormented by indescribable pain, Jan Valentine flailed wildly, hammering on Fang Mo’s leg with both fists. He kicked at the ground, spraying dirt everywhere. His eyeball had already burst, and the shredded tissue and blood oozed from his eye socket, leaving him looking half-insane.

At last, the bone wedge hit a snag and slowed. Then came that horrifying scrape of bone against bone, echoing within Jan’s skull.

“!”

Jan’s whole body went rigid. That was the bone of his orbital socket. One more push, and the vertebra would stab into his brain.

“D-dammit… DAMMIT!!”

Jan Valentine gritted his teeth, face contorting in terror. He switched from pulling at Fang Mo’s foot to flailing, smashing his fists against it, nails bending backward until his fingertips bled—yet it was all in vain. Finally, his skull reached its breaking point. With a dull pop, the force caved in Jan’s skull.

His own cervical vertebra had just stabbed through his brain.

Jan’s eyes rolled up. His body gave a few gruesome spasms on the ground, and a dark stain spread beneath him.

“You were telling others to piss themselves, but you never did, either.”

Fang Mo smiled. “It’s pretty shameless to demand something from others that you won’t do yourself.”

“Urrgh… uh…”

With his brain impaled, Jan Valentine couldn’t speak. In the Hellsing universe, even vampires generally die if their hearts or brains are destroyed. But Jan had provoked Fang Mo—a being who, by all accounts, was more sadistic than even Satan himself (as the joke goes, the devil often finds that “fun-lovers” outrank him in Hell’s bizarre hierarchy).

Suffice to say, as a “fun-loving wildcard,” Fang Mo’s powers were terrifying. Though his “healing dagger” wasn’t as dramatic as that “scythe of chaos,” Jan Valentine now possessed extreme regenerative powers that prevented him from dying. His body was caught in an endless loop of revival. Even with his brain mushed, he wouldn’t truly die—he’d just be forced to hover on the brink of death, enduring unimaginable torture over and over again.

“Tsk, can’t even speak properly now?”

Fang Mo wore a calm grin. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone braindead? Guess I’d better fix you right up…”

He pushed down again with his foot. Jan Valentine’s once-arrogant face caved inward. With a sound like a watermelon bursting, his head exploded in a shower of gore, splattering blood in all directions.

“DAMN YOU!!!”

Not far off, Luke Valentine—seeing his younger brother’s head stomped to pulp—flew into a rage.

Bang!

But before Luke could act, a bullet zipped by, grazing his cheek. Blood spurted from the wound on his left side.

“Are you sure you have time to worry about anyone else right now?”

Alucard’s low, madness-tinged voice echoed through the chaos.

“What?”

Luke spun around, stunned. He’d shot Alucard full of holes moments ago—yet there the vampire stood, completely unharmed. “How… how is this possible?”

“You’re skilled, but if you’re not focused, I won’t get any real enjoyment out of this.”

Alucard grinned, raising his enormous black handgun.

“You bastard!”

Luke Valentine dodged aside, scowling. “So it won’t be that easy to take you down after all. Blacker than black, dancing gracefully in a sea of blood… the original vampire—Alucard!”

“Tch. What a stupid title.”

Alucard snorted. “There’s no such thing as ‘truly immortal.’”

“How true.”

A cold smirk crossed Luke Valentine’s face. “No such thing as truly immortal—even you, Alucard. Now let me end your so-called immortality!”

With that, Luke burst into action. He crouched low and darted forward like a phantom.

“Oh?”

Alucard calmly fired several shots, but Luke moved in an eerie glide, leaving afterimages in his wake. Every bullet from Alucard’s gun just passed through empty illusions. Meanwhile, Luke aimed an ancient-looking musket pistol back, steadily filling Alucard with fresh bullet holes until his body was riddled once again.

“Despair, why don’t you? That’s how it’s supposed to be,”

Luke muttered, sounding smug. “I’m here for the sole purpose of killing you. Don’t compare me to those random trash you’ve dealt with.”

“That so?”

Alucard just gave a quiet chuckle.

“What—still playing tough?”

Luke found Alucard’s attitude irritating and fired even faster.

While attacking, Luke weighed the battlefield in his mind. “He doesn’t dodge bullets. Is he truly immortal? That’s impossible… but he’s taking a lot more damage than me, so…”

Having noted these details, Luke drew a conclusion:

“I can win!!!”

Like his brother, Luke Valentine was arrogant to the core. He had absolute faith in himself. Even while blinking around, he made time to glance at Fang Mo on the sidelines. The situation seemed clear: Alucard was on the defensive, being hammered by bullets—and that strange white-haired guy wasn’t helping him at all. Clearly, he was powerless to intervene. Otherwise, he would have done so by now.

Luke’s logic held: as long as his speed was superior, he could finish off Alucard first. Then, once he drank Alucard’s blood, he’d tackle that other monster at his leisure. Eventually, victory would be his.

“The advantage is mine!!!”

Just picturing his triumphant end, Luke Valentine’s lips curved in a grin. Dodging bullet storms with graceful agility, he felt like he was dancing with Death itself. It made him almost delirious with excitement.

But that rush didn’t last. The moment he emptied his magazine to reload, the mutilated Alucard started laughing—an unhinged cackle echoing through the courtyard.

“Huh?”

Luke’s brow creased in confusion. “Is he delirious? He’s been taking all the hits. Why laugh?”

“How exhilarating.”

Alucard tossed his gun to the ground and crossed his arms in some bizarre gesture. “It’s been ages since I had so much fun. I acknowledge you, nameless vampire—so as thanks, I’ll get a little more serious…”

“Wait, what—”

Something felt dangerously off to Luke Valentine. “You—”

“Limitation Release.”

Alucard’s body dissolved into shadows. His flesh cracked, dissolving into tattered corpse remnants. With a sickening slosh, blood and entrails splashed onto the ground—yet a second glance revealed that was no true blood, but a mass of wriggling black insects.

Then came the bats, and a swirl of dark mist. The shadows beneath Alucard seethed like a boiling ocean, as if alive—an abyss of blood. Countless crimson eyes glinted within, flickering like bubbles in pitch-black tar.

“Gah!!!”

Luke Valentine’s scalp went numb, and panic flashed across his face. Is this thing even a vampire?!

“Saa…”

Alucard’s voice sounded, brimming with twisted glee. “Let me show you what it means for a vampire to truly fight!”

“What are you?!”

Luke screamed, shooting wildly. But Alucard was now an amorphous, nightmarish being. The bullets rippled through the mass without effect.

Suddenly, the blood-like shadows churned violently, and a few monstrous hunting hounds—somewhere between physical and intangible—burst forth.

“Aaah!!!”

Luke Valentine shrieked, stumbling back in desperation. The smirking confidence he’d had moments ago was wiped out, replaced by a frantic, over-the-top panic on his face—a meltdown, if there ever was one.

He managed to dodge the first lunge from the lead hound. But without any warning, an arm holding a gun extended from the dog’s gaping mouth.

Bang!!!

At point-blank range, Luke never stood a chance. The bullet slammed into his left knee, easily shredding it. Not even a vampire’s body could handle that raw impact. Blood spurted as his leg blew apart.

“Ugh… Aaargh!!”

Luke Valentine was in full-blown panic now. Only at this moment did he truly grasp what Alucard was: not a mere vampire, but a grotesque monstrosity, some abstract horror that couldn’t be killed. Killing him would require destroying something that wasn’t even tangible. The thing didn’t have a real “body” at all—just a crawling shadow brimming with malevolent intent.

This thought drove out every last vestige of Luke’s fighting spirit. He twisted around and tried to escape, hopping desperately on his remaining leg toward the shattered gates—only for another gunshot to ring out. His other leg vanished, flung off by the impact.

“S-so long as I—”

Even then, Luke Valentine didn’t fully give up. Gasping and bleeding, he still tried dragging himself away. “As long as I can reach that place—”

He never finished. Out of nowhere, a body came crashing down in front of him like a discarded rag doll.

“Jan…?”

Luke stared, recognizing his younger brother—Jan Valentine. But hadn’t that guy had his head stomped to bits? Now here he was, seemingly intact. How was that possible?

“Your words remind me of someone else I once knew,”

came a new voice. Luke glanced up and saw Fang Mo. But now Fang Mo wore a bright red leather coat, with his hair in tight little waves. Strangely stylish, considering they were in the middle of a bloody battle.

Why the hell… did he just change outfits?

“RAAAH—I’LL KILL YOU!”

Unlike Luke’s confusion, Jan Valentine—driven by either desperation or madness—launched himself again, screaming: “You lowly piece of filth—”

Shunk.

He got no further. Fang Mo’s hand shot forward, ramming a knifing strike through Jan’s mouth, out the back of his skull.

“You’re an idiot, but your big mouth compensates,”

Fang Mo said casually. “Not bad. Keep that mind of yours intact, all right?”

With an easy grin, he used his other hand to hook Jan by the lower jaw and yank downward. The sounds of wet tearing filled the air as Jan’s entire jawbone ripped free, along with swaths of neck tissue and blood vessels. Blood burst out like a fountain.

“Nice dogs, man.”

Fang Mo tossed Jan aside, then reached out to pat one of Alucard’s hellhounds. “Who trained them? Cesar Millan, maybe?”

“…They’re my familiars,”

Alucard replied, half of his body emerging from the inky shadows. “Don’t you have any?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

Fang Mo studied the grotesque remains of the Valentine brothers, an idea flitting through his head. “You ever heard of ‘raving at a gravesite’?”

“You always come up with these weird things in the middle of a fight.”

Alucard frowned. “And yes, it sounds exactly like the name implies, I guess?”

“Time to show off my moves— the ultimate zombie dance,”

Fang Mo said cryptically. He had his stand-in “Steve” place a note block on the ground, then raised one hand to the sky in a dramatic pose.

“Come!”

In an instant, Steve pulled an item from his inventory—a “zombie staff”—and right-clicked. To everyone’s surprise, the ground around Fang Mo began churning. Several withered, blue-clad arms emerged, then red-tasseled hats. Amid rustling and scraping noises, a squad of classic “Mandarin-style” hopping zombies crawled up from the earth.

“The hell…?”

Alucard narrowed his eyes. “Your… familiars? When did you bury them?”

“Wait, this—”

Fang Mo cut himself off. Even he was stunned by the appearance of these hopping corpses.