"Humanity... is the subject of this review?"
Deathstroke seemed to be confirming Dracula's intelligence, but also seemed to be thinking aloud.
It was a night several days later. He received the Vampire visitor at Kamar-Taj. The Progenitor looked the same as during their last meeting: impeccably dressed, charming and refined, with a smile playing around the fangs at the corners of his mouth.
When Hamill brought him a bag of blood plasma, he even thanked him politely.
"I did indeed meet them at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. I had heard of the Celestials before, but I never imagined they would be so powerful." Dracula tore open the tube meant to connect to a transfusion device with his fingernails and took a sip as though drinking jelly. "They barely paid any attention to me. They even let me follow them."
Su Ming spun his purple clay teacup on the table and nodded. "More or less what I expected. The Celestials are herders of 'living things' in the universe. As undead, Vampires are no different from lifeless stones or clumps of dirt in their eyes. Of course, I mean no disrespect."
Dracula waved a hand magnanimously, unconcerned. "We really are neither alive nor dead. What the Sorcerer Supreme said is simply the truth. Immortality has always been a curse."
Su Ming refilled his teacup. The scent of tea mingled with the smell of blood in the sitting room, while thin smoke rose from an incense burner in the corner, twisting faintly in the breeze.
He said, "The Celestials always like to test civilizations in the universe to see whether they deserve to keep existing. The subject is different every time. Sometimes it is 'potential,' sometimes 'combat power,' sometimes 'compatibility.' But this time, 'humanity' really is hard to define."
Wanda,