"Honestly, I'm starting to feel more and more that the malice this world bears toward vampires isn't without reason."
After ending his call with Lord Paine, Murphy turned to look at Triss and Dena, who were studying the biological symbiote crystal. He sighed and said:
"Sure enough, this strange thing is connected to vampire civilization once again. The lord told me that Project 27, the project that gave birth to it, was an observation outpost established in the Astral Realm by Grand Duke Charlemagne. Grand Duchess Constance was involved, too."
"That doesn't make sense!"
Triss was startled, but then she objected:
"If most of the experiments for the project that gave birth to Dagon were conducted in the Astral Realm, how did it end up in the material world and become connected to the fishmen?"
"The Astral Realm fell apart, Triss. The subspace invasion a thousand years ago didn't just destroy Eden. The Astral Realm suffered as well. Until the new gods ascended to godhood under the guidance of the Sentinel Legion and established a subspace defense line, conditions in the Astral Realm were deteriorating at an extreme rate.
"In that kind of chaos, it isn't hard to believe that some dangerous thing escaped from a remote corner of the Astral Realm."
Murphy shook his head.
"Under those circumstances, all the grand dukes who survived Eden had their memories erased. Grand Duke Charlemagne didn't think to look for his Astral observation post again until hundreds of years later, when his memories returned after he was influenced by Chaos.
"That attempt to search for it was what led the old Bloodfear Clan to its doom.
"Looking back, there were plenty of suspicious details in that affair. But the Bloodfear Clan was wiped out by Lord Paine himself, and the truth of