Inside the estate's guest room, the air in the cramped space felt stagnant.
Margaret stood before a full-length mirror, her hands forming a strange seal. The emerald-green mana glow at her fingertips twisted, gradually staining with a layer of withered, ashen brown.
“Vastness of Nature.”
With a low whisper, countless tiny vines sprouted from the cracks in the floorboards beneath her feet, crawling up her ankles. These vines were not physical objects but a mixture of light, shadow, and mana. They clung to the surface of Margaret's skin like living blood vessels. Her healthy, rosy complexion vanished instantly, turning as pale as paper with a sickly, greenish-gray tint.
Her pupils contracted, her warm brown eyes covered by a layer of crimson. At the corners of her eyes, several faint, blood-red lines appeared—symbols of age and power.
Her lips cracked, and two sharp fangs slowly emerged, piercing her lower lip and causing a drop of bright red blood to seep out.
In the blink of an eye, the gentle headmaster of Ventus had vanished. In her place stood a high-level vampire noblewoman exuding an aura of decay and decadence.
Leon leaned against the doorframe, fiddling with an unlit cigarette, his mouth twitching slightly.
“Headmaster, your skills...” He looked Margaret up and down, his gaze a mix of disdain and grudging admiration. “It's a pity you aren't the star attraction of a circus.”
Margaret turned around, lazily brushing the long hair by her ear. Even her voice had become raspy and deep, carrying a thick quality as if her throat were filled with blood clots. “Enough talk. Give me your hand.”
Leon reluctantly reached out.
The gray vines spread along his arm, the cold, slimy sensation giving him goosebumps. A few seconds later, the mirror reflected a gloomy vampire youth with a fierce gaze.
“Remember your identity,” Margaret said, adjusting the lace at her collar in the mirror. “A secluded count and countess from the borderlands. You are my... little husband.”
Leon's face instantly darkened.
“Can we change the setting?” he gritted out. “How about mother and son?”
“You want to take advantage of me?” Margaret glanced at him, her crimson eyes full of playfulness. “Besides, in vampire ethics, this pairing is the least likely to raise suspicion. After all...” She reached out with a pale finger and tilted Leon's chin up. “A young body is always more charming, isn't it?”
Leon slapped her hand away, his stomach churning.
Tia, who had been standing silently nearby, suddenly took a step forward.
“What about me?”
She looked at the two drastically changed people in the mirror, her grip on her Mithril staff tightening.
Margaret stopped smiling and turned to look at Tia. Her gaze lingered for a moment on Tia's silver eyes, which showed no emotional fluctuation, and then she sighed.
“You stay behind.”
“Why?” Tia's voice was flat, but the mana circuits on her body flared for an instant.
“Because you can't act,” Margaret said, pointing to her own eyes. “A vampire's eyes are full of desire, greed, or a deathly stillness like mine. But your eyes...”
They were too clean.
As clean as a machine fresh off the factory line.
“The moment you speak, or even just stand there, those old monsters who have lived for hundreds of years will see through you instantly,” Margaret said seriously. “Tia, we are going into a wolf's den, not on a picnic. If we're exposed, Bell will truly be beyond saving.”
Tia fell silent.
She lowered her head. Bell had taught her many things. Physics, chemistry, engineering. But he had never taught her how to lie.
“Fine.”
After a long pause, Tia looked up.
“I'll stay behind.”
Margaret let out a sigh of relief, took Leon's arm, and pushed the door open.
“Stay here and don't wander off.”
The door closed.
Tia was left alone in the room.
She walked to the window and looked out at the two purple moons. In the distance, Marquis Edward's estate was brightly lit, like a giant beast crouching in the night with its bloody maw wide open.
Don't wander off?
Expressionlessly, Tia pulled a ring from her robe. It was the space ring Bell had given her, containing various “toys” Bell had made over the years when he was bored.
...
At the entrance of Marquis Edward's estate.
Several burly werewolf guards were using magic devices to inspect every guest who entered.
A black carriage came to a halt.
Leon was the first to step out, then he reached out with extreme gallantry to help Margaret down.
The air around them seemed to drop several degrees instantly.
The pressure Margaret exuded, belonging to a high-ranking being, made the werewolf guards instinctively shrink their necks. It was a disguise mixed with the aura of a wood-element forbidden spell; to their senses, she felt like a man-eating flower that had been soaked in blood for a thousand years.
“Please show your invitation,” a guard said, bracing himself.
Leon gave him a cold look and casually tossed the gold-leafed invitation into the guard's face.
“Look closely, you mutt.”
The guard scrambled to catch the invitation. Upon seeing the names on it, his expression changed, and he immediately bowed. “So it is Count and Countess Karstein! My apologies! Please, enter!”
Margaret took Leon's arm and walked through the gates without a backward glance.
Only after they had walked a distance did Leon lower his voice. “Dial back that stench of death; it's giving me a headache.”
“Shut up, that's to cover the human scent on you,” Margaret said, maintaining an elegant smile while her lips barely moved. “And stop looking at everyone like they're trash. While it fits the vampire persona, it's an easy way to get punched.”
The doors to the banquet hall swung open with a boom.
A thick, suffocatingly sweet scent of blood rushed toward them.
Leon's footsteps faltered.
Even though he had prepared himself, the sight before him still caused him physical discomfort.
Beneath a massive crystal chandelier was a fountain.
What gushed out was not water, but warm blood that smelled of rust. Several scantily clad vampires were holding goblets, catching the liquid directly from the fountain. The crimson fluid ran down the corners of their mouths, staining the front of their clothes.
Long tables were covered with exquisite silver platters.
The plates did not hold fruit, but peeled eyeballs, as translucent as grapes. A noblewoman used a fork to pick one up, elegantly placed it in her mouth, and gave it a light bite.
Squelch.
Juice sprayed.
Leon felt his stomach churn.
“Stay calm,” Margaret said, pinching his arm hard. “Don't act like a country bumpkin who's never seen the world.”
She casually took a glass of “red wine” from a passing waiter's tray, held it to her nose to sniff it, and put on an entranced expression before naturally leading Leon toward the crowd.
“The quality of the blood source here is quite good; it should be a virgin's blood,” she said in Ancient Blood Tongue to a nearby vampire who seemed to hold a high status.
The vampire was stunned for a moment, then showed a look of surprise and delight. “Oh! You are truly a connoisseur, Madame! This is premium grade specifically transported from the North by Marquis Gray!”
Margaret quickly blended into that circle, talking and laughing as if she were naturally one of these monsters.
Leon had to admire the old woman's mental fortitude.
Holding his wine glass, he used the motion of drinking to discreetly scan the room.
The banquet hall was vast, divided into two levels.
On the second-floor gallery stood several figures in black cloaks. They did not join the revelry like the other guests but stood silently in the shadows like a flock of vultures waiting for prey.
Leon's eyes narrowed.
The aura of those few people... was wrong.
They didn't seem like vampires, nor did they seem like humans. They felt more like... dead things.
Just then.
The once noisy banquet hall suddenly fell silent.
All music came to a dead stop.
The noblewoman who had been gorging on eyeballs stopped her movements; the men and women flirting by the blood fountain let go of each other.
The entire hall fell into an eerie silence.
Only the blood fountain continued to make a splashing sound.
Thump.
Thump.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the top of the stairs on the second floor.
Every step felt like it was treading on the hearts of those present.
A master of ceremonies in a tailcoat appeared at the top of the stairs, his face pale. He held a bone staff, his body trembling violently from a mix of extreme fear and fanaticism.
He took a deep breath and roared with all his might:
“Welcome—the arrival of the Ancestor!”
Crash!
Without any hesitation.
Like puppets whose strings had been cut.
Within the banquet hall, hundreds of vampires—regardless of rank or what they were doing—all knelt in unison.
Their foreheads pressed against the cold marble floor.
They even held their breath.
The entire hall seemed to shrink in height instantly.
Only two people remained standing, conspicuously so.
Leon still held his wine glass, just about to take a sip.
Margaret was just about to pour her untouched blood wine into a nearby flowerpot.
The two froze in place.
Amidst the sea of kneeling people.
They stood out like a pair of tombstones stuck on a grave.
Rate on N.U.
