Lola and the Blood Clan

Just when Green had almost given up hope, Lola finally sent word, asking him to meet at their old place.

Inside the Peony Cafe, Green stared at the woman seated across from him in astonishment, scarcely daring to believe she was the Lola he knew.

Lola's face was pale. Her once sunny, athletic aura had been replaced by a sickly gloom. Yet this did nothing to diminish her beauty; instead, it gave her a strange allure, one faintly tinged with wickedness and suggestive implications unfit for children.

Green frowned. He did not need to ask to know that Lola must have suffered an enormous upheaval.

"You're here. Wine or coffee?" Lola asked lazily, then picked up the glass before her and took a huge gulp of the clear, pungent liquor.

"I'll pass on the wine. Bring me a coffee." Green instructed the approaching waiter, then sat across from Lola and asked, "What happened? You don't seem quite right."

Lola gave a faintly bitter smile. "Just bad luck. I almost lost my life over trying to squeeze a little money out of you."

Green's gaze sharpened. He knew Lola's strength and quick wits, and became even more curious. "Can you tell me about it?"

Lola took another sip of wine, but frowned. It tasted like chewing wax. She forced it down. "There's nothing I can't say. Looking at me, you should have guessed already, right? I was transformed into a damned vampire... Oh, as one of them, I probably shouldn't call them that. I should say the noble Blood Clan~~~ Damn noble Blood Clan!"

Green was not particularly shocked. Just as Lola had said, he had indeed spotted the clues from her condition.

The vampires of this world—or rather, the Blood Clan—were not particularly secretive beings. Like elves, beastmen, and giants, they were a humanoid subspecies, born with extraordinary bloodlines. They were a long-lived race of the dark, fearing sunlight and light-element magic due to genetic defects and their extraordinary traits. Of course, their fear of sunlight merely meant they felt uncomfortable beneath it; it was not the sort of setting where they died upon seeing daylight. Otherwise, their race would have gone extinct long ago.

Moreover, legend had it that in ancient times, the Blood Clan could conceive and reproduce naturally. But over the past several centuries, the reproductive ability of their entire race had deteriorated. They could no longer conceive normally and could only rely on bloodline contamination, altering ordinary people's genes and turning them into inferior vampires, continuously purifying their bloodlines as they slowly leveled up and evolved.

So when Lola said she had become one of the Blood Clan, it was hardly earth-shattering. What puzzled Green was how exactly it had happened.

Only then did Lola tell him everything from beginning to end.

Back when Lola had agreed to help locate a Tower of Yin Spirits stronghold, she had been quite confident. By chance, she had learned that someone had once visited a secret Tower of Yin Spirits base near Landon City. She simply could not determine whether it was the headquarters or an important stronghold. Moreover, Lola had wanted to find that person and confirm it first, preferably obtaining the exact address rather than taking Green directly to the person. That way, she could extract a higher reward from Green. Maximizing profit was a quality every unscrupulous merchant ought to possess.

Yet what she had not expected was that an accident occurred when she went looking for the informed person—she encountered something bizarre!

At the time, Lola had been in a muddled daze. She seemed to catch a fragrant breeze, and her entire mind lost the ability to think. The sensation was hard to describe. She had not passed out; her consciousness remained, and she could sense the sounds and temperature around her. Her eyes could even make out blurry images, yet she was utterly unable to control her own body.

As Lola recalled it, she described how it had not been painful at all. Instead, it had been immensely relaxing. Her body felt light as a feather, as if she were about to drift into the sky. Even her usual worries had been forgotten, making it all too easy to sink deeper into it. But Lola's will was resilient. Though her mind had been hazy, she still clung to her awareness and did her best not to become completely immersed. It was precisely that persistence that kept her alive. After an unknown amount of time, she suddenly woke up and found herself in a damp, dim cellar.

Many corpses lay strewn haphazardly throughout that cellar, some already rotten and reeking.

Lola guessed that she had encountered some bizarre entity that fed on human souls or consciousness, while that cellar was where it discarded its "leftovers" after eating.

Lola had felt extremely weak. At the time, she estimated that three or four days had already passed. She had remained in that muddled, unconscious state without a drop of water or a grain of food touching her teeth. Her body had been strong; anyone else would probably have died. Yet she gritted her teeth and crawled out of the cellar, only to discover that its exit was actually inside the city—a manhole in a secluded alley!

Lola had escaped with her life and had initially felt rather fortunate. Yet the very next day, she discovered changes in her body. She was an extraordinary individual herself and was no stranger to vampires. She quickly concluded that her bloodline had been contaminated by the Blood Clan. She immediately began trying to find a solution and sought out several people, but with little success. Worse still, the Blood Clan bloodline contaminating her was astonishingly powerful. Just two more days later, she had completed her transformation into one of the Blood Clan.

Lola was both helpless and at a loss. In the end, she could only accept the fact that she had become a vampire.

Fortunately, she did not live in the Holy Papal State. The Lorenzo Kingdom was quite tolerant of dark-element extraordinary individuals. If her condition had been discovered in the Papal State, she would certainly have been sent to the stake. But in the Lorenzo Kingdom, she only needed to register with the local Anomalies Bureau. As long as she obeyed the kingdom's laws, she would not be singled out or persecuted.

Green found it very strange after hearing Lola's account. Clearly, Lola had encountered another bizarre entity. In the small city of Landon alone, Green already knew of three such entities. The one that had killed Baron Lonanks had unknown strength, though it was likely not Formal Rank. As for the other two, one altered the weather while the other devoured souls; both might be Formal Rank entities. Since Lola had ultimately become one of the Blood Clan, it was highly likely that the soul-devouring bizarre entity was itself a high-ranking member of the Blood Clan.

After parting with Lola and leaving the cafe, Green went alone to Old One-Eye's shop and asked him about a black-market dealer named "Roddick."

This Roddick was the fellow who had cheated Lola with a fake magic pendant when Green and Lola first met. He was also the person who truly knew the entrance to the Tower of Yin Spirits' secret base.

Having gone through such a drastic change, Lola needed time to recuperate both mentally and physically and did not intend to get involved any further. She simply had Green go himself, believing that with Green's status and methods, it would not be difficult for him to pry open that bastard's mouth. As payment, Lola successfully took fifty gold pounds from Green's wallet.

Half an hour later, Green met Roddick in a small private room at Old One-Eye's shop. He was thin and tall, with a thoroughly lecherous face.

The man looked shifty-eyed and rat-faced, obviously no good. He entered bowing and scraping, yet not one word out of his mouth was true.

Green did not waste words with him. He gestured for Old One-Eye to leave so that he could have a private talk with this fellow.

Old One-Eye nodded in understanding, gave Roddick a somewhat sympathetic glance, then shut the door from outside.

With only the two of them left in the room, Roddick suddenly felt the urge to run. The man before him was not old, yet gave him an extreme sense of danger. It was the keen nose for dangerous things he had honed over years of mixing through the underground black market.