Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint - Chapter 430

WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 430: A Distant Tale: The Progenitor, the Elder, and Blood

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Dogo and Erjebeut had come under orders from the Progenitor.

The two Elders strolled along at their leisure. Ignoring the suspicious looks cast their way, they headed toward the lightning rod tower as if they were merely out for a walk. They did not know Claudia's layout well, but as predators, vampires could at least sense where blood was flowing.

With such an overwhelming, concentrated stench of blood in the air, it was impossible to miss.

Erjebeut looked toward the blood-soaked tower.

"Dogo. Can you feel it now?"

"..."

Dogo did not respond. As if she were used to being ignored, Erjebeut answered for Dogo.

"That's enough of your virgin act. I won't criticize your precept of refusing to speak with women even after death. It's several times better than a vow to chase women even after death."

Dogo regarded even their life as a vampire as part of their ascetic practice. In accordance with their precepts, they did not eat, speak to women, or sleep on soft ground.

Even in death, Dogo followed the teachings they had kept in life. Since vampires had neither appetite, lust, nor any need for sleep, it caused no real problems.

Of course, the Progenitor was an exception.

Erjebeut sighed behind her fan as she watched Dogo keep silent in accordance with Dogo's precepts.

"But if your stubbornness from life prevents you from properly carrying out the Progenitor's command, I may come to despise you."

Erjebeut, a female noble, was a powerful blood mage said to have claimed the blood of a thousand people. She was even more famous because she had achieved that record before becoming a vampire. Excluding the exceptional Progenitor, she could control more blood at once than anyone else.

She had also been well versed in white magic before her death, and had mastered control and destruction through blood magic.

Even Dogo could not simply ignore her. If the opponent had been a man, Dogo could have answered politely or beaten him senseless. With a woman, neither was possible.

"...The reverence I once felt for the Progenitor is gone. I do not know what has happened. Even after reflecting and meditating alone, this humble monk could find no answer."

Dogo muttered as if speaking to themself.

It was obvious that they had devised this little trick to uphold their precepts. Erjebeut covered her mouth with her fan.

"The Progenitor, too, has been touched by romance. Her control remains intact."

"What stratagem must be devised to find the answer? This humble monk's shallow wisdom cannot fathom it."

"It's simple. Even when I exerted my power, I could not affect her true blood in the slightest."

Flowers concealed thorns.

A dangerous fragrance drifted from behind Erjebeut's fan, enough to make even Dogo flinch.

She had tried to control the Progenitor's blood. Had she succeeded, it would have been outright treason. The moment the Progenitor noticed the attempt, Erjebeut might have been annihilated on the spot.

Dogo fell silent, not because of the precepts, but because there was genuinely nothing to say.

Erjebeut pulled her hat low as though to hide her expression, then smiled behind her fan.

"But the Progenitor has certainly changed a little. In the past, I would not have dared... I could not even have formed the intention, much less attempted it."

"..."

"Now that your curiosity has been satisfied, shall we go? I wish to carry out the Progenitor's command and see her as soon as possible. Perhaps... we may discover something precious along the way."

Just as Erjebeut moved to continue forward, she noticed Shei dropping from above.

"Our attendant has come out to welcome and escort us."

Shei leaped down, ready to attack at once if necessary.

Dogo was the first to recognize her fighting spirit. Just before Shei landed, Dogo brought both hands together and assumed a combat stance.

"Dogo. Erjebeut. You're the Elders from the Fog Duchy, right?"

How could such a young child, nothing more than food, speak so disrespectfully?

Sparks flew from Dogo's eyes. Dogo came from the distant past and was so rigid that the precepts remained intact even after death. As an elder and senior, Dogo could not tolerate some upstart speaking so casually.

Dogo hurled a rebuke at the brat.

"--Mm!"

No, Dogo tried to.

If not for the strange feeling of rejection that stopped Dogo.

Shei glanced at Dogo in confusion. She had provoked Dogo a little, but instead of reacting, Dogo had let out a strange groan, as though something had nearly come out before being cut short.

Taken aback by the unexpected response, Shei pressed further.

"Did Tyrkanzyaka send you? What business do Elders have here?"

Picking a fight with Elders was easy.

They were all old fogies, their images from a thousand years ago preserved intact, and a group of followers who went into convulsions at the mere mention of the Progenitor's name. If one wanted a fight, all one had to do was poke at the Progenitor.

That should have been enough...

Yet their reactions were strangely different.

Rather than getting angry, Erjebeut ran her folded fan along her lips as though savoring a taste.

"Hehe. What a delicious-looking cherry."

"T-Taste?"

While Shei was flustered by the unexpected response, Erjebeut reached her in an instant.

Blood Path.

It was a technique that allowed one to glide along a road made of blood with barely any movement from one's feet or hands. It was fast, but more than that, its ghostly, chilling movement made Shei recoil in horror.

Erjebeut reached regretfully through the space Shei had vacated with the Heaven-Reversing Boundary.

"Pale skin and a youthful face. You have an androgynous air, but that mole beneath your eye is a lovely touch. From your natural scent to your appearance, you are perfectly to my taste. I imagine you would be delightful to bite."

Vampires did not have appetites.

But they did have preferences when it came to blood. Depending on how delicious blood was, or how compatible it was with them, vampires sometimes chose which humans to feed upon.

Their desires were faint, so there was little practical difference in what blood they consumed. Still, some Elders enjoyed the preference itself, their fondness for certain humans.

Blood-drinking was one of the few pleasures available to them, something close to gourmet indulgence.

A favored consort was the extreme example of that.

She unfolded her fan and waved it gently as she continued.

"And you are pure and healthy as well. Blood even the Progenitor would covet. Ah, there are still pleasures left in this world."

"I have no hobby of filling a vampire's belly, so shut up and tell me why you're here."

"Ah. Right. We had work to do."

Snap.

Erjebeut folded her fan in one motion and spoke seductively.

"By the will of the great, beautiful, eternally unchanging Progenitor, we have come to deliver an order to Lir Nightingale. She is to return."

"You're only here to deliver an order? You aren't taking her back?"

"They are the same thing. No vampire would refuse an order personally given by the Progenitor."

There were such vampires.

Shei knew Lir had escaped her restraints. If Lir wished, she would ignore even Tyrkanzyaka's orders. And as long as patients remained, Lir would stay here.

Shei did not know what choice Lir would make at this point...

"Thinking of another woman while I stand before you will make me jealous, my sweet cherry."

"Who are you calling your sweet cherry?! I have no intention of giving you even a drop of my blood!"

Shei snapped back, then considered it for a moment.

In the end, what mattered was Lir's will. If Lir wanted to leave, Shei had no reason to stop her. But if she wanted to remain...

Shei would help her.

"Fine. I'll pass it on."

"Hm? Pass it on?"

"Exactly what I said. There are patients inside, and she's caring for them. I'll ask Lir what she wants and let you know..."

"--Mm!"

Boom.

A powerful stomp traveled through the ground.

Shei took up a guarded stance at the ominous aura pouring from Dogo. Dogo's expression did not change, but Dogo released emotion through presence and shouted,

"The Progenitor's command is absolute! Any vampire should come running barefoot, kneel, and receive it with reverence. Why does she not even show her face?!"

It was unclear whom they were speaking to, but that was a minor concern before the surging force.

Shei steadied Jizan and drew it, secretly compressing Skywarbler behind her.

If immortal vampires had a weakness, it was their innate dullness. Death was far away for them, so their sense of danger naturally weakened. That dulled their senses as well.

"Don't cause a scene. It only takes a little thought to figure out who you are. Unless you want to make all of Claudia your enemy..."

"The most necessary quality for walking the path of asceticism is indomitability! No matter what obstacle blocks one's path, one must endure it and press onward!"

Another stomp rang out.

Path of Thorns.

The footwork technique, named for a thorny road, shook the earth and left bloody footprints behind. If one placed the gaunt old monk on a scale, they looked as though they would weigh less than a brick rolling around nearby. Yet somehow, Dogo's steps held the power to shake heaven and earth.

It was a blood energy art that shared the same origin as Erjebeut's Blood Path, yet had evolved in an entirely different direction. Erjebeut was magnificent and elegant, while Dogo was simple and brutal.

It was hard to believe they were both vampires.

"I am an ascetic, and at the same time, the suffering that all living beings must face!"

This was how vampires had survived against the Sanctum.

Dogo took an unstoppable step straight toward the lightning rod tower.

"I am coming. Come!"

As Dogo drew closer, Shei raised Jizan to meet them. She subtly concealed the power she had been preparing within Jizan's shadow.

'Blood Monk Dogo. Incredibly powerful, but with one weakness.'

Not an inherent weakness.

A weakness in their beliefs.

Shei gave up on blocking or evading them. Instead, she poured all her strength and energy art into her attack.

Dogo was an ascetic.

They belonged to those who sought enlightenment by whipping and inflicting pain upon themselves. Dogo's choice to become a vampire revealed their beliefs as well. They considered life suffering, and a vampire's immortality endless asceticism.

That was why Dogo wore nothing but a single robe of rough hemp cloth, exposing most of their upper body. They did so to expose themself to sunlight, to feel pain and discomfort.

To them, pain was not something to be avoided. It was something to be accepted.

Therefore, Dogo did not evade attacks.

They endured them and took them head-on. Unlike Lungken, who trusted in regenerative abilities and competed through raw power, being struck was itself both a technique and an objective for Dogo.

Dogo was prepared to receive Shei's strike as well.

Shei had experienced that fact.

It was different from merely knowing.

People who immediately put their knowledge into practice were called geniuses. Those who learned through experience were called gifted. Those who barely learned after failing again and again were called dullards.

Shei was a dullard.

The difference was that she had repeated those experiences and failures countless times, then returned.

"Haaah!"

Shei even added the defensive energy art, the Heaven-Reversing Boundary, to her attack. The Heaven-Reversing Boundary, which had always remained ready to react and defend, relaxed its stance and coiled around Jizan.

Lacking talent, Shei had always been just a little short, one thin sheet of paper away from the line between life and death.

Her attacks were blunt, and her finishing blows careless. Despite possessing such immense power, she repeatedly let enemies escape because of her lack of pure skill.

Even so, there had been one moment in her entire life when Shei had performed a move brilliant enough to remain as a flash of memory.

The problem for people without talent was that they could not call upon that flash whenever they wanted.

The Swordmistress had pitied Shei and remade part of her energy art into an offensive form. She carved Shei's muscle memory completely into the energy art so Shei could reproduce that strike whenever she wished.

That was the Heaven-Reversing Boundary's offensive form.

It was not flexible, but it guaranteed power. Shei called forth the strike she had once succeeded in performing.

"Heaven-and-Earth Sword and Staff, Taiji!"

The tip of Jizan shot forward, tracing a faint curve.

Skywarbler, compressed to the extreme, was practically holding the power of a storm within it. That tremendous force made even Jizan tremble.

Shei confined the power of heaven and earth into a single point, stretched out her entire body, and drove the storm into Dogo's body...

And Dogo met it, prepared to receive the entire strike.

Dogo's dried-up body neither resisted nor yielded to the tempest at the sword's tip.

It simply melted into the flow and became one with it.

Blood Battle Demon Art, Wind and Waves.

Dogo and Shei collided.

Blood and chunks of flesh mixed into the storm and scattered through the air. A literal storm of blood swept through Claudia.