*Step* *Step* *Step*

Following the Vampire who was dragging along the chained humans, Xavier and Sangrea strolled down the streets.

Their goal was not to hide or act suspicious in any way, but simply blend in. Drawing any attention would have blown their cover, and that was the last thing they wanted.

*Swoosh*

Vampires walked down the road in the opposite direction occasionally, passing by them.

Neither Xavier nor Sangrea seemed to pay much attention to the Vampires, they only glanced occasionally.

When they reached a bridge, Sangrea tugged at Xavier’s shoulder with her elbow.

As he looked over at her, he saw her making a gesture asking if he’s okay. Xavier nodded.

Even though he kept a straight face, he was anxious, because if he had discovered that his family had been killed, he was not sure what he would do.

*Tug*

He tugged at her once more before she sneakily pointed at the giant palace-like building down the road after the end of bridge.

In addition to being huge and old, the palace was dark inside and looked like a haunted asylum, the kind you see in horror movies.

From their right, they could see another bridge connected to the palace. A bridge connected that palace with another, even larger one, which was cut off by the cave’s walls.

It was only a half of a palace since the rest was cut off by walls, yet it seemed to cover an entire quarter of the cave.

Crossing the bridge, Xavier’s gaze drifted from the giant palace back to the Vampire.

While walking along the roads and past many more empty houses, they ignored the Vampires that passed by them before eventually stopping near the smaller palace’s entrance.

Several Vampires were on guard by the large door entrance, they stopped the man with the humans chained and began questioning him before letting him through.

Sangrea and Xavier took a step back when they saw this before hiding beside one of the empty houses.

Sangrea smiled as Xavier gestured to ask how they would get inside.

[Shadow Manipulation: Shadow Transit.]

Sangrea’s bodies began to sink into shadows beneath their feet as a dark shadow moved around them.

Impressed and surprised, Xavier closed his eyes and placed his trust in Sangrea.

Suddenly, they were submerged.

*Blink*

Not even a second later, they were rising again out of a shadow.

They emerged from the shadow of a pillar surrounding the entrance of the palace’s inside. They were in. Thanks to the angle and the fact that they were coming out of the shadows blatantly, they were not spotted.

In the midst of scanning the area, Xavier looked away from the entrance and felt his heart sink.

In front of him was a large room. Concrete walls and pillars supporting a glass arch ceiling.

But that was not what boiled his blood.

There were countless humans strapped to tilted slabs with blood infusion devices beside them. A series of long flexible tubes was attached to their arms, and their blood flowed through the tubes and into the blood bags.

There were other bags filled with strangely colored fluids beside the blood bags. The bag was equipped with tubes that appeared to be pumping fluids and nutrients directly into their bodies.

The humans all appeared to be a deep in a slumber.

It became clear where they were after that. They were in the heart of the Vampire Camp, it was where they kept all the people captured.

‘So this is what they do to humans… They capture them, put them under sleep and drain them of their blood while doing the bare minimum to keep them alive…’

Xavier’s hand tightened into a fist as the thought of his family suffering the same fate crossed his mind.

Xavier looked over at Sangrea, and she looked back at him with a guilty look while avoiding eye contact.

‘She told me she didn’t know much about Vampire Camps but based on the way she’s been acting, even before we had come here she’s shown signs of knowing a lot… Did she know about this too? Why did she hide it from me?’

Xavier shook his head. Now was not the right time to think about such things.

He hid by the shadows with Sangrea and noticed that many Vampires were keeping tabs on the people sleeping as they walked by.

Based on what he could see on one side, there were many more than thirty.

Because they were all wearing the same navy blue uniform, Xavier did the only thing he could do.

*Swoosh*

Xavier left the shadows and put himself in broad view as he walked through rows of sleeping people. Sangrea stayed behind in the shadows since she’d stand out based on her lack of a uniform.

On his own, Xavier looked left and right at the faces and figures of the people.

There was a chance that his family wasn’t amongst them, there was a chance they weren’t anywhere in this particular camp, but Xavier didn’t care.

His heart was pounding as he searched, his anxiety level was rushing through the roof.

‘Where… Where are they!?’

Having had no luck with his attempts, Xavier suddenly stopped at the centre of the room and closed his eyes.

Taking a deep breath, he slowly exhaled to calm himself.

He slowly began to recall it, the scent of his mother, sister, and father. There were so many different scents that he had no choice but to single them out.

As a result, he focused fully on it. Meanwhile, Sangrea moved through the shadows in search of his mother and sister, she had not only seen a picture of them on his phone lock screen, but she had already seen them in person.

‘System… Apply all stat points to sense.’

[Sense: 17]

[SP: 5]

[Adding 5 Stat points to Sense!]

[5 Points added.]

[Sense: 22.]

Xavier’s shut eyes began to twitch before eventually snapping open.

‘These scents…’

As she excitedly turned him, Sangrea appeared to have a similar reaction.

Without wasting a second, Xavier immediately ran in the direction in which the scent had been detected.

The closer he got to the smell, the harder his heart pounded in anticipation.

Unfortunately, this sudden hasty action had attracted the attention of the Vampires in the area. But he didn’t seem to care.

“Hey, what are you-”

The Vampire was interrupted as Xavier breezed past him before eventually coming to a stop.

His jaws trembled as he looked down on the two tilted slabs in front of him, and tears welled up in his eyes.