Chapter 435: A Far Away Tale. The Progenitor, the Elders, and Blood
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 435: A Far Away Tale. The Progenitor, the Elders, and Blood
Dogo and Erzsebet arrived, having received their orders from the Progenitor. The two Elders walked at a leisurely pace. They casually brushed off the suspicious gazes directed at them and headed for the Lightning Tower as if they were out for a stroll. Though they were unfamiliar with the geography of Claudia, as predatory vampires, they could at least sense a place where blood flowed.
Besides, it was impossible to miss a scent of blood this thick and potent. Erzsebet gazed at the tip of the tower, which was saturated with the smell of blood, and spoke.
“Dogo. Can you feel it now?”
“…”
Dogo did not respond. As if accustomed to his silence, Erzsebet answered for him.
“Shall we stop this ‘cherry’ business? I won’t quibble over your vow to never speak to a woman. It’s several times better than a vow to hit on women even in death.”
Dogo, who considered even his vampiric existence a part of his ascetic trials, followed his precepts strictly: he did not consume grain, did not speak with women, and did not sleep on soft surfaces. He adhered to the teachings of his mortal life even after death. Since vampires lacked appetite, lust, and the need for sleep anyway, it never posed a problem.
Of course, the Progenitor was an exception.
Watching him maintain his silence in accordance with his vows, Erzsebet sighed from behind her fan.
“However, if your mortal stubbornness prevents you from properly carrying out the Progenitor’s command, I may find myself ‘despising’ you.”
The noblewoman Erzsebet was a powerful blood mage, said to have taken the blood of a thousand souls. She was all the more famous for having achieved this feat before becoming a vampire. Excluding the Progenitor, who was in a league of her own, Erzsebet could control the largest quantity of blood at once. Having also been skilled in white magic before her death, she had mastered both domination and destruction through blood magic.
Even Dogo could not simply ignore her. Had his opponent been a man, he could have responded politely or beaten him to a pulp, but with a woman, both options were difficult.
“…The sense of awe I once felt for the Progenitor is now gone. I know not what has happened. I have meditated and reflected alone, but could find no answer.”
Dogo muttered as if speaking to himself. It was painfully obvious that this was his contrived method of adhering to his vow. Erzsebet covered her mouth with her fan and said:
“A wind has blown for the Progenitor as well. Her dominion remains as strong as ever.”
“What scheme must I devise to find the answer? My shallow wisdom cannot fathom it.”
“It is a simple matter. Even when I tried to exert my power, I could not affect her Original Blood in the slightest.”
Flowers have thorns. A dangerous scent wafted from behind the fan, enough to make even Dogo flinch.
To think she had tried to control the Progenitor’s blood. Had she succeeded, it would have been an act of treason. The moment the Progenitor noticed the attempt, she could have been annihilated. Dogo fell silent—not because of his vow, but because he was truly at a loss for words.
As if to hide her expression, Erzsebet pulled her hat down low, smiling behind her fan as she spoke.
“However, it is clear the Progenitor has changed slightly. Normally, I would not have dared… I wouldn’t have even been able to form the will to try.”
“…”
“Now that our curiosity is sated, shall we be on our way? I wish to serve the Progenitor’s command as soon as possible and see her. Perhaps… in the process, we might discover something truly rare.”
Just as Erzsebet was about to move forward, she saw Shei descending and muttered.
“It seems our escort has come to greet us.”
Shei leaped down, poised to attack at a moment’s notice. Dogo was the first to perceive her fighting spirit. Just before Shei landed, Dogo also brought his hands together, assuming a combat stance.
“Dogo. Erzsebet. You’re the Elders from the Duchy of Mist, right?”
Such irreverent words from a mere greenhorn, from what was nothing more than a source of food. Sparks flew from Dogo’s eyes. He was a man from a distant past, so rigid that he kept his vows even in death. As an elder and a senior, he would not stand for a junior speaking to him so informally. Dogo roared at the brat before him.
“—Hmph!”
Or rather, he tried to. If not for a strange reluctance that held him back.
Shei glanced quizzically at Dogo, who had let out a strange grunt. She had offered a slight provocation, but instead of a proper reaction, he had made a bizarre, choked-off sound. Surprised by the unexpected response, Shei pressed on.
“Did Tyrkanzyaka send you? What business does an Elder have here?”
It was easy to pick a fight with an Elder. They were all fossils, their thousand-year-old personalities perfectly preserved, a cult of followers who flew into a frenzy at the mere mention of the Progenitor’s name. If you wanted a fight, all you had to do was poke at the Progenitor.
That was how it should have been… but their reaction was strangely different. Instead of growing angry, Erzsebet traced her lips with her folded fan, as if savoring a taste.
“Hee hee. What a delicious-looking cherry.”
“De-delicious?”
While Shei was flustered by the unusual reaction, Erzsebet instantly closed the distance between them. Bloodpath. A technique for sliding along a path made of blood with almost no movement of the hands or feet. It was fast, but more than that, the ghostly, chilling movement made Shei recoil in horror.
Erzsebet groped at the empty space where Shei had just been before retreating with Heavenly Counter Domain, her voice tinged with disappointment.
“Fair skin and a youthful face. An androgynous air, yet the mole by your eye adds a nice touch. From your scent to your appearance, you are perfectly my type. You’ll be a delight to bite.”
Vampires feel no hunger. They do, however, have preferences when it comes to blood. Depending on how delicious or compatible the blood is, a vampire might be selective about the humans they feed on. Since their desires are faint, it makes little difference what blood they drink, but some Elders enjoy the act of preference itself. As one of the few joys granted to them, drinking blood is a pleasure akin to gourmandism.
The Consort was an extreme example of this.
Erzsebet unfurled her fan and, with a gentle flutter, continued.
“And so pure and healthy, too. This is blood even the Progenitor would covet—. Ah, so there is still pleasure left in this world—.”
“I have no interest in feeding vampires, so shut up and state your purpose.”
“Ah, yes. We did have something to do.”
Snap. Erzsebet closed her fan in one swift motion and spoke with a bewitching air.
“By the will of our great, beautiful, and eternally unchanging Progenitor, we have come to deliver the command for Lyre Nightingale to return.”
“Just to deliver a command? Not to take her back?”
“It is the same thing. No vampire would refuse a direct order from the Progenitor.”
There is one. Shei knew Lyre had broken free from her shackles. Therefore, if Lyre wished it, she would ignore even Tyrkanzyaka’s command. And as long as patients remained, Lyre would stay here. Shei didn’t know what choice Lyre would make at this point, but…
“I’ll be cross if you think of another woman in front of me, my sweet cherry.”
“Who’s your sweet cherry?! I have no intention of giving you a single drop of my blood!”
Shei snapped back and thought for a moment. Ultimately, what mattered was Lyre’s own will. If Lyre wanted to go, Shei had no grounds to stop her. But if she wanted to stay… Shei would help her do so.
“Fine. I’ll pass on the message.”
“Hmm? Pass it on, you say?”
“Exactly what I said. She’s inside taking care of a patient. I’ll ask her what she wants to do and let you know…”
“—Hmph!”
Thud. A powerful Tremor Step surged through the ground. Shei immediately took a defensive stance against the unnerving aura emanating from Dogo. His expression remained unchanged, but Dogo unleashed his emotions through his sheer presence, shouting.
“The Progenitor’s command is absolute! Any vampire should come out barefoot, kneel, and receive it! Why does she not even show her face?!”
It was unclear who he was addressing, but in the face of his surging presence, such details were trivial. Shei gripped Jizan, ready to draw, while secretly compressing Chun-aeng behind her back.
The weakness of an undying vampire is their innate insensibility. Because death is so distant, their sense of crisis naturally fades, which in turn dulls their senses.
“Don’t cause a scene. Think for a moment about who you are. If you don’t want to make all of Claudia your enemy…”
“The most necessary thing on the path of asceticism is indomitability! Whatever obstacles block one’s life, it is the law to endure and move forward!”
Another Tremor Step shook the ground. Echoes of Agony. The footwork, which signified a path of thorns, shook the very earth and left bloody footprints in its wake. The scrawny old monk looked as if he would weigh less than a nearby brick, but strangely, his steps held world-shaking power.
Its source was the same as Erzsebet’s Bloodpath, but it was a Blood Aura Technique that had evolved in a completely different direction. If Erzsebet was grand and elegant, Dogo was simple and brutish. It was hard to believe they were both vampires.
“This monk is an ascetic, and at the same time, the penance that all living beings must face!”
This was how the vampires had survived against the Sanctum. Dogo took an unstoppable step directly toward the Lightning Tower.
“I am coming. Face me!”
As he advanced, Shei drew Jizan to meet him, cleverly hiding the power she had been preparing within Jizan’s shadow.
‘Blood Monk Dogo. He’s extremely powerful, but he has one weakness.’
Not an inherent weakness, but an ideological one. Shei abandoned any thought of blocking or dodging. Instead, she poured all her strength and Qi into her attack.
Dogo was an ascetic.
One who seeks enlightenment by whipping himself and inflicting pain. Dogo’s choice to become a vampire was a reflection of his philosophy: he believed that life was suffering, and the eternal life of a vampire was an endless penance.
That is why Dogo wears only a single, revealing hemp garment—to expose himself to the sun, to feel its pain and discomfort. To him, pain was not something to be avoided, but something to be embraced.
Therefore, Dogo does not dodge attacks.
He endures and receives them. Unlike Lunken, who relied on his regeneration to trade blows, for Dogo, the act of being struck was itself a technique, a purpose.
Dogo was prepared to take Shei’s strike head-on.
—And Shei had experienced this fact.
It was different from simple knowledge. We call someone who can immediately put knowledge into practice a genius. One who learns through experience is considered talented. One who barely learns after repeated failures is deemed dull.
Shei was dull. The only difference was that she had repeated her experiences and failures time and again, and had come back each time.
“Haaaaaap!”
Shei even channeled her defensive Qi Art, Heavenly Counter Domain, into her attack. Heavenly Counter Domain, always poised to react and defend, released its stance and coiled around Jizan.
Lacking talent, Shei was always a hair’s breadth short, a single sheet of paper away from the line between life and death. Her attacks were blunt, her finishing moves sloppy. Due to this pure lack of skill, she often let her enemies escape despite her immense power.
However, even Shei had, once in her life, executed a move that would remain a brilliant, flashing memory. The problem, as is common for the untalented, was that she couldn’t summon that brilliance at will.
The Sword Empress had taken pity on Shei and modified a part of her Qi Art into an offensive form, allowing her to reproduce that one perfect strike whenever she wished by completely engraving the muscle memory into her technique.
That was the Heavenly Counter Domain: Offensive Form. It was not flexible, but its power was guaranteed—the single greatest strike of Shei’s life. Shei summoned the attack that had once succeeded.
“Aerith Blade Supreme, Duality!”
The tip of the launched Jizan drew a subtle curve. The extremely compressed Chun-aeng was like a contained storm, and its immense power made even Jizan vibrate. Having confined the power of heaven and earth to a single point, Shei extended her entire body and drove the storm into Dogo…
And Dogo met it, prepared to take the full force of the blow. His withered body neither resisted nor yielded to the tempest within the blade’s tip. It simply melted into the flow, becoming one with it.
Demonic Martial Arts: Tempest.
Dogo and Shei clashed. Blood and flesh scattered, mixed in the storm. A literal storm of blood raged in Claudia.