New Life

That night’s memory felt like a constant burning, piercing his nerves.

It was merely an abnormal blood sacrifice ritual, yet the one-armed man who burst in midway disrupted all his plans with an almost insane fervor.

Even though he only had one arm, even though he was just a physically flawed individual without threat, in those black eyes filled with sorrow, Noct felt an unprecedented danger.

Under the pale moonlight, he was like a young lion driven out of its pride by its own mother.

Even though that abandoned heart was thoroughly grieved, his figure and will were like an old lion king, dragging its broken body for a final battle for its kin behind it.

That broken body carried an aura of impending death that Noct simply couldn’t comprehend.

The man named Conde used a desperate, life-or-death fighting style, cutting at the flesh and blood on his body with every strike.

His black ghostly wings had struggled, wanting to fly high to escape the man’s slashes, but the phantom-like figure always seemed to read his intentions one step ahead, then cut off the wings behind him…

That reckless, injury-for-injury fighting style made Noct feel fear for the first time.

Even though he had left countless wounds on the man’s body, even though he had broken dozens of his ribs, the man seemed impervious to pain, simply returning the pain given to him twofold.

It was a tremor from the depths of his soul. Fighting him felt like fighting the grim reaper.

The death he had once mocked now entangled and enveloped his soul like a nightmare.

The death he mocked was only because death had never come.

The nearly immortal body of a vampire had never truly allowed him to feel death.

But that one-armed man, he was the true madman, a madman whose heart, pierced by sorrow, had long become desperate, trampling the grim reaper’s scythe underfoot without mercy, crushing it.

If the arrival of death meant that life’s scythe was already at one’s neck, then the man named Conde, that night, was an existence who bowed his head to kiss the scythe’s blade.

There were clearly no materialized elemental flames attached to the blade, yet whenever the blade cut into flesh, the unbearable high temperature furiously destroyed his immortal flesh and blood, so much so that even after finally escaping the battle, his recovered body still retained every single scar from that night.

Every full moon, those dormant wounds would flare up again, sweeping the searing pain through his flesh and spirit once more, bringing with it the memories of that night, constantly engraving them into his soul…

Prince Noct, who had narrowly escaped death, swore that eternal life was no longer his sole aspiration.

No matter what, he had to personally harvest that man’s life.

This was not only for revenge, but also to extinguish the inner demon that had plagued his heart for over a decade.

A venerable Vampire Prince, actually chased to the brink of death by a physically flawed human.

If not for the human body being weaker than a vampire’s, after the fierce battle, although he was at death’s door, that man was also at the end of his rope.

Noct believed that he absolutely would not have walked out of that manor alive that night.

“Remembered? Conde, this is the pain you gave me…”

Noct threw open his clothes, his crimson eyes filled with the excitement of impending revenge.

“To be honest, while you’ve made me recall a not-so-pleasant memory, what I’m more curious about is how you confirmed my identity?…”

Selina unconsciously tightened her grip on the hilt of her blade, magic continuously converging onto the blade.

That painful past had long been discarded by Selina, abandoned back when she was Conde.

Perhaps it was due to the immense loneliness of transitioning into this world.

Yet, the cold truth always ruthlessly shattered her illusions.

Until now, if not for this dying old vampire before her, Selina would absolutely not have recalled that deeply buried memory.

Her duty had been fulfilled; in any case, the sacrifices that night were worthy of the Drake couple’s kindness in giving her birth.

As for now?

She was no longer Conde. She had a new name, a new home, and family.

How could she still be obsessed with the so-called “returning to her ancestors” as she once was?

“You’re right, I should explain how I found you. I want you to understand how much I’ve sacrificed to wait for this day. I want you to know, before your death, the immense price of incurring the wrath of a prince!” With Noct’s hoarse snarl, he reached into his pocket and, as if by magic, placed a Tarot card in the air before him.

“No one in the world can escape divination. I used the blood and flesh you left on me that day to track you down step by step to the present…”

“Of course, this is only a small part. To counter your god-like speed, I understood that I had to pay a certain price…”

As he spoke, this old Vampire Prince, who looked like he could die at any moment, did something incredible.

He reached out a hand, and with his aged, crooked, dry fingernails, he pierced his own desiccated skin, forcibly tearing off a layer of flesh from his chest.

The bloody stench, accompanied by the smell of decay, instantly filled the confined space.

Beneath the scarred skin were not blood-soaked flesh or exposed ribs, but an eerie, purplish-black, dead-flesh human face that seemed to parasitize his chest.

Selina cautiously stepped back a few paces, her emerald eyes trembling slightly as she watched everything before her.

“You, what have you done to your body?!”

The disgusting and intensely shocking sight made even the well-traveled Selina frown.

Although the nearly immortal bodies of vampires were already akin to monsters in the eyes of many ordinary people, that was, after all, a talent, and normal vampires still resembled humans in appearance.

This old vampire before her had completely transformed his body beyond normal bounds.

Those distorted, tragic, and grotesque bloody faces continuously exuded a chilling malevolence. Selina had only seen such a situation before on insane cultists.

“Heh heh, don’t be afraid, Conde. Has becoming an elf made you timid like a woman?”

Prince Noct spoke as he slowly advanced towards Selina.

The smile on his wrinkled face grew more rampant, and the desire in his blood-red eyes swelled.

“I merely did something that killed two birds with one stone… My original wish was to achieve eternal life.

Unfortunately, although vampires are almost immortal in the eyes of other races, our lives are still limited. The lifespan of the First Empress is the limit of every vampire’s life, and I want to break through that limit!”

“The war that night, the scars you left on me, made me understand that magic is vulnerable against truly ultimate power in combat.I once thought magic was a miracle bestowed upon living beings, but your twin blades shattered all my pride in the field of magic. And now, I will defeat you in your strongest domain using absolute physical combat!”

“You will face Noct Vlad, a new vampire who has truly achieved ageless immortality under the guidance of the Demon God Robona!”

As his words fell, countless uncontrollable flesh and tentacles broke through this ancient fleshy cocoon.

A stark white skeleton rose from the ground until it broke through the ceiling of the secret room, and shadows completely enveloped Selina’s figure, until he was fully revealed to this world in a brand new form.