The Most Evil Kind.

He truly understood the locals' ideologies. After the primary dogma about humans' superiority over others, the next dogma of the Church of Light was that hell is what surrounds everyone. That is, this world. When Demur came here, he tried to build paradise. But due to his sister's intrigues, he abandoned the endeavor and built paradise elsewhere.

Accordingly, people should act similarly—while in this hell, try to build paradise for themselves. If successful, you'll be near Demur after death. No success? Then live another life in this hell. Consider it another attempt. The concept had a slight flaw—Demur gave up, building paradise on Earth.

Therefore, the locals, after suffering some devastating defeat or failure, usually threw in the towel and sat quietly, justifying it as another attempt in the next life, blaming Demur's anger towards the dark one, or simply considering themselves unworthy. In general, there were many ways to justify one's failure. This suited the vampires well. The captives didn't attempt to revolt and generally behaved quite loyally, although they saw obvious enemies of their faith before them.

Semen handed over the flask.

"Take a sip!"

Seeing sly sparks in his friend's eyes, Alexander expected a catch, but upon opening the lid, he smelled blood.

"Strange. It seems like he's already tricked me."

A gulp. Mother of God! The vampire's head spun, and he breathed heavily. His heart pounded like crazy. What he just experienced was like... a blow to the head with a hammer, only if it were pleasant. The flask contained the blood of at least several dozen people. Alexander focused on the sensations. Thirty-four people. Or rather, their blood. And all with emotions, feelings, experiences. It even seemed to him that he was feeling a sense of intoxication!

"Vampire wine! Or alcohol, considering how it hits the head," Semen chuckled.

Leonid and Oleg, silently observing the entire scene, exchanged glances and simultaneously reached out demandingly for the flask. With sadistic pleasure, Alexander handed the flask to Oleg and watched his reaction. And it did not disappoint him. The chief gendarme even had to sit down on the ground, as simultaneous memories of dozens of people struck him.

"Well, well!"

All that remained was to agree with this statement.

"And how is the archmage doing?"

They tried not to mention the vampires' biggest "failure." Captured in battle, attempting to escape the battlefield, the city's archmage Godius became the vampires' greatest disappointment. The point was that after absorbing his blood and gaining a vast amount of magical knowledge, vampires were practically unable to apply it. Yes, now they knew many spells, but they lacked the strength to enact them.

Their available powers were sufficient only for the simplest and weakest spells. It turned out that the expenditure of their own strength increased almost in geometric progression with the growth of spell power. And a vampire who could launch a hundred "fire arrows" couldn't even manage two "twisters"—light combat spells of moderate levels, although a vampire could quickly replenish their strength with the blood of enemies and apply two more "twisters."

Higher-level spells were completely unavailable for enactment. Maria estimated that to perform a "fire rain," a vampire would need to drink the blood of approximately a hundred people, and it was not even known if a vampire could achieve such a feat in feeding. Therefore, after using the mage's blood, they tried to forget about him. Somehow considering themselves losers in this matter. And now Alexander decided to recall the deserter.

"We're still keeping him unconscious. Feeding, caring for him, milking blood, there's always someone on duty nearby."

"So keep it up."

"What are the assumptions about how we should turn people into vampires and whether it's even possible?"

"Well, the assumption that it's possible comes from the legends of our world, but this could well be mistaken!"

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