Chapter 5 Back to the Castle <TOC> Chapter 7 Fear Mongering
Translator: SumTLMan
The experience of flying as an incarnation of hundreds of bats was extraordinary. Each tiny bat was controlled by Otto Braun, but in a completely different way than as a human.
Bat Incarnation belongs to the shapeshifting spell type, with only magic power consumption happening during the transformation. After the transformation, the spell no longer needs magic power to sustain it. As long as one has the stamina for flying day and night, there’s no problem in staying in this incarnation.
The distant mountains aren’t too far away from Green City.
The mountains are about 500 kilometres away, and after transforming into tiny bats, Otto Braun’s travelling speed was close to 200 kilometres per hour. After two helios, he smoothly reached the edge of the distant mountain range.
The distant mountain range stretches for tens of thousands of kilometres and is the longest mountain range in the southern edge of the Norland Empire.
These high mountains isolate the Norland Empire from the barren wastelands of the Orc Empire farther south… The only junction between the two huge empires is less than 300 kilometres to the south.
The castle was built in the depths of the distant mountains in an extremely secretive location.
This is perfect terrain for the vampire clan which the original vampire ancestor had found after searching for more than a decade around the distant mountains.
A cloud of bats flapped their wings along the mountains, shuttling between air currents and cold wind.
After two more helios, the bat cloud began slowing down.
This location is a steep mountain range with an ancient castle built halfway up a mountain sandwiched in the middle of two taller mountains 3,000 blades high.
The great castle was built on the edge of a steep mountainside. The walls were divided into two sections, one belonging to the mountain itself which was 500 blades from the ground.
And the second section being the city wall itself which was built on top of the mountainside. More than 30 blades high, this city wall was made of anti-magic deep ironstone and is immune to spell damage below the fifth circle.
In front of the castle, there was only a 300 hundred blade wide road leading to the foot of the mountain, and on either side of the road were several valleys which are hundreds of blades deep.
With deep valleys and secluded streams.
As long as there are 500 soldiers stationed in strategic locations, a place like this could withstand attacks from tens of thousands of enemies.
This is a true natural barrier.
Otto Braun’s cloud of bat incarnations swoops down as he cancels the spell and lands in front of the castle in his human form.
He felt a great sense of relief wash over him after seeing the 30 blades high deep ironstone wall.
Although his current power isn’t worthy of the title Vampire Ancestor, the accumulation of the original vampire ancestor over the past two hundred years is indeed a great fortune for the current Otto Braun.
The walls towering above keep the castle in complete darkness with no light reaching its depths.
Vampires are the favoured race following the Goddess of the Night, being granted night vision as a racial talent, this allows the race to see even clearer in the dark rather than during the day.
The sentry below was alert after detecting movement from above.
“Who is it?!”
“No need to be nervous, I am back.”
Otto Braun’s calm and steady voice came from afar, and the vampire below was immediately overcome with joy after he had recognized it.
“Patriarch.”
As soon as Otto Braun’s human form emerged, the ten vampire sentries hidden in the dark immediately came forth and gathered around.
Each sentry present held one hand towards their chest and bowed respectfully as they said.
“Good evening, Patriarch.”
The vampires before Otto Braun are all his bloodline descendants, all of whom were descendants created from humans by his earlier bloodline descendants.
The vampire clan cannot bear children, but this race can develop bloodline descendants through the First Embrace.
This is done when a vampire injects it’s bloodline into a human through the vampire’s fangs for the human to vampire transformation.
This process is called the First Embrace.
Each vampire clan member can only use the First Embrace once a year, but each time the First Embrace is used, the vampire will go through a period of weakness for a while.
It stands to reason with the original owner of the body only transforming into a vampire ancestor two hundred years ago. It would be impossible to have over 200 direct bloodline descendants after two hundred years.
But when Otto Braun looked at the previous host’s memories, he realized the situation wasn’t as simple as he thought.
One hundred years ago, during the most glorious age of this vampire clan, there were nearly three thousand vampires.
At that time, the original vampire ancestor was as high as level 14, which was as strong as a senior mage who was ready to break through to level 15.
But this vast number represents not only power but also great consumption.
Each vampire clan member needs to feed at least once a month, which means that three thousand humans are hunted near the distant mountains each month by the vampire clan.
This enormous figure of death had terrorized the villages and towns near Green City and enraged Locke Harte, the most powerful existence in Green City. He is the only person who has surpassed all other grand mages and reached the transcendent level of 20.
During the crucial battle of survival, the three thousand vampires were besieged by Green City’s army. Originally, the vampire clan had a prior ancient castle fortress in the distant mountains, but it was eventually breached when it was surrounded by the human army. In the end, only a hundred or so clansmen were able to flee from the great conflict.
During that time, Green City’s transcendent mage Locke Harte, a powerful being that bent magic to his will, had singlehandedly slaughtered a thousand of vampire clan members alone.
Fear still lingers in the memories of the surviving vampire clan members.
The original vampire ancestor was severely wounded by the transcendent mage during the great conflict as his level dropped from 14 to 5, taking nearly a hundred years to recover from that injury.
It was also this very battle that taught the original vampire ancestor the power of a transcendent mage, which later inspired him to sneak into Green City and learn magic spells at the Mage Guild.
Otto Braun’s heart had felt a bit heavy after viewing the original vampire ancestor’s memories. The vampire clan’s plight for survival was far greater than he had imagined.
Failure to develop or even develop in the right direction will equally lead down the path to ruin.
For the vampire clan’s survival, their self-destructive path must be changed. There is no future in following such a crude path of development as before.
Thinking of this topic, Otto Braun couldn’t help shaking his head.
Vampires and humans, in the eyes of the world, have irreconcilable differences.
Vampires regard humans as food and humans regard vampires as demons. When the two sides confront one another, only one can survive.
But is the contradiction between vampires and humans truly irreconcilable?
This was the question that was constantly on Otto Braun’s mind when he had first arrived in this world.
Seeing the vampire clan continue to follow this path of self-destruction and endless killing won’t allow the vampire clan to grow any stronger.
Instead, he came back this time to find a way to resolve this contradiction plaguing the vampire clan.
As a vampire ancestor, the vampire clan is his foundation. The stronger the vampire clan becomes, the more powerful he becomes.
If the vampire clan disappears, his title of Vampire Ancestor will be abolished, and half of his bug-level talents will become useless.
“Odis, what are you so anxious to tell me?”
All the bloodline descendants of the castle had inherited the surname Karcher from Otto Braun.
The leading vampire clan member in front of him–Odis Karcher, is a tall, handsome, elegant middle-aged man with an exceptional temperament.
Because of their racial talent, all vampires are handsome men and beautiful women with appearances comparable to even that of the elves who have reached the upper limits of beauty.
Odis not only has an outstanding temperament but was also incredibly powerful. He has reached level 9 as a junior mage and was on the verge of a breakthrough. His warrior sub-profession was also as high as level 4.
In << Glory >>, level 0 is civilian, level 1 is apprentice,
Levels 2~4 is an ordinary profession,
Levels 5~9 is a junior profession,
Levels 10~14 is a senior profession,
Levels 15~19 is a grandmaster profession,
And level 20 is transcendent.
There are six others with the same strength as Odis, all of which are Otto Braun’s second-generation bloodline descendants.
The remaining 200 vampire clan members in the castle are all level 5 and above, which can be regarded as a strong force in this world.
A profession at level 5 is enough to serve as the captain of a hundred-man squadron in the army.
Therefore, although the number of vampire clan members ruled by Otto Braun may now seem small, the strength isn’t half bad, at least there’s a certain level of self-preservation.
“Patriarch, the last of the human prey we had captured last time are dead. We need to go hunting again.”
The elegant Odis seemed more like an aristocrat than actual aristocrats. It’s hard to imagine such a person being a vampire.
Vampires need to drink blood to survive, and humans are the source of food for vampires.
In the past, the vampire clan collectively travelled to the surrounding villages and cities every six months to plunder the humans and raise them in captivity as food.
But once a vampire sucks the blood from a human, they no longer care about the life and death of the human being. So, the humans plundered back are almost all treated as disposable blood bags.
Knowing this, the original vampire ancestor once ordered that the vampire clan members must report to him every time they head out on a hunt.
And now, the last of the plundered humans in the castle have been killed off by the vampire clan. This was when the vampires who reside in the castle had passed on the news to him.
Otto Braun frowned and raised his brow upon hearing this.
At which point, he made up his mind.
The vampire clan must change.