Becoming a vampire means immortality, but it is not your immortality alone. Rather, with every lineage core spread, from those who sired vampires before you, to the one that sired you, to the one you will sire, your entire line grows stronger. Your skills collectively advance, and you can gaze through each other. You can draw upon your lesser’s power and lend yours in aid to those above, and so on.

This is what the First Blood will tell you, but the First Blood lies. This is not a proper form of immortality, but a parasitic one. It is a hierarchical chain, meant to benefit the ones at the top, and sold to the desperate and the hopeless as a means to escape their predicament. This comes at the cost—for the Vampirism Skill is not only a skill, but a curse and a chain.

Understand what a Lineage Core is. Lineage. Bloodline. You are made a vampire by a sire—and short of them being among the First Blooded, they will have a sire of their own. Now, this comes with advantages. For as long as your sire lives and the bloodline chain to your First remains unbroken, they will restore you, no matter how ruined your flesh becomes. The blood of the First, likewise, will flow into your body, ensuring you are resistant to disease, to malformation, to biological decay. This is because you will be made a mirror of the First, and short of their destruction or the ruining of your core, you will endure in their image regardless.

But there is a cost to pay for those below. A price of skills and fealty. You cannot disobey a sire. For they control your blood. You cannot overcome your elders. For they hold your destiny. And when they need to draw forth power, they will be allowed to siphon mana from you as you might from cattle or your lessers.

When you become a vampire, the image they sell is of high nobility, freedom to indulge in all the pleasure and power offered in by the System without fear of a final death.

The truth is that you are but a link in the chain of blood. To be abused by those above because that is their right. And to be abusive to those below, for they will plot to take from you your core…

–Sire and Sired: The Chain of the First Blood

98 (I)

Hunt [III]

The vampiress was scared. That didn’t stop her from trying to use her Biomancy to flay Shiv alive.

After educating her on the penalties of being a rude idiot and waiting for her head to grow back together beneath his feet, the vampiress’s head regenerated again—just in time to see Shiv crush the Lineage Core he took from another vampire.

She got extremely cooperative after that

Dread Aura 88 > 89

Apparently, the sad vampire she was torturing was called Angelo Franchetti. He used to be part of the Ophereus Bloodline until he somehow managed to murder his sire and take her core for himself. After that, instead of doing what was the normal vampire thing and climbing up the bloodline ladder, he fled. This wouldn’t be an issue in and of itself, but as his sire apparently was connected to a great many junior vampires, Angelo somehow managed to achieve something of a “bloodline blockage” for the senior vampires on top of him. This meant the elders were unable to reach out and shape their descendants, and thus an entire generation of Ophereus Bloodline high vampires turned into lessers.

“That can happen?” Shiv muttered, taken aback. He was working through Odes slowly, but Ekkihurst was mainly focused on the intricacies of biology rather than specifically on the nature of vampire bodies. The only other stuff Shiv really knew about vampires was how much Uva—and practically every other Umbral in existence—despised them. That, and that crushing their cores killed them for good.

“Without the wizened hand of the First, the Highest Blood will sour and spoil in the newspawn,” the vampiress hissed. She glared feral hate at Angelo, who now had his hands over his face. “You… Vermin. Your sire takes you in, makes you someone of note and status, and you betray her. You butcher her. You steal her core.” The vampiress sneered. “Well done. That was rightfully taken. But then—but then, why did you flee? Why did you seal yourself away from the elders?”

Angelo didn’t reply to her. He was still too distraught. She spat a mouthful of blood at him in response. Her eyes snapped back to Shiv, and he felt her expression change. Immediately, her features shifted. She became more feminine. Her lips filled, and her bones cracked and transformed. Immediately, Shiv felt an urge to look at her—to do more with her—come over him. But her Charisma Skill wasn’t nearly as powerful as Angelo’s.

She let out a husky breath. “Powerful Pathbearer…”

“Headless corpse,” Shiv greeted in return.

Her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. “Wha—”

Shiv’s armored boot crushed her skull in the next instant, beheading her for the third time. Shiv glared down at her twitching body and growled. “See you felling fuck with my mind now.” He cast a few more laceration spells at the other vampires around him to keep them trapped in a regenerative state as well. He had a picture of what was happening, and frankly, he didn’t really care about the vampires overall.

This whole thing didn’t seem like his business from what was told, but the way Angelo sobbed was horrifically human. The poor bastard sounded genuinely broken. Shiv walked away from the quivering body of the vampiress and knelt down in front of Angelo. “Hey. Hey, Angelo.”

The bare-chested vampire stopped weeping for an instant and turned to regard Shiv. His expression was one of wretched despair. Shiv hated seeing that on the vampire’s features. He wanted to—

Shiv looked away and hissed. “Look. Turn off your felling Charisma Skill, alright. I’m not going to kill you. Yet.”

“I’m not using it,” Angelo breathed.

“What?” Shiv said, surprised.

“I’m not using my Charm on you. I’m not.”

“Then why do I feel it pulling at me every time I look at you?”

“It’s just the passive effect,” Angelo muttered under his breath. “I can’t help it. It came with the skill’s evolution to Master-Tier.”

The Deathless blinked. “So… This entire time, you weren’t even using the skill at all?”

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“No. Not at all. I won’t use it again. Never again.”

Shiv grunted. “Could’ve fooled me. Listen: was what she said true?”

“Yes,” Angelo admitted readily. He hugged himself and closed his eyes. “I—I did murder my sire. I did take her core. I did all those things. And I just wanted to be left alone after. I just wanted to be my own person again. This was—it was never my choice. I never wanted… I just wanted…”

“Come on,” Shiv said, holding Angelo by the shoulder. He kept the vampire from doubling over and collapsing into the blood-soaked soil. “Look. I don’t care what you did. I was just surprised you were a vampire too, and that they were trying to hurt you. Never saw that before.”

That got a hollow laugh out of Angelo. “Hurting each other is all the Bloodlines ever do. It’s all vampires ever do.” After a moment, he righted himself and looked at Shiv. “I’m surprised you bothered to speak with us at all. I did not know some of your kind still held mercy for me and mine.”

“My kind?” Shiv asked.

“Necrotechs. You are a Deathstalker, are you not?” Angelo whispered. “You have proven your power. You have broken the others with your Biomancy and might. I will not resist anything you intend to do.” Angelo almost snarled then as his nails dug into himself. “I can never resist anyone anyway. Never. I am just a thing… I can’t stop being a thing…”

And something told Shiv that the vampire was on another level of traumatized altogether. The Deathless regarded him for a moment and stood up. “Yeah. Well. You’re not my thing. I only kind of know what’s going on, but frankly, if you hurt the First Blood, that makes me want to cook for you, not kill you. Also, I’m not a Necrotech. I’m just a simple Pathbearer, making my way in the world, looking for a hydra or something that has good natural regeneration.”

Angelo looked up again, an expression of genuine surprise dawning on his exquisite features. “You aren’t—but the armor you wear…”

“Just how I like to dress. It’s convenient for me.” Shiv let out a laugh. “And I don’t think they know death nearly as well as I do.”

“So… you are merely monster-hunting? Here? In the Umbral Depths?” Angelo sounded confused and skeptical. “You do know that this is conflicted territory, do you not? Both the First Blood and Compact have laid claim to these lands—and Compact does not allow unregistered Pathbearers to poach here, to even walk these lands without a proper license.”

“Yeah, I don’t really care what Compact wants,” Shiv replied. “The First Blood, neither. As far as I’m concerned, both of them are made up of bastards who need killing, and that’s all they are to me. Speaking of which, why the hells are you here, then?”

“I own—I owned a plot of land nearby,” Angelo breathed, a haunted expression returning to him. “I bought it. From the Lords of Law. It was mine. And I was to be safe here. Safe with my people. A town of our own… Just a small… small plot of p-peace.” And then tears spilled forth from Angelo’s eyes again.

Shiv was about to ask him for more details, and then he noticed most of the scar-armored vampires he had killed earlier had regenerated. “Gimme a second.” Several laceration spells later, the conversation continued. “Alright. Where’s your place? And tell me what exactly happened.”

Angelo’s tears trailed down his cheeks, but his eyes remained locked on Shiv. “Why? Why do you care?”

“Because there might be other vampires there, and I think it’s best if there weren’t.”

Angelo looked upon Shiv, his face fraught with near-hope and disbelief. “Who are you?”

“I told you earlier. Just a simple Pathbearer. I need to be back somewhere with food in a while, but I think butchering a couple of vampires won’t take up too much of my time. Besides, the System would have forced me into some bullshit sooner or later.”

And somehow, Angelo understood. “You’re a Questing-favored.”

Questing? “Something like that. So. Where’s this town of yours? And what’s its name again?”

“Hawthark,” Angelo breathed, a surge of hope filling his gaze. “Hawthark. I—you truly wish to help me?”

“I didn’t say anything about helping you. I’m just in it for the vampire killing. And if there are other innocent people there, it might be best that they get saved.”

Slowly, Angelo rose to his feet, a renewed purpose lifting him. “I—I can show you. It’s not far. But the First Blood, they sent an entire Court Leviathan to recapture me and put my people to the fang.”

Shiv cocked his head. “A Court Leviathan?” Shiv wasn’t fully sure what that was, but it sounded like it might be interesting. “Does it regenerate?”

“What?”

“Does it regenerate? Is it edible?”

Hope was usurped by confusion on Angelo’s face. His mouth hung open slightly. “I—yes? Possibly. I’ve never thought of such a thing.”

“Ah. To hells with it. I’ll figure it out after I kill the bloodsuckers and cook the thing.” A groan came from nearby as several of the other vampires finished regenerating again. “Hm. Nah. I’m not cooking them. Feels too close to cannibalism for me.”

Angelo blinked twice. Shiv ignored the flabbergasted vampire as he dragged his cancer flail over to the vampiress, who had only just grown her head back. Once more, she blinked, once more, she looked up, once more, she saw Shiv. “So. About you trying to seduce me earlier…”

“No! Mercy! My sire can—”

She made a fine test subject for the first proper swing of his new cancer flail.

***

Angelo led Shiv through a dense thicket packed with feathery plants. As they continued on, Shiv continued plucking new ingredients to try out later. Even now, with blood dripping from his flail and gore painting his armor, he reminded himself to stay immersed in the world.

Beauty one second, violence the next. That’s your way, isn’t it, System?

The rogue vampire moved with terror and caution in his every step. He had some kind of Adept-Tier Stealth Skill that allowed him to dive from shadow to shadow. It was a bit like the Umbral Shadowalker Skill stored within Shiv’s Mask of False Paths, but rather than going invisible, Angelo basically treated shadows like they were pools of water.

Shiv strolled forward casually. He wasn’t going to use his Stealth Skill until Hawthark was in sight. The Creeping Void was awesome at concealment and confusion, but subtle it was not. It was a very “Shiv” skill in that sense, and for now, he just wanted to get a look at his enemy and the so-called Court Leviathan that carried them into battle.

Once more, Shiv realized the value of possessing a variety of skills. He was hyper-specialized for two things, mainly: combat and cooking. In terms of combat, he had an additional specialization in close-quarters, high damage, low precision, and mass devastation encounters. He was hard to kill, inflicted a great deal of harm, and, more importantly, he kept coming back. But when it came to predicting what his enemy might do, or sensing hidden foes, seeing them over the horizon, that was where he had no capabilities whatsoever.

After fighting alongside Adam and Uva for so long, Shiv suddenly remembered how limited he was alone. If he had Adam with him here, the Young Lord would have simply cast his awareness afar, and through Uva, they would all get a good glimpse of their enemy. If he had Uva, he wouldn’t need to interrogate and threaten a vampire for information. She would just pull it out of their memories.

When they fought together, they all shored up each other’s weaknesses and made one another exponentially more dangerous. Enemies with massive Physicality and Toughness skills were vulnerable to mind magic or surprise—Uva’s specialty. High Magical Resistance adversaries that Uva couldn’t easily get to would be torn apart by Shiv or shot down from afar by Adam. And what they couldn’t notice, what they couldn’t easily react to, would be seen by Adam. He, the hawk in the sky, Uva the whisper on the wind, and Shiv, the storm fated to fall thereafter.

Right now, he was a restrained storm, holding himself at bay, creeping through the shrubbery and peering afar over the shoulder of a peculiar vampire to save the rogue bloodsucker’s village. Shiv spotted the town of Hawthark immediately once they got near it.

He and Angelo were at the very top of a slope, still mostly shrouded by feathery plants. Hawthark wasn’t a big village, but it did have one huge building. It seemed to be some kind of church, judging from the religious iconography decorating its surfaces. Its front end was the shape of a massive sloping triangle, and there, a colossal entity with many limbs, a large glowing body, and colorful fractals where its head was supposed to be was depicted. To Shiv’s—admittedly amateurish—eye, its architecture was quite beautiful.

Flayed bodies had been nailed to every wall of the building.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep