The Fallen Vampire

Blinking away the disbelief that came from both having his cultivation destroyed and seeing Vermeil again, Vance couldn't help but only focus on his former protégé's last words.

Now that his mind was a bit clearer without the tainted qi in his system, he was having less difficulty functioning as normal.

Although, it still could not be said that he was exactly pleasant.

"Vermeil… I-Is this where you've been all this time..? Slinking around in the dark w-with these monsters?! I thought you were dea-"

In the blink of an eye, Vermeil grabbed Vance by the neck forcefully and held his adult body above her head.

With her fingers aglow, she positioned two of them just shy of his cornea.

"I want to hear you say that about my family a second time… I will burn your eyes out of your skull."

Beside the wall, Taira placed a hand over the heart in his chest.

He didn't get emotional very easily, but his wife's display had done just that.

'She's taken after me so well… going for the eyes without even needing to be told.'

It was worth noting that Taira had put in no small amount of effort to gradually break her aversion to bloodshed that she held all of those years before.

…But his method was admittedly too effective.

By having her close her eyes and stab him repeatedly in the stomach as they kissed, she learned to associate the spilling of blood with the warm feeling of her husband's lips on her own.

Because of that, it could be said that she could be just a bit… overzealous.

"A-Agh!"

Vermeil dug her nails into the side of Vance's neck and a faint amount of blood dribbled all the way down her wrists.

It didn't seem like she was going to stop anytime soon, so one among her family had to give her a well needed reminder.

"Alive. Remember?" Lucia chided.

"He's still breathing so it's fine! Besides, we're going to put him back together anyway."

Vermeil grabbed Vance by the jaw and reached inside one of her pockets to retrieve something.

Forcing Vance's mouth open, she jammed another pill inside without batting an eye and watched as every wound on his body closed up in an instant.

"See? All good!" Vermeil said proudly.

"Why… Are you doing this? What has happened to you, Vermeil…?" Vance croaked.

Immediately, the woman's temper surged as she tightened her grip on his jaw.

"ME?! You have been using the quintessence of this world to supercharge your own qi and you have the gall to act like I am somehow the greater evil of the two of us!?"

"The gods said that it was fine…! That we alone had a right to use it because we are-"

"Oh, spare me!!"

Frustrated, Vermeil slammed Vance's head against the stone wall of the cellar and immediately cracked them both against each other.

"This was always your fucking problem! You come to a new world and you act like you've forgotten right from fucking wrong! You just let the meat riding of everyone in this world stroke your egos and turn your brains into decorations!"

"We aren't on earth, Vermeil! Our old ways of thinking don't apply here-!"

"Oh, bullshit! This isn't about differential customs, Vance! You know full well that everything you lot have done is morally and ethically wrong, it doesn't matter where you lie your head!

It would be one thing if you abstained from this nonsense around you, but you all just partook in the madness as if you had no issue indulging in the suffering of others to illicit your own momentary satisfaction!"

"…"

"Say something, coward!"

Vance did not say anything further, and because she was frustrated she had to bang this head against the stone wall just a few more times.

Eventually, she felt Keran's gentle grip on her shoulder, looking to pull her away before she did something irreversible.

She let Vance drop to the ground and retreated to the back wall with Keran's hand still on her shoulder; seemingly bordering on a very volatile breakdown.

Meanwhile, Taira stepped up to take charge of this interrogation and deal with the bleeding human in the room.

He quickly clasped metallic restraints around his wrists and ankles that restricted his movement even further, although there was little likelihood of him causing any trouble to begin with.

Soon he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out in front of Vance's nose.

He didn't say anything, but somehow the hero knew exactly what was being asked of him without needing further clarification.

"I.. I won't tell you where he is..!"

Saying nothing, Taira sharpened his claws and drug them across Vance's bare chest so deeply that he nearly scraped his heart.

Just as he started to scream out, Taira force fed another pill into his mouth and stitched him back together until he was as good as new.

Again, Taira held out the piece of paper in the air and waited for Vance to be more forthcoming with an answer.

By now, he was beginning to feel like there was no way he was going to get out of this experience whole.

-

The next morning, Taira and the girls were standing on the bridge outside of their home as they prepared to leave.

However, the way that they were traveling was a bit unusual.

The captive Vance was currently hog tied and unconscious, and he had been slung over the shoulder of Taira like a duffel bag.

Coincidentally, Aveena was also holding Enyo on her back with next to no difficulty due to her muscular frame.

Though this was not because anything was wrong with the lovely Shoggoth and had more to do with the fact that Enyo was just too lazy to be awake and alert at such an early hour.

As the group went over the last of their preparations, the sound of footsteps suddenly drew everyone's attention.

There, they found the meek and slender-framed Inadu approaching from the compound.

When she reached the group, she bowed deeply out of respect almost like she'd been trained to beforehand.

She didn't speak, but everyone still found it easy enough to understand the meaning behind this display.

'I wish for your safe return.'

"Awww!!"

"..?!"

In the blink of an eye, Lucia appeared right beside Inadu to pull her into a crushing embrace.

"We promise, we'll try to come back as quickly as we can! I'm sorry we're leaving you alone like this but we really-"

"Lucia! You're turning her purple!" Keran chimed.

The lamia opened her eyes and found that the Arachne woman indeed looked a bit darker than normal, and she immediately released her grip. "S-Sorry! I forget that I don't know my... own...?"

Gradually, Lucia started to have difficulty stringing together a sentence and she began to feel somewhat lightheaded.

She had barely started to fall over when Taira caught her in his arms.

All she could hear were the faint voices of her family calling out to her in concerned tones, but even the sound of their voices was growing fainter by the second.

'Enyo was right... we should have stayed in bed a little longer.'

-

When Lucia opened her eyes once again, she was sitting in an empty black space with nothing and no one around her.

And yet, she could explicitly tell that she was not alone here.

This space was also eerily familiar to her; and she remembered that this was not the first time something of this nature had happened to her.

It was exactly like fifty years ago, when she gained her feet and the mysterious black marking on her leg.

"It is time... Go where I instruct, and let me guide you. Travel alone, or you might never find what you need, and all of this trouble will be for naught."

Once again, Lucia spun around wildly as she searched for the source of the demonic voice, yet never found it.

A throbbing pain became etched into her mind, and she realized that she had been given something like a map; though she was unsure of what it was for.

Just before she could ask about it's origins, she was thrust back into the waking world once more.

Gradually, her vision started to regain focus once more, and the first thing that she saw was the concerned yet handsome face of her husband looming above her.

"Lucia..? What happened?"

"I... don't believe I can go with you, my love. I am being called elsewhere."

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