Chapter 492: 492

Roth tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing—not in disapproval, but consideration.

“A third banner?” the ancient demigod asked, voice a low hum that seemed to echo across the void.

Ethan nodded slowly. “A new banner. One not built on just bloodline or strength, but on understanding. On unity. One that takes from both, but bows to neither. Something… beyond what we were.”

He stepped back, letting the words settle.

Roth stared at him for a long time. Then, with a slow motion, he reached out into the air.

From the empty white void, a small spark of color bloomed—a deep violet flame, flickering quietly between the black and white banners. It floated there, untouched, unshaped, unclaimed.

A possibility.

“You speak like a god, yet still carry the doubt of a man,” Roth said quietly. “Perhaps that makes you fit to shape such a banner.”

Ethan’s expression didn’t change, but something subtle shifted in his posture—less rigid now, more resolved.

“Then give me the time,” he said. “To try.”

Roth closed his eyes for a moment, as though weighing not just the request, but the path that would follow. When he opened them again, they glowed—not fiercely, but softly, like embers in a dying fire.

“Then begin,” he said.

And with that, the flags vanished. The whiteness receded. The library returned—dusty, quiet, eternal.

Ethan, upon hearing Roth’s confirmation, stood still for a moment—silent, unmoving. Then the mask cracked.

A mad grin tore across his face, sharp and wild, revealing the glint of his crystallized fangs. His Fifth Stage aura began to leak out, filling the space with oppressive energy. He had waited years—decades—for this moment. For Roth to finally give his approval.

Now, he was ready. Ready to purge the court of the vermin who clung to old power, who had stalled the rise of their people for far too long.

Roth raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. He sipped from his glass, calm even in the face of Ethan’s intensity.

Then, with a single line, he poured cold reason over the fire.

“I see you’re getting carried away,” Roth said evenly, “but have you considered whether the other godlings would even accept your people?”

Ethan blinked, his grin faltering slightly. “Why wouldn’t they? History shows that godlings, no matter their origin, have always maintained strong familial ties. We share the same divine roots.”

Roth nodded, swirling the liquid in his cup before taking another sip. “That they do. But have you considered the darker truth of who we are? What sustains us? What we do in the shadows to survive?”

The words settled like ash.

Ethan’s smile vanished completely, and the oppressive aura began to recede. He stood still once more, returning to that stoic, unreadable posture he wore so well.

Roth continued, his voice quiet but heavy with implication. “You and I both know—our people survive on needs others would find monstrous. Blood. Control. The manipulation of life and death itself. Would they not fear us turning our gaze outward, toward them?”

Ethan said nothing.

He didn’t need to.

Roth had struck the truth—the one they both knew but rarely spoke aloud. The one that reminded them that even gods have limits to what they accept… and that not every door is opened by shared blood alone.

Moral values—Roth wasn’t certain how the other godlings would react to theirs.

His people needed blood. A lot of it. This wasn’t just a trait of the full-blooded vampires; it was equally true, if not more volatile, among the hybrids.

One might assume the purebloods were the ones most likely to lose control when tasting blood—but the opposite was true. It was the hybrids who had to be watched the closest.

For the hybrids, blood brought a unique kind of ecstasy. Unlike the purebloods, who were born into a constant need for blood and thus developed a measured control, hybrids could sustain themselves on regular food and drink. Feeding on blood was rare for them. Rare—and dangerously intoxicating.

A single taste could unhinge a hybrid.

The reaction was visceral, almost addictive. A hybrid who tasted blood too often entered a state that was difficult to pull them back from—a euphoric frenzy that risked turning them into monsters.

And yet, despite this danger, the need remained.

“Bloodbanks”—humans raised and kept as living sources—had long been the answer. But they were limited. The number of humans under vampire control was never enough to satisfy the growing population, especially with both factions—the hybrids and the full-blooded—requiring them.

Though hybrids could survive without regular blood, their occasional cravings created dangerous spikes in demand. Cravings that, once ignited, were nearly impossible to extinguish without consequence.

Bloodbanks had become one of the greatest points of contention between the two factions. The vampire kingdom, as it stood now, maintained several small cities of captive humans whose sole purpose was to supply blood.

It was an unspoken truth—a necessary evil, some argued. Others saw it as a growing rot beneath the surface of their so-called civilization.

A problem waiting to explode.

In the beginning, maintaining these human cities had been simple.

There was a mutual understanding—an alignment of purpose between the vampires and the humans. The humans provided blood, and in return, they received protection, comfort, even a sense of importance. It was a delicate balance, one born from necessity and sustained through respect.

But as the vampire population grew, so too did the strain.

What once was mutual soon demanded force. Subtle guidance turned into control. Agreement into enforcement. The growing needs of the vampires required heavier methods, and slowly, the nature of these cities changed.

The turning point came when envy took root among the humans.

They longed for the immortality, the unaging beauty, the power the vampires held. Their admiration twisted into obsession. Some begged to be turned. Others took matters into their own hands—capturing young vampires, forcing bites, hoping to be transformed.

The vampires learned a hard lesson in those days. Trust could become a weapon. Power, once shared, had to be reclaimed.

From that moment on, the old agreements were dissolved. The cities became farms. The humans within—no longer partners—were stock. Bred, raised, and conditioned for one purpose: to supply blood. It became tradition. A quiet horror normalized over time.

Even now, it remains one of the most bitter points of contention between the two vampire factions. And now, with Roth pointing it out, Ethan was forced to consider what such a history would mean on the world stage.

To reach out to the other godlings meant exposing everything—their fractured politics, their dark methods of survival.

Their shame.

How would the other races react? How would they be judged? Especially when their very nature was bound to something as visceral as blood?

In the eyes of the godlings, would they be seen as kin…

…or as monsters?

Ethan stood still, his arms at his sides, fists slowly clenching.

He had always known, of course. On some level, every vampire did. But hearing it laid bare by Roth—spoken with such clarity and finality—made it feel heavier. Real.

Their legacy wasn’t just carved in blood and power.

It was soaked in silence and complicity.

He looked up at Roth, the glow from his crystalized fangs now dimmed beneath the weight of responsibility. “Then what would you have us do?” he asked, voice low. “Hide forever? Remain ghosts while the world moves without us?”

Roth regarded him quietly, then turned his back. His voice came soft, like a whisper carried on ancient winds.

“No, Ethan. I am saying you must walk into the world knowing what shadow follows behind you.”

He raised a hand, and the air around shimmered, shifting silhouettes of other godling races flickered into existence—blurry forms of apelings, harpies, merfolk and werewolves. Each one a sovereign race, each one bound by their own divine heritage.

Other godlings… they are not innocent,” Roth continued. “Each has done what they must to survive. But the difference lies in how they justify it. How they speak of it. How they atone.”

“You want our people to step forward?” Roth asked, turning back to Ethan. “Then teach them to own what they are. Not with pride, not with shame—but with clarity.”

Ethan, hearing Roth’s words, subconsciously began to nod, the weight of realization deepening behind his eyes. His mind drifted, unbidden, through fragments of history—moments and records buried in archives, about each godling race and their dealings with humans.

Other godlings… they too had walked the blurred line between necessity and cruelty.

Compared to the vampire courts, the others might still be judged less harshly. After all, blood consumption was visceral—intimate. It unsettled the senses. No matter how structured their feeding systems were, no matter how carefully monitored, the image conjured in the minds of others would always be that of predation.

But Ethan now saw what Roth meant.

It wasn’t about matching others in brutality or purity—it was about narrative. How the story was told. How they chose to be seen. And more importantly, how they saw themselves.

He clenched his jaw slightly, a fire beginning to kindle behind his composed gaze. The radical act he was about to take in court—the purging of stagnation, the silencing of old ones and the young one who profited off arrogance and pride while preaching progress—suddenly felt less like rebellion and more like preparation.

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