CA - Chapter 156
Chapter 156
Sinert City, Shas Principality.
The city, under the sunset's afterglow, seemed shrouded in a bloody mist. The civilians who could flee had long since evacuated, leaving only the old, young, sick, and disabled. As evening fell, they would bolt their doors, passing the night in a difficult state of anxiety and panic.
The empty streets, devoid of pedestrians, were desolate and deathly silent. A few low-level vampires hid in the shadows, sharing their prey.
A group of men and women, dressed in magnificent clothes with handsome and bewitching faces, walked down the street. If not for the white skeleton walking among them, they would have been indistinguishable from nobles on an inspection tour.
The low-level vampires feeding in the darkness caught their scent. Without even daring to investigate, they dropped their prey and fled in a panic.
Rona glanced lazily at the fleeing vampires, twirling a lock of hair that fell over her chest. Her red lips parted as she looked at Thor beside her and sneered, "Cowardly vampires."
Thor shrugged and said nonchalantly, "Vampires are indeed cowardly."
Immortality had made the vampires weary of living. After their defeat in the Holy War, the second-generation vampires, driven back to the Blood Domain by the First Pope, grew disheartened and unanimously chose to fall into slumber.
So, from a certain perspective, vampires were truly "cowardly."
Rona's mockery of the vampires was just a casual remark; she hadn't thought as deeply as Thor had. She pursed her lips at his agreement, then raised her hand and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. A small mushroom appeared in her palm. She tossed it to the ground, and the little mushroom hopped away.
"...Let's wait a moment. Little Erin should be in the city," Rona said, signaling for the others to follow the mushroom with a sigh.
Although they hadn't sent anyone to follow Erin, they would confirm her whereabouts periodically to ensure her safety.
Erin would send messages to the blond bishop through Mark's Grocery Store every time she passed through a city. But after she entered the Shas Principality, the messages stopped. Rona and the others were a little worried. Even though it wasn't time to check on her location yet, they had come to find her personally.
The peace on the Statu Continent had come to an end. In these chaotic times, it was the duty of Mark's Grocery Store to protect Erin.
The little mushroom soon found the tavern where Erin had been. Rona and her group stopped in front of it. The white skeleton ambled forward and pushed open the half-closed door. The inside was empty.
The skeleton went inside and wandered around for a bit before sitting down in the chair Erin had once occupied. Its jawbone opened and closed, and its sharp finger bones tapped on the tabletop, making a clicking sound.
Rona frowned. "...Where is she?"
Had Erin's presence vanished in this tavern?
Thor bent down to enter the tavern and examined it carefully. He said thoughtfully, "She was teleported away by dark magic."
"Black Witches?"
Thor stroked his chin. "It was those poor wretches from the Garcia family."
Rona rolled her eyes and muttered, "That troublesome bunch of witches."
She tucked a strand of hair, disheveled by the wind, behind her ear. Lowering her gaze, she pondered for a moment before saying, "Since we're dealing with Black Witches, let's call Abel over."
Thor glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "He... can't make it, can he?"
Rona whispered some instructions to the person beside her. Hearing Thor's words, she snorted and said with a pout, "If he can't, then we'll remove him from the grocery store's roster."
Thor shrugged indifferently. He and the skeleton came out of the tavern. The group walked away into the sunset, their shadows stretching long behind them.
It took Tang Qiu four or five days to return to the Gosse Empire from the elven territory. Rose Manor had been blown up, and the surrounding land for nearly a thousand miles had turned into a boundless desert. Hundreds of thousands of civilians needed to be resettled, and the nobles and commoners frightened by the explosion needed to be placated. The Gosse Empire was in chaos for a time, but it slowly regained its calm under the joint efforts of the empire's knight orders and the Holy See's priest corps.
The vampires had been thoroughly purged, and the Black Witches, under the constant watch of the Holy See, no longer dared to stir up trouble. The Gosse Empire was finally developing as Maggie had hoped, though she had paid a great price for it.
Helping the Gosse Empire stabilize as quickly as possible was the task Tang Qiu had left for Jennifer and Karen. After returning from the elven territory, Tang Qiu casually visited a few cities and found that they had completed their task quite well. The Gosse Church had regained its prestige in the hearts of the common people, and the number of Light Believers was also increasing.
In a manor in the main city, Tang Qiu, dressed in ordinary cleric's robes, sat on a chair in the garden, engrossed in reading through the various pieces of information Karen had gathered from the Central Church during her absence. Her long golden hair hung smoothly down her back, shining exceptionally brightly in the sunlight.
Karen stood quietly behind Tang Qiu, one hand resting on the longsword at her waist, the other holding her silver mask.
After roughly looking through the parchment in her hands, Tang Qiu said in a peculiar tone, "The Pope sure knows how to keep his composure."
The Holy Son and Holy Daughter still hadn't come out of seclusion. Isn't the Pope in a hurry to abdicate?
If he wasn't in a hurry to abdicate, then why bother summoning all the bishops to the Central Church, putting on a show of being about to step down?
There was too little information, and Tang Qiu couldn't figure out the Pope's intentions. She shook her head and placed the parchment on the table, then picked up a stack of envelopes next to it. The envelopes were a bit worn, but the insignia stamped on them indicated their origin—Mark's Grocery Store.
These were letters from Erin, letting her know she was safe. Tang Qiu picked up the envelopes and opened them one by one to read.
Kama sat opposite her, obediently drinking the flower nectar brought back from the Elf Race. The parchment Tang Qiu had just put down, which recorded some news from the Central Church, was right in front of Kama. She leaned forward to take a curious look and saw a familiar name on it.
Phoenix... Kama reached out and touched the writing on the parchment, her lips turning down in a pout as a feeling of longing filled her heart.
Every one of Erin's letters was to report her safety. After reading them, Tang Qiu casually set them aside. She looked up at Karen, about to say something, when she suddenly paused. She looked down at the stack of letters again, realizing something was wrong. She frowned and asked, "...When did the most recent one arrive?"
Karen thought for a moment and replied, "About ten-odd days ago."
"That long?" Tang Qiu picked up the newest letter and glanced at the place name, her voice low. "The last letter was from a small country near the Shas Principality."
Mark's Grocery Store used demonic beasts to deliver letters, so the travel time was very short. It was impossible that a letter was still on its way. This meant that ever since Erin entered the Shas Principality, she had not contacted her through Mark's Grocery Store again.
Tang Qiu: "..."
A trace of worry rose in her heart. Tang Qiu pondered for a moment, then stood up and put on her black cloak. Just as she was about to go to Mark's Grocery Store to check on the situation, a small, palm-sized black bat flew out from somewhere and landed on her shoulder.
Tang Qiu paused and raised her hand to take the bat down. A small wooden tube was tied to it.
Karen leaned in for a look and asked, "What's this?"
Tang Qiu didn't speak, but her eyes softened considerably. She opened the wooden tube, took out the rolled-up parchment inside, and unfolded it to read carefully.
While Tang Qiu was reading the letter, Karen tactfully took a step back and averted her gaze. Although she wasn't looking at Tang Qiu, she could feel the aura around the blond bishop growing increasingly gentle.
Karen understood. After Tang Qiu finished the letter, she blinked and said, "Is Lord Lucille doing well in the Blood Domain?"
Tang Qiu glanced at her and said with a smile, "She's doing quite well."
She put the letter into her Space Gem, then pulled up her hood. Her voice carried a faint hint of a smile. "I'm going out for a bit. You watch Kama."
With that, she turned and left. But the hood she had deliberately pulled low couldn't hide the slight upward curve of her lips.
The Blood Domain.
The sky, covered by a thick, blood-colored fog, was gloomy and dark. After entering the Blood Domain, Lucille and Lola separated from Beverly and her group. The Blood Domain was vast, about one-third the size of the Statu Continent. The central region was occupied by clans like the Brujah, who considered themselves the masters of the Blood Domain, while the other clans lived in the peripheral areas.
Before they parted, Beverly told Lucille the general area where the Gangrel clan was active. But even with a rough direction, it still took Lucille and Lola a lot of time to find the Gangrel territory.
Due to the beastly nature in their bloodline, the Gangrel clan preferred to live in the wild. Because Lucille had lived with humans since she was young, her beastly nature was not fully expressed.
True Gangrels were no different from wild beasts—feral and unrestrained. If they weren't limited to only partially transforming their bodies, they would prefer to run wild as full beasts.
Only vampires of the sixth generation or higher could live in the Blood Domain. Near the Gangrel territory, Lucille and Lola encountered many hunting Gangrel vampires. Without exception, they all had some beastly features.
"...Is that a vampire? It looks like a wild beast," Lola said in amazement, looking at a vampire with a human torso and a snake's tail that was hunting a beast in the distance.
It was the first time she had gotten such a direct look at the Gangrel clan.
After all, when some Gangrel vampires roamed the Statu Continent, they would disguise themselves as ordinary vampires to avoid being too conspicuous.
Because humans were scarce in the Blood Domain, only lords and elders had the ability to keep blood slaves. Ordinary vampires could only hunt the beasts of the Blood Domain for food.
The beasts here were different from those outside; they were more ferocious and dangerous, and their blood was much more delicious.
Seeing that the human-snake vampire had subdued the beast and was now lying on it to feed, the smell of blood made Lola swallow. Her appetite was piqued. During her time in the Blood Domain, she couldn't just grab people to feed on as she pleased.
Lola was starving. Just as she was considering whether to go hunt a beast herself, Lucille, who was beside her, took out a glass bottle from her Space Gem. She uncorked it and poured the blood it contained into her mouth.
Although the blood wasn't fresh, it was enough to satisfy Lucille.
The sweet scent made Lola's nose twitch. She stared at the bottle in Lucille's hand, her eyes fixed. Licking her lips, she asked tentatively, "Can you give me a bottle?"
"...An empty one is fine too."
She could just lick the bottom of the bottle.
Lucille refused with a deadpan expression. She put the bottle back into her Space Gem, completely dashing Lola's hopes.
Lola pouted. She saw Lucille head towards the center of the Gangrel territory after finishing her meal. She frowned, feeling a bit irritable because her appetite hadn't been satisfied. But in the end, she calmed herself down and flashed behind Lucille.
The Gangrel clan respected strength above all. It wouldn't be so easy for Lucille to subdue a faction for herself.
After the two of them left, the human-snake vampire who was feeding sensed something. It turned its head to look in a certain direction, released the beast, and retreated cautiously before leaving without looking back.
After the vampire left, two figures appeared where Lucille and Lola had just been standing.
Beverly looked in the direction Lucille had gone and said in a low voice to Elder Mandy beside her, "That's the vampire. She's a descendant of Violet."
She hesitated for a moment, not revealing Lucille's strange qualities.
Elder Mandy narrowed her eyes. "She's the one who killed Evan?"
"She has a lover, a Royal Wolf." To Beverly, Tang Qiu's werewolf identity was more intimidating.
"Oh?" Elder Mandy frowned. "It's not so easy for a Royal Wolf to kill a third-generation vampire."
It's not like she's Faye or one of those old immortals from the Wolf Race.
Beverly shook her head. She still hadn't figured out what had exploded at Rose Manor.
Elder Mandy became somewhat interested in Lucille. "To actually take a Royal Wolf as a lover... she has guts. I'd love to see the look on Faye's face when she finds out."
"That werewolf seems quite rebellious," Beverly clicked her tongue. "What's having a vampire lover? That werewolf is also a bishop in the Holy See."
"It's a shame I have to deal with the Tzimisce clan, or I'd really like to go out and see for myself," Elder Mandy sighed, sounding a bit weary. "Eden hasn't returned to the Blood Domain in a long time. I have no idea what that shady character is planning."
Researching human-vampire hybrids? Only he could come up with something like that.
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