"All the souls you've already absorbed,Roy, Morwen, Loran, and everyone else. If he kills you while you're still the living carrier, he'll be able to take their power for himself. It will give him what he's been searching for for hundreds of years."
She fell silent, giving Ethan time to process.
Ethan stared at her as rage mixed with disgust slowly boiled in his eyes.
"So… I'm just food for him," he said quietly.
"Ha! I'm a bag of souls. As soon as I become strong enough, he'll come and take everything," Ethan said sarcastically, punching himself in the forehead several times.
Anna nodded.
"Yes, exactly."
"That's why he's watching you so closely and sending his best hunters. He's waiting for the moment when you'll be most vulnerable."
She paused, then continued in a different tone,deeper, almost solemn.
"Now I'll tell you where this weakness comes from. Why vampires fear silver and wisteria. You're curious, aren't you? We just didn't think you'd be able to find it."
"All the wisteria was removed from this place a very long time ago. I have no idea where you got it… but anyway, let's skip that."
"Why can an ordinary person trigger the curse by killing a vampire with a simple object?"
"This is important," Anna said.
"It's an ancient story."
Anna sat down opposite Ethan so their eyes were level. Her voice became quieter, every word clear and weighty.
"A long time ago, there lived a sorcerer. He had a wife whom he loved very much. But she could not have children. Years passed, and no child appeared in their home."
"The sorcerer suffered greatly. He left home and walked for a hundred days and ninety-nine nights through forests, mountains, and wastelands, searching for an answer."
"On the ninety-ninth night, a demon appeared to him. Beautiful, smiling, with a silver coin in his hand."
"The demon said:
'I will give you advice for one silver coin.'"
"The sorcerer agreed. The demon whispered the recipe for a potion. The sorcerer returned home, brewed the potion, and gave it to his wife."
"The woman drank it."
"She became pregnant, but from the very beginning everything went wrong. She lost strength, blood flowed from her day and night. She grew weaker, yet she kept saying she could feel life inside her."
"When the time came to give birth, she did not give birth to a child."
"She gave birth to a creature that fed on life energy. It simply looked at its mother with black eyes and reached out to drink her life."
"The sorcerer was furious and grief-stricken. He wanted to kill the creature. But his wife had grown attached to it and called it her son, even giving it the name 'Kandas.'"
"She protected him. The sorcerer could not kill the child. To avoid the hand of God, he sealed his wife in a magical stone and imprisoned the child in another part of the world so she could no longer feed the creature."
"The sorcerer became enraged at the entire world."
"He took his wife's blood, mixed it with wisteria and silver, and poured it under the light of the sun, cursing all creatures that steal life and his own bloodline."
"That is how our curse was born," she continued.
"When an ordinary person kills a vampire with a simple object, a knife, a stick, a stake, boom, the curse activates. The person becomes the carrier and collector of vampire souls, so that upon the person's death, all the souls return to the afterlife."
"The cursed weapon attracts souls. The person becomes what you are now. And we vampires fear silver and wisteria precisely because they contain the blood of that mother."
"They remind us of our origin and that we are a mistake, the fruit of betrayal and grief."
She looked at Ethan with a wild gaze.
"You are currently the carrier of this ancient curse, Ethan. And Gerard wants to use you to obtain the power of all the souls you've already absorbed."
"He wants to become the one who finally breaks this cycle. He may have a plan to free us from the curse, but I don't believe him."
Ethan sat motionless. His fingers gripped the weapon of darkness tightly. The black lines on his neck pulsed faintly.
"So… all of this started because of one man's love and grief," he said quietly.
Anna nodded.
"Yes. As is so much in this world."
She fell silent, giving Ethan time to absorb what he had heard.
"Enough talk," she said at last.
"Now we'll get to work. Remove your outer clothing."
Ethan looked at Anna with some curiosity and pulled back slightly.
"I have a girlfriend, you know…" he said awkwardly.
"Oh my God, what are you on about? I'm not going to rape you, and besides, you're not my type!" Anna said, embarrassed, turning her reddening face away.
Then she composed herself and turned back.
"Leave on only what you're comfortable moving in."
Ethan silently took off his jacket and tossed it onto an old wooden crate. He remained in a dark T-shirt. The black lines on his neck and shoulder were clearly visible even in the dim light.
Anna nodded.
"We'll start with sparring without weapons."
"I will move like a regular vampire, not using my full speed, and I'll move in a way that you can see me."
"Your task is to not let me hit you. Do you understand what I want to do?"
Ethan nodded. At the moment, he had a rough idea of how things would go or so he thought.
"Got it."
Anna took a step back and crouched slightly. Her movements became smooth. She didn't attack immediately, simply began circling him, as if studying him.