"Our race is born from blood, undying and unextinguished."
"Neither god, nor demon, nor human."
"We stand above all living things, feeding on blood, devouring life."
"No one has witnessed our true form."
"We lurk in the darkness, hide among the crowd, nurturing the blood moon, waiting quietly for the right time."
"When the blood-colored six wings appear in the world, the dark moon hangs high, twilight reaches its threshold, bloodlust runs rampant,"
"All things wail in sorrow."
...Excerpt from "Dracula's Oath": Section 36
But Laurien was an exception.
He was a Blood Race Prince.
As powerful as he was, he possessed a nearly eternal life.
Just as Laurien had said.
An undying Blood Race should not possess complicated emotions.
The elders among the Blood Race had always warned him of this.
Because he was a prince among the Blood Race, possessing the purest and strongest bloodline.
And so, Laurien stayed quietly within the embrace of his family for hundreds of years.
Occasionally, some of his fellow Blood Race would leave the family, and when they returned, they would endlessly describe the beauty of the outside world.
This stirred a strong curiosity about the outside world in Laurien's heart.
But the elders repeatedly emphasized that the outside world was filled with schemes and undercurrents, full of danger.
Therefore, they had always forbidden Laurien from leaving the family's territory.
But in Laurien's view, even those weaker than him could move freely in the outside world, so how could he, a prince, fear the storms beyond?
After all, he had already lived for hundreds of years.
Ignoring everyone's advice, Laurien resolutely left the family.
He was full of confidence, even believing he could be invincible in the entire human world.
However, the moment he stepped out, his Blood Race identity was recognized.
And the one who recognized him was a world-class necromancer, Duke Barlow.
In that battle, Duke Barlow's necromancy nearly beat him to the point he couldn't even tell which drop of blood he was.
Most importantly, among the Blood Race, there existed six strict commandments.
No matter one's status, whether a noble prince or a lowly blood servant, none could violate them.
The first of these, and the most traditional and important one, was...
Seclusion...
One must not reveal their true form to non-Blood Race, otherwise, all other Blood Race would sever all ties with you.
But Laurien, having been recognized by Duke Barlow, and then failing to defeat him...
He directly committed the greatest capital crime among the Blood Race.
So he could no longer return home.
And just like that, he was required by Duke Barlow to live as an ordinary human in the Kante Kingdom.
Duke Barlow even requested the previous king to grant him a territory.
Laurien did not disappoint. In more than twenty years, he made that land prosper.
In order to keep the residents from constant exhaustion, for the development of the territory, he even chose to believe in the Goddess of Abundance.
A noble Blood Race prince actually began worshipping the Goddess of Abundance.
This wasn't because he deeply loved the people of his territory, because the Blood Race should not have emotions.
He simply felt that even the Blood Race would not do such exhausting work, so why should these short-lived humans, who only live for a few decades, work so desperately?
But the result was...
A Blood Race prince won the love of all the residents in his territory.
But in the end, this Blood Race prince still committed the most serious mistake among the Blood Race.
Laurien fell in love with a human.
Love blinded him completely. For the first time, he felt emotions.
He wanted to be with a human.
But he would not turn her into one of his own kind.
Because Laurien's love for her was not possession, not coercion.
He simply loved her as a human.
And likewise, the one she loved was also just Laurien.
The kingdom's count, the kind lord who was willing to lower himself so that his people wouldn't have to work too hard yet could still have enough to eat.
Not that Blood Race prince.
But this was destined to be a mistake.
Never had a Blood Race and a human fallen in love, and between them, a wrong result was born.
Priscilla was born in this strange and chaotic environment.
Laurien was afraid, because he did not know what kind of being a child between a human and the Blood Race would become.
Fortunately, the newly born Priscilla was just an extremely ordinary, adorable child.
Thus, Laurien no longer worried too much.
Until Priscilla reached the age of seventeen.
In the world of the Blood Race, a seventeen-year-old had already reached adulthood.
They could spread their wings and develop their own territory and kin.
But from birth, Priscilla had lived as a human and showed no traits of the Blood Race.
This made Laurien extremely confident, firmly believing his daughter could live her life peacefully as a human.
However, things often develop in the worst possible direction.
On the night of her seventeenth birthday, Priscilla suddenly fell into madness.
The traits of the Blood Race erupted from her body, instantly turning her into a frenzied vampire.
That night, in her madness, Priscilla planted the seeds of brutality.
When she woke, the aftereffects of the madness caused her immense pain.
And she had no memory of the atrocities she had committed, including how many innocent lives she had taken.
To treat Priscilla's madness and prevent it from worsening, Laurien painfully decided to lock her inside the house.
But Priscilla's madness lasted for an entire year.
The suffering she endured also lasted for an entire year.
She needed to constantly consume fresh blood just to slightly ease the madness.
But...
Misfortune never comes alone.
Everyone believed it was Laurien's mad wife who had killed their daughter, but that was only the story he used to hide the truth.
In reality, it was Priscilla, who had become a bloodline creature, who killed Laurien's wife.
That nightmare of a night nearly broke Laurien completely.
He sought help from everyone he could, including Duke Barlow, who had taken care of him since he first arrived in the kingdom.
And so, he made a request to Duke Barlow.
To have him swap the souls of his wife and Priscilla.
As a result, the words Duke Barlow said back then remained deeply etched in Laurien's memory.
"Your wife could have lived well, but she chose to possess emotions she should not have had."
"But that wrong kind of emotion is also human nature, something every mother would have."
The Duke told him.
In truth, his wife had already gone to the Duke long ago.
She already knew Laurien was of the Blood Race, and she already knew what caused Priscilla's severe condition.
In the end, she obtained a solution from the Duke.
The answer was…
"Other than you replacing Priscilla and bearing her pain, I have no other method."
"However, even if you do this, she will only become a wandering spirit, but she will not dissipate."
"She will retain the memories of her seventeenth year, and keep waiting."
"Until one day, when a true solution is found, she will return to her body."
"And you will take her place."
"Your soul will scatter and vanish."
And so, Laurien's wife decisively did it.
Laurien did not allow her to enter their daughter's room.
So she waited for the day he had to leave, and quietly entered Priscilla's room.
By coincidence, that very night, Priscilla's madness flared up.
In her madness, she killed her mother, and that was exactly what her mother had hoped for.
The Duke swapped their souls, and from then on, Priscilla's mother bore the suffering of the madness in her place.
Even losing her sanity.
On the day Viktor and Laurien made their deal, Laurien told Viktor this heartbreaking truth.
"My wife has already sacrificed herself. I cannot ignore her final wish."
Viktor's deep, night-sky-like gaze fixed on Laurien.
"Then, what do you plan to do?"
Laurien, filled with worry, lowered his head and spoke honestly to Viktor, "The Duke told me that His Majesty August cannot control his own ambition."
"He wants to complete the revival of mages, to once again use necromancers to secure his rule."
Because the kingdom had anti-magic stones, once they were monopolized by August, every high-ranking mage would be controlled by him.
Becoming his puppets.
"So, the Duke plans for me to test him."
"If His Majesty August truly does something out of line, then…"
Count Laurien would expose his identity as a Blood Race, and agree to marry his daughter to August, strengthening his rule as king.
And Laurien used only one reason to convince August.
To revive his daughter.
"And if August truly uses this opportunity to revive my daughter, he is destined to fail because of it."
The stage that followed would be taken over by Count Laurien.
He would use all his power as a prince to turn the entire Shulben into his blood reservoir.
In doing so, he would bear all the crimes himself, minimizing August's influence over the kingdom.
All of this was to ensure his daughter's safety.
And the Duke also allowed him to extract blood energy from the humans in his territory.
The entire Shulben territory had over a million humans.
If each person only gave up a year or half a year of their blood energy, it would be enough for Priscilla to evolve into a true Blood Race.
But even so, this choice was filled with pain for Laurien.
His daughter's chance to live, and a year of life from a million residents.
It was a difficult decision.
But Laurien was certain that the residents would be willing to lend him that year of blood energy.
Yes, lend.
Because this time, he did not plan to keep living.
"In my life, I have only loved two people..."
His wife, and his daughter.
His wife's sacrifice made Laurien make his final decision.
"In the end, please kill me."
"Only you, I believe, can truly kill the undying me."
"I will use my death to return my blood energy to everyone."
Just as others said.
He was a deeply beloved count.
Holy light turned into a gentle breeze, passing through Count Laurien's collapsing flesh.
Countless pieces of flesh slowly tore apart under the golden light.
In the end, fine cracks spread across his already shattered body, and dense blood energy poured into the sky.
In the blink of an eye, the pale head on his body split into countless cracks and scattered like fragments.
Only that single crimson eye remained, still watching Priscilla.
Meeting her gaze, filled with shock and confusion, as if she understood yet didn't.
Only a faint, gentle voice, one that only Priscilla could hear, sounded quietly, "Priscilla..."
"My sun, the light my heart follows."
"I am willing to give everything, even if I am left with nothing."
"I only wish for you to escape this endless darkness of pain."
At last, Laurien raised his head and looked toward the sky, toward the blazing sun.
Feeling his life rapidly fading, his soul separated from his flesh.
His soul slowly closed its eyes in midair, bidding farewell to this world where dawn had just broken.
Letting the holy light and blazing sun slowly consume him.
And he only murmured one final sentence, "Praise the sun."