Chapter 27
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Immediately paling, Deltan redirected the mirror to look at his face once Nine released him from the magic binding. The changes he saw in the mirror startled him. He hadn't seen himself look like this for years now – no, in fact, he had never looked this good before.
Unwilling to believe it, he stripped his clothes off, his face gradually showing more and more horror the more he looked. All his scars were gone, even scars from long ago that wouldn't fade. He swallowed. His skin was paler than it had ever been. The dark circles under his eyes looked like they'd never been there in the first place. Overall, it felt like his attractiveness had increased a few points.
Up to this point, there was no way he could deny it any longer. There really was something wrong with him. But what was it?
"Once you broke through to the Fourth Circle, it appeared," Nine said. Her eyes were utterly glacial.
Inexplicably, Deltan suddenly calmed down. It felt like he was slipping into a rare state of calm, just by seeing his brother's face. He didn't know why, but he felt a strange sense of trust in his brother's presence. It was strange. Not too long ago, he'd have done anything he could to get this bastard out of his way, but he was actually calming down so abruptly just from his presence now.
Deltan didn't know just how much he had changed under Nine's constant harassment. Maybe it was the day he realized his younger brother had attached warming runes to his clothes discreetly after shivering from the cold one day. He didn't know when his thoughts had started changing, but he realized that when he plotted against him, it was half-hearted at best, and more like an exercise for fun at the worst.
Deltan struggled to remember if he had ever read anything similar in regards what was happening to him now. He furrowed his brows, his mind drawing a blank.
Seeing the incomprehension on Deltan's face, Nine realized that this silly elder brother of hers actually hadn't heard of such a famous mark.
"The Red Spider Lily is a mark that belongs exclusively to the Vampire race. More specifically, it belongs to royalty of the Vampires," she said. Her speech was slow and unhurried, but it gave the listeners feelings of deep foreboding even though nothing could be gleamed from her tone.
Deltan suddenly had a flash of inspiration, remembering. His already white face paled even further, looking like he had no blood left. There were many myths and legends about the Red Spider Lily of the Vampires, but everyone had regarded such a story as something that was made up. What people didn't realize, however, was that with every myth there was a grain of truth.
The Red Spider Lily was a sign of those marked by the Vampire royalty. There were less than a couple of handfuls of Vampire royalty. For an everlasting race, procreating was as difficult as ascending to the heavens, especially between two Vampires.
As a race that loved beauty and elegance, the upper echelon was even vainer and more vindictive than the lower class of Vampires. Whenever they met any a person from any other race which they took a fancy to, or in more common cases, an enemy that had offended them so badly they wouldn't be able to disperse their grudge with, they marked them with a Red Spider Lily.
It was as simple as being infected with their blood. The blood didn't even have to enter from a wound like a Vampire usually had to do in order to change them. The blood would sink in and merge with the body, and one was virtually unable to detect the foreign blood. The blood would remain dormant in the body until one either triggered the conditions set by the Vampire who had placed it there in the first place, or one reached a certain level of magic.
The characteristics of such a mark was very much suited to the Vampire race who adored all manner of beautiful things. Once activated, the blood contained within their body would latch onto the DNA contained within them, slowly changing each strand as all defects were eliminated from the body. Within the span of a week to as long as a month, the person who carried the Red Spider Lily mark would be reborn to have a breath-taking beauty capable of felling cities.
Explaining up to here, didn't it sound pretty good? There were countless people who had believed so up to this point, but what they didn't know about the other half of the myth was that the person who carried the Red Spider Lily mark would carry it forevermore.
Upon the completion of the transformation, the person infected was practically a Vampire in all aspects, but the moment the transformation was completed, they would fall into an uncontrollable sleep. An eternal sleep that would never end.
Could you imagine, being trapped in eternal sleep? It was no different from death, some would think. But the person who slept was aware of everything that happened around them. They just couldn't move their body, nor open their eyes.
Imagine being at a Vampire's mercy for all eternity. Locked up and kept safe, the person would never be able to escape from the Vampire's cruel touch. No matter how much they were injured, the Vampire physique would heal their body up so long as the Vampire wanted to. There was nothing that could free them from their torment no matter how hard they struggled in their mind.
Countless enemies of the Vampire royalty had tasted this cruel and unusual treatment. There was never anyone to tell the tale, because they were locked up tight, just like sleeping beauty.
What better way for a Vampire to torture or keep someone? An everlasting torment that endured through the ages. Though unmoving, these people marked with the Red Spider Lily were beautiful even through Vampire royalty's eyes. The Vampire who had planted the mark would always be able to find the person on the other end of the mark no matter where they tried to escape to.
The Red Spider Lily. A tribute to death. Being suspended in that state was indeed no better than being dead. In fact, it was countless times worse.
Thinking up to this point, Nine's expression couldn't get any colder. She had spent so long training up Deltan to her liking, but some Vampire royalty was trying to stake their claim!
Unacceptable.
It didn't matter to her that the Vampire royalty had probably planted his or her blood within Deltan long before she had taken him under her wing. Since he was already hers, then he wasn't allowed to belong to anyone else. She would thoroughly eradicate whoever touched what belonged to her.
Nine pulled out a fine, thin brush that looked like a calligraphy brush from first glance. The brush was indeed for writing, but not calligraphy! This was a specially produced brush that contained the hairs from a Ninth Tier Magic Beast. The value of such a brush was utterly shocking and would be able to buy a normal city ten times over. This ordinary-looking brush was able to paint runes on any surface. Needless to say, the value of this brush was priceless.
Nine's eyes flashed as she made a cut on her wrist and collected some of her blood in a shallow bowl. Deltan watched with wide eyes. Blood was guarded jealously by everyone, especially mages. Just a drop of blood was able to do many unspeakable things, especially if it fell into the wrong person's hands. Blood from royalty was guarded especially well. If their blood got into the hands of an enemy, one could see from the history books how an Empire fell.
Without wasting any time, Nine painted various delicate and complex runes in a circle around the Red Spider Lily mark. The mark shuddered as if it knew the danger it was encountering, but Nine's movements didn't slow nor falter in the slightest. Deltan made no move to intercept her actions, his heart squeezing at the faint show of trust his younger brother was showing him.
Her movements were incomparably beautiful, without any excessive actions or strokes, drawing in whoever might have watched. It was a grace that was akin to a person watching someone who had clearly mastered their craft to the point of perfection.
Nine would never have done this had she any other choice, but because these kind of runes had to be painted with blood. For the runes to take effect, one had to either use their own blood or the blood of a relative, so she had decisively cut her wrist. Deltan's blood wasn't suitable to be used because the mark of the Red Spider Lily had already sunk into his bloodstream and was already slowly integrating itself. If she had used his blood, the process would not have slowed down, but instead sped up!
She furrowed her brows. What was most important right now was time. Any moment that was delayed was a moment that Deltan crept closer to falling into eternal sleep.
A sense of urgency surfaced in her heart. There was no record of anyone ever having escaped the Red Spider Lily. From what she had probed, the blood dwelled within Deltan now and was integrating itself into his body. She wouldn't be able to take it out without him succumbing to death in the process.
She didn't have a way, so she could only slow down the process whilst she searched for a solution. Right now, Deltan had roughly half a year before he would fall into eternal sleep. She had to find a solution before then.
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Immediately paling, Deltan redirected the mirror to look at his face once Nine released him from the magic binding. The changes he saw in the mirror startled him. He hadn't seen himself look like this for years now – no, in fact, he had never looked this good before.
Unwilling to believe it, he stripped his clothes off, his face gradually showing more and more horror the more he looked. All his scars were gone, even scars from long ago that wouldn't fade. He swallowed. His skin was paler than it had ever been. The dark circles under his eyes looked like they'd never been there in the first place. Overall, it felt like his attractiveness had increased a few points.
Up to this point, there was no way he could deny it any longer. There really was something wrong with him. But what was it?
"Once you broke through to the Fourth Circle, it appeared," Nine said. Her eyes were utterly glacial.
Inexplicably, Deltan suddenly calmed down. It felt like he was slipping into a rare state of calm, just by seeing his brother's face. He didn't know why, but he felt a strange sense of trust in his brother's presence. It was strange. Not too long ago, he'd have done anything he could to get this bastard out of his way, but he was actually calming down so abruptly just from his presence now.
Deltan didn't know just how much he had changed under Nine's constant harassment. Maybe it was the day he realized his younger brother had attached warming runes to his clothes discreetly after shivering from the cold one day. He didn't know when his thoughts had started changing, but he realized that when he plotted against him, it was half-hearted at best, and more like an exercise for fun at the worst.
Deltan struggled to remember if he had ever read anything similar in regards what was happening to him now. He furrowed his brows, his mind drawing a blank.
Seeing the incomprehension on Deltan's face, Nine realized that this silly elder brother of hers actually hadn't heard of such a famous mark.
"The Red Spider Lily is a mark that belongs exclusively to the Vampire race. More specifically, it belongs to royalty of the Vampires," she said. Her speech was slow and unhurried, but it gave the listeners feelings of deep foreboding even though nothing could be gleamed from her tone.
Deltan suddenly had a flash of inspiration, remembering. His already white face paled even further, looking like he had no blood left. There were many myths and legends about the Red Spider Lily of the Vampires, but everyone had regarded such a story as something that was made up. What people didn't realize, however, was that with every myth there was a grain of truth.
The Red Spider Lily was a sign of those marked by the Vampire royalty. There were less than a couple of handfuls of Vampire royalty. For an everlasting race, procreating was as difficult as ascending to the heavens, especially between two Vampires.
As a race that loved beauty and elegance, the upper echelon was even vainer and more vindictive than the lower class of Vampires. Whenever they met any a person from any other race which they took a fancy to, or in more common cases, an enemy that had offended them so badly they wouldn't be able to disperse their grudge with, they marked them with a Red Spider Lily.
It was as simple as being infected with their blood. The blood didn't even have to enter from a wound like a Vampire usually had to do in order to change them. The blood would sink in and merge with the body, and one was virtually unable to detect the foreign blood. The blood would remain dormant in the body until one either triggered the conditions set by the Vampire who had placed it there in the first place, or one reached a certain level of magic.
The characteristics of such a mark was very much suited to the Vampire race who adored all manner of beautiful things. Once activated, the blood contained within their body would latch onto the DNA contained within them, slowly changing each strand as all defects were eliminated from the body. Within the span of a week to as long as a month, the person who carried the Red Spider Lily mark would be reborn to have a breath-taking beauty capable of felling cities.
Explaining up to here, didn't it sound pretty good? There were countless people who had believed so up to this point, but what they didn't know about the other half of the myth was that the person who carried the Red Spider Lily mark would carry it forevermore.
Upon the completion of the transformation, the person infected was practically a Vampire in all aspects, but the moment the transformation was completed, they would fall into an uncontrollable sleep. An eternal sleep that would never end.
Could you imagine, being trapped in eternal sleep? It was no different from death, some would think. But the person who slept was aware of everything that happened around them. They just couldn't move their body, nor open their eyes.
Imagine being at a Vampire's mercy for all eternity. Locked up and kept safe, the person would never be able to escape from the Vampire's cruel touch. No matter how much they were injured, the Vampire physique would heal their body up so long as the Vampire wanted to. There was nothing that could free them from their torment no matter how hard they struggled in their mind.
Countless enemies of the Vampire royalty had tasted this cruel and unusual treatment. There was never anyone to tell the tale, because they were locked up tight, just like sleeping beauty.
What better way for a Vampire to torture or keep someone? An everlasting torment that endured through the ages. Though unmoving, these people marked with the Red Spider Lily were beautiful even through Vampire royalty's eyes. The Vampire who had planted the mark would always be able to find the person on the other end of the mark no matter where they tried to escape to.
The Red Spider Lily. A tribute to death. Being suspended in that state was indeed no better than being dead. In fact, it was countless times worse.
Thinking up to this point, Nine's expression couldn't get any colder. She had spent so long training up Deltan to her liking, but some Vampire royalty was trying to stake their claim!
Unacceptable.
It didn't matter to her that the Vampire royalty had probably planted his or her blood within Deltan long before she had taken him under her wing. Since he was already hers, then he wasn't allowed to belong to anyone else. She would thoroughly eradicate whoever touched what belonged to her.
Nine pulled out a fine, thin brush that looked like a calligraphy brush from first glance. The brush was indeed for writing, but not calligraphy! This was a specially produced brush that contained the hairs from a Ninth Tier Magic Beast. The value of such a brush was utterly shocking and would be able to buy a normal city ten times over. This ordinary-looking brush was able to paint runes on any surface. Needless to say, the value of this brush was priceless.
Nine's eyes flashed as she made a cut on her wrist and collected some of her blood in a shallow bowl. Deltan watched with wide eyes. Blood was guarded jealously by everyone, especially mages. Just a drop of blood was able to do many unspeakable things, especially if it fell into the wrong person's hands. Blood from royalty was guarded especially well. If their blood got into the hands of an enemy, one could see from the history books how an Empire fell.
Without wasting any time, Nine painted various delicate and complex runes in a circle around the Red Spider Lily mark. The mark shuddered as if it knew the danger it was encountering, but Nine's movements didn't slow nor falter in the slightest. Deltan made no move to intercept her actions, his heart squeezing at the faint show of trust his younger brother was showing him.
Her movements were incomparably beautiful, without any excessive actions or strokes, drawing in whoever might have watched. It was a grace that was akin to a person watching someone who had clearly mastered their craft to the point of perfection.
Nine would never have done this had she any other choice, but because these kind of runes had to be painted with blood. For the runes to take effect, one had to either use their own blood or the blood of a relative, so she had decisively cut her wrist. Deltan's blood wasn't suitable to be used because the mark of the Red Spider Lily had already sunk into his bloodstream and was already slowly integrating itself. If she had used his blood, the process would not have slowed down, but instead sped up!
She furrowed her brows. What was most important right now was time. Any moment that was delayed was a moment that Deltan crept closer to falling into eternal sleep.
A sense of urgency surfaced in her heart. There was no record of anyone ever having escaped the Red Spider Lily. From what she had probed, the blood dwelled within Deltan now and was integrating itself into his body. She wouldn't be able to take it out without him succumbing to death in the process.
She didn't have a way, so she could only slow down the process whilst she searched for a solution. Right now, Deltan had roughly half a year before he would fall into eternal sleep. She had to find a solution before then.
Immediately paling, Deltan redirected the mirror to look at his face once Nine released him from the magic binding. The changes he saw in the mirror startled him. He hadn't seen himself look like this for years now no, in fact, he had never looked this good before.Unwilling to believe it, he stripped his clothes off, his face gradually showing more and more horror the more he looked. All his scars were gone, even scars from long ago that wouldn't fade. He swallowed. His skin was paler than it had ever been. The dark circles under his eyes looked like they'd never been there in the first place. Overall, it felt like his attractiveness had increased a few points.Up to this point, there was no way he could deny it any longer. There really was something wrong with him. But what was it?"Once you broke through to the Fourth Circle, it appeared," Nine said. Her eyes were utterly glacial.Inexplicably, Deltan suddenly calmed down. It felt like he was slipping into a rare state of calm, just by seeing his brother's face. He didn't know why, but he felt a strange sense of trust in his brother's presence. It was strange. Not too long ago, he'd have done anything he could to get this bastard out of his way, but he was actually calming down so abruptly just from his presence now.Deltan didn't know just how much he had changed under Nine's constant harassment. Maybe it was the day he realized his younger brother had attached warming runes to his clothes discreetly after shivering from the cold one day. He didn't know when his thoughts had started changing, but he realized that when he plotted against him, it was half-hearted at best, and more like an exercise for fun at the worst.Deltan struggled to remember if he had ever read anything similar in regards what was happening to him now. He furrowed his brows, his mind drawing a blank.Seeing the incomprehension on Deltan's face, Nine realized that this silly elder brother of hers actually hadn't heard of such a famous mark."The Red Spider Lily is a mark that belongs exclusively to the Vampire race. More specifically, it belongs to royalty of the Vampires," she said. Her speech was slow and unhurried, but it gave the listeners feelings of deep foreboding even though nothing could be gleamed from her tone.Deltan suddenly had a flash of inspiration, remembering. His already white face paled even further, looking like he had no blood left. There were many myths and legends about the Red Spider Lily of the Vampires, but everyone had regarded such a story as something that was made up. What people didn't realize, however, was that with every myth there was a grain of truth.The Red Spider Lily was a sign of those marked by the Vampire royalty. There were less than a couple of handfuls of Vampire royalty. For an everlasting race, procreating was as difficult as ascending to the heavens, especially between two Vampires.As a race that loved beauty and elegance, the upper echelon was even vainer and more vindictive than the lower class of Vampires. Whenever they met any a person from any other race which they took a fancy to, or in more common cases, an enemy that had offended them so badly they wouldn't be able to disperse their grudge with, they marked them with a Red Spider Lily.It was as simple as being infected with their blood. The blood didn't even have to enter from a wound like a Vampire usually had to do in order to change them. The blood would sink in and merge with the body, and one was virtually unable to detect the foreign blood. The blood would remain dormant in the body until one either triggered the conditions set by the Vampire who had placed it there in the first place, or one reached a certain level of magic.The characteristics of such a mark was very much suited to the Vampire race who adored all manner of beautiful things. Once activated, the blood contained within their body would latch onto the DNA contained within them, slowly changing each strand as all defects were eliminated from the body. Within the span of a week to as long as a month, the person who carried the Red Spider Lily mark would be reborn to have a breath-taking beauty capable of felling cities.Explaining up to here, didn't it sound pretty good? There were countless people who had believed so up to this point, but what they didn't know about the other half of the myth was that the person who carried the Red Spider Lily mark would carry it forevermore.Upon the completion of the transformation, the person infected was practically a Vampire in all aspects, but the moment the transformation was completed, they would fall into an uncontrollable sleep. An eternal sleep that would never end.Could you imagine, being trapped in eternal sleep? It was no different from death, some would think. But the person who slept was aware of everything that happened around them. They just couldn't move their body, nor open their eyes.Imagine being at a Vampire's mercy for all eternity. Locked up and kept safe, the person would never be able to escape from the Vampire's cruel touch. No matter how much they were injured, the Vampire physique would heal their body up so long as the Vampire wanted to. There was nothing that could free them from their torment no matter how hard they struggled in their mind.Countless enemies of the Vampire royalty had tasted this cruel and unusual treatment. There was never anyone to tell the tale, because they were locked up tight, just like sleeping beauty.What better way for a Vampire to torture or keep someone? An everlasting torment that endured through the ages. Though unmoving, these people marked with the Red Spider Lily were beautiful even through Vampire royalty's eyes. The Vampire who had planted the mark would always be able to find the person on the other end of the mark no matter where they tried to escape to.The Red Spider Lily. A tribute to death. Being suspended in that state was indeed no better than being dead. In fact, it was countless times worse.Thinking up to this point, Nine's expression couldn't get any colder. She had spent so long training up Deltan to her liking, but some Vampire royalty was trying to stake their claim!Unacceptable.It didn't matter to her that the Vampire royalty had probably planted his or her blood within Deltan long before she had taken him under her wing. Since he was already hers, then he wasn't allowed to belong to anyone else. She would thoroughly eradicate whoever touched what belonged to her.Nine pulled out a fine, thin brush that looked like a calligraphy brush from first glance. The brush was indeed for writing, but not calligraphy! This was a specially produced brush that contained the hairs from a Ninth Tier Magic Beast. The value of such a brush was utterly shocking and would be able to buy a normal city ten times over. This ordinary-looking brush was able to paint runes on any surface. Needless to say, the value of this brush was priceless.Nine's eyes flashed as she made a cut on her wrist and collected some of her blood in a shallow bowl. Deltan watched with wide eyes. Blood was guarded jealously by everyone, especially mages. Just a drop of blood was able to do many unspeakable things, especially if it fell into the wrong person's hands. Blood from royalty was guarded especially well. If their blood got into the hands of an enemy, one could see from the history books how an Empire fell.Without wasting any time, Nine painted various delicate and complex runes in a circle around the Red Spider Lily mark. The mark shuddered as if it knew the danger it was encountering, but Nine's movements didn't slow nor falter in the slightest. Deltan made no move to intercept her actions, his heart squeezing at the faint show of trust his younger brother was showing him.Her movements were incomparably beautiful, without any excessive actions or strokes, drawing in whoever might have watched. It was a grace that was akin to a person watching someone who had clearly mastered their craft to the point of perfection.Nine would never have done this had she any other choice, but because these kind of runes had to be painted with blood. For the runes to take effect, one had to either use their own blood or the blood of a relative, so she had decisively cut her wrist. Deltan's blood wasn't suitable to be used because the mark of the Red Spider Lily had already sunk into his bloodstream and was already slowly integrating itself. If she had used his blood, the process would not have slowed down, but instead sped up!She furrowed her brows. What was most important right now was time. Any moment that was delayed was a moment that Deltan crept closer to falling into eternal sleep.A sense of urgency surfaced in her heart. There was no record of anyone ever having escaped the Red Spider Lily. From what she had probed, the blood dwelled within Deltan now and was integrating itself into his body. She wouldn't be able to take it out without him succumbing to death in the process.She didn't have a way, so she could only slow down the process whilst she searched for a solution. Right now, Deltan had roughly half a year before he would fall into eternal sleep. She had to find a solution before then.
