Blood Slave, and the Strange Elders

As they walked on, the trio arrived at the dungeon section. Still, none of the elder Vampire Clan members were in sight, but they suddenly heard a strange murmuring sound, accompanied by the faint clanging of metal bars.

In the darkness, the three followed the noise and discovered a human imprisoned alone.

The man looked utterly disheveled, his hair unkempt and his face filthy. His hands gripped the metal bars tightly as he repeatedly banged his head against them, all the while muttering incoherently to himself.

"Run... run away..."

"It's too late..."

Luo Wei and Evelyn exchanged glances before frowning and stepping forward, stopping right in front of the man.

"Do you know something?" Luo Wei asked.

He added, "Tell me everything you know, and I can help you escape."

Unexpectedly, the man seemed oblivious to Luo Wei's presence. His eyes were vacant, and he continued his mechanical movements, repeating the same words.

"Run..."

"Run..."

Evelyn stepped closer. "This man has lost his mind."

Luo Wei studied him carefully and realized that, despite his wretched appearance, the man was surprisingly young and would likely have been quite handsome if cleaned up. There was also something oddly familiar about him.

After a closer look, Luo Wei recalled that he was likely an agent from the Special Affairs Department. During the chaos in the lower districts, he had seen most of the agents from that organization.

A Special Affairs Department agent, locked away in the dungeons beneath a Vampire Clan’s ancient castle—this made Luo Wei’s imagination run wild. Perhaps this agent had uncovered some forbidden secret, leading to his current fate.

"His condition... doesn’t seem entirely human," Evelyn murmured, scrutinizing his eyes. His skin was deathly pale, devoid of any color, and his eyes were clouded with a milky haze.

She frowned and glanced further into the dimly lit cell, spotting a glass cup filled with blood.

Luo Wei noticed it too and gasped. "Has he been turned into a Vampire Clan member?"

He remembered that the Vampire Clan was divided into higher and lower ranks. The higher ranks were those born from pureblood unions, while the lower ranks—often called Vampire Slaves—were humans forcibly transformed, possessing lesser strength and intelligence.

But this man was different from the Vampire Slaves he had seen before. He wasn’t grotesquely disfigured.

"He’s a Vampire Servant," Evelyn corrected, turning to Luo Wei. "Do you remember?"

Luo Wei replied dryly, "Oh, I remember all too well. You were planning to turn me into one, weren’t you?"

A Vampire Servant existed between the higher and lower ranks of the Vampire Clan. Evelyn had once explained that only those of direct lineage, like herself, could create Vampire Servants.

By performing the "Embrace" on a chosen human, the master gained absolute control over the servant. The servant could never rebel, forever bound to their master’s fate.

Oh, and there was one more thing—Vampire Servants had another, less flattering name: Vampire Slaves.

Seeing Luo Wei silently staring at the deranged man, Evelyn quickly clarified, "Luo Wei, I wasn’t going to turn you into something like this. A Vampire Servant still retains normal cognitive abilities. Well... aside from obeying my every word, they’re practically no different from regular humans..."

"Right..." Luo Wei nodded slowly. "So I was almost reduced to my teacher’s plaything."

Evelyn’s smile turned awkward. "Don’t blame me... I didn’t know how else to express my affection..."

After enduring her parents’ betrayals in childhood, she had grown to believe that only through such means could she ensure that the things she loved would never abandon her.

But fate had other plans...

Evelyn stole a glance at Luo Wei. In a way, they were now bound together—though their roles had reversed.

"So why is he like this?" Luo Wei waved a hand in front of the agent, but the man remained oblivious, lost in his daze.

"Perhaps the ritual wasn’t performed properly," Evelyn mused. "The Embrace is most effective under a full moon. Maybe he was recently captured and forcibly turned into a Vampire Slave."

Luo Wei nodded. Outside, the moon was but a crescent—far from its full phase.

After observing the agent for a while longer, Luo Wei turned his gaze deeper into the dungeon.

For some reason, he had begun to feel an eerie presence lurking in the darkness, as though something was watching him.

Suddenly, the torches along the walls flickered violently, and a ghostly figure materialized behind them.

"Who’s there?"

Helena’s tentacles shot out defensively, while Evelyn tensed, a crimson blade forming in her palm.

"Evelyn, what are you doing down here?"

The voice was ancient and eerily calm.

Luo Wei studied the figure—a hunched, hooded woman with deathly pale skin, her face gaunt and wrinkled like a corpse’s. Her eyes, a murky gray, resembled those of the dead.

In the torchlight, those unsettling gray eyes shifted from Evelyn to Luo Wei, then locked onto him with unnerving intensity.

"Aunt Meizi?" Evelyn hesitated before recalling the elder’s name. "Father’s birthday banquet is filled with honored guests. I was just showing them around."

"Just showing them around"—and somehow ended up in the castle dungeons? The excuse was flimsy, but Evelyn’s real goal was to emphasize "honored guests."

During the celebration, harming the duke’s guests was strictly forbidden—a decree punishable by unspeakable horrors.

"Ah, Victor’s guests..." The elder Vampire Clan member gave a slow nod, her sagging wrinkles seeming to droop further.

"And what were you doing with my Vampire Slave?" She glanced at the imprisoned agent, her tone finally betraying a hint of emotion.

"Just idle curiosity," Evelyn replied smoothly. "You know I’ve always wanted one of my own. But he seems... broken. He won’t even respond to me."

The elder Vampire Clan member approached the agent. She narrowed her eyes as the man lifted his head, mumbling incoherently. After listening, her expression relaxed slightly.

"Aunt Meizi, if there’s nothing else, I’ll take my guests and leave." Evelyn motioned for Luo Wei and Helena to follow her out.

The elder watched their retreating figures but made no move to stop them.

Just as the trio began to fade into the distance, her voice called out once more.

"Evelyn... what does your friend do for a living?"

Evelyn turned sharply, only to find those dead gray eyes still fixed unwaveringly on Luo Wei.

"He... is a student, my student," Evelyn answered warily, emphasizing the word "my" with a hint of possessiveness.

"Oh..." The elder Vampire Clan member's expression carried a trace of disappointment as he withdrew his gaze from Luo Wei.

"Just a student, then..."

Evelyn couldn't help but frown, sensing something oddly unsettling about those words.

The three of them quickened their pace, leaving behind the increasingly eerie gloom of the dungeon.

Yet, after their figures vanished into the distance, deep within the darkness of the dungeon, pairs of eerie, glowing eyes abruptly snapped open.