Chapter 58: Suppression

Chapter 58: Suppression

Even after leaving the Odra family’s underground area, Emlyn White still felt a little dazed, unable to believe that he had obtained the 7,000-pound reward so easily.

The draft in his hand was light, almost weightless, yet it made him experience the absurdity of reality.

Mr. Hanged Man’s method really worked… Lord Nibbs did not expose me or punish me. Instead, he gave me a generous reward, and all of that just to pretend not to know, to encourage me to keep trying so they can observe from the shadows… Are the minds of the Blood Clan this complicated too… Emlyn drifted between bewilderment and sighs.

Very soon, he gathered his scattered thoughts and returned his attention to that 7,000-pound reward.

“With this, I can buy the baron’s legacy from The Hanged Man and concoct it into a potion…

“I will soon become a baron—a Blood Clan Baron, Lord Emlyn White!”

Emlyn’s eyes abruptly brightened, and even his steps became much lighter.

Within the Blood Clan, if one did not receive the gift of an elder through a corresponding ritual, then the level one was born with would remain fixed. It was almost impossible to rely on oneself or on time to advance.

Among vampires roughly Emlyn’s age, apart from those who had been exceedingly lucky—whose family ancestors had neared the end of their lifespans and had no choice but to bestow power upon their descendants through ritual—the vast majority remained within the concept of “adult,” with no possibility of obtaining a “title” for decades.

Emlyn’s father and mother had lived for so many years, yet even now, they still had not become barons. They could not even see much hope!

When he walked out through the main door, Emlyn could not help glancing at Casimi Odra beside him.

This elder vampire, who had been active during Roselle’s era, is only a baron even now… And I am about to reach that level! One day, I will become a Blood Clan marquis like Lord Nibbs! No—duke, perhaps even prince! Only then will I be worthy of bearing the responsibility of the Blood Clan’s savior… Mm, the baron’s legacy is only a little more than four thousand pounds. I will still have quite a bit left. I can buy a few more dolls and prepare some new clothes for them… Emlyn unconsciously straightened his back and walked with even greater confidence.

…

City of Silver, the Berg residence.

Derrick lit the candles and began preparing the sacrificial ritual.

After the frequency of lightning in the sky alternated several more times, he finally waited for an opportunity.

He was completely certain that the Chief had no way of watching him at this moment, because the man had taken young Jack—whose injuries had just preliminarily healed—and an exploration team out of the City of Silver, searching for the route by which the boy had supposedly come from the seaside to that destroyed city-state.

It did not take Derrick long to arrange everything. Then, piously and solemnly, he began softly reciting Mr. Fool’s honorific name.

With great familiarity and orderliness, he sacrificed the Spirit Eater’s stomach pouch Miss Magician needed, as well as the Beyonder materials Mr. Hanged Man had specified, to the ruler above the gray fog.

On the City of Silver’s solid walls, there were many cracks, but they had been filled with hard black soil. In those cracks grew clumps of fine, dense weeds, swaying gently in the wind like human hair.

Suddenly, all of them lifted upward, as though trying to seize something, only to fall back down without finding purchase.

…

At dawn, inside the Church of Waves.

Alger Wilson, who had come to collect his bounty, heard a rather important piece of news from Diocesan Bishop Chogo:

Leticia Dorella of the Moses Ascetic Order, using the identity of an archaeologist as cover, had entered the depths of Simim Island’s jungle. It was unknown what she had done, but it had caused Sea God Kalvetua, who had been grievously wounded and hiding for many years, to approach collapse. Like a…