Chapter 912 - A Wild… Falling Royal
Crack. The metal sphere crashed on the ground, broke, and released a mist of black smoke. Then, a petite figure appeared.
For some unknown reasons, Rhode felt rather familiar with this scene as though he had seen it in the past...
It was a little girl who was about the same height as Mini Bubble Gum. Judging from her appearance, she seemed to be around 14 years old. She had fluffy, long golden hair with curly ends at the length to her waist. She wore a pitch-black, luxurious dress and her slim stature made her look like an exquisite and adorable doll. Her delicate face with some baby fat appeared somewhat pale, but her dainty nose, lips, and large eyes made her pleasing to the eyes.
However, Rhode recognized from her unusual, blood-red eyes and ears that resemble inverted triangles that she wasn’t a human.
She was a vampire.
“What’s the situation with her?”
Rhode twitched his brows curiously. It was definitely clear that this little girl didn’t belong to the low ranks of vampires. At this moment, they were in the outdoors and although the Void Dragon’s protection over this territory wasn’t particularly against Undead Creatures, vampires should be defenseless in the sun. The lower-ranked vampires died instantly under light and even higher-ranked vampires would feel uncomfortable. However, this little girl was obviously different. Although she was putting up a gloomy expression which was most likely the result of Mini Bubble Gum’s ‘violent treatment’, she only narrowed her eyes, shrunk her pupils, and stood silently under the glaring sun.
As a vampire, their ability to resist sunlight reflected their bloodline value. Come to think of it, the original vampires also had something to do with the Undead Puppet, knowingly Shira. As the most perfect Undead Creature, Shira was satisfactory in almost all aspects. Her only flaw was that she couldn’t breed which explained the disappearance of other Undead Puppets. It wasn’t easy for the Creator Dragon Soul to produce the Undead Puppets. As a result, these powerful subjects died one by one, but the Creator Dragon Soul wasn’t willing to give up. It began to research similar creatures like the Undead Puppet with the ability to breed the next generation. Thus, the vampires were born for this purpose.
According to the historical records, the first vampires were fused with the powers of the Undead Puppet and as a result, their recovery abilities were only slightly weaker. But being slightly weaker was still better than the majority. On the other hand, the biggest flaw they had was their fear of sunlight. Of course, sunlight wasn’t too harmful to the first vampires where at most it felt as though it was the hottest periods of summer. Although it was uncomfortable, that was all that affected them. Back then, the Dark Dragon was extremely satisfied with the results and believed that the vampires would be able to resolve the problems through giving blood and transformation and enable the Undead Creatures to breed the next generations. Congratulations. This way, his dark, enormous empire would be just around the corner...
But it was a pity that... Reality was often cruel.
After a period of time, the Dark Dragon discovered that the second and third generations of vampires’ resistance to sunlight was significantly weakened. Not only that, but the vampires who just ‘incarnated’ would vanish in a puff of smoke as soon as the sunlight struck them. This instantly became a troublesome issue for the Dark Dragon, but it was all too late. Unlike the Undead Puppets who couldn’t breed, the vampires had already become a massive dark force and it was impossible to change them. As a result, the Dark Dragon could only accept the mistake and adapt to it.
Perhaps it was due to this reason that the conditions for the seniority among the vampires weren’t based on strength. Instead, it was based on the purity of the bloodline. The better the vampire resisted sunlight, the closer the bloodline was to the ancestors. In turn, the bloodline was purer and the vampire would hold a higher status.
And this little girl standing before Rhode...
Of course, the instant the vampires awakened their bloodline or incarnated, their time would be stopped. Therefore, only God knew how many centuries this little girl had lived for despite her looks of a 14 years old. But no matter what, the fact that she wasn’t disturbed by the sunlight proved the purity of her bloodline. Rhode was astonished as to why she was captured by Mini Bubble Gum.
“Where did you catch her from?”
“Heh heh. How is it? Are you surprised?”
Mini Bubble Gum lifted her head proudly and revealed a grin. The little girl standing before her lowered her head with a gloomy expression. Ever since she was caught by Mini Bubble Gum, she had been tolerating all sorts of unreasonable requests such as “I want you to appear in front of me as soon as I summon you!”. Moreover, what frustrated her was that she had to shrink and squeeze herself into that damned metal sphere! That metal sphere had nothing inside and was just an empty solid shell!
But this wasn’t all.
She was weaker in strength than Mini Bubble Gum and could only treat this as though she was jailed. Anyway, vampires didn’t need to eat or sleep. Besides, the bitter treatment she received in the Country of Darkness wasn’t anywhere better and it was still possible for her to get used to this.
However, the problem was that Mini Bubble Gum constantly tossed the metal sphere around like a ball which made her experience as though earthquakes of magnitude 10 everyday. There was a period of time when she thought she was about to die...
Furthermore, it was apparent that Mini Bubble Gum knew what kind of being this little girl was and she still gave her away as a present! This was absolutely humiliating! But... what could she do about it?
The little girl did resist and tried to escape. She had even attempted to use the powers of the vampires to manipulate Mini Bubble Gum. But everything was useless. Mini Bubble Gum was obviously a human and a Cleric too. But her violent moves during battles were frightening and after a few losses against her, the little girl could only admit defeat. The fact that Mini Bubble Gum, as a powerful Cleric. didn’t ‘cleanse’ her into ashes was a huge act of benevolence, wasn’t it?
But now...
Rhode scanned the little girl curiously while listening to Mini Bubble Gum’s exciting story. As players, Mini Bubble Gum and him were aware of the rarity of royal vampires. Therefore, the moment Mini Bubble Gum discovered that this little girl was a royal vampire, she used the metal sphere to capture her. Royal vampires were vampires with pure bloodlines and according to Mini Bubble Gum and Canary, all the ‘rats’ that had the audacity to peep in the territory were eliminated. Rhode wasn’t too surprised by this result because before he left, he also passed some of the system rights to the Land of Atonement fortress to Canary and Gillian. The system indicated all beings that entered the territory so no matter how well any intruders hid themselves, they would be exposed clearly.
If Mini Bubble Gum were to catch this little girl before Rhode went to open up the land of Chaos, he wouldn’t be too surprised because this might merely be a misjudgment of his strength on the enemies’ part. Although Rhode didn’t announce his plans, anyone with motives would be able to find out with some simple investigations. Moreover, it was extremely dangerous to open up the land of Chaos and it went without saying that Mini Bubble Gum and Canary would join his adventure. Since that was the case, it was understandable that powerful vampires like this little girl would seize this opportunity to arrive in the Land of Atonement. But who would have thought that Rhode left these two powerful weapons in the fortress and not by his side?
According to Mini Bubble Gum, this little girl only arrived after Rhode returned to the fortress, which was really strange. He judged that this little girl was between level 65 and 70 which was below average among the pure vampires. Ashvril’s direct subjects of vampires were level 75 on average. Compared to them, this little girl was still lacking in strength and this also proved that she was a newborn.
It was due to this reason that Rhode was suspicious of the entire situation. Logically speaking, this newborn with pure bloodline should be staying in the safety of her home to strengthen her powers and not arrive at this place knowing that there were two beings in the Peak Legendary Stage.
Is it because she’s young and naive that she wants to challenge her limits? Or are there other reasons?
“What is your name?”
Rhode asked. The little girl shivered instinctively. Then, she lifted her head and looked at the young man.
“Angelina Babylonia. I’m the heir to the honorable Babylonia family!”
Angelina pushed her chest forward as though she was proud of her family. But...
“Babylonia?”
Canary and Mini Bubble Gum exchanged dubious glances. They had accompanied Rhode for the longest time and slaughtered their way into the Country of Darkness. Thousands of vampire nobles died in their hands, but why didn’t they hear about Babylonia?
“If I remember correctly, don’t all the royal vampires in the Country of Darkness belong to Ashvril Teresa?”
Canary said with knitted brows. Due to the special ‘breeding’ system of the vampires, all of them in the Country of Darkness would add the surname of the royal vampire family behind their names. For instance, one of the four legendary generals, Ashvril Teresa, was in control of the vampires in the Country of Darkness. Based on this rule, this little girl should be named Angelina Babylonia Teresa instead as among the vampires, it was the symbol of service by adding ‘Teresa’ to the end of their names. This was just too strange that the little girl didn’t.
“Rubbish!”
Angelina jumped like a cat who had her tail stepped on.
“What rights does that mixed-blood have to receive the honor of my royal family? She’s just a slut with filthy, lowly bloodline!”
“Woah.”
Mini Bubble Gum was astounded while Rhode and Canary gazed in astonishment at the little girl who actually saw Ashvril as an enemy. Apart from the insults that she hurled, what she said about Ashvril was actually the truth. This part of the history wasn’t well-known among natives, but it was widely spread among players.
As one of the four legendary generals, Ashvril Teresa was the love gem of two royal vampire families. Back then, a high-class vampire noble and a low-class vampire girl fell in love and got together. However, just like all vampires, they couldn’t breed. As a result, they used a method that was considered disgraceful to all vampires. They found a human baby and used the baby as a vessel by injecting their blood. This way, the baby would receive blood from both parties and was considered on some level a child with both their bloodlines.
Of course, they were aware that this news would surely cause an uproar if it were leaked to the public because vampires saw their bloodlines as a supreme existence over humans. And yet, this couple actually injected their precious bloods into a human baby, allowing ‘lowly human blood to stain their precious bloodline’! Not only that, but the couple had also mixed their bloodlines with the high-class vampire noble family and a low-class vampire family. In the world of vampires, this was as though the rich young son having a family with a young lady who was a beggar—absolutely unacceptable behavior.
The couple knew that they wouldn’t receive blessings from everyone and tried their best to hide the truth. However, the truth always came out and eventually, they paid with their lives. They were thrown into a stone bucket with a tiny hole, sealed, and sent to the border of the Country of Light to be burned to death by the sunlight. This was the most cruel punishment for vampires who betrayed their race.
Back then, Ashvril was only 16 years of age and should have been killed on the spot. But for some reasons which no one knew—and whether she would be fortunate or unfortunate—the hidden bloodline in her awakened a day before the vampire nobles executed her and she successfully transformed into a vampire. As Ashvril didn’t violate the vampires’ commandment and due to the rule of ‘no killing family members without cause’, she survived a great catastrophe.
Thereafter, Ashvril’s life could be considered as though an extremely thrilling palace drama. She used her wisdom, beauty, and strength to deal with vampire nobles and used their families’ contradictions to provoke a multitude of conflicts while she took advantage of the crisis for a personal gain of status and power. After almost 200 years, Ashvril overcame all obstacles to ascend the throne of the vampires to become the ‘Blood Countess’ and one of the four legendary generals.
Something worthy of mention was that before it happened, vampire nobles with pure bloodlines criticized Ashvril as a ‘slut with filthy, lowly bloodline’ and ‘mixed-blood’. But after Ashvril obtained power, these voices swiftly vanished and didn’t exist even in historical records.
And now, this young vampire actually knew about this ‘dark history’ of Ashvril from hundreds of years ago. This was absolutely astonishing.
“That’s right!”
Angelina said and felt as though the injustice that she held for years was finally released. She lifted her head proudly.
“Ashvril is just a shameless, despicable traitor who seized the position of the royal family. I, Angelina Babylonia, am the one and only, genuine heir!”
Is this the reason why she was sent here for a suicide mission?
Rhode puckered his brows. If what this little girl said was true, it wasn’t too surprising because with Ashvril’s personality, she would surely want to remove any threats. This little girl was indeed a royal vampire with a pure bloodline, which gave her words credibility. It also wasn’t the first time that Ashvril got someone else to do her dirty work. But...
Rhode and Canary exchanged glances with each other and saw glints with the same intention.
Maybe we can make use of her?