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A meeting between crawlers of the night, pale-skinned and red-eyed Demons, Vampires, began within the depths of the city's underground, in a faraway area from Ervas and Veronica's detection.

It was a dark dungeon, filled with spiderwebs and old furniture, a seemingly former abandoned manor which the Vampires inhabited within the underground dungeon, however, they often also lived in the Manor above it.

There was a large room that was well paved, with a large seat resembling a crimson and black throne where a male Vampire sat down.

He was, of course, not Damon Holstein, the Progenitor Vampire, as such figure would never come personally to deal with a small affair such as Ervas and Veronica.

However, this Vampire was perhaps close to Damon's recognition, as he was a powerful pure-blooded Vampire, a Vampire directly converted from the Blood Ritual made by Damon Holstein, making him a very powerful individual.

His appearance seemed mildly young, with short black hair and crimson eyes, pale-white skin, and a slender and not so impressive appearance, however, his entire presence was the disturbing part, as he exuded a crimson aura of tremendous bloodlust around his surroundings.

His name was Vladimir, and he was one of the first Pure-Blooded Vampires that Damon converted, being alive since the times of old, even before the Ragnarök!

Within the hierarchy of Vampires, he was part of the group right below the Progenitor, one of those Vampires that commanded various others, an innate leader.

He was given the task of taking care of the Seashore Town 200 years ago by Damon, a short time for a Vampire who has lived for thousands of hundreds of years.

However, since he was given the task that his life has been dull and devoid of excitement, and Vladimir, as a Vampire of the Chaotic Faction, enjoyed going loose and loved to deliciously partake in torturing and making weaklings suffer to bring some enjoyment and excitement to his life.

Always seeing weak little ants crawl and scream was a joy for his eyes and their screams were a delight to his ears, no matter the time it had gone through, such a love for the perfect suffering of a being had simply increased.

To the point where he loved to torture even his kin, much like other fellow Pure-Blooded Vampires, they often never kept a subordinate for too long, fearing that one day they could take over their position.

However, Vladimir was the most wicked, as he loved to nurture and make them grow into decent and powerful Vampires, making them happy that they had improved so much, and making their master, him, very proud…

Oh yes, the thing he most loved was to see them fulfilled, only to crush them and torture them later on, seeing a crude and cold being as a Vampire cry for help in desperate pain was nothing but the most delicious of feelings he could go through.

However, he was patient.

And now, a group of such Vampires, which were his current subordinates and former citizens of this city gathered at his command, after one of them went to offer their help to Willian, which was one of these humans that were the Vampires allies.

However, Vladimir often did not even give much attention to short-lived humans or even the aristocrats here, as they would every so often change positions so fast that he did not even realize when an ally was already dead, so much of the time he would not even remember their names, and such tasks were left to his subordinates.

"Any news about the irregulars?

" asked Vladimir with a dull and tired face, he was a rather interesting man, and sometimes even painted his lips with crimson blood, looking rather effeminate at times… however, despite such an appearance giving the impression of being a picturesque man, Vladimir was rather restless and wicked, and didn't like when news for things took so long, even if time felt like nothing to him, still, waiting an entire hour (various days for him) for something was still not good.

"Yes, we have managed to get some more info on them, Vladimir-sama…

" said one of the Vampires, seemingly a wolf-kin man with gray fur and a large and muscular build, his name was Vestron and was one of Vladimir pawns which he patiently waited to torture one day after he reached his dreams.

"Well? Speak,

" said Vladimir rather coldly, as Vestron nodded.

"Ahem. The irregulars and the strange people that became rich in less than a week are named Ervas and Veronica Igni… Both of them seem to have registered as Dhampirs, despite Ervas having too many features of other races to really discern what he was. Meanwhile, Veronica's existence seems to be strange, as she always holds an Aura that awakes a slight fear into anyone near her… Some have even called her 'Phantasmagoric' though we are not sure what she could truly be…

" said Vestron.

"Dhampirs… How unsightly. Damned impure insects… I will make sure to torture them… Oh yes, it has been some time since the last time I found a Dhampir… We always wipe them out from this town… Fufu…

" laughed Vladimir, as the Vampires glanced at him with a bit of concern, although Vladimir treated them quite fairly, they always felt a chill run through their spines when they saw him fantasizing about torturing and making others suffer…

"Any other info? What about their strength? Tell me every last bit of detail..

" asked Vladimir.

"Yes, Vladimir-sama. Ervas and Veronica come accompanied by a large group of strong people, at least, from the small amounts of feat we have seen, a Fairy named Kireina are capable of unleashing an Aura that can even make back down C-Rank Adventurers with ease, then there is a Bear-kin with enough strength to knock a thug with a single punch… and many other feats. We estimate that all of their group is comparable to B-Rank Adventurers, with the strongest ones being, perhaps, A-Rank…

" said Vestron.

"Oh? Quite strong… Well, I am sure that I have nurtured all of you quite well, right? So I hope you do not disappoint me, or there might be some punishments…

" said Vladimir, as all the Vampires around him felt a bit of fear, some even quivering a tiny bit, which made Vladimir filled with delight.

"We shall never disappoint you, my lord…

" said Vestron.

"Continue,

" said Vladimir while waving his hand uninterested in Vestron's resolve, as he kept sipping from a cup of fresh blood extracted from young children that he had for torture and food (in the form of their blood).

Because of how Vampires dominated Seashore and used this city (and many others) to acquire a good and constant supply of fresh and young blood, it was rather obvious that Vladimir, a Vampire of such a caliber and Rank, to have several dozens of young slaves for him to please himself while extracting their rich and fresh blood from their open wounds.

Vladimir was a professional in torture, to the point of being capable of resisting his own urges and stop whenever he knew that a slave could not take any more damage, even to the point of feeding them good food and nourishing them to extract good blood and keep their minds healthy so they could keep screaming in agony whenever he came back to hit them.

He always gave them a window of a few weeks so they could restore their mind and hopes, only for one or two days to torture them once more, leaving their minds half-broken, only to heal them again and repeatedly do this for years and years…

He would only stop when his slaves were become masochistic, enjoying the pleasure of either being completely broken without any way to heal them, in that time, he would either send them to another area to be used as cattle or just killed to extract and save their blood for lower-ranked Vampires.

Sometimes he would even reward other Vampires by giving them such slaves, which they kept as either their sexual slaves or for torture, whatever they wanted.

"Yes my lord. Ervas and Veronica are estimated to be… A-Rank at minimum, and S-Rank at most. According to Vairvec's observations which we managed to get from his personal belongings, he seems to have also called them 'true monsters'… Aside from this, they possess amazing taming abilities, and there is the chance that they might have more tamed monsters hiding somewhere…

" said Vestron.

"S-Rank? Really? Just from where these guys came from? Hmph… Well, I am way beyond S-Rank myself. Foolish mortals and their stupid Ranks. As we Vampires live for so long, the amount of power we can gather can be dozens or hundreds of times that of an S-Rank! If we were not limited by our race traits and their weaknesses, we would be dominating this world long ago! However, I am expecting a lot from your bunch, so you better disappoint me, I am not in the mood to nasty my hands now… I've felt rather lethargic, so I might take a nap soon… However, I will wait for you to bring me results first,

" said Vladimir.

"Of course, my lord,

" said Vestron.

"You can go now, I am not interested anymore in these mortals. Dhampir or not. I have met so many disappointing S-Rank Adventurers in my life that I have completely lost interest in such a measly title. I will leave everything to you, Vestron, my boy, do not disappoint me, alright? Fufu~ Or you might end up paying it dearly~

" said Vladimir.

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