The first thing he became aware of was the body he was inhabiting.
Unlike his real body, it was infused with foreign conceptual powers. For a moment, his heart skipped a beat, thinking that he was going to explode any second now due to the conflict between concepts.
He could clearly feel that the concepts ingrained in this body had nothing to do with Sloth, his own path, so it was reasonable to expect a clash between the concepts he already carried and the ones that were forced upon him.
But after waiting for a minute without any of the expected fireworks, he allowed himself to relax.
Only then did it occur to him that concepts actually take the soul as their home, and only invade the body when one actively refines it with any given concepts.
And the original soul of this body had not left behind a single trace.
In short, he would only be in danger if he dared to refine his current body using Sloth, for example.
With that out of the way, he slowly allowed his eyelids to lift.
The first thing that greeted him was a woman.
She wore a modest maid's uniform, her hair tied back in a simple ponytail. That hair, blood-red, stood in stark contrast to her unnaturally pale skin.
The moment she saw him open his eyes, she promptly did a perfect ninety-degree bow and uttered with complete devotion, "My lord, it is to my utmost happiness to see you awake at last."
Ashen had no idea how to react. He didn't know who she was, who this "lord" might be, or what kind of relationship they were supposed to have.
So he fell back on the safest response he knew.
"Um." He nodded.
"Should I bring food for you, my Lord? You must be hungry after such a long slumber." She inclined her head.
"Do so."
"At once!"
The red-haired woman did not leave as Ashen expected, but she closed her eyes, as if she was silently communicating with someone.
He used this window to take in where he appeared to be. His eyes landed on long walls decorated with ancient paintings, depicting dragons, phoenixes, and faces of individuals he had no idea of.
The most prominent painting dominated the center of the vast wall.
It depicted a colossal bat, its fangs stained red, its pupils blacker than black. Its flesh-like wings stretched for kilometers, at least, if the city beneath it was any measure of scale.
The next thing he noticed was where he was actually sitting. Going by the elevated platform and the grandness of the seat, it was safe to say that he was sitting on a throne.
Before he could resume his investigation, the double doors under the vast painting opened, and from within came another two maids with simpler outfits than the one beside him.
They had the same paleness of skin, though, as if it had been decades since they last saw the sun.
Ashen was more concentrated on the "food" they brought.
'No way… right?'
Sandwiched between them was a third woman. Despite the visible fear on her face, she wore an elegant red gown, as if she were going to a party. The gown accentuated her curves, but when Ashen laid eyes on her, the faint trembling became visible.
The two maids escorted her all the way to the last step of his throne before one of them grabbed a fistful of her long brown hair and forced her to kneel at his legs.
"Thrall! How dare you keep standing? Know your place."
Ashen would have interfered by now if not for the obvious consequences of blowing his cover. So he mentally apologized to the brunette who now had tears running down her face as she clung to his thigh.
The duo fell back behind the maid who called for them, and they all changed their expression into an utterly devout one before deeply bowing toward him in unison.
"Lord, we shall take our leave and allow you to enjoy your feast undisturbed."
Ashen didn't stop them. After all, a prime source of information lay before him, and he indeed had no desire to be interrupted.
When the gigantic door closed and her tormentors finally left, the woman's trembling only intensified.
'Seems I'm the true source of her fear. Well, no wonder. They've been addressing her as my food from the start anyway. Of course she'd be terrified.'
He gently lowered his arm to caress her hair in an attempt to soothe her, and at the same time, he let his mana permeate her being.
That was when he discovered a startling fact. The reserves of this body were simply monstrous. His original mana capacity was only a tickle compared to this.
Nevertheless, he concentrated on his current task. Everything else could wait for later since he did not know if another opportunity would present itself before this.
Lucid Dreamweaving…
The woman was soon put to sleep, unconsciously leaning completely on his legs. Ashen dived into her dreamscape.
He could have done this to the maid when he was alone with her, but before he could try, his instincts warned him against it for some reason.
'In what era did I land for even maids to be this scary?'
Thankfully, he was about to find out from the mind of this lady.
Information was steadily pulled out of her unconscious mind and materialized in the form of images that, in turn, revolved into scenes.
Starting from her childhood, he saw how she carefreely played in her village with other kids her age and basked in the love of her parents.
Then, he saw that she had learned how to read and write. That's when he gleaned the first useful piece of information.
This woman was from the Pride Domain. That means that the time was at least two hundred years ago since the domain survived up to that time.
But the Pride domain survived for hundreds of years, and this barely narrowed down the range. Luckily, as the scenes kept moving, he soon stumbled upon the exact date.
'1202… that's more than eight hundred years in the past…'
Ashen realized that due to the abundance of mana delivered to the Beholder's eyes, he was flung away into a far more ancient time.
He refocused on the scenes before him and witnessed as the little girl slowly turned into an adolescent and then finally a stunning woman.
It should have been a joyous occasion… if only her beauty hadn't drawn the attention of a certain race of bloodsuckers.
They were an ancient line of powerful demi-humans, but unlike the other residents of their empire, humans feared them above all. To these creatures, humans were a delicacy... particularly beautiful virgins, of either sex.
Unfortunately for the young woman, she possessed both a pure body and a striking appearance. In that light, the fate of her village burning to the ground and her being abducted no longer seemed sudden; it had been inevitable.
'It seems that during this time, the human borders were nothing more than a playground for these guys.'
Ashen's thoughts had proven right when he saw through her eyes how she was far from being the only one.
She, along with thousands of other humans, was herded like livestock; destined for the Ashes to feast upon at their leisure.
Ashes.
That was the name humans commonly gave these creatures. It came from the fact that they turned to ash upon death… and perhaps, from the darker desire to see them reduced to nothing more than ash.
The Ashes, however, had a name of their own, which was far older than any veiled insult humans could invent: Vampires.
'Ashes seems pretty fitting given my name and who I'm possessing, though.' Ashen mused.
From her memories, he saw that the lady had undergone special training in preparation for serving the primordial Lord of all vampires. And by serve, of course, it meant surrendering her blood and allowing him free dominion over her body.
That alone would have been terrifying, but what made her truly fearful was the nature of the primordial vampire himself: a brutal creature who would strike at the first hint of imperfection.
Rumors confirmed the worst. The thralls he fed upon were almost never enough to satisfy him.
Their fate was grim… it was either drained of life or used to exhaustion through the night. Few women survived beyond a single evening.
And the fact that she was currently at his feet, presented to him as food, made one thing clear.
'I'm that blasted primordial brute.'
Ashen finally left the woman's dreamscape and fell into his own thoughts.
'...At least I get to keep my own looks just like last time. Thanks for that, Beholder…' he complained sarcastically.
But complaints would not bring him anywhere. Now that he had primary information of where he was and who he was, it was time to search for Seraphine.
Every second that she was away from him made him more uneasy.
'Maybe I should use my new subordinates to also help with the search…' The thought did not even finish forming when the door opened once more, and the red-haired woman that he now recognized as the head maid of this castle walked through again.
When she saw that the human she had delivered was still in the same position, neither sucked nor fucked, she paled.
"My lord… is the food perhaps not to your liking?"
Ashen only looked at her impassively. In truth, he was not pretending to be stern but really did not know how to answer that.
'Ah, I fucked up.'
He did not think that a daring maid would barge in like that, but, thinking that his predecessor spent most of the day sleeping on his throne, her actions did not appear so strange anymore.
The maid interrupted his prolonged silence as the prologue to his brewing wrath.
She hurried forward, effortlessly grabbing the sleeping woman by the waist and bowed once more, this time on all fours. "My lord, please calm your anger! I have great news! We had finally found the perfect consort who will surely be to your tastes. You do not have to bother yourself with thralls and Bloodslaves."
Ashen knew from the woman who was supposed to be his meal that slaves had their own ranking.
Thralls sat at the very bottom. They were treated more like snacks, used and discarded in one setting. Bloodslaves were sophisticated meals, and the vampires savored them instead of casually consuming their blood recklessly.
Sometimes, a Bloodslave could survive up to a whole month in the hands of a vampire.
And finally… the famous consorts.
Those were the best of the best. At this point, they ceased to be treated as food and became something akin to a companion for the vampires. They were treated preciously, and carelessly killing them was unthinkable due to their rarity.
After all… while the first two depended on looks and blood, the third also demanded temperament, personality, and disposition.
That was why a trembling, fearful woman like the one in the maid's hand only amounted to being a thrall.
Ashen was curious who this consort was to convince these maids that even his moody predecessor would be content to have.
He did not have to wonder for long, as hurried footsteps accompanied by the clang of chains echoed from across the hall.
Four armed men entered, and from the skin tone alone, Ashen figured their vampire ancestry. Behind them, the same two maids followed, dragging with them the so-called consort.
Everyone gave space after deeply bowing to allow their lord to inspect her, forcing her to stand in the center of the hall.
It was a nun.
At least that was Ashen's guess from her torn habit. She was blindfolded and chained. And from the way she sprawled on the ground, it was also clear how tired she was.
Despite all of that, her defiant look still shone through… even when her eyes were masked.
"My lord… would you have a taste?"
The moment the nun heard the suggestive words, she immediately angled her head upward, opened her mouth wide, and tried to bite her tongue.
It was clear that she'd rather die than be subjected to whatever fate her captors had in store for her.
...Her teeth only met two fingers instead.
Ashen had been intently observing her from the moment she entered, so he was able to see what she was about to do before anyone else.
And the moment he figured it out, he appeared like a ghost right in front of her, stopping her attempt at the last moment.
Somatic Autonomy allowed him to pilot this body as if it were his own, even though it far exceeded the original in power, and he was glad for it.
After all… from the angle she was going for, it was clear that she wanted to obstruct her airway with her cut tongue and use a combination of shock and blood loss for a guaranteed death.
Despite putting his fingers into that cute mouth of hers, she was still trying with all her might.
"...Seraphine. It's me, your master."
When those words left his lips, the biting abruptly stopped. She knew for certain that the name of the body she was possessing wasn't Seraphine. Nobody knew her name in this era.
What's more… that voice. She would never mistake him for anybody else. And now that she focused on the fingers, they had his exact same shape.
It could only be him.
When that thought settled in her head, her whole body relaxed on its own, and the violent bites, under the bewildered eyes of all spectators, turned into gentle licks.
Their lord did not seem to mind this insolent behavior; instead, he turned around and looked at them with a smile, and that was even rarer than the sight of a human woman attempting to bite the fingers of a primordial.
"Good job. I shall accept her as my consort. Do not bring any more thralls or Bloodslaves; she shall be sufficient."
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Seraphine IMG