On the other side, Xavier and Kane arrived at the Second District. The moment they saw the room’s arrangement, both fell silent in unison.
Had they not clearly remembered the way they came, they would have suspected they had mistakenly stumbled into a branch store of a dollhouse.
Looking at the all-too-familiar pink-and-white lace embellishments, after a long while, Xavier let out a light chuckle to break the silent awkwardness, a somewhat unspeakable undertone in his tone, “Is this… your fleet’s aesthetic?”
“No—”
Before Kane could finish, he was interrupted by an abrupt voice.
Gu Shen, with a head full of messy hair, poked his head in from the doorway, looking around with great excitement: “Where, where is it? Where is the person the Boss likes?”
Kane looked at him, pulling a smile that didn’t reach his eyes: “And who are you looking for?”
Scanning the room, Gu Shen found no other outsiders besides Xavier. Realizing something was amiss, the excitement on his face vanished entirely.
Xavier chimed in with great amusement, “Looking for the person you like.”
His Highness the Prince finally understood why the Blood Blade would use clumsy and poor heart-shaped artillery fire as a welcoming ceremony; it turned out such a misunderstanding had occurred.
Observing the man’s expression as if watching a good show, he saw the grey-blue eyes carry a compelling pressure, sweeping toward Gu Shen with tangible weight.
Reacting as quickly as a researcher should, Gu Shen immediately opened his mouth to point fingers: “It, it was Rain who said it! He said the Boss was bringing someone he liked back, so he specifically tidied up this bedroom alone.”
Rain, who had hurried in right behind, rushed to defend himself upon hearing this: “It wasn’t me! It was Morell who said it, saying the Boss was bringing someone back…”
Yet the more he explained, the weaker his voice became, until in the end he almost lost all conviction.
Watching this farce unfold before him, Xavier couldn’t help clapping his hands, a genuine sense of exclamation in his tone: “It’s no easy feat for you to build up this family business.”
Hearing him speak, Rain—harboring hidden thoughts on the side—carefully stole a glance at Xavier, who was sitting on Kane’s shoulder.
——A petite, palm-sized figure, silver hair and golden eyes, with features impeccably exquisite.
Good-looking, truly good-looking! The Boss’s aesthetic was impeccable!
Curious, he spoke up: “Boss, who is this?”
Taking the opportunity to look over, Xavier had a vague impression of Rain, so his gaze lingered for a moment longer. Rain stared wide-eyed, flashing a fawning smile toward him.
Clearly, he looked rugged and fierce enough to directly frighten children into crying, yet he was trying hard to act innocent, making it look exceedingly bizarre.
…It felt like his eyes were injured.
Without a trace of emotion, Xavier withdrew his gaze, hearing Kane speak in a cold, impatient tone.
“Pass the word down: from now on, no one is allowed to disturb him under any circumstances. Now, all of you, get out.”
Kane pointed at Morell again: “You stay. Clear away these messy decorations.”
“Yes, Boss!”
Amidst a flurry of chaos, after helping dismantle those redundant decorations, the group wisely and swiftly rolled out.
Looking at the much more normal room, Kane pressed his brow and let out a slow, deep breath.
At that moment, Gu Shen poked his head in again, smiling apologetically.
“Boss, the terminal has been upgraded. Do you want to go run a performance test first? Also, I upgraded the NSI stabilization function in the medical pod this time; we can try running them together to see.”
Just as Kane was about to speak, Xavier chimed in ahead of him: “Go ahead. Just don’t forget the things I want.”
The man’s movements paused slightly, his gaze falling on the little intelligent entity leisurely sitting on his shoulder: “Can you manage by yourself?”
Xavier tilted his head, lifting his gaze to look back at him: “Are there intelligent assistants here?”
“…It seems you’re already accustomed to ordering around your own kind.” Kane let out a low chuckle, then called out, “No. 1.”
A neutral electronic voice immediately sounded within the space: I am here.
“Open traffic permissions for him to the Second and Sixth Districts.”
Opening traffic permissions…
Allowed traffic areas: Second District, Sixth District.
Please confirm the identity of the traffic subject.
“Confirm subject: Xavier…”
Kane spoke slowly, his gaze falling on the small intelligent entity on his shoulder who had slightly widened his eyes in curiosity, deliberately dragging out the ending note long and nonchalantly.
The tips of Xavier’s ears twitched imperceptibly, and he immediately narrowed his eyes, exuding a hint of compelling warning.
Watching his gradually tightening expression, the man unhurriedly added the second half: “—Vandread.”
Identity confirmed. Traffic permissions opened.
Kane put down Xavier and his belongings, then looked around the room once more.
Soft, light-toned throughout, looking warm and cozy, completely different from the cold, hard style of the overall Second District.
Like a blot of dense white falling into ink, it looked exceptionally abrupt, and there was no telling how long it would last.
Gazing at it for just two seconds, Kane spoke in a calm tone: “I’m leaving.”
Xavier stood up, his posture elegant and composed, gracefully executing a standard aristocratic farewell bow.
Yet the moment Kane’s silhouette vanished behind the door, he immediately summoned No. 1 and instructed it to fetch his sleeping robe.
On the massive bed where he could roll twenty times without touching the edge, his small clothes were casually tossed to the very edge, while the magic ores picked up from the abandoned mining cave were scattered around him. Right in the center of the bed was spread out none other than that sleeping robe embroidered entirely with magic arrays using enchanted threads.
Xavier fished out the magic power purification array from within, injected a tiny trace of power to drive it.
The originally invisible magic array instantly bloomed with a brilliant glow. Xavier placed the magic ores into the halo, and within moments, the originally grey ores shed their dirty appearance, transforming into various fantastical colors.
Xavier pressed the ink-colored magic stone representing the dark element onto his purple-blue gemstone, and extrinsic magic power poured in like a gentle stream.
He softly called out, “Celine?”
“…Xavier.”
This time, Celine’s response was much faster. Sensing the surroundings were sufficiently safe, the purple-curly-haired Lich soul entity crawled out, sitting face-to-face with Xavier on the messy bed.
She still looked sickly, but not as frail as before.
“These ores have resolved my urgent crisis,” Celine recalled the events of this period. “It’s truly a coincidence that a magic vein was found so quickly, even though it’s already exhausted.”
“Perhaps magic veins in the interstellar era are not as scarce as undead liches think,” Xavier mused thoughtfully. “Speaking of which, don’t you think the Church’s actions are very strange? The term ‘purification’ makes me feel so familiar.”
Celine slowly tidied up the randomly scattered magic ores on the bed, raised her head at the words, and stared straight into Xavier’s eyes.
“Xavier, do you remember that Augustus is actually a dark magic creature?”
Disgust flickered across Xavier’s face. “Why bring him up suddenly? Of course I remember. He even managed to attain the status of the next Pope. To cast the blood curse on me, he dared to expose an identity hidden that deeply.”
Celine looked at Xavier suspiciously. “So you might not even know what kind of creature he is?”
Xavier: “…It was too chaotic at the time.”
Back then, he was abruptly struck by the blood curse, suffering a dual torture of physical pain and psychological humiliation that drove him out of his wits—first running off to cause a massive scene at the Church, then being engineered by Augustus to break ties with all factions of the vampires. In short, things took twists and turns, and he never had time to consider the matter.
Seeing a tiny trace of a guilty conscience flash across his pretty face, Celine didn’t feel a shred of surprise in her heart.
“Noxiel are ancient magical creatures with powerful curse and devouring abilities. In a certain ancient period, they had a very close symbiotic relationship with the vampires.”
Xavier: “??? What kind of relationship?!”
Celine gave him a gesture to calm down. “That period is no longer verifiable. It is only known that later Noxiel split into two branches: Nox and Anima. In pursuit of ultimate power, Nox frantically devoured other magical creatures and engaged in inbreeding, causing the entire bloodline’s sanity to become disordered, and they were eventually jointly encircled and suppressed by all races, nearly driven to extinction. As for Anima, which leaned toward peace and friendliness, they became the collateral sacrifices of this encirclement, killed on the mistaken side of caution.”
Xavier couldn’t help muttering, “I’ve never heard of any of this.”
“This happened three generations of vampires ago, but considering the past symbiotic relationship between Noxiel and vampires,” Celine couldn’t help complaining, “if you had ever flipped through vampire history, you ought to have known.”
Xavier didn’t mind his friend’s occasional complaining tone. With a solemn expression, he connected these pieces of information together: “Ores cannot ‘purify’ magic creatures, but Nox can ‘devour’ them.”
“Augustus, who cast the blood curse on me, is a Nox. If he remained hidden in the Church back then, perhaps he also left behind his own bloodline. So now, the Church’s actions—are you saying…”
“I’m not sure. Xavier, I’m too weak; without the ability to open bloodline resonance, I am like someone who has lost eyes and ears.”
Celine sighed softly, “In any case, you must be careful.”
Xavier remained silent for a few breaths, then quickly let out a scoff, his expression carrying an innate, inborn arrogance: “When this Prince completely recovers his strength, the mere Church will simply not be worth fearing at all.”
“It couldn’t be better if you think that way.” Celine responded gently, taking the opportunity to bring up another matter, “After your strength recovers, have you ever thought about searching for other vampires? By then, I can use the power of bloodline resonance to help you track down the traces of our kin.”
The smile on Xavier’s face faded.
Back when he was schemed against and forced to break ties with all the clans, looking across the entire vampire race, only Russell’s lineage remained steadfast and swore to follow him to the death. Yet in the end, outnumbered, most of that clan’s members were slaughtered deep within the dense forest and never returned.
He slowly closed his eyes, his long eyelashes casting a pale, delicate shadow beneath them, his voice calm enough to reveal no ripples: “I don’t plan to run around everywhere looking for people. Let’s first find a place with a vein and resolve your issue. As for myself, if the curse cannot be broken, the worst I can do is continue slumbering.”
This was the arrogance carved into the bones of a long-lived species; in this world, nothing could withstand the erosion of time, save for him standing shoulder-to-shoulder with time itself.
Celine gazed at his pale, slender profile and softly said, “Actually, this place isn’t bad either. Once you make that decision, you’ll have to leave.”
Xavier sat quietly on the bed, his pale face nearly transparent, like an exquisite and delicate sculpture.
After a moment of silence, he spoke in a flat tone, betraying little emotion.
“Then let’s leave.”
Celine took in every nuance of his expression. The moment Xavier’s voice fell, beneath his eyelids, his eyeballs rolled abruptly.
She smiled knowingly.
“Very well, as you wish.”