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Heir of the White Lotus (Web Novel) - Chapter 2025: Source of Blood
Chapter 2025: Source of Blood
This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl
The following day, Adam arrived at the edge of the town.He stood silently beneath the cover of the surrounding trees and swept the settlement with his senses.
Hundreds of humans.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he wondered, There are far more here than I expected.
And according to the map, there are two more human settlements like this.
Adam activated his concealment magic and calmly entered the town. No one noticed his presence. To the inhabitants, he was little more than a passing shadow.
As he walked through the narrow dirt streets, however, his expression gradually became solemn.
The people looked miserable.
Men and women moved through the town with dull, lifeless expressions. Their shoulders were perpetually slumped, their movements slow and mechanical, as though they had long since lost the strength to care about anything beyond surviving another day.
The elderly were no different. And the elderly here were considered to be middle-aged humans. No one reached old age in this town.
Many sat outside their homes in silence, staring blankly into the distance. There was no warmth in their eyes. No hope. Nothing at all.
It was as though the entire town had succumbed to a deep and suffocating depression.
Only the children appeared different.
Adam occasionally saw them running through the streets, laughing and playing with one another. Their innocent smiles stood in sharp contrast to the hollow expressions of the adults around them.
The children were still happy.
Still capable of laughter.
Still oblivious to the truth of the world they had been born into.
Adam watched them in silence. For a brief moment, the sight of those smiling children felt strangely out of place within such a bleak and lifeless town.
He continued through the town, quietly inspecting the houses one after another.
The deeper he went, the more peculiar the settlement appeared. There was hardly anything inside the homes. A table, a few chairs, a bed, basic cooking utensils, and a handful of clothes. Nothing more.
There were no decorations hanging from the walls, no paintings, no expensive possessions, and barely any signs that the inhabitants owned anything beyond what was necessary to survive.
It was as though luxury itself had been stripped from their lives.
Adam’s expression furrowed as he confirmed his earlier thoughts.
Then he discovered something else. Every house had access to an underground bunker. Some entrances were concealed beneath wooden floors, while others were hidden behind trapdoors or beneath storage spaces. The bunkers varied in size, but they all appeared capable of sheltering an entire family.
And inside every single house, Adam found a talisman hanging somewhere along the walls!
His eyes narrowed as he studied one of them. He couldn’t help but wonder, These might protect them from ghouls and the other monsters that come out at night.
But against vampires? Not a chance.
Vampires could simply [Compel] these humans to open the doors and invite them in.
Adam let out a heavy sigh. His gaze slowly swept across the bleak town as understanding gradually dawned upon him.
Although he had guessed as much, upon confirming it, his expression became complicated.
The residents of this mortal settlement were subjects of the Vampire King.
Or perhaps subjects is not the correct term, Adam thought.
They are livestock!
Adam observed the townsfolk. The adults moved with lifeless expressions. They seemed to have already accepted their miserable existence.
They knew.
Perhaps they had always known.
These humans were allowed to live. They were allowed to reproduce. They raised children, who would eventually grow into adults and have children of their own.
Generation after generation...
A self-sustaining source of blood.
The vampires did not need to hunt beyond their territory.
Why would they?
The humans were already here. Repopulating themselves. Ensuring that there would always be enough blood for the vampires to consume.
The realization left a bitter taste in Adam’s mouth.
These people are being reared like cattle, he thought.
If Luca were here, considering his mentality, he would have been so enraged that he would storm into the fortress atop the hill and slaughter every vampire inside.
Well, Adam’s plan was more or less the same.
He cast one final glance at the people of the town and walked toward the fortress.
Just hold on a little longer, he silently said to them.
This will all be over soon.
So, persevere.
***
Inside the dark fortress, its inhabitants soon noticed something highly peculiar.
A giant [Fireball] streaked across the sky. Then another. And another.
The vampires stationed along the fortress walls raised their heads in confusion as blazing spheres of fire tore through the air above the surrounding woods. Their crimson eyes reflected the burning light of the spells.
The strange thing was that none of them were aimed at the fortress.
They were all aimed at the grey skies.
For several seconds, no one understood what was happening. But as the [Fireballs] kept being hurled toward the skies, panic gradually spread through the fortress.
"What is that?!"
"Where is the attacker?"
"Find him!"
Vampires and their ghoul servants rushed through the dark corridors. Guards poured onto the battlements while others spread into the surrounding woods, desperately searching for whoever was responsible.
But they found nothing. Or rather, they could not find anything.
The person casting those spells moved far too quickly. One moment, a [Fireball] would rise from the northern side of the fortress. The next would appear somewhere in the east.
Before anyone could react, another would already be soaring through the skies from the south. The attacks were not random. That realization slowly dawned upon some of the more observant vampires.
The [Fireballs] were following a pattern. Their trajectories gradually began forming a vast circle around the fortress.
In less than a minute, more than a dozen gigantic [Fireballs] had been launched into the skies!
Since its inception, the fortress had never once come under attack. A cold sensation crept into the hearts of those who understood what was happening.
In the main solar of the fortress, two identical women with pale skin and long black hair stepped onto the balcony. Unlike the others within the fortress, neither appeared alarmed.
If anything, they seemed amused.
Their crimson eyes swept across the woods in the vicinity before settling upon a figure standing in the distance.
The figure stood atop the tip of a towering tree. Dressed in black-and-white robes, he balanced perfectly upon the thin branch, his robes fluttering gently in the wind.
"How intriguing," one of the women muttered as she took a sip of blood from the goblet.
The other vampire looked toward the sky and noticed the dark clouds reverberating in anticipation. Her eyes narrowed, and she murmured, "Intriguing indeed."
In the next moment, the figure standing atop the tree raised his fingers and pointed at the heavens.
RUMBLE!
