My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines-Chapter 21: I’m a cautious guy.

"...Victor." Her voice was much lower than before. "I can’t see anything at all."

Victor was silent for a few seconds after her response, still staring at the same point in the darkness as if trying to focus on something very distant. His expression didn’t seem playful or provocative. There was genuine curiosity there.

Then he sighed.

Slowly, he leaned forward and began to stand up.

As he did so, he pulled his trousers from the floor and put them on with calm movements, tightening his belt while keeping his eyes fixed on the invisible wall.

’Damn... I still wasn’t satisfied...’ Carmilla thought, silently following the movement.

For a moment, a small expression of disappointment crossed her face, almost like a disgruntled child who didn’t want it to end yet. But she said nothing. She didn’t complain, she didn’t protest. She just let out a small sigh and also stood up from the floor.

She adjusted her long hair with her hand before walking to stand beside him. "Are you serious...?" she asked, still staring at the same empty space he was pointing to.

Victor took two steps forward.

The stone floor of the cell was uneven and cold underfoot, and every movement seemed to echo strangely within that unnatural darkness. Even so, he continued walking slowly, like someone exploring a dark room they are beginning to recognize.

"Yes," he replied calmly.

A few more steps.

Carmilla followed close behind, now with her attention completely focused on him.

Victor stopped.

He tilted his face slightly, narrowing his eyes as if adjusting his vision to something extremely distant.

"There..." he murmured.

He raised his hand and ran his fingers through the air in front of him.

A few centimeters from the tips of his fingers was... something.

A surface.

Rough.

Cold.

Victor pressed his palm against the wall.

Carmilla’s eyes widened.

"You really found a wall..."

She quickly moved closer as well and reached out, trying to touch the same spot. When her fingers reached the cold stone, her expression changed from surprise to something more serious.

"But that doesn’t make sense..." she murmured.

Victor ran his hand slowly over the surface.

Now that he was close, he could actually make something out. It wasn’t complete vision, like seeing in a normal dark room. It was more like... very faint outlines, almost shadows within the darkness itself.

But it was there. "I said I could see a little." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Carmilla stared at him for a few seconds, clearly trying to understand it.

Then she looked back at the wall.

"Victor..." she said in a lower tone. He continued examining the stone, running his fingers over the irregularities. "Hmm?"

"If you really can see through this darkness..." she said slowly. "...that means we might find the safe..." she murmured.

Victor gave a small, crooked smile. "Well, I thought the same thing."

Victor gave a small, crooked smile. "Well, I thought the same thing."

He continued running his fingers over the surface of the stone, slowly tracing the contour of the wall as if trying to memorize every irregularity. The darkness around them was still overwhelming, thick as an invisible fog that swallowed all possible light, but something within his perception was changing.

Very slowly.

Almost imperceptibly.

And this is where the nature of vision comes into play.

Ordinary humans believe that "getting used to the dark" means that the eyes begin to see better in the absence of light. In reality, the process is more complex. When someone enters a dark environment, the light-sensitive cells of the retina—primarily the rods—undergo a slow chemical adaptation. Visual pigments regenerate, dramatically increasing sensitivity to the smallest possible amount of photons.

It takes time.

Minutes.

Sometimes almost a whole hour.

But at the end of this process, an ordinary human can see vague shapes, shadows, and movements even in extremely dark environments.

Vampires, however, don’t work that way.

Vampire vision is born adapted for the night. The altered metabolism of these creatures transforms their eyes into instruments naturally capable of capturing absurdly small amounts of ambient light. For them, a dark corridor still contains enough information to form a clear image.

Where humans see darkness...

Vampires see a world in muted tones.

But Solitary Confinement wasn’t just a dark place.

It was something different.

The darkness there wasn’t the absence of light.

It was presence.

A remnant left by the ancient portal to the Abyss, a dimensional scar that not only blocked ordinary light but distorted the very concept of illumination in that space. It was like trying to look through a living shadow, a layer of reality that absorbed everything before it arrived.

That’s why vampires couldn’t see there either.

But... if humans can adapt... Why couldn’t Victor?

What he was doing at that moment wasn’t simply "adjusting his eyes."

He was adjusting his own perception to a darkness that shouldn’t be visible.

"I can see." Victor said as a whole new world appeared before him; it was as if he were learning to see again.

"W-what?" Carmilla stammered, and looked into the complete darkness, "Seriously?"

Victor smiled. "Are you doubting your husband?" He questioned, smiling, "I see everything." He affirmed.

"Everything?" she asked, suspiciously. "Victor... that’s impossible."

Victor tilted his head slightly, like someone adjusting an invisible focus within their own mind. His red eyes were open, attentive, and the way he observed the environment was no longer that of someone groping in the dark... It was that of someone... learning.

"Not exactly everything," he corrected calmly. "It still looks... kind of blurry. Like when you wake up and your eyes take a while to focus."

He ran his hand along the wall again, following the cold stone as his eyes slowly scanned the surroundings.

"But I can see quite a lot."

Carmilla was completely silent now. ’Naturally I would try to say how absurd this is, but I think silence is better... isn’t it enough that I’ve become a domesticated little dog after the wedding...’

"The room is bigger than I thought." He turned slightly, looking around as he tried to mentally organize the shapes that were beginning to emerge from the darkness. "Much bigger."

He took a few slow steps forward.

"This wall here continues for... maybe fifteen meters." He ran his fingers over the uneven stone as he walked. "The stone is old. It’s not like the rest of the prison. It looks... older."

"The floor is uneven." He looked down, narrowing his eyes. "There are cracks... some are deep. As if something had been pressing against the stone for a long time."

He took a few more steps... Victor slowly turned his head to the opposite side of the room.

"There’s another wall over there... but it’s not smooth." He raised his hand and pointed into the void, even though Carmilla couldn’t see the gesture. "There are... marks."

Carmilla tilted her head. "Marks?"

Victor moved a little closer, narrowing his eyes as if trying to strain his newly adapted vision even further. "Engravings, perhaps." He murmured. "Or... very old cracks."

He took two more steps and then stopped, silently analyzing what he was seeing.

Carmilla noticed immediately.

"What is it?" she asked.

Victor didn’t answer right away; he was looking at the center of the room.

"There’s something in the middle," he said finally. "I think that’s where the portal was," he said and walked over there.

"Wait~" Carmilla ran, trying to stop him, but when she went to touch him... He disappeared.

"What?" Carmilla looked at her hand and ahead, where she could no longer see anything... "Where did he go?"

What had happened to Victor?... Well... When Victor blinked again...

The Solitary Confinement cell was no longer there. Everything around had been swallowed by an even deeper darkness.

But this darkness was different.

It wasn’t the same thick darkness of the cell, the one that absorbed all light and crushed vision. This one seemed... infinite. An absolute void that stretched in all directions, as if he were standing in the middle of a black ocean without sky, without ground, and without walls.

Yet, he was standing.

Under his feet was some solid, cold, and smooth surface, like ancient stone polished by time.

Victor frowned.

"Carmilla?" He called.

His voice echoed strangely, but not like in an ordinary room. The sound seemed to travel much further than it should, slowly dissolving into the void.

No answer.

He turned slowly, trying to see something around him. His eyes continued to adjust to that impossible darkness, just as they had begun to do inside the cell.

"Carmilla?" he called again, a little louder.

Nothing.

Then he heard it.

A low sound.

Almost imperceptible.

"...mmgh..."

Victor stopped immediately.

It wasn’t an echo.

It was a murmur.

Someone was there.

He turned his head slowly toward the sound, narrowing his eyes as he forced his vision to pierce the surrounding emptiness.

At first there were only vague shapes.

Shadows within the darkness.

Then... an outline.

Very slowly, as if being revealed by his own perception, a figure began to emerge.

Seated on the floor.

Knees bent, shackled... Long hair falling over her shoulders... completely white and lifeless, her skin petrified with old age, dry as brittle branches, only a thin layer of grey skin.

The posture was strangely familiar.

Victor took a few steps toward the figure, his eyes trying to focus better as the details began to appear exactly as they had when he first encountered Carmilla in that other darkness.

An irritated grumble. "...what a pain..."

Victor stopped a few meters from her, tilting his head slightly.

He observed the scene for a few seconds; it was a huge déjà vu to see that scene again, it seemed like a copy of when he found Carmilla, the difference being that this one was certainly not Carmilla.

Seeing that, he sighed. "Again?" he asked.

The woman slowly raised her head; unlike Carmilla, who was asleep when he found her, this woman was quite lucid. Her eyes were still half-closed, like someone who had just woken up from an extremely long or very unpleasant sleep, but she was alert.

She blinked a few times and her gaze finally focused on Victor.

"...Who the hell are you?" she murmured, her voice hoarse.

Victor crossed his arms. He looked around the black void once more, then returned his gaze to her.

"Good question," he replied calmly. He vaguely pointed to the nothingness around him.

"Because until five seconds ago I was in prison." He tilted his head slightly, analyzing the woman sitting on the floor. "...And now I’m apparently finding women in the dark again." He paused briefly, "Well, I’ll ensure my survival again." He said, already walking towards her and cutting his finger to make it bleed.

"Hey—" She questioned. "What are you~"

"Sorry, kid, I’m a cautious guy, even if it costs me my soul." He said as he began to draw the magic circle. "I’ve done this once and seen how effective it is. Man, my wife was against it but now she loves me as if my existence depended on her. I liked that. A millennia-old vampire as a lovestruck little girl, really only advantages." He spoke as if he were venting and happy about it.

He then finished, "So, I’ll give you blood and we’ll get married temporarily." He spoke grinning like a predator. "Of course, just for my safety, you know?"

"W-what?" She stammered.

"Sorry, darling, good marriages begin with strong, indestructible bonds." He said and clapped his hands, opening the collar of his shirt. "The smell of my blood will make you very docile. Okay?"