The word hit harder than any spell.
Half-blood.
It echoed in my head, bouncing off the walls of my confusion. To understand what Elena meant, I had to dig through the messy library of my memory.
The novel I first transmigrated into—the one where I knew every twist, every betrayal, and every hidden item—was a story I had finished from start to finish. But then, the author released a sequel. This one. The one I was currently living in.
I hadn't read a single page of it.
The Aragon family existed in the first book, so the names and the prestige were familiar, but the dynamics? The characters? They were all shifted, morphed into something I didn't recognize.
In the original story, the Dragon King was the absolute peak. There was no mention of Vampire Queens or this intricate web of high-status consorts.
Everything here must have taken place after the plot of the first novel. A "Next Generation" story I was completely blind to.
And then there was that term: Half-blood. This comment still doesn't make sense.
"Aren't we all?" I wanted to snap back.
I glanced at Elena. If the King is a Dragon and Aries's mother is a Vampire Queen, isn't Aries technically a half-blood too? A Dragon-Vampire hybrid? So why did she spit that word out like it was a curse reserved only for me?
Was there a specific intention in calling me that? Was I the son of a third woman?
What was she? Human? A low-class commoner?
No, there is already a human mother. Then it might not be a human. Then what is it?
"You look confused, Rio," Elena noted, her crimson eyes tracking the flicker of doubt on my face.
"Don't tell me you already forgot about your real mother?"
The question hung in the air like a guillotine. How was I supposed to remember a woman I had never met in a book I had never read? I was a stranger wearing her son's face.
"I... I don't..." I started, but she didn't wait for me to finish.
"Don't you know your mother died giving birth to you?" Elena said.
She died. So there really was a third woman. But who was she for Elena to point this out now? If Aries was Dragon-Vampire and Elena was... whatever she was, what made my mother so different that it warranted this level of dread?
"That is strange," Elena murmured, stepping closer until her crimson eyes were inches from mine. "How can you forget? Just a few days ago, you were weeping over her portrait, talking about how you'd find her lineage. And now you're acting like you don't even know her name?"
A single trail of sweat ran down the side of my forehead, stinging the soot-covered skin. My pulse, which I had worked so hard to steady, began to thrum against my eardrums like a war drum.
"Are you really Rio?"
Shit!
My heart stopped. Just how long is this Author going to stretch this scene? I was being dismantled piece by piece by a sister who was far too observant for my own good. I had to kill her suspicion again, and I had to do it now.
"I... I just have a headache from the fight earlier," I ground out, clutching my temples as if the pain were blinding me. "Aries didn't exactly go easy on me with those fireballs. Everything is... blurry."
Elena stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Finally, after a moment, she let out a long, weary sigh.
"Oh... okay. I forgot how weak you were, seeing you fight like that. It's a miracle that you didn't pass out."
Saying that she turned and began to walk toward the door. "Well, try to survive now. My Vampire mother and the human mother won't like a Demon-blood threatening their children's succession."
I wasn't just a half-blood. I was a Demon half-blood.
In every "System" or "Death Game" novel I'd ever read, demons weren't just rivals; they were the sworn enemies of existence, the ultimate villains meant to be purged.
No wonder both of my mothers wants me dead. I wasn't just a "taint" in the Royal lineage—I was a ticking time bomb sitting at their dinner table.
"You should just try not to get in their eyes for the few years you have left," she added, as her hand twisted the golden doorknob.
A few years?
"After all, you are terminally ill," she said, looking back with a flicker of genuine pity that hurt worse than her threats. "Just like your mother."
Elena paused. "...You're acting strange, Rio." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she look behind at me. "Don't die before I figure out why."
With that final, crushing sentence, she stepped out and closed the door.
I collapsed back onto the bed.
"Great,"
"Half-demon. Terminally ill. Hated by everyone."
"...I've been here only for five hours."