Chapter 666: Hunter and Prey

"Praise the Ancestor."

"I accept your praise."

For the old man, the ancestor he praised was not any specific forebear. It was an ideal of nobility revered by the Blood Clan. And when A’Ming accepted the praise, he was not claiming to be the old man's literal ancestor. He was simply affirming the nobility of his own bloodline. Bloodline, in this context, did not truly mean clan descent. It represented rank and status. More precisely, it was an understated way of expressing strength. In a broader sense, however, the ideas did overlap. Take humans as an example. Tian Tian had inherited Tian Wujing's bloodline, and he was a Spirit Child.

But genetically speaking, Tian Tian was not noble because he had inherited some exalted "Tian family blood." It was simply that his father, through terrifying natural talent, had pushed his own upper limits absurdly high. When Tian Tian inherited Old Tian's genes, his own starting point was raised along with them.

That had nothing to do with education or environment. He was simply enjoying the benefits of having an extraordinary father. That was bloodline inheritance in the truest sense. It had nothing to do with culture. Nothing to do with faith. Not even anything to do with a clan's political power. The same principle applied among demon beasts. Dragons begot dragons, phoenixes begot phoenixes. Strip away all the extensions people liked attaching to the saying, and fundamentally, it meant exactly what Tian Tian's example meant. Still using humans as an example, the Ji family was certainly outstanding. Yet Marquis Zheng, born from the common masses, had still risen to greatness.

Of course, outsiders did not know that Marquis Zheng was a cheating bastard with cheat-code-level advantages. Even so, his rise was not something people found impossible to accept. Every age produced people who rose from the grass roots. Such men could break through the restraints imposed by aristocratic clans through culture and pedigree and seize a voice of their own. But strictly speaking, that had already left the realm of bloodline itself.

"Are kings and marquises, generals and ministers, born of some special breed?"

That famous roar was itself a direct challenge to the entire concept. To use more specific examples: Among the seven Demon Kings, one truly did possess a genuine ancestor-level setting. Liang Cheng. In Liang Cheng's original setting, he himself had been one of the Four Great Zombie Progenitors, among the earliest to appear, perhaps even one of those who created the path in the first place. That was legitimate bloodline suppression. In terms of both age and status, it was flawless. When someone else pulled out ancient records and began bragging about the glory of his ancestors, Liang Cheng could simply nod and say:

"Your ancestor once groomed horses for me."

A’Ming was different. In his original setting, he had not been one of the first vampires to taste the proverbial crab. At the beginning, A’Ming had acquired only the most ordinary vampire bloodline. Then, through his own effort and many opportunities, he gradually elevated and evolved that bloodline, climbing step by step toward the summit of the Blood Clan. At his absolute peak, he himself had possessed a Progenitor-class vampire bloodline. In terms of bloodline rank, he could stand on the summit and look down upon all other mountains. But he had been the victor who climbed that mountain later. He had not stood there since antiquity.

Even so, in the present circumstances, A’Ming accepting the old man's praise was completely justified.

Above him, the old man did not grow angry at A’Ming's "arrogance."

Because they were of the same race, the old man could clearly sense something from A’Ming. Refinement. Refinement in the way he lived. Refinement of a noble. Refinement of bloodline. It meant the other man was healthy. Living well. And for the Blood Clan... that meant an absolute threat. Because vampires could grant the Embrace, it was actually very easy for members of the Blood Clan to gather retainers, even to spread legends of themselves. But all of that cultural influence and inherited authority was worthless before another true member of the clan. The instant A’Ming's hand touched the pull-ring above, the old man had awakened.

He had never fallen into absolute slumber in the first place. And the shudder A’Ming's arrival sent through his soul made continued sleep impossible.

"Where do you come from?" the old man asked.

A’Ming looked at him. The old man's appearance was actually a little strange. As humans aged, they deteriorated. Their bodies shrank with the general tide of decay, their height diminished, and even their faces gradually lost the sharp contours of youth. The old man before him had long since lost all his hair. His face carried a sickly wax-yellow hue. Yet from certain details, one could still tell he did not seem Eastern. And if he came from the West, that would be interesting. Very interesting indeed. It would mean that the western lands of this world retained a relatively complete and clearly defined Blood Clan culture... and inheritance.

That possibility stirred A’Ming far more than even the finest wines of Jiangnan in the State of Qian. If he could confirm it, then the Blind Man's ambition was rebellion, the creation of a dynasty with Zheng Fan standing in front while the Blind Man manipulated things from behind, while A’Ming would be the first man in that new dynasty to shout:

"Westward expedition! Westward expedition! Westward expedition!"

The old man opened his mouth.

"I come from the deepest reaches of the Ancestor's soul!"

For a vampire, it was the politically correct answer. For A’Ming, it was not the answer he wanted. Unfortunately, they could no longer afford the luxury of conversation. The main reason was that the outside environment did not allow it. Another violent crash sounded from above. Clearly, the battle upstairs had entered its most intense stage. And regardless of what exactly was happening above, at its core, it was probably still about the old man down here. A’Ming said:

"Follow me. I will let you witness the true glory of the Ancestors."

The old man smiled.

"That is exactly what I was thinking."

Negotiations had collapsed. Back when a Barbarian shaman had refined two living corpses, Liang Cheng had been able to reverse-control them through a roar from the depths of his soul. The reason had been bloodline suppression. More precisely, those two living corpses had still been muddled and barely conscious. It was like ordinary commoners seeing someone of imperial blood. They might instinctively feel awe and prostrate themselves in worship. The great men of court would outwardly do the same. But inwardly, they knew perfectly well how absurd emperors and imperial princes could be. They understood those people's desires. Their kneeling was ritual. Inside, some might even be thinking:

I could replace him. The old man could sense that A’Ming, his fellow clansman, was extraordinary. But he was not overwhelmingly shocked. Nor did he drop to his knees and swear loyalty on the spot. Because the aura of this fellow clansman was not particularly strong. Buzz! The old man moved. His fangs extended and he lunged downward. A’Ming retreated and avoided the first attack. But the old man moved with the flexibility of a long snake. His body flowed close to the floor, twisted, and lunged again. A’Ming spread both arms. His fingernails extended from all ten fingers. The old man opened his mouth and released a guttural roar. A’Ming simply closed his eyes.

He ignored the mental interference completely. Bang! They collided. The old man ignored injury and did nothing but try to drive his fangs into A’Ming's neck. A’Ming used fists, forearms, feet, and every other available part of his body to counter and block, his primary goal simply to keep those fangs away from his vital points. They were the same kind of creature. There were no secrets in how they fought. And so, from the very beginning, the battle looked ugly. It resembled nothing like a duel between nobles. It looked more like two drunks grappling in an alley. Thud! A’Ming and the old man crashed to the ground together.

At that moment, a string of obscure syllables emerged from the old man's throat. Immediately afterward, streaks of bloody light flashed from his body like shadows and struck A’Ming. Blood Clan magic! A’Ming's body became restricted. The blood inside him slowed, and with it came stiffness throughout his body. At last the old man was able to climb over him. Now he could enjoy his feast. But A’Ming's body moved again. The movement was stiff, almost like a wooden puppet. His joints served as fixed pivots, all softness gone from the motion. But at such close range, that was enough. First, A’Ming twisted one knee sideways and whipped his lower leg into the old man's abdomen.

Then both arms snapped upward. All ten fingernails drove naturally into the old man's neck. He knew it too well. Far too well. For an outsider, those obscure and incomprehensible incantations might have sounded mysterious. To A’Ming's ears, they were as familiar as:

"Fine, thank you, and you?"

So before the spell fully took hold, A’Ming had frozen the blood around his own joints in advance. That allowed him to preserve a crude, mechanical range of movement even while enduring the other vampire's spell... Blood Sealing. He succeeded. The old man's combat experience, or more precisely, his experience fighting his own kind, was clearly extremely poor. So just as he gained the advantage, the situation immediately turned against him. A’Ming's ten fingers clamped into his throat. The old man's neck looked like a pig brain from a skewer stall, brutally pierced through by ten bamboo sticks at once. But the old man reacted quickly. Blood began surging violently through his eyes.

Another spell. In the next instant, blood began leaking from the old man's body. It flowed down A’Ming's fingernails and fingers. Like sulfuric acid, it began corroding both his nails and flesh. At the same time, the skin, muscle, and tissue around the old man's throat began regenerating wildly. This was not merely healing the wounds. His body was expanding outward. Flesh, tendons, veins, and bone began using A’Ming's embedded fingernails as a framework, growing toward A’Ming's body. Once the two bodies truly touched, the likely result would be fusion. It was an exceptionally disgusting Blood Clan spell.

The user turned his own body into a garbage container and forcibly tried to wrap around and consume the opponent. Even when the victim was another vampire, forced fusion like this was destined to produce a form of malnutrition. A trace of confusion appeared in A’Ming's eyes. The old man's bloodline rank was not low. But it was lower than his. On the other hand, the old man's accumulated reserves were much richer. To use an analogy: A’Ming was an exquisite white-jade cup. Small, but precious. The old man was a glass cup. Less valuable, but with a much larger capacity.

The problem was that if you could use Blood Clan magic like this, and you possessed such deep reserves, why were you hiding here? Why did you need the people upstairs to conceal you? If you were truly healthy and whole, why not live more freely? That great vat was like a feeding trough in a pigsty. The old man looked more like a pig being fattened. That was not a state of existence the Blood Clan could accept. If there were no extraordinary circumstances forcing them into it, a vampire would sooner seek release through death. The corrosive force and the expanding flesh both pressed toward A’Ming. His nails began to dissolve. His flesh split open.

This was not especially advanced Blood Clan magic. But at a critical moment, it was brutally effective. If one stood to the side and watched, the scene would look something like this: the old man's body was frantically demonstrating the deepest truths of lymphatic hyperplasia and bone spurs, while A’Ming looked like a pig submerged in boiling blood-lava and slowly roasting alive. Not only his fingernails and arms, but even the flesh across his entire chest had split open under the heat. The air filled with the fragrance of boiling cured pork. Unfortunately Fan Li was upstairs fighting.

Otherwise, if that idiot saw the scene, he might first sprinkle on cumin, star anise, and cinnamon before rescuing A’Ming, just to see whether he could season him into a decent braised dish. A’Ming did not panic. He did not scream. He did not roar. He was mobilizing the blood inside his own body and resisting through direct attrition. Even though he was at an absolute disadvantage in that contest, and unless something changed he would sink step by step into the abyss, A’Ming did not believe he would lose. Feng Siniang had once analyzed the Demon Kings together with Zheng Fan.

Setting aside the shackles that prevented them from using their peak strength because of Master's own limited cultivation, the Demon Kings' true strength lay in their state of mind.

And "state of mind" included experience.

A’Ming's thinking was simple. Clear. I'll drag this out. And I believe there's something wrong inside you, you old fossil. When the rolling, invading flesh reached A’Ming's neck and the situation was hanging by a thread, the old man suddenly opened his mouth wide. He began sucking in air frantically like a severe asthmatic patient. But no matter how desperately he inhaled, it seemed as though no air would enter. His body began convulsing. The flesh that had nearly merged with A’Ming's chest rapidly withdrew. The blood's temperature fell just as quickly. The spell restraining A’Ming dissolved with it. A’Ming regained his freedom. Then he sat up. His injuries were severe.

This was not merely damage to the skin and flesh. He was also facing blood contamination. That was far more troublesome to A’Ming than the workshop accidents where ash and debris ended up embedded beneath his skin. If this foreign blood was not expelled and cleaned out, true blood contamination could affect the purity of his own bloodline. Eventually, his bloodline could actually degrade.

Meaning that even if Master swallowed some miraculous tonic in the future and his cultivation skyrocketed to Third Grade or even opened Second Grade, and even if the other Demon Kings successfully licked their way back to their peak strength and celebrated, A’Ming, because of the contamination suffered today, might never again return to his original full-power state. This was not the same thing as a vampire choosing to drink blood. A’Ming had effectively been forced into fusion after every defense had been torn open. Was drinking a bag of blood plasma the same thing as receiving a blood transfusion? Of course not. But A’Ming was not paying much attention to any of that right now.

He sat on the floor. Ignoring the massive burns across his skin, his gaze settled on the old man curled up nearby, gasping desperately for air.

"You're not a pure-blooded vampire. You received the Embrace. Your master is probably already dead. No. Not merely dead. Before death, your master must have suffered an extremely powerful curse, and part of that curse was passed down to you. No wonder you hide. No wonder you run. Something went wrong with your core a long time ago. You have no ability whatsoever to repair that flaw. No matter how much blood you absorb, it only makes you look powerful. In reality, you're not worth mentioning."

The old man glared venomously at A’Ming, who sat before him calmly peeling apart his condition one layer at a time. A’Ming was right. And that was precisely the truth the old man least wanted to face. He was a homeless dog. His master had been nailed to a cross.

Before being burned at the stake, his master had also endured the so-called "Blessing of Light."

And the old man had received the great honor of sharing that blessing as his master's "Blood Clan servant."

That blessing had made his existence worse than death. He did not dare remain in the West. The Temple Knights were hunting him. He could only flee eastward with his retainers. Along the way, those retainers had been replaced several times. Eventually, he reached this place. There was another reason he had come here. A secret. A secret his master had told him before being captured. But to the old man's despair, although there truly were no Temple Knights in the East, western powers could not even cross the barrier formed by the desert Barbarians. Deep within their hearts, westerners possessed an almost instinctive fear of the desert.

That fear came from the terrifying westward expedition launched by the Barbarian Royal Court a century ago.

Westerners also knew that in the East there was an empire called "Yan."

An empire that stood above the Barbarians. An empire that had suppressed them for many years. And over the past several decades, when western merchant companies, diplomatic missions, and other groups crossed the desert and first made contact with the East, the first thing they encountered was the terror and power of the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence. But here in the East, someone had also detected the old man's presence. And that person had come hunting him. Not even this fellow vampire before him. The old man curled on the ground, weak, pitiful, and helpless. At last his asthmatic gasping stopped. He simply stared at A’Ming.

"You can't escape either... heh heh heh... You can't escape either... That man originally wanted to catch only me... Now... there are two..."

At that moment, the cellar hatch opened again. A saber wielder descended slowly. His body bore several wounds. A long saber dragged behind him. His gaze first fell on the old man. Then it shifted to A’Ming. When he saw the skin across A’Ming's body regenerating visibly before his eyes, the corner of the saber wielder's mouth curled into a smile of surprise and satisfaction. A’Ming thought that since this man had managed to come down here... then Fan Li... had probably realized he truly could not win and run away. The saber wielder had arrived. The real hunter had arrived. The old man laughed hysterically.

"The two of us... we're both prey now... Both prey..."

A’Ming shook his head. He ignored the saber wielder continuing to approach. Instead, he stood. Then he hoisted the old man onto his back, carrying him piggyback. The saber wielder froze at the sight. Even the old man himself was stunned. He understood how powerful the saber wielder was. And he understood even more clearly that this fellow vampire carrying him had no intention of trying to break out and escape. A’Ming's calm voice sounded.

"Either we become prey together."

He paused. Then continued:

"Or lend me your blood. I'll take you hunting."

[End of Chapter 666]