NOVEL NEXT Chapter 260: Becoming A Nice And Kind Vampire
Razeal raised a brow at the vampire's offer, the faintest twitch of skepticism flickering across his face. For a man or rather, a being that might br known as one of the most fearsome villains in existence, this ancient creature seemed… unusually generous. Calm, polite even. His words flowed like silk, every gesture refined, every smile so perfectly placed that it almost looked rehearsed.
It was suspicious. Far too suspicious.
Razeal's instincts screamed that there was more to this than what the vampire king was letting on. Nothing in the universe came without a price especially not from creatures who had lived through ages long enough to grow bored of their own immortality.
Vaelitharion, of course, noticed that doubtful look on Razeal's face almost immediately. Even though Razeal was excellent at concealing his emotions, there was no hiding from those crimson eyes that had seen eons of deceit and truth alike if not felt it himself outright.
"So have you ever wondered what would happen if you left your humanity behind?"
Razeal's brows furrowed slightly. "Huh?"
Vaelitharion turned his head slightly, his red eyes glinting like twin rubies. "If you abandoned everything that makes you human your frailty, your morality, your warmth and embraced something greater. Have you ever considered what that would make of you? What you could become?"
Razeal said nothing, just staring at him silently, waiting for where this was going.
A slow, elegant smile spread across Vaelitharion's lips. "I'm saying…" he began, his voice calm and deliberate, "…would you like to become a vampire?"
The word lingered in the air like a spell.
Razeal blinked once. "…A vampire?" he repeated, his tone flat but laced with confusion and little spec of intrest.
Vaelitharion chuckled quietly, spreading his arms as if presenting the idea like an artist unveiling his masterpiece. "Yes. It's quite an easy solution, actually. The simplest way to overcome that… small predicament you're currently struggling with. You need power fast. Strength beyond the limits of your mortal frame. And I can give you that."
He took a step closer, the air subtly growing heavier with his presence. "I can see it in you. You would adapt well to it perhaps even thrive. You already carry the scent of darkness, the echo of death. You would fit perfectly."
Razeal tilted his head slightly, frowning. "And what exactly would that make me?"
"A being above humans," Vaelitharion said softly, his eyes half-lidded with confidence. "Above gods. The next step in evolution. Immortal, powerful, and free from the shackles of decay and limitation. What do you say, human? Will you trade your fragile mortality for something… Above divine?"
Razeal fell silent. His mind churned.
The way the vampire said it, it sounded so easy. So effortless. But there was no way it was. He knew the type smooth talkers with endless lifetimes of experience manipulating others into doing exactly what they wanted. Still, something about the offer tugged at him. He had to admit… the temptation was there.
"System," Razeal called out silently in his mind. "What do you think about this?"
The familiar, calm mechanical tone responded almost instantly.
[Every race possesses unique advantages and disadvantages. The human race, while naturally weak, has exceptional adaptability. Becoming a vampire could indeed provide a significant increase in your physical and mystical capabilities.]
The voice paused for a moment before continuing.
[However, once you abandon humanity, there is no return. You would no longer be considered human your essence, your nature, even your soul would alter. It is not simply a change of body, but of existence itself. For some, that realization breeds disgust and self-loathing. Others… embrace it. The choice, as always, is yours, Host.]
Razeal frowned slightly, lowering his gaze.
So… it was an option. But one that would change everything.
After a few seconds, he raised his eyes again, looking directly at the vampire progenitor. "Alright," he said evenly. "Tell me what are the Disdvantages of becoming a vampire?"
"Well, the disadvantages of being a superior race like myself?" The Vampire King said with a faint, amused smile. "There aren't many, really."
Razeal paused. "Not many? What about sunlight or any kind of light? Don't you guys die under it?"
Ohhh… unexpected of you to know such a thing about us too," the vampire king said, his crimson eyes gleaming faintly with curiosity. "I can't recall your body ever reading or hearing about vampires in your memories. But I suppose those blank, dark spots in your mind hold more than I imagined."
His voice lowered slightly, smoother, like silk brushing against a blade. "Still, you are correct to an extent but not entirely. Only the weak ones, the diluted bloodlines the lesser vampires carry that pitiful weakness to sunlight. Those are the ones whose bodies burn under its radiance, whose skin tears and melts at dawn's first touch. But the higher one ascends in our hierarchy, the less that curse applies. For all of pure blood, sunlight is nothing more than an annoyance, a discomfort."
He smiled, and for a moment, his expression carried an unholy pride like a god speaking of his own perfection.
"If I were to step into a star," he said softly, "to swim inside its heart of fire(Plasma), the light itself would bow to me instead of burning me."
"But if there is something I truly regard as our weakness," Vaelitharion continued, clasping his hands behind his back as he paced slowly, "it would not be sunlight, nor holy power, nor anything as simple as the mortal world believes. Our true weakness," he said, his tone lowering to something more introspective, "lies within ourselves."
Razeal raised a brow slightly, curious despite himself. "Ohhh?"
"Yes," the vampire king said, turning his gaze to the grand window again. "We are perfect by nature.. too perfect. But perfection, my dear mortal, is a curse far greater than imperfection could ever be. It stagnates. It traps."
He turned back toward Razeal, his movements calm, deliberate, as his expression softened into something strangely human nostalgic even.
"You see," he began again, "just as humans have mortality as their greatest weakness, we vampires have something far different a curse that mirrors your fleeting lives in the cruelest of ways. We perceive time differently. For us, it slows. It stretches endlessly, every second longer, heavier. Imagine living in a world where every moment lingers, refusing to fade. What you mortals forget within days… remains with us for centuries. Every emotion, every wound, every attachment."
His eyes grew distant, red irises gleaming faintly in the dim light. "We are creatures of emotion. Of passion, of love, of obsession. When we feel, we feel deeply... too deeply. When we love, we love to the edge of madness. When we hate, we hate beyond reason. Our hearts immortal as they are cannot escape the weight of what they carry. It is… unbearable at times."
He smiled faintly, though it wasn't a kind smile. It was bittersweet. "We seek distractions entertainment to keep the centuries from breaking us. We gamble, we fight, we feed. We crave things that make us feel.. The blood, The pleasure, The power, The danger. We become possessive of what we enjoy, addicted to what gives us a momentary thrill. A beautiful song, a drop of blood, a lover's touch… these things consume us. They become our worlds."
Razeal watched silently. Despite the king's calmness, there was a quiet storm beneath his tone. He wasn't merely describing vampires. He was describing himself.
"Our kind," Vaelitharion continued, "is drawn to pleasure and extremes. The taste of blood, the thrill of combat, the depths of lust, the intoxication of power… they are all the same to us. Addictions. Obsessions. We call them joy but to a human, they would seem like madness. It's not because we are evil it's simply what eternity does to the soul."
He looked toward Razeal again, his crimson eyes glowing faintly brighter. "And yet, humans call this evil, don't they? Your kind fears anything that cannot age, anything that cannot die. To you, immortality is not a blessing, but an abomination."
Razeal crossed his arms lightly, listening without interrupting.
The vampire king smiled faintly, continuing, "Yes… but if there is one truth I have learned through my endless existence, it is this: no being starts out evil. Not even the darkest god or the cruelest things. Evil is born from stagnation. From living too long. From remembering too much."
He began pacing slowly again, his voice echoing slightly in the grand chamber. "Every creature that lives long enough eventually sees the same fate madness, corruption, despair. It is inevitable. Because when you live forever, the world changes around you, but you do not. You watch the things you care for wither and die. You watch the ideas you loved become forgotten, replaced by things you cannot understand. You remain the same while everything else moves on."
His tone grew lower, almost melancholic. "And then, one day, you wake up realizing that you no longer belong to the world you live in. The morals, the values, the meaning all changed. You stand there, unchanged, still believing in what once was… and that alone makes you a monster in the eyes of the new."
He turned his eyes to Razeal again, his expression calm but his words heavy. "That is why we are called evil. Not because we choose to be.. but because we do not change."
Razeal blinked once, silent.
The vampire king continued, his tone gaining strength again, lost in old thoughts. ""The truth is… people don't really change their minds. They just die. And when one cannot die, when time no longer sweeps them away, neither do their ideas. They linger. They harden. They become unshakable relics of an age long gone."
"Meanwhile, the rest of the world keeps moving forward. Mortals die, and with them, their old beliefs fade. New ones take root. Society evolves because it must because it doesn't have the luxury of forever. But we… we do."
His voice darkened, low and distant. "And that is where the danger begins. If someone like us immortal, powerful still clings to the ideals of a past age and holds influence over the living… then, without realizing it, we become the enemy of progress. What seems righteous to us becomes monstrous to them. We call it preservation; they call it tyranny."
The Vampire King's eyes softened, a faint flicker of something almost human passing through them. "Perhaps that's why mortality exists. Perhaps that's why no being should live without end. For when we stop changing, we stop growing. And when we stop growing… we fall."
A faint, cold smile crossed his face. "In the end, our greatest weakness isn't sunlight or anything else it's ourselves. Our refusal to let go of who we once were. We are trapped in eternity, bound by the ghosts of our own convictions. And that…" His gaze burned with quiet sorrow. "That is the true curse of the immortal."
"Well, whatever…" Razeal muttered with a casual shrug in his head. "Doesn't seem that concerning to me."
He genuinely didn't see what the big deal was. The vampire king's grand explanations about his race eternity, stagnation, emotion, weakness sounded poetic and heavy, sure, but to Razeal? It wasn't exactly terrifying. From his perspective, vampires didn't sound much different from humans. They just… felt things harder. A little more intense, a little more obsessive. So what? Humans were already like that just shorter-lived and weaker.
"Same weaknesses, same emotions. Just… over the top," he thought. "How bad could it even be?"
He had lived long enough to know the extremes of emotion and the chaos of humanity firsthand. And if vampires were just a more exaggerated version of that, then it didn't scare him. He'd dealt with worse.
Besides, control was something he trusted himself with. He knew his mind, his will. Even with all the chaos around him, Razeal always had control over his body, over his thoughts, over the blood and pain that followed him like shadows. If he could tame curses and wield pain, what was one more risk?
A smirk tugged at his lips. "I'll handle it," he muttered under his breath.
He looked up at the vampire king, his decision made. "Alright," he said calmly. "I accept. I'll become a vampire."
He had no time left for doubts, not with everything happening outside this space. Becoming a vampire might be dangerous but not doing it guaranteed his death. And truth be told, being human had never exactly worked in his favor anyway not taht he care.
Vaelitharion, the vampire king, smiled faintly, his crimson eyes glinting with amusement. "Ahhh, so you've decided. Good. I rather expected that answer from you, Razeal Virelan."
Razeal exhaled through his nose, impatiently. "Yeah, yeah… it's all exciting and stuff, but it won't take long, right? Because I really don't have the time for any complicated rituals or lectures."
He sounded rushed, practical as always. He wasn't here for philosophy he was here for power.
The vampire king gave a soft, almost melodic chuckle. "That," he said, "depends entirely on your talent. But usually, no it doesn't take long. Two seconds, maybe three, if your body is… average."
He tilted his head slightly, that teasing smile not fading. "You see, vampire blood is quite dominant. A human body can't resist it, no matter how much it tries. Once it enters, it consumes, replaces, reshapes."
Razeal frowned. "...Dominant, huh? Sounds invasive."
"Oh, it is," Vaelitharion said with calm delight. "But beautiful in its own way."
And then, before Razeal could even respond
The world around them shifted.
The air twisted, space itself folding like a mirror being turned. In an instant, the elegant palace dissolved into smoke, replaced by a vast, open expanse that stretched endlessly in every direction.
Razeal blinked, his boots now crunching on crimson-black soil. The air smelled heavy iron, salt, and something faintly sweet, almost intoxicating.
He turned his head, and his eyes raising up slightly.
In front of him was not a field.. Maybe a river or colossal ocean an ocean of blood. It shimmered darkly under a starless void, endless and thick, moving with sluggish waves that glowed faintly red from within, as though light pulsed from the very essence of it. The scent was overwhelming.
"Cool…" Razeal muttered, shielding his nose with his hand.
The vampire king's voice echoed softly beside him. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
Razeal shot him a look. "That's… one word for it."
"This," Vaelitharion said with a serene smile, extending his hand toward the vast red ocean, "is the essence of the vampires. There core. The blood of our history, the memory of kind i made. It took… unimaginable years to collect this. Every drop here has a story to it."
His voice lowered, almost reverent, his gaze distant. "I began creating this ocean when immortality grew dull. When I had seen everything, felt everything, and the world had nothing left to offer me but silence. So, I thought if there were no more stories to watch, then I would create them."
Razeal's brow furrowed as he listened, trying to piece together what the hell this man was saying.
"I would take humans," Vaelitharion continued, his voice smoother and full of passion now. "All kinds. The weakest, the strongest, the kindest, the most vile. Sometimes a soldier, sometimes a saint, sometimes a fool. One by one, I turned them into vampires all in there times."
He smiled faintly, eyes glimmering with something that looked like nostalgia but twisted.
"And then," he said, "I gave them a reason to kill me."
"Yes." The king's tone didn't waver. "I would make them hunger for power, for revenge, for purpose. I would let them grow, struggle, fall, rise, and hate. And when they thought they were strong enough, they would come for me. They would try to slay their maker."
He chuckled, a sound too smooth to belong to a sane man. "Every one of them had a story worth tasting. Their lives.. their pain, their joy, their despair when they died, I would drink their blood. And within it, I would see everything. Their memories, their dreams, their regrets, their desires."
He gazed fondly at the red waves before them, eyes glinting. "And then I would take their blood esscense, and put it here. Each drop, a story. Each ripple, a life lived."
For a moment, Razeal was quiet. His eyes flicked between the endless sea of blood and the man beside him.
Then he exhaled. "...You're definitely creative," he muttered under his breath. "Creative and absolutely insane...But definitely creative"
The vampire king only smiled wider, pleased. "Oh, I prefer eccentric, but yes, I've been called worse."
"So you're saying," Razeal said slowly, "that every drop in this ocean is someone's life? Their memories, emotions, everything compressed into blood?"
"Yes," Vaelitharion replied without hesitation, that nostalgic tone still lingering. "Every. Single. Drop."
Razeal whistled lowly. "Huh… I see."
There was a pause as he looked back at the sea, his mind quietly piecing together what kind of ancient madness it took to do something like that. billions maybe trillions of lives, all just stories for one creature's entertainment.
"Yeah," he thought, "this dude's definitely evil creative."
Then he shrugged. "So," he said, glancing back at Vaelitharion, "how exactly am I becoming a vampire?"
The vampire king looked back at him, amused by how utterly unfazed Razeal was by his eons of moral corruption.
"You don't seem very disturbed by all this," the king noted with a hint of amusement.
Razeal just shrugged again. "Evil, not evil… it's perspective. Besides, being able to watch someone's entire life through their blood?" He smirked faintly. "Kinda sounds interesting, not gonna lie."
Vaelitharion blinked once, then actually chuckled quietly, but genuinely. "You're quite strange, Razeal Virelan."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Razeal said dryly, shaking his head. "Anyway how does this work? Do I drink from this blood ocean or something? You stab me? I explode? What?"
"Ahh, nothing that dramatic," the king said, his grin widening slightly. "Transformation is simple, really. One drop of blood from this ocean be enough to rewrite your existence entirely."
"As you see… these blood essences not only hold memories and the whole story of those beings," the vampire king said with that familiar glint of amusement in his crimson eyes, "but even their power. Every drop is a condensed existence their lives, struggles, triumphs, Power and even strength and failures, all forged into the essence of blood."
He paused for a moment, his tone growing faintly playful, almost like a teacher explaining a lesson to a curious child. "Even if you were to absorb only one-millionth of a single drop, you would still become… a full vampire. Entirely transformed."
Razeal blinked. "...One-millionth?"
"Yes," Vaelitharion replied with a faint chuckle. "That much alone would be enough to awaken the bloodline fully. You'd become a pure vampire." He tilted his head with mild curiosity. "If, by some miracle, you were to absorb one full drops… you would become something greater. An Elder vampire a being standing far beyond mortals or their petty understanding of power."
He smiled faintly, his tone smooth yet edged with a strange humor. "Of course, that depends on your talent… and on whether you survive the process. Most don't."
Razeal frowned slightly at that, but didn't say anything.
"I wonder," the vampire king mused, raising his chin as if pondering a piece of fine art. "Will you be able to fully absorb even one drop? Or will you explode and die like the rest? It's always a gamble, isn't it? Ah… I can't guarantee your survival, you see. It's only for the deserving ones."
He chuckled lightly after saying it, the sound dripping with old, strange humor the kind of laugh that belonged to someone who had lived too long and grown far too comfortable with death.
Razeal sighed through his nose, half-exasperated. "So should I just jump in?" he asked, his tone flat, direct, as if discussing the weather instead of diving into an ocean of blood that could kill him.
The vampire king blinked, momentarily caught off guard by his bluntness. He tilted his head slightly, looking down at Razeal like one might look at a reckless child. "Hmm?.. Well, yes," he said slowly, turning his head to the side in a motion oddly reminiscent of a curious bird. "I suppose that would do."
"I see," Razeal muttered, nodding once.
And before another word could leave either of their mouths, he took a step forward and jumped.
The surface of the crimson ocean rippled violently as Razeal plunged into it, vanishing beneath the heavy, thick waves of blood. The liquid swallowed him whole, its texture like molten metal, suffocating yet strangely alive.
The vampire king remained standing at the edge, watching with calm interest as the ripples spread outward. The deep red waves glimmered under the faint, starless light of the void, each surge reflecting the faintest pulse of power.
"So exciting…" the vampire king murmured to himself, his lips curling into a small, delighted smile. "The idea that another world one that never knew what a vampire truly is will soon witness one born anew."
He clasped his hands loosely behind his back, his tone becoming softer, almost nostalgic. "Usually, I must wait thousands of years for humans to forget about us again… to let the myths die, to let our name fade from their books. Only then can I create one of vampire for good entertainment."
A low chuckle escaped him. "It must be such an interesting story to watch unfold. A human turned vampire in a world that knows nothing of vampires... the possibilities amuse me endlessly." His eyes glimmered faintly, like molten rubies. "I almost wish I could see it."
He looked down at the surface again, a sigh escaping him soft, quiet, but laced with something ancient and heavy. "But sadly, I might not be able to."
The vampire king's smile lingered faintly as he stared into the shifting surface of the blood ocean. For a being who had seen the birth and death of countless civilizations, his expression held something strange something almost human. A quiet thrill. The smallest spark of curiosity.
But then
A flicker crossed his face.
Something changed.
His expression froze mid-smile as his eyes glinted faintly brighter. The calm, lazy interest in his posture vanished in an instant, replaced by something sharper intriguness.
"…Hm?" he murmured.
The sound of waves below stirring came.
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Thanks for reading, guys! 😂 Sorry for being late.. I just had a hard time writing this chapter today. Believe it or not, it's been a pretty rough day, ugh.
Good night, everyone. Love you all! ❤️
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