"You—"
Facing this Old Vampire, who had lived for over a thousand years, it was hard to imagine the heights she had reached in status and level of existence.
In theory, she no longer had any consciousness, yet she had actually knelt before him.
Han Su froze, unsure how to respond. Was he supposed to say, "You may rise"?
As countless thoughts flashed through his mind, the Old Vampire suddenly raised her head. Her gaze was strange. She didn't look at Han Su, but scanned the night sky around them, as if chasing after something. After a long moment, her eyes quickly lost focus again.
She slowly stood up and returned to her withdrawn state, simply standing there in silence.
"What happened?"
"Wasn't she supposed to pay respects to the great Emperor? Why'd she stop halfway through?"
This strange behavior startled Han Su. He sensed the changes around them, and then understanding dawned on him.
The Old Vampire hadn't been bowing to him.
She had been bowing to the Fishing Horn—or, rather, to some power awakened by the Fishing Horn.
After he recited the Fishing Horn, he could awaken a certain power. It was that power that had stripped the Old Count of his right to communicate directly with this world. When the Old Vampire arrived, that mysterious power hadn't fully dissipated, so her remaining instincts had brought her straight to him without any thought. She had followed some ancient ritual on instinct.
But by the time she bowed, the mysterious power had nearly faded away, and the instinct it had awakened had vanished with it.
So what exactly was the relationship between the Emperor and these nobles?
Why had the Old Count been so terrified of him, while the Old Vampire had shown such reverence?
In theory, shouldn't they