"Do you even know what you're saying?"
It was obvious that, to Jacques, some things were beyond blasphemy.
Fu Qian had traced the Commandment back to its source, and that was enough to make this noble vampire forget everything he'd learned in logic class and descend into pure emotional outburst.
"You clearly don't understand a few things. Do you know why vampires are called Children of the Stars?"
"Why?"
Fu Qian obligingly played along.
"The stars shine, and the Commandment is that very radiance. The stars are eternal, so the Commandment is right."
As he spoke, Jacques's expression was utterly solemn.
"Unlike you corrupted creations, every vampire is born blessed, able to perceive the most essential part of that radiance."
"How right is it?"
The description was undeniably impressive. Fu Qian gave a slight nod as he listened.
"As right as the fact that if I kill you, you'll die. Do you think that could be wrong?"
Jacques sneered, choosing a strikingly aggressive comparison.
If you were killed, you'd die?
"Hard to say."
Fu Qian honestly considered his own situation before commenting.
He had to admit, his conversation with Jacques had been quite enlightening.
The Commandment was an abstraction of the stars' radiance?
Taking the Cult's beliefs into account, the logic was surprisingly seamless.
It also made it easy to understand why Olyntel hadn't been able to do anything about Jian's condition earlier.
The sliver of heavenly insight they'd glimpsed after working day and night, exhausting themselves, was merely a scrap of that radiance.
And Jian, who had already been granted the glory of being a Child of the Stars, clearly had access to a much higher level of heavenly insight.
As for why it had worked later, that was simple, too.
Olyntel hadn't mastered nothing but scraps. The trick