Blood Clan

The President studied the hexagram array for a few moments, caressed the silver coffin, and said, "It's doable! "However, just to be safe, I'll set up a teleportation array around it first. If whatever is released turns out to be too powerful, we'll banish it immediately so it doesn't damage the items and materials in this storeroom." It was a sound precaution. Neither Zhang Yuanqing nor the Sole-Heir Knight had any objections and nodded repeatedly. His uncle promptly took out materials and arranged them at the four corners of the coffin, laying down a simple teleportation array. The moment the array detected the power of a peak Dominator, it would activate automatically and teleport the creature inside at random. Then, with a nod from his uncle, Zhang Yuanqing drew his Form and Spirit Annihilation Blade and sliced along the seam, cutting through the soldered coffin lid. Zhai Cai stepped aside in silence. Zhang Yuanqing exhaled a spirit servant and controlled it to lift the heavy silver lid. With a dull, heavy clatter, the contents of the coffin were revealed before their eyes: a ghastly pale, naked man whose skin looked as if it had been coated in white powder. His facial features were exceptionally handsome, his facial contours flawless, his frame tall and slender, and his musculature smooth and well-defined. "Wow, he could be a male model," his uncle remarked admiringly, shifting his gaze to the naked man's chest. Driven into the heart was a silver nail as thick as a thumb. The wound was neither inflamed nor festering. Instead, black blood vessels had proliferated and clung to the silver nail, as though trying to assimilate it. "Not a male model—a vampire!" Zhai Cai said in a deep voice. Zhang Yuanqing rubbed his chin, musing, "Aren't vampires extinct? I remember you saying vampires are actually a kind of aberrant creature, but the method to create them was lost, so they only existed in the Middle Ages. "Currently, vampires only appear in dungeons. The question is, this is the Holy See's treasury, a treasury that originally existed in reality. How could there be a vampire here?" Zhai Cai pondered for a moment and analyzed, "Which means that a century ago, the Holy See found a vampire in the real world that should have been extinct, sealed him away, and stored him in this treasury!" He looked down, inspecting the vampire, and reached out to touch the pale chest. "No item information can be read. He's in a sealed state. Should we wake him up to see? Maybe we can learn some intel about the Middle Ages. Still, while sealed, there's no telling what his level is." At the President's signal, the Sole-Heir Knight stepped forward, grasped the silver nail in the naked man's chest, and pulled with all his might. A drop of golden liquid appeared at the President's fingertip, and he flicked it into the penetrating wound on the chest. The golden liquid was absorbed instantly. The wound on the naked man's chest knitted together at breakneck speed, and inside the ribcage, a faint throb emerged. *Thump... thump-thump... thump-thump-thump...* The heartbeat grew from faint to powerful. A terrifying, palpitation-inducing aura emanated from this pale corpse that had been sealed inside a coffin for an entire century. It was like the awakening of a demon king sealed for endless ages... No, that was precisely what he was. The naked man in the coffin opened his eyes. His irises were crimson, like rubies. Having just awoken from a century of slumber, he immediately saw three humans gathered around the edge of the coffin, pointing at him and speaking in a language he couldn't understand: "A bit weak!" "Early-stage Dominator at most. The Holy See couldn't kill this thing?" "Gave me a scare. I thought it was a demigod-tier monster." "Maybe the Holy See kept him as a museum piece? After all, vampires are extinct, so he's basically a first-class protected species." The confusion in the naked vampire's eyes faded completely, replaced by unabashed bloodlust, savagery, and cold malice. He slowly sat up, exhaling a breath of ancient, stale air. Even though a single glare from him should have been enough to kill the three ants before him, he maintained his elegance, speaking in deep, low Italian: "It seems I have slumbered for another vast stretch of time. Are you men of the Holy See?" Zhang Yuanqing didn't understand and looked at the Sole-Heir Knight. "What is he saying?" The Spirit Realm had not provided language translation, which proved that the vampire was not an NPC inside a dungeon, but truly from reality. "Sounds like Italian," Zhai Cai said, shrugging. "I don't understand it either." The President spoke, rolling out fluent Italian right away: "The Holy See fell a hundred years ago. We are treasure hunters. Are you a vampire?" With that, he turned and translated his words for his nephew and the Sole-Heir Knight. "The Holy See fell?" The vampire froze for two seconds, then threw his head back and laughed maniacally, shaking the entire space. "Faron, I told you that once I awakened again, I would tear your Holy See apart with my own hands and drain your blood dry! To think that in a mere hundred years, your Holy See has already turned to ash!" The President translated the vampire's words to the other two. Zhai Cai said, "Faron was the name of the Pope. Looks like it was the Pope who sealed him." At that moment, the vampire reined in his expression, regaining his composure. Looking at the three of them, he said unhurriedly: "Treasure hunters, I thank you for waking me. As a reward, I can allow you to serve as my thralls. However, having slept for a century, I thirst for blood. Therefore, only one of you may become my servant. "The other two are food!" The pale, handsome vampire looked at the Sole-Heir Knight and Zhang Yuanqing, maintaining an elegant smile. "I do not care for servants who are too handsome, so the two of you can only be my food." As he spoke, he raised a hand tipped with black nails and made a grasping motion toward the two. Zhai Cai strode forward and smacked him back down into the coffin with a backhand slap. The slap landed heavy and loud, leaving the vampire utterly dazed. He lay flat in the coffin, unable to process what had happened for several seconds. He sprang back out of the coffin, an expression of disbelief on his face. "You—" Before he could finish, Zhang Yuanqing strode forward and slammed another slap across his face, knocking him back into the coffin once more. The heavy silver coffin shuddered with a resonant boom. With his skull cracked, the vampire shot up again. The President raised his palm. At the sight, panic and dread flashed through the vampire's red eyes, and he blurted out hurriedly, "Stop, stop! Please, stop!" His uncle lowered his hand and said with a beaming smile, "Looks like your worldview has received an update!" The vampire didn't comprehend the word "worldview," but the elegance and arrogance in his eyes were entirely gone, replaced once more by bewildered disorientation. He couldn't understand it—he was an exalted monarch of the night. He had slain countless witches, werewolves, and demon hunters, and the Holy See had deemed him a taboo existence. Having long reigned invincible in the world, was he now taking turns getting beaten by three treasure hunters? "Who on earth are you? Why do you possess such terrifying power?" the vampire asked warily. "Terrifying?" the President said casually. "People like me are a dime a dozen in the outside world." He pointed at Zhang Yuanqing and Zhai Cai. "As for people like them, they're as common as stray dogs in the Middle Ages." Zhang Yuanqing: "..." The Sole-Heir Knight: "..." The vampire wore a look of utter disbelief, but he dared not dispute or question it, offering only silence. The President asked again, "Tell us about yourself. Who are you?" "I am Augusto, Sovereign of the Night. Those who once knew my name have long since turned to dust." Speaking of his name, the vampire tilted his chin up a few centimeters. "In what era were you active?" the President asked. "And why were you lying in a coffin?" Augusto the vampire answered: "In the era I lived, the ruler of the Byzantine Empire was Alexios I, and the Pope was Urban. The Holy See's authority stood above kings, while authority over the night rested in my grasp. "I was regarded as a taboo by the Holy See. They could bend kings to their will, yet they could do nothing against me. But even as invincible as I was, I had one unconquerable enemy." Alexios I? What era was that? Zhang Yuanqing looked at the Sole-Heir Knight, only to find the man shooting him an equally puzzled look. "An emperor of the Byzantine Empire a thousand years ago," the President informed them. A thousand years ago? That was roughly the late Northern Song dynasty. Back then, a Dominator-tier powerhouse truly would have been an invincible existence! Zhang Yuanqing mapped it against his own country's history and instantly grasped the scale. Augusto the vampire continued: "That enemy was life—and time. Vampires possess long lives, but not immortality; I would still die eventually. So as not to perish like my brethren, I entered slumber within an ancient castle deep in the mountains. "Until a band of treasure hunters broke into the castle and woke me. "I had slept for over eight hundred years. I was fortunate to still be alive, yet the world had transformed completely. The former sprites of the night, werewolves and vampires, were already extinct, and witches were no more. Yet, abominably, the Holy See had endured. "I lived in human society for a time and discovered that the way transcendent beings enhanced their power was something I had never heard of, never seen before. "And so I began hunting them, trying to understand the reason, but in doing so I drew the eye of the Holy See. "The Pope of that generation, Faron, gathered a host of priests and knights to hunt me down. The cunning Faron knew I savored the blood of virgins, so he lured me with a pure maiden and injected mercury into that woman's body, rendering me weak." Augusto's expression turned resentful. "Yet I still slaughtered them all, save for that most cunning and powerful Faron. And thus, I was sealed in a coffin by the Holy See, right up until you opened it." *So during the Holy See era, they actually hunted vampires! That explains the silver weapons we saw in the chests earlier. Right, a vampire waking from a mountain castle is pretty much like Sect Master Chunyang!* *No wonder this guy was so arrogant when he woke up—he still thought he was invincible under the heavens. Sir, times have changed.* Zhang Yuanqing could roughly guess why the Pope had kept this vampire around: he had probably just forgotten about him. As Spirit Realm walkers climbed in level, demigods emerged, and Dominators grew more numerous, a small fry like him posed no threat whatsoever, so he was tossed into the storeroom and gradually forgotten. "A vampire's lifespan is rather terrifying," the President remarked, then asked, "How many vampires like you are left?" Hearing this, Augusto raised his chin proudly. "I am not like those low-born vampires who cannot master their own thirst. I am a member of the Blood Clan who received the power of the Progenitor, a being on par with the Blood Clan of the mythical age." *The power of the Progenitor? Then you've got the wrong name!* Zhang Yuanqing couldn't help but inwardly grumble after hearing his uncle's translation. Zhai Cai said, "President, I'm quite curious how vampires came to be. Although the Holy See's scriptures record them as a type of Aberrant, I don't think that's quite right. Aberrants rarely retain human form, and their instincts overpower their reason. This fellow is far too rational." The President asked, "Who is the progenitor of your Blood Clan, and how did he come to be?" Augusto said in a solemn voice, "The progenitor of our Blood Clan was cursed by the King of the Gods!" "Who is the King of the Gods?" the President said lazily. "Don't wait for me to drag every word out of you. My patience is limited." Augusto said hurriedly: "Odin! "Aside from that supreme existence, who else would dare call himself the King of the Gods?" The President's eyes glinted slightly. "Odin truly exists?" Odin was the King of the Gods in Norse mythology. Among the speculations of Spirit Realm walkers, Norse mythology very likely corresponded to the yet-unopened Third District. Even though Norse mythology might correspond to the Third District, the figures from myth did not necessarily exist in reality. Just as in the myths of the Second District, there were countless immortals and buddhas, yet those who truly existed were few and far between. Zhang Yuanqing's interest was piqued at once. The secret history of the Third District was currently a blind spot for Spirit Realm walkers; even a demigod like his uncle was in the dark about it.