Chapter 127

Chapter 127
## Chapter 127

Sacred Blood (2)

“………”

“Ugh, this is totally pointless.”

Harley muttered, clicking his tongue in irritation.

There was no rule in the universe dictating that vampires held a monopoly on draining vitality from veins.

He possessed the trait known as “Voracity”, rendering him exceptionally talented when it came to consuming things.

Consequently, he managed to siphon off a massive quantity of the vital fluid that served as the foundation of their might while battling the True Bloods, yet the resulting benefits fell far short of his hopes.

‘Come to think of it, Harley had already gathered more than enough vampiric genetic material.’

He had previously ingested a massive volume of Heinz the Second’s refined lifeblood, which was essentially of the highest caliber, allowing him to hunt formidable beasts right from the start.

This implied there was very little left for him to extract from the essence of commonplace vampires at this stage.

‘The True Bloods are a different matter altogether, but… regardless, it doesn’t agree with me. Standard beast magical cores remain the absolute best choice for Harley.’

The traits required for siphoning life force and manipulating blood magic were highly specialized assets unique to the vampire race.

To unlock their full potential, he would be forced to restructure the vast majority of his physical form to match their anatomy…

‘But doing that would only compromise the utility of raw vitality and “Bio-Aura”.’

For someone like Harley, who advanced by selectively incorporating only the absolute necessary genetic sequences, the rigid framework demanded by vampiric mechanics acted as an unnecessary constraint.

Why would he tether himself to such limitations when there were far simpler pathways to scale his power?

“………”

“Hmm, I am thoroughly pleased. Imbibing the essence of a True Blood truly offers an entirely unique sensation.”

On the flip side, Heinz rubbed his jawline, a look of profound fulfillment washing over his features.

This marked his inaugural experience draining a True Blood, and the resulting progression shattered his initial forecasts.

‘I have preyed upon entities of the True Blood tier back on Earth, but tasting blood native to this exact reality carries a fundamentally different weight.’

It was certainly worthy of a top-tier rating as a preliminary course.

He found himself eagerly anticipating the primary feast that lay ahead.

Naturally, a multitude of nearby vampires bore witness to Heinz indulging in cannibalistic consumption…

‘Yet it hardly matters at this juncture.’

Who would possess the audacity to call Heinz to account?

If anything, the display merely intensified the dread and reverence they felt toward him, serving as undeniable proof that he had triumphed over the psychological degradation that originally birthed the cultural prohibition.

Furthermore, such intense terror could be leveraged effectively for establishing absolute authority.

“………”

“Well now—? I found myself wondering what sort of youth the newly risen ruler would turn out to be, but you completely subvert my assumptions. Truly, you are quite spectacular in numerous regards!”

“I appreciate the high praise. You must be Brokoslack, the Sacred Blood, correct?”

“Address me as Briki. That particular title suits my preferences far better.”

“Very well, Briki. You may refer to me as Heinz.”

“Heinz! A name that sounds quite appetizing. Intended entirely as praise, naturally.”

Benefiting from Briki’s surprisingly lighthearted attitude, Heinz managed to converse with her without friction, establishing an initial sense of alignment.

‘I anticipated she would harbor deep resentment toward Heinz for seizing complete control over her lineage.’

Instead of showing enmity, she was radiating warmth.

The sentiment was far too genuine for his highly perceptive duplicates to misinterpret, dismissing any notion that she was merely putting on an act to navigate the immediate crisis.

‘Nevertheless, she remains a Sacred Blood with millennia of existence behind her, demanding a degree of caution.’

Granted, that concern could wait for another time.

She currently lacked the leverage to mount any sort of challenge against him.

Sizzle—!

Heinz subtly shifted his focus, locking his eyes onto the figure stationed directly opposite her.

“………”

Visque Ufersh, the individual distinguished by stark white locks and matching pale eyes, simply stood there, silently scowling in deep frustration.

“Khahahahat—! Come on, old man, smoothen out that expression, I have no intention of devouring you. Though, to be fair, I can only speak for myself. I haven’t the slightest clue what my companion here is plotting!”

“My word, I suspected as much a moment ago, but you truly are a wonderfully reliable youth. Tell me, Heinz, is this young man an ally of yours?”

“Our connection is rooted in commercial transactions. We are maintaining a mutually beneficial partnership at present.”

“Hey there, I go by Harley! My current operations are centered in Tarak, within the borders of the Tulk Kingdom.”

“My name is Briki. Now that I think about it, I neglected to offer my appreciation for the assistance you provided moments ago. Your intervention was incredibly valuable.”

“Think nothing of it!”

The casual banter resumed without delay.

Briki, Harley, and Heinz the Second carried on their lighthearted exchange, effectively encircling a solitary target within an environment crackling with volatile energy.

Isolated from the group, Visque Ufersh could do nothing but grind his teeth, his entire frame trembling as his hands balled into tight fists.

‘Huh, this almost paints us as the villains cornering a victim…’

An inkling of awkwardness stirred within him, mirroring the sensation of committing a transgression.

Yet they were the party that suffered the initial onslaught, and the aggressive interlopers were the ones standing opposite them!

“Mm, it appears we have permitted this affair to drag on unnecessarily. Shall we bring things to a conclusion?”

“Ah— Perfect! I need to wrap things up and head back myself!”

The moment Heinz voiced the proposition, Harley immediately signaled his agreement.

They had deliberately maintained an oppressive weight on Visque solely to drain his stamina, but executing a swift final blow now seemed far more prudent.

With that decision made… the isolated and desperate defense of Visque Ufersh commenced, his loyal cohorts having already been eradicated or subdued, leaving him entirely unaccompanied.

—

Clang—!

A violent tremor rippled through the surrounding air as the crimson blade manifested by Heinz slammed directly into Visque’s coiled lash.

“Urgh!”

Simultaneously, a network of lacerations resembling a spider’s weaving tore across Heinz’s physical form, accompanied by a dense eruption of sanguine vapor.

His innate physical restoration, which typically operated at blistering velocities courtesy of “Super Regeneration”, found itself heavily suppressed, blocking him from instantaneously replacing the lost vitality.

Sizzle— Whoosh—!

Suddenly, Visque’s left arm was cleanly severed amidst a cascade of energy, only to instantly reverse its trajectory and reattach as though reality itself were flowing backward.

The fluids spraying from the amputated limb coalesced mid-air, reshaping into a jagged, rotating blade of blood that plummeted toward Harley, who was advancing rapidly from the rear.

The projectile descended with the velocity of a lightning strike.

Rumble!

It aggressively shredded through the protective plating shielding both of his upper extremities.

Yet, despite having the skin of his hands reduced to ribbons, Harley failed to display even a hint of hesitation, wrapping his fingers tightly around the construct—.

“Khahahahat!”

He wrenched his arms apart, tearing the weapon completely in half.

His upper limbs were drenched in crimson due to his crippled recovery metrics, but he utterly disregarded the injuries, maintaining his forward momentum.

Sizzle— Splat!

Consequently, another massive cavity was gouged into Visque’s torso before his body could knit itself back together.

Right at that critical juncture, Heinz materialized beside him like an apparition, executing a flurry of high-speed strikes via the activation of “Acceleration”.

The onslaught was intercepted by a sudden barrier of crystallized blood, yet it still succeeded in carving a profound gash into the target.

Harley’s follow-up strike arrived a fraction of a second later, planting a heavy fist squarely into the center of the defense and shattering it entirely.

Heinz’s crimson edge thrust straight through the ruptured barricade, timing the strike flawlessly.

Their cooperative sequence, unfolding with the flawless synchronicity of a single organism, was nothing short of extraordinary.

Forced to withstand the assault, Visque felt a wave of despair wash over him, yet…

Leveraging his nearly divine reaction speeds, he barely managed to deflect the killing blow, though the impact caused his right eye to burst into a shower of sparks.

This precise cycle had already repeated itself multiple times.

“Grahhh! You pathetic parasites who wouldn’t survive a single moment against me in a fair duel! How dare you resort to numbers to overwhelm me!”

“Dear me—? Didn’t an enlightened individual recently declare that taking full advantage of an opponent’s vulnerabilities is simply the natural order of reality? Did that philosophy suddenly slip your mind?”

Briki flashed a mocking smirk, throwing salt on his wounds as he vented his rage.

His physical vessel was being systematically dismantled and reconstituted with every single action he took, causing the disparity in their respective strengths to steadily evaporate.

And ultimately,

Boom—!

“Gah!”

“Ahahat! I finally landed a solid one!”

Harley’s strikes began finding their mark directly against his flesh.

Swish!

“Remarkable, even while sustaining continuous damage, you manage to retain and manipulate every drop of escaping fluid. A level of mastery perfectly fitting a Sacred Blood. I shall claim it.”

Heinz’s weapon began consistently cleaving through his defenses.

Briki, utterly drained from the protracted engagement, could offer little more than basic suppression tactics to keep him contained, but given that Visque’s physical degradation far outpaced her own, any further assistance was redundant.

Before long,

The inevitable outcome that everyone foresaw finally manifested.

“No, this cannot be… I am destined to reign supreme over all vampire kind! I refuse to meet my end in a place like this…!”

Visque Ufersh shrieked in profound agony, staring directly into the abyss of his impending demise.

“Rest easy. I shall ensure your ambitions are carried forward.”

Heinz the Second, standing poised to aggressively usurp… or rather, legitimately inherit those grand designs, stood squarely before him.

“From this moment onward, the crown of the vampires belongs to me.”

Snap!

“Ah!”

A set of razor-sharp incisors finally sank deep into the side of Visque’s neck.

“Guh… You insufferable upstart of Brokoslack. To think you would skip the sacred protocols required to claim the Sacred Blood legacy, opting instead to clumsily steal it via base cannibalism…? And from the progenitor of an entirely separate bloodline? Do you truly believe the cosmos allows such madness?”

Even as the vital essence of his being was rapidly drained through the puncture wounds in his neck, he refused to halt his venomous jeering.

“You shall accompany me into oblivion…! Precisely like every single fool who attempted to usurp the Sacred Blood throughout history!”

He spat out a final malediction with what remained of his fading breath, stripped entirely of the capacity to fight back.

Even someone of his caliber, Visque, who had approached the ascension only after mitigating every conceivable hazard with the backing of his predecessors, had only managed to endure after navigating an astronomical number of fatal crises.

The notion that an individual could succeed completely devoid of protective measures was sheer fantasy!

‘I am blind to how he manages to withstand the mental rot while indulging in cannibalistic acts, but that trick alone will not preserve his life!’

This transcended the mere preservation of sanity; it constituted a highly volatile sacrament capable of snuffing out one’s life force from the mere attempt if the individual lacked the proper lineage.

Thus, his demise was rapidly approaching.

It was an absolute certainty.

…And yet?

‘For what reason… does he remain entirely unaffected?’

He had already surrendered a monumental portion of his life force, and a heavy lethargy was settling over his vision, yet the entity preying upon him showed no signs of faltering.

If anything, he was single-mindedly consuming the fluid as though locked in a profound hypnotic state.

Puff—

Gradually, Visque became aware of his outermost digits dissolving into fine dust and scattering into the air.

His consciousness was slipping into a fog, his internal monologues fragmenting into nothingness.

‘Ah, ah— It cannot be. This creature, this anomaly… possesses the capacity to genuinely assimilate the Sacred Blood of a foreign lineage…?’

Feeling the absolute entirety of his power being systematically extracted from his physical vessel, a realization finally crystallized amidst the haze of his dying mind.

-Rest easy. I shall ensure your ambitions are carried forward. From this moment onward, the crown of the vampires belongs to me.

There existed not a single shred of empty boasting within that proclamation.

He too had envisioned himself ascending to absolute sovereignty, even adopting the title prematurely, yet deep down he recognized his own limitations.

At best, he would have functioned as a mere proxy ruler installed by external forces.

However…

A Sacred Blood represented the ultimate architect and fountainhead of an entire genetic strain, an asset that fundamentally resisted theft absent the correct rituals.

What sort of existence was capable of absorbing it completely independent of ancestral ties?

“Phew— Ah, and you need not lose sleep over the future of the Ufersh Clan. They shall enjoy continuity for their lineage under my governance, integrated alongside Brokoslack.”

Heinz whispered softly, finally ceasing his consumption and removing his fangs from the lifeless throat.

While the words were delivered as a parting taunt, Visque, whose cognitive faculties had degraded past the point of reason, interpreted them in an entirely different light.

‘Unifying the disparate factions… the singular pillar destined to bring all vampires under one banner. The true sovereign… capable of guiding our kind out of the darkness…’

It resonated as a legitimate manifesto for the true crown of the vampire race, a grand vision he himself had only ever dared to romanticize in secret!

A silent shiver ran through his dissolving form as the last remnants of his awareness began to blink out.

He found himself unable to suppress a faint, internal chuckle.

He remained uncertain whether the urge stemmed from the sheer absurdity of the situation, a sudden spark of hope, or some entirely separate emotion.

…The strength required to contemplate the matter further had completely abandoned him.

Concurrently, ‘Visque Ufersh’, the undisputed master of the Ufersh Clan, dissolved entirely into ash, his remnants carried away by the wind.

‘What is this? Why did he suddenly start grinning at the end? Is there some hidden trap left behind?’

Naturally, the bizarre spectacle of an enemy suddenly embracing his demise with a meaningful smirk after uttering nothing but curses left Heinz feeling deeply perturbed.

‘Then again, perhaps he found solace in the knowledge that his bloodline would endure. Or perhaps he simply grasped the ultimate vanity of existence right at the threshold of death.’

Such speculations were completely irrelevant at this moment.

He lacked the luxury to direct his attention elsewhere, utterly consumed by the notifications manifesting before his vision and the sensation of his internal organs violently churning.

《You have harvested the lifeblood of a superior tier. The subject’s bloodsucking factor initiates a breakthrough beyond its threshold due to the intervention of the unique trait “Hybrid Evolution”.》

The fundamental nature of his bloodsucking factor experienced no alteration, given that he had previously secured the genetic code of the Ufersh Clan.

However, the systemic shockwaves triggered by his baseline power level climbing at an astronomical rate were exponentially more violent than any developmental shift he had previously endured.

‘Urgh— Had it not been for the presence of “Hybrid Evolution”, my physical form would have ruptured entirely.’

The colossal weight of Visque’s accumulated achievements and sheer power, channeled directly into him through the consumed life force, was expanding within his body, threatening to tear him apart from the inside out.

Yet “Hybrid Evolution” was aggressively corralling the chaotic energy, converting it into raw sustenance to force an advancement of his bloodsucking factor.

This outcome owed absolutely nothing to a grand destiny of leadership or a blessed bloodline, contrary to the assumptions Visque held before turning to dust.

He was simply forcing his way up the evolutionary ladder through the brutal application of various integrated mechanics.

Nevertheless, the destination remained identical, regardless of the path taken.

《The subject satisfies the necessary criteria and undergoes advancement. The unique trait “Blood Kin (True Blood)” transitions into “Blood Kin (Sacred Blood)”.》

Consequently, Heinz the Second’s bloodsucking factor, having been pushed to its absolute apex, shattered the ultimate glass ceiling.

With that, an entirely new Sacred Blood vampire emerged upon the landscape of Auterica.