“Can you see my body?”

“...What?”

He got to his feet.

Then spread both arms, as if telling me to take a good look at his body.

“What do you think?”

At that, I frowned, but answered anyway.

“I think you’re quite beautiful. But....”

“But?”

“It almost feels a little unreal.”

That was what I had thought from the moment I first saw him.

A strangely beautiful appearance, so androgynous you couldn’t tell whether he was male or female.

What it looked like, exactly....

“It’s less like looking at a person and more like looking at a statue.”

It went beyond being captivated by that beauty.

It was enough to make you think this was not a living being at all.

And then.

“What sharp eyes you have.”

“...Huh?”

“It is exactly as you say.”

I hadn’t meant anything by it.

But apparently what I’d said hadn’t been entirely wrong.

“The authority granted to the Neferat Bloodline is mist. It is certainly a powerful force... but it has one problem.”

“A problem?”

“The moment one’s entire body turns to mist, that person loses their original form.”

Well.

Their whole body scattered and turned into that kind of mist.

Ariella and her servants had been the same way, so I had never really thought of that as a weakness.

“When, after scattering into mist, one regains one’s original shape. Do you know what determines that original shape?”

But.

“It is ‘the form you believe yourself to have.’”

“And that becomes a problem?”

“If the transformation is brief, then no great problem arises. But this too becomes an issue over time. After becoming part of the bloodline, as time passes... one gradually forgets what one’s original appearance was.”

If it only lasted as long as Ariella’s or her servants’ brief mist transformation.

Then under normal circumstances, there would be no chance of forgetting your original appearance in that short span.

Even if it had some effect, it would be extremely minor.

Like he said, it would only become meaningful after a very long time had passed. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

“All the members of my family I saw were losing their original appearances.”

“......”

“Even those who had once been human were, as the years passed, becoming things far removed from humanity.”

Unlike Ariella, who merely possessed the ability to turn into mist.

They specialized in it, and spent longer, more frequent periods in that form.

‘Forget your original self....’

No matter what sort of form they had before becoming vampires.

The moment their race changed, their identity would change drastically too.

So it wouldn’t be strange if, later on, they became something that could no longer even recall what their original form had been.

And.

“After that Valarak’s invasion, I hid beneath the Melchiorn fortress. Fearing I might be discovered, I turned into mist and wandered those sewers for hundreds of years.”

If he had regained his original form even once in a while, that would have been one thing.

But if he had remained in the form of mist for an extremely long time.

“One day, when the fortress shook violently and all of Melchiorn’s bloodline rushed outside, I too tried to regain my original form and flee the fortress. But....”

“...You couldn’t remember what your original form looked like.”

“Yes. Even after I released the mistform and my feet touched the ground.”

He.

Would have had no idea what he looked like anymore.

“I was terrified.”

That was a problem of identity itself.

A being that had forgotten its own appearance over the course of long ages.

A being that no longer knew what form it would wear, not even for itself.

It had to have been terrifying.

“After passing through the black hole that had opened before the fortress gates and arriving in this land, the first thing I searched for was a lake.”

And then.

Back when the sky was still free of clouds, when moonlight still shone.

The figure reflected in the moonlit water was.

“This.”

A beauty so unreal.

Like a sculpture.

“Only later did I come to understand.”

That could not have been his original appearance.

Most likely, it was.

The essence that had not disappeared.

Even after countless years had passed, even after he himself had forgotten.

“The form of the sun god carved into the church I attended as a child.”

“......”

They had lived in the same world as those vampires.

People who had taken the very sun that protected them as an object of faith.

And since the sun itself had no sex.

The sun god they worshiped had been depicted as a being of androgynous appearance and unreal beauty.

And that being.

“Resembled a human.”

“I see.”

“Ordinary vampires, from the moment they become members of a bloodline, forget the memories and attachments they held toward their former race.”

I could understand why.

That would make it easier for them to devote themselves completely to their bloodline.

“But very rarely... fools appear who fail to do so.”

If they still clung to their old race.

Then it would only get in the way of how they acted as vampires.

It was no different from carrying around a useless weakness, so calling them fools wasn’t strange.

Put another way.

“That was me.”

The thought that this bastard had reached such a high position even while carrying that weakness.

Made it hard to even imagine just how incredible he must have been.

“Only after seeing that form did I come to my realization. Though I may have become a vampire now... in my essence, I am still human.”

And so.

He had decided to help humans.

***

After that.

He found Yang and old man Yun, who were among the stronger humans being hunted, approached them.

Gathered people together and fled with them to this island.

“And then I raised that sun.”

He said even he himself couldn’t help being shocked when he succeeded in raising that sun.

He had spent thousands of years having forgotten his faith.

And yet the power of that faith was still manifesting.

“In fact, I had become stronger than I was when I was human. The art itself requires faith, but its power requires mana.”

But.

There was one problem.

“Even without being directly struck by that sunlight, simply by being near the sun I grew weaker by the day. Even my once-great reserves of mana diminished merely from breathing here.”

In the end, maintaining that sun required his power.

And the way to restore that power was simple.

There had been no shortage of food around him.

But.

That had probably.

“Failed, didn’t it?”

“Yes. Once I remembered that my essence was human, I found that I simply could not bring myself to eat humans anymore.”

He said that before, he had fed on humans many times.

But after coming to that realization, it had «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» become impossible.

‘...Most likely, the death of that Neferat Grand Duke he called the master of his soul was a huge part of it.’

No matter how profound that realization might have been.

If the master of his oath had still been alive, this bastard would have followed the Grand Duke’s will in the end.

The Grand Duke’s death had given him freedom.

And that freedom must have allowed him to awaken to his own essence.

“Even so, I could not simply wither away and die. I could not die before securing revenge for the master of my soul, nor before securing the safety of these humans. And so....”

Hearing that, I remembered.

How, not long ago.

The nobles I had hunted had entered this bastard’s blackout veil.

And what he had done to those nobles.

“So you used nobles as food.”

“To one such as myself, ordinary servants were of little use... but nobles were astonishingly effective. Though they were absurdly weak compared to me, they returned enough power to strengthen that sun. The efficiency was incomparable to what I gained from consuming other similar beings.”

...Was it because they were vampires, whose blood held power?

It seemed cannibalizing his own kind was highly efficient.

And so.

He had used that sun to create a safe zone for the humans.

Taught those humans how to hunt vampires.

And by eating the vampires they brought down, he had continued to make that sun larger and larger.

“At all other times, I conserved my strength as much as possible, even sparing my words. To protect humans, who are my own kind... and to take revenge on Valarak, my enemy.”

At those words.

I nodded and thought.

‘...At this point.’

A power that was no different from a natural enemy to vampires.

A force of considerable scale.

And, through [Taste Bud Enhancement], a motive that was completely genuine, without a trace of falsehood.

‘He’s the best ally I could ask for.’

Certain of it, I looked at him and said,

“Your goal is to keep making that sun bigger, isn’t it?”

“Yes. At the moment it does no more than illuminate this small island, but in time that will change.”

No matter how powerful he was as a vampire.

He was no match for that Grand Duke.

But.

“The stronger the vampire, the more lethal sunlight becomes. Even Isabella, once judged the mightiest of all bloodlines, and her servants, perished beneath the sun in the end. Since the moment I created sunlight, that Grand Duke has not left the capital even once. He remains shut inside, afraid that even the slightest touch of sunlight might reach him.”

Because the sunlight this bastard could create was different.

It wasn’t hard to infer Karhin’s goal.

“If I continue spreading faith among the people here, then one day there will be more who can create sunlight as I do. In fact, there have already been three successes. Those two Vice Chairmen, and the general you wounded.”

“I see.”

“If we continue hunting nobles, devouring their power, and spreading faith to others so that this sun grows larger and larger....”

It would take a very long time.

But someday.

“This light will cover the entire continent. And when that day comes, there will be nowhere left for the Grand Duke to hide.”

It would take quite a long time.

But aside from that one point, it was actually a very good plan.

Unless something extraordinary happened.

Given enough time, the structure of it meant this bastard would inevitably win in the end.

‘Now I get why those vampires kept clicking their tongues and refusing to talk about the south.’

They really had been cornered.

Every time they watched that sunlight spread farther, it must have felt like their insides were burning.

...However.

If there was a problem.

“There isn’t much time.”

“...What?”

Up until just recently.

There would have been no major flaw in his plan.

Maybe he really could have succeeded in hunting down that Grand Duke after investing enough time.

But.

“You said the Grand Duke’s original goal was to devour every Grand Duke but himself.”

“To be precise... he likely intended to make the power of the other bloodlines his own. In the end it was a foolish plan that could only fail.”

“...Maybe not.”

Unfortunately for him.

Not anymore.

“There is a survivor of the Karshtein Bloodline.”

“...What?”

Just as ordinary servants had been of no use to him.

That person might still fall a little short of being ready to become prey for Grand Duke Valarak.

But.

“A direct blood descendant of the Grand Duke, and someone overflowing with both the talent and the drive to grow stronger.”

Thinking about Ariella’s personality.

It wouldn’t take that long.

“What do you mean...!?”

Karhin’s sculpted face twisted badly.

***

Flap flap flap....

A colossal skyscraper submerged in darkness.

Instead of the lights of civilization, crimson eyes illuminated the city.

And in the sky, giant bats flew back and forth in constant motion.

A place that had once been the capital of one of the greatest nations in the world.

And atop the roof of its tallest building.

There stood a middle-aged man looking down at that scene as if he found it interesting.

And then.

Toward that middle-aged man.

“...You are always here.”

A man spoke.

“Do you know this? I used to visit the Progenitor’s fortress often.”

“Is that so.”

“It was a truly magnificent and beautiful fortress. In later days, as the authority of the nobles spread, many castle lords and territorial lords came to exist beneath me as well... but not one of their fortresses stood taller than the Progenitor’s. Compared to the Progenitor’s fortress... the fortresses my servants built did not even seem worthy of mention.”

Without turning his head.

The middle-aged man kept looking out over the view beyond the window as he spoke.

“But not this place. This spire stands even taller than the Progenitor’s fortress.”

“......”

“A view like this....”

His eyes.

Were filled with deep longing.

“Even the Progenitor, seated at the highest point of that fortress, must never have seen it.”