The modest wooden house smelled overwhelmingly of dried lavender, crushed medicinal leaves, and boiling root stew.
Dori sat incredibly stiff on a creaking wooden stool, her glowing red eyes tracking the elderly woman’s every single movement across the small, warmly lit room.
A carved wooden bowl of hot, thick broth had been pushed directly in front of the feral girl. The old woman had insisted she eat something to regain her strength after carrying a grown man out of the dark woods.
Dori picked up the crude wooden spoon and took a slow, methodical bite. The human food felt like warm, wet ash sliding down her throat.
Ever since her master had forcefully fed her his potent vampire blood to purge the wooden infection from her stomach, the very concept of normal human hunger had been entirely overwritten. She craved absolutely nothing but the metallic warmth of crimson life force, yet she forced herself to swallow the tasteless root stew.
She did not want to raise any further suspicion or give this human a reason to throw them back out into the cold streets.
Across the room, lying on a simple straw cot, was Lucious. His pale skin was slick with a feverish sweat, and his breathing was heavy.
The old woman hobbled over to the bedside, carrying a wooden basin of clean water and a bundle of white bandages. She pulled back the ruined, blood-soaked fabric of his shirt to inspect the jagged wound on his waist, fully intending to clean out the dark green goblin poison leaking from his veins.
"Step away from him," Dori commanded softly, her raspy voice carrying a heavy, lethal warning.
She dropped her wooden spoon and stood up from the table, her bare feet making no sound against the floorboards as she moved to place herself directly between the healer and her master.
"Child, he is burning with a severe monster venom," the old woman reasoned gently, her weathered hands holding up a clean cloth. "If I do not extract the corrupted blood and bind the flesh, the infection will reach his heart before the morning sun rises."
"I said do not touch him," Dori repeated, her feral instincts flaring as she bared her fangs just a fraction of an inch. "He does not need your human medicine. Just look at it."
The elderly woman frowned, confused by the fierce hostility of the young girl. But as she lowered her gaze back to the pale, muscular waist of the unconscious man, her eyes widened in absolute shock.
The dark, sickly green sludge that had been rapidly spreading through his veins was literally being pushed entirely out of his body.
He was actively bubbling and shifting the dead flesh. Right before the old woman’s eyes, the jagged, gaping hole left by the goblin’s crude wooden spear was violently knitting itself back together, sealing the wound completely shut and leaving behind only a faint, flawless scar.
The basin of water slipped from the old woman’s trembling hands, splashing onto the floorboards.
"By the gods..." the healer whispered, taking a staggering step backward. "The flesh repairs itself. The venom is completely neutralized without a single drop of an antidote. How is this physically possible? Is this man a Grand Healer?"
Dori remained perfectly silent.
"A Grand Healer is the absolute highest rank ever recorded for the healer class in the capital," the old woman continued, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and profound awe. "They are said to possess the divine blessing of the high gods, capable of regenerating lost limbs and purging absolute curses. Is that who you serve, child? A wandering saint?"
Dori stared at the human with a deadpan expression. Her master had explicitly told her to never reveal their true vampire nature, and since he was currently unconscious and unable to give her direct orders on what lies to spin, she decided that silence was the absolute safest route.
"He is my master," Dori finally answered, keeping her response incredibly minimal. "That is all you need to know. I’m sorry."
The old woman stared at the fiercely loyal girl, realizing she would get absolutely no more answers tonight.
With a heavy sigh, she gathered her dropped basin and slowly hobbled out of the guest room, gently pulling the wooden door shut behind her to give them their privacy.
Once they were completely alone, the adrenaline that had been keeping Dori on her feet finally evaporated. The sheer exhaustion of walking in the direct sunlight earlier in the day, combined with the fatal stab wound she had suffered, caught up to her S-rank vampire physiology.
She crawled onto the edge of the straw cot, curling her small, fragile body tightly against Lucious’s side. She rested her head carefully against his chest, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his heart, and allowed the heavy darkness of sleep to finally consume her.
Hours passed in the quiet, completely silent house.
Deep in the middle of the night, the heavy, suffocating fever finally broke. Lucious’s eyes snapped wide open in the dark.
His red night-vision instantly pierced through the pitch-black room as if the space was illuminated by bright daylight. He took a deep, unobstructed breath, feeling the air fill his lungs without the burning agony of the goblin poison restricting his chest. His base stats had successfully flushed the lethal toxin from his system.
He shifted his weight slightly, feeling a soft, warm weight pressing against his ribs. He looked down to see Dori sleeping peacefully beside him, her wild red hair scattered across his ruined shirt, her fingers gently gripping the fabric over his heart.
A rare, genuine softness flickered in his cold eyes. She had actually managed to drag him out of the forest and find a safe haven.
But the quiet peace of the moment was immediately interrupted by the ethereal blue glow of the Supreme System flaring to life directly in his line of sight.
A massive backlog of floating brackets demanded his immediate attention.
Host Name: Lucious Moonwalker.
Origin: True Vampire.
Level: Level 15
Blood Points: 85.
Agility has increased by 15.
Strength has increased by 15.
Lucious stared at the data, analyzing the sheer influx of raw power. Slaying the scarred goblin leader and the majority of the F-rank horde before passing out had granted him a massive bounty of experience and blood points. His physical body felt incredibly light, his muscles humming with a violent, dormant energy that begged to be unleashed.
With eighty-five blood points at his absolute disposal, his mind immediately shifted to the tactical possibilities of his Faction Grid. He currently had one willing blood kin resting beside him, but his capacity for Mindless Bloods sat completely empty at zero out of ten.
’The goblin corpses,’ Lucious realized internally.
He had brutally slaughtered an entire camp of heavily muscled monsters, leaving their intact bodies rotting in the mud. To a necromantic vampire trying to build an unstoppable army in a hostile world, leaving perfectly viable biomass behind was an absolute waste of resources.
Moving with terrifying, fluid grace, Lucious carefully slid out from under the sleeping girl without making a single sound. He gently pulled the thin wool blanket over her shoulders, ensuring she remained warm, and walked toward the bedroom window.
He did not bother using the front door. He unlatched the wooden shutters, slipped silently through the opening, and dropped lightly onto the unpaved dirt streets of the Rando village.
The night air was freezing. Lucious became a literal blur of motion. He sprinted through the empty village streets, passing the locked wooden houses of the cowardly militia, and plunged directly back into the suffocating darkness of the thick forest.
His enhanced senses guided him perfectly through the labyrinth of ancient trees. He followed the faint, metallic scent of dried blood and the foul stench of roasting meat until he finally stepped back into the ruined clearing.
The goblin camp was exactly as they had left it.
The roaring campfire had died down to glowing red embers, casting long, eerie shadows across the damp earth. The ground was heavily painted in dark, sticky monster blood. Scattered all around the perimeter were the broken, lifeless bodies of the heavily muscled green creatures he had beaten to death with his bare hands.
Lucious walked slowly toward the center of the camp, his heavy boots squelching in the bloody mud. He stopped right in front of the massive, scarred goblin leader whose spine he had shattered against the fire pit.
The system interface hovered patiently in his peripheral vision, entirely ready to obey his absolute command.
Mindless Blood Conversion is a core ability that costs ten blood points to forcefully reanimate a deceased corpse.
He had the points. He had the bodies.
Lucious raised his pale hand, his crimson eyes glowing with a blinding, violent intensity in the dark woods, entirely prepared to raise his very first monstrous army.