Lilith’s home in the Moonreaver Dimension was quite similar to Irina’s. She had her own personalised mansion, a training facility and a plethora of other luxuries only given to those with upper standings within a Vampiric Noble House.
Though, there was one stark difference between Lilith’s abode and Irina’s loft…
Lilith’s place was MASSIVE.
Spanning at least ten hectares in size, the young woman’s abode was easily the largest private property I’d ever been on. Being the creators of the Nightmare realms, the Moonreaver House had perfected their craftsmanship to establish the masterpiece that was the Moonreaver Dimension.
And while it wasn’t the largest Nightmare realm in the Vampire World, it was easily among the top five regarding its size. However, the size didn’t matter to the Moonreaver House as they only housed a couple thousand Vampires. Hence, the Moonreaver House went for quality over quantity when developing its own home turf. And it showed in the final product.
The fake Blood Moon that hung over the night sky captured half the effects of the original Blood Moon, which increased the quality of the magic power within the mirror dimension. A True Vampire living within the Moonreaver Dimension would never feel the lethargy of the Sun, and their wounds would heal at a much faster rate. Not only that, their concentration, overall fighting ability and cognitive functions are greatly enhanced when bathing in the light of the fake Blood Moon.
It was truly a paradise for all Vampires, let alone the members of the Moonreaver House, to thrive.
And the biggest beneficiary of this paradise was none other than the next heir of the Moonreaver House.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable!”
Lilith happily showed us around her mansion, delegating our rooms as she did so. The estate was much bigger than Irina’s bungalow, with over twenty rooms and a shared, luxurious living quarter that would make billionaires salivate in desire. Variel and Luminita were shown to the servant rooms by Lisa, leaving Lilith, Irina and me to wander about the gigantic mansion.
“Hey… Why is Brother’s room so close to yours? And why is mine in the other wing?”
“Hmmm? You must be mistaken. They are equidistant to each other.”
“How on earth are they equidistant?!”
Irina bellowed out in anger. This time, however, the girl had a right to be furious. Irina’s room and mine were separated by about six doors, which meant that the girl had to walk an entire corridor to visit me at night. Not only that, her room was on the second floor while mine was a level up, on the top floor. Compared to our arrangement back at her bungalow, Irina was practically living in another house.-.
“Don’t worry about it! You came for the dimensional domain, right? For your convenience, I made your room as close to the exit as possible! You won’t have to worry about travelling!”
“That’s not my point!”
“Ara? I thought you came here for the dimensional domain? Should we rescind your rights? If that’s the case, you can return to the Everwinter Estate. Shoo, shoo! Leave so I can spend the rest of my time with Jin!”
“You bitch!”
… These two got along surprisingly well. Still, if I let them continue, we would be wasting precious time. Time that could be spent training and…
“Irina, Lilith… Cut it out.” I sighed while shaking my head. “Lilith, arrange it so that Irina’s room is beside mine and yours. Actually, scratch that; just make sure that it’s near ours. None of us will spend much time in our rooms anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
A sly smile crept up my face as I saw Lilith’s ethereal face of innocence. This girl may be a genius, but her social skills were seriously wanting. Even Irina, who had been sheltered since young, realised the meaning behind my words and her cheeks slowly blushed red.
My desire to tease these two women peaked. I grabbed Lilith by the chin and raised her eyes to meet mine. The girl was stunned by my movement, but she didn’t show any signs of resistance. Her beady vale eyes blinked as a slight tremble was reflected by her pupils.
Cute…
Lilith Moonreaver. A genius of the dimensional arts. The future heir of the Moonreaver House. The generational prodigy that everyone looked up to. There was no doubt about her prestige, and yet… In my hands, she’s nothing more than a shy girl who had to face her loved one.
I could hear Irina clicking her tongue in the background, but I ignored my first precious woman for now. I leaned closer into Lilith’s ear and whispered with the most seductive voice I could muster:
“We’re going to sleep together… All in one room. Irina… You… And me.”
“!!!”
Lilith leapt back like a frightened deer and pasted her back on the wall. Beads of sweat dripped down her gorgeous face as her crystal eyes looked up at me with a mixture of emotions.
Goodness… Looks like this is going to be an entertaining night.
❖❖❖
Germania. Homeground of the Bloodborne House.
“Huergh! Huergh! Huergh!”
Heavy pants escaped the mouth of three men while their legs sprinted down through the dense forest of Germania’s countryside. And while they were in the thick overgrowth of nature, the three men sure didn’t dress the part. Donned from head to toe in luxurious suits, trousers and woollen shoes, the men seemed to have sauntered out from a High Society party.
Though, there was one distinct difference. Their clothes were in shambles. One of them had their shirt torn from the chest down. One had dozens of holes littered throughout their suit. And the final one barely had any semblance of his suit left.
Blood dripped all over their fragile, white skin showing the numerous lacerations, bruises and punctures they had sustained.
“A-Are we there yet?”
“Huergh… Soon! Just past these trees!”
The leader of the group pointed to the north, and as if by coincidence, the light of the bright full moon illuminated their destination. A dilapidated, ruined villa, one that had been reclaimed by mother nature herself. The three men’s faces brightened as if they were vagrants in the desert that had just discovered an oasis.
The three men pushed forward with what little strength they had left and quickly entered the ruined building. The strongest among them hurriedly closed the door and barricaded it with some cabinets and chairs before finally collapsing on the floor next to his comrades.
“Urgh… We made it… We finally made it!!!”
“Finally! We can rest!”
All three of them cheered their survival as their consciousness slid in between reality and their dreams. As one of them caught their breath, he asked their leader the all-important question.
“Do you think that they’ll find this place?”
“No,” the leader answered confidently. “This is a decommissioned hideout from a hundred years ago. There are only a handful of people who even know about this place in our House. Plus, we’d covered our tracks. They won’t be able to find us.”
“Good…”
A deep sigh of relief. Probably the biggest one the man had ever released in his entire life. Relaxing his shoulders, he finally moved to the wound he’d left untended for so long. It had been bleeding excessively, and every time he attempted to touch it, a stinging pain would paralyse his entire body. Turning his fingers into sharp claws, the man dug into his flesh and cautiously extracted the bullet, drawing loud groans of agony with each passing second.
“AHHH!!! Huergh… Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!!! Those fucking Church maggots! They were clearly here to hunt Vampires! Blessed silver bullets?! Those were banned when we signed the peace treaty!”
Vampires were immortal creatures, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be killed. And one of the most effective methods of sending an immortal Vampire into the other world was to use silver bullets, or to be more precise, silver bullets that had been soaked in holy water.
As creatures of the night, Vampires were highly vulnerable to Holy magic, rendering their absurd healing factor useless. And if a bullet was lodged in their skulls…
“Since when did they care about the peace treaty?! If they had their way, those Church maggots would wage a Holy War in a heartbeat!”
“Tsk, our ancestors should have hunted humans down to extinction! What’s with this peace bullcrap? The wolf should never befriend the sheep!”
The leader cursed, and his subordinates followed. Clearly, they were not only antagonistic towards the Church but towards the entire human race. However, they were currently not the hunters but the hunted. And so, they could only curse behind closed doors.
“Fifteen of us died in that raid… How did they figure out where we were?”
“The Holy Church has their means. They might have used a seance or maybe even sent undercover Vicars to investigate where our hideouts were.”
“Yeah, it did seem like a planned attack. After all, they sent that man…”
At the mention of their assailant, the three True Vampires trembled in fear. Unconsciously, they looked out the holes of the broken villa, not knowing if someone was watching them or not. It was only after thirty seconds of silence that they finally lowered their guard and continued to discuss their future plans.
“Damn it! Twenty years of work flushed down the drain! Where will we find a better place to capture sacrifices?!”
“Tsk… We’ll have to start all over again. Our House’s revival depends on those sacrifices. Have you contacted HQ?”
“No, we’re still not safe.” The leader answered lethargically. “Let’s rest here for a while and recuperate our wounds. Once we’re healed up-…”
The leader paused as his gaze rested on the man lying on the floor. What remaining colour he had left in his skin completely faded to obscurity, and his pupils dilated wildly.
“What’s the matter?”
“Your wound… Why isn’t it healing?”
“Huh?!”
True Vampires were unparalleled when it came to self-regeneration. Given the time, they could even regrow limbs and organs in a matter of minutes. The only way to stop a True Vampire’s regeneration was to separate the head from the body, but otherwise, a mere bullet wound to the chest should be healed by now. And yet…
“What a pity… I might have heard something good if you had discovered it a few minutes later.”
A booming voice vibrated the entire ruined villa, forcing the three fatigued True Vampires to leap to their feet. They immediately attempted to flee through a window or a back door, but it was too late.
BANG!!!
A single gunshot echoed through the air, and one of the three Vampire’s heads was blasted to smithereens. Brain matter and blood splattered all over the villa floor, freezing the remaining two Vampires. And well…
Their moment of shock was very well their last chance to flee.
BOOOMM!!!
The barricaded door blasted open, revealing a singular, solid leg which was covered by black cashmere. The man responsible for kicking the door open waltzed into the broken home with the dazzling moon as his backdrop.
A tall man. That was the first impression the two remaining Vampires got. He was easily over two-metres tall, possibly reaching twenty centimetres above the two-metre mark. But that didn’t mean he was a skinny stick. Quite the contrary, in fact. Built like a tank, the man had bulging muscles all over his tight robe, which was very conservative for these modern times.
Black hair and silver eyes. And not to mention, the handsome beard, which was trimmed to perfection. Even though the man was in his forties, he could easily pass as an alpha in his prime.
A black cassock with a similarly black ferraiolo draped around his shoulders. Silver chains held the cape in place as several silver, and gold jewellery stood out on the man’s garments. In particular, the shiny golden cross that hung between his neck.
However, the most dangerous parts of the man’s choice of wear weren’t the priestly robes, and neither was it the accessories that had been drenched in holy power. It was the two silver long-barrelled handguns that were decorated in the images of angels and the symbols of the Church.
“Ah-ah… I’d thought that by letting you go, you would have led me to your base. What’s with this shithole of a house?”
“E-Exorcist! Does the Holy Church wish to wage war against our House?! T-The mighty Bloodborne House?!”
The leader attempted to get his words across, but fear overcame his speech. The exorcist looked lazily at the weakened True Vampire and closed his eyes as if he’d swallowed a bitter pill.
“Honestly, my orders were to let you lead me to your hideout and gather more intelligence by interrogating you, but this is just a pain…”
The exorcist spun his silver guns around and pointed his guns at the two Vampires. A torrent of magic and holy power mixed together, and the tip of the guns started to glow in a rich golden hue. The priest’s face gradually turned from a lazy frown into a sly smile… A sly smile of a fox that had cornered its prey.
And for the cornered Vampires, his words don’t sound like a holy sermon at all. Rather, it sounded like the whispers of the devil himself.
“Hallelujah, motherfuckers!”