“That’s right. I forgot that you don’t know about it as you weren’t a Vampire. Alright, answer me one thing. Why do you think the Vampires drink blood?” Lilith asked.

“Because they like it?” Atlas responded. “They enjoy the blood? It’s their delicacy.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Lilith refuted. “Even though they do like the blood, that’s not why they drink it. They drink blood to survive. Their life depends on it.”

“You mean it’s their food,” Atlas commented.

“That would be somewhat correct, but it’s different from what humans mean when they talk about food. Humans eat to keep their bodies in working condition. But for Vampires, it’s slightly different.”

“How?”

“They won’t just die if they don’t drink blood for a few days. When humans don’t eat for a few days, their bodies can start shutting down, and they might die. But what happens with Vampires is something much different. Because the first thing that shuts down if they don’t drink blood isn’t their body, but it’s their mind which gets affected first.”

“They lose their senses, and I guess you can say they just become bloodthirsty monsters. Then they can’t differentiate between friends and foes. That’s called the Blood Urge Phase for Vampires, which I don’t want you to face since you might not even recover from it.”

” If you enter that phase, it won’t be good for anyone. Instead of getting your sister’s body, you might just destroy her body. Let alone that, but you won’t be able to think of anything. You will just be a brute who will think about killing anyone he sees.”

“If that happens, we can just forget about staying hidden. If you enter Blood Urge Phase, it’ll be game over and we’d be caught. So it would be best if you avoided it at any cost. The best way to do it? Reserve your energy as much as you can.”

“There is also another option you have. But I doubt you’ll like it at this moment, seeing that you were a human previously. Moreover, I don’t think that option will be suitable for you at this point in time.”

The shadow kept circling around Atlas as she talked.

“You mean drinking blood?!” Atlas exclaimed. “Since you enter the Blood Urge Phase after not drinking blood, the second option must be drinking blood?”

He could understand what she was implying, but just the thought of drinking human blood was too much for him after what he saw with his sister. He didn’t want to be the same as the monster he despised the most. How could he do the same thing to others that was done to him?

“You’re right. However, as I said, I don’t think you can do it. That’s why I didn’t suggest it. You’ve just entered my Master’s body. You don’t have the strong control on the urges as he had.”

” If you drink human blood at this time, you might lose yourself in the pleasure and start craving for more. You’ll become something that even you won’t be able to recognize.”

“The first time is always the hardest after all. So I was hoping we could wait for that until we were out of here, away from the den of other Vampires. That way, I can train your mindset, so you’re able to control yourself even after you drink blood.” Lilith finished.

Atlas glanced back at her, still confused about something. “You said if Vampires don’t drink blood for a few days, they enter the Blood Urge Phase. Isn’t your master sleeping for much longer? How come his body still hasn’t entered the phase? How am I still sane?”

“Progenitors are different from normal Vampires. They are the true Origins, after all. They can enter centuries of sleep without having to worry about blood,” Lilith explained. “It’s just like hibernation. Normal vampires can’t do it, but my master and the other Progenitors could.”

“Since master was in his hibernation, it was as if time had paused for him but-”

“But now that I appeared, the time started ticking again,” Atlas finished her sentence, seemingly frustrated at more problems coming his way. “Great. Just what I needed!”

“That’s why I said that you should try to save some energy. The more you use your strength, the faster you’ll burn the blood in the body. Even I don’t know how long you can last without entering Blood Urge. Maybe a year? Maybe a month? or maybe a day… anything is possible.”

“I know, I know. I’ll try to be more careful. Don’t worry. I’m not going down without taking my sister.”

Walking through the long hallway, Atlas noticed that there were more cells like the ones he was kept in. All the cells looked the same as the cell he was kept in. As for the stairs, they were on the other end of the hallway, farthest from where his cell was.

“Do all these cells have a secret path that leads to the secret room?” asked Atlas, wondering if it was that easy to get down.

“Why would that be the case? There was only one path, and it was through the last cell. The other cells don’t have anything special as far as I can remember.”

” It looks like it was great luck that I was kept in the last cell then. If I was in any other cell, I might not be able to get to this body. I would’ve been dead a long time ago.”

Atlas felt slightly worried at the thought of what could’ve happened if he wasn’t lucky. Not only would he not be able to get his sister back, he would’ve been dead as well, only to be fed to beasts like his sister.

“Lucky accident… I guess you can say that,” Lilith replied. “I can say you’re fortunate. You have no idea what others would be willing to give up to spend one second in my master’s body.”

“I still don’t understand how you could get in though. But I’m sure it’s possible because my master’s soul is asleep. When it wakes up, it’ll regain control of this body. Then it’ll be your turn to sleep.”

“That means I can be kicked out of this body anytime? I need to be fast in that case. I still have a question, though. May I ask why your master chose to go to sleep in this place? He was so strong, he could’ve ruled over the world. Why would he go into slumber?”

“It’s because…” Lilith started speaking but stopped abruptly as if she had realized that it wasn’t something she could speak. “Nothing. Forget it. You don’t need to worry about it. It’s all in the past. I don’t think it will affect us here.”

“Are you trying to hide something?” Atlas asked, gazing at the shadow which was following him.

Since Lilith was just a shadow, he couldn’t see her face, but from her voice, he had made a mental image in his mind already of how she must look.

Lilith’s tone seemed off. For some reason, she refused to answer Atlas.

“Does master need a reason to choose his place of Slumber? I told you it was nothing. Just focus on the path ahead!” Lilith snapped. “Do you even know where your sister is kept?”

As expected, she was getting angry. Atlas was sure that she was certainly hiding something. Was it because her master was scared of something and had to hide here? If that was the case, it could certainly justify why she was getting angrier the more he asked since it would’ve been embarrassing for her to say. But then again, who could have scared a Progenitor? Atlas wondered.

‘Maybe it is something else, and I was overthinking. If there were something dangerous out there for this body, Lilith would have informed me since it put her master’s body at risk.’

The best thing he could do at the moment was stop thinking about such things and focus on things that mattered.

“Last I saw her, she was in the lab,” Atlas answered. “She should still be there. I just need to get to the lab without being seen.”

“Can we get to the lab without being seen?” Lilith asked. She didn’t know where these people had made a lab or what the security was like. She could only depend on Atlas’s analysis.

“I think we should be able to. The lab is right upstairs. There weren’t many guards the last time I was there, but I don’t know if they increased security after the incident that happened with me,” Atlas responded, reaching the end of the hallway.

He stood at the foot of the stairs. “I don’t know what time it is and how long I’ve been downstairs. If it’s the time of blood donation, that place might be crowded. The lab would be guarded as well. However, if it’s night time, the hallway would have the least amount of guards.”

“Unfortunately, that would also mean that the Vampires are up. So I don’t know which situation I would truly prefer.”