Chapter Summaries

After Karl left, Norton struggled through Lino City’s worsening cold and famine while cautiously gathering news at a tavern. He overheard patrons discussing the Boya Empire’s alliance and growing tensions with the Papal State, leaving the threat of war hanging over the city.

• Karl left, and Norton was haunted by a nightmare in which Father Mia chased him.
• As the weather worsened and famine spread through Lino City, the Church collected the dead and made them into soup for the poor.
• Norton avoided contacting Father Abraham and instead visited Karl’s tavern to listen for news about the Papal State.
• Tavern patrons reported that the Boya Empire had formed an alliance with other countries and might be preparing to invade the Papal State.
• The tavern’s customers praised the Papal State and condemned the Boya Empire and Ancient Holy Noah Empire, unaware that the Church might punish them for discussing it.

As the Boya Empire and neighboring nations threatened the Papal State, Pope Adam focused on developing humanoid Werewolves in the Eye of Holiness. He named the mutated Werewolf William and ordered the scholars to test whether mating him with human women would produce more intelligent offspring.

• Five cardinals lamented Pope Adam’s preoccupation with the Eye of Holiness while indulging in luxury and making no effort to address the Papal State’s political crisis.
• Pope Adam inspected the grown Werewolf, whose rapid maturation had left him with little human intelligence despite the Eye of Holiness’s attempts to educate him.
• The Church forced William to mate with captured female Werewolves, and he remained docile as the knights removed each exhausted partner.
• Pope Adam stopped the breeding process and proposed mating William with human women to produce Werewolves with greater humanity.
• The Werewolf-breeding scholar praised Pope Adam’s proposal and agreed to carry it out.

Pope Adam ordered a war against the Boya Empire and the surrounding countries, using the crisis to weaken the Papal State’s poor and powerful alike and protect his rule. As conscription and requisitions began in Lino City, Norton watched the Church enforce the decree and considered the Papal State’s military strength.

• Adam rejected warnings about Archbishop Duoxia, the eastern disasters, and the risk of rebellion, then ordered an invasion of the Boya Empire and neighboring countries.
• Adam commanded the Church to seize food and assets from the wealthy and conscript starving people into the army.
• Adam issued a papal bull accusing the Boya Empire and nearby countries of threatening the Church and declaring an all-out war.
• Norton watched the people of Lino City flee conscription squads and hide their valuables as Church knights enforced Adam’s orders.
• Norton reflected on the Church knights’ strength and the size of the Papal State’s military reserves.

As the Papal State prepared for war and Lino City descended into chaos, Archbishop Duoxia decided to oppose the Pope and preserve the Church’s faith. Before he could act, Bishop Good lured his attendant and guards into a bathhouse, where a group of monstrous figures attacked them.

• The Papal State began forcibly conscripting the poor and collecting wealth while the Boya Empire struggled to gather troops from its feudal lords.
• Archbishop Duoxia concluded that the Pope’s war had damaged the Church’s reputation and decided to raise a banner against the Pope’s rule.
• Archbishop Duoxia summoned Bishop Good and Father Abraham, who arrived and requested an audience.
• Bishop Good invoked the Pope’s decree to send Duoxia’s attendant and two Church knights to bathe before a sacrificial ceremony.
• The attendant and knights entered the bathhouse and found Church personnel sitting motionless in the pool.
• The figures in the pool turned toward the three men and attacked them.

Archbishop Duoxia planned a holy war against Pope Adam, but discovered that Bishop Good and Father Abraham had been replaced by vampires who had infiltrated the Church. Father Abraham killed Duoxia, leaving the Church’s fate in peril.

• Archbishop Duoxia told Bishop Good and Father Abraham that he had allied with five cardinal archbishops and planned to raise an army against Pope Adam.
• Bishop Good and Father Abraham revealed their crimson eyes and monstrous faces, shocking Duoxia.
• Father Abraham declared that he and his followers were the Blood Clan and that Duoxia’s people had already been transformed.
• Father Abraham attacked Duoxia and drank his blood while Bishop Good watched.
• Archbishop Duoxia died fearing that the vampires had turned the Church into a nest of devils.

Norton sensed that his magnetic field had grown stronger and discovered that the Church in Lino City was no longer hidden from his perception. With the Church occupied by his new-style vampires, he prepared to claim power in the city.

• Poor people flocked to enlist in the Church's army after Adam promised them food, lodging, and a share of anything they plundered in the Boya Empire.
• Norton released his magnetic field across Lino City and noticed that it briefly silenced everyone, even without them seeing him.
• Norton realized that he could now perceive inside the Church, which he concluded had been occupied by his new-style vampires.
• Norton declared that it was his turn to become emperor and leaped from the bell tower.

Father Abraham's ambitions to rule Lino City were crushed when a mysterious magnetic Pressure overwhelmed the Vampires. After they mistook it for divine punishment, Old Norton appeared outside their window.

• Father Abraham grew furious that Archbishop Duoxia had fled after becoming a Vampire, then decided to make himself Lino City's uncrowned king.
• A transparent magnetic field swept over Lino City, causing Father Abraham and the other newborn Vampires to collapse under its overwhelming Pressure.
• The Pressure vanished, leaving the Vampires terrified and Father Abraham convinced that God had punished them.
• A rag-wrapped figure appeared outside the window, and Father Abraham recognized him as Old Norton, the beggar who squatted across from the Church.

Norton used his overwhelming magnetic pressure to subdue Father Abraham and the vampires in Lino City, then declared himself the true progenitor of vampires. He lost much of his satisfaction when Father Abraham offered him his wife, but ordered Abraham to awaken the vampires so they could build a blood-red empire.

• Norton unleashed his magnetic field across Lino City, crushing Father Abraham and the vampires beneath its pressure.
• Norton withdrew the field to preserve the Church as a cover, and Father Abraham recovered enough to crawl before him and declare him the true progenitor.
• Norton placed his muddy foot on Father Abraham's head and proclaimed that his word would be absolute in Lino City.
• Father Abraham offered to bring his wife to Norton, disappointing him and causing him to lift his foot from Abraham's head.
• Norton ordered Father Abraham to wake the vampires so they could establish a blood-red empire.

Norton secretly established the Blood Empire in Lino City, placing Abraham in the public role of Blood Progenitor while keeping control for himself. As he expanded his hold over the city and prepared to deal with the Holy Knights, the pit built to drown them was completed.

• Norton searched the Church’s book repository for knowledge about old-era vampires but found no useful information, then ordered Church knights to dig a deep pit for the inactive Holy Knights.
• In the year 2230 of the Church calendar, Abraham secretly ascended the throne as Blood Progenitor, while Norton retained all real authority.
• Norton discovered that Abraham and the other vampires had concealed Archbishop Duoxia’s defection, and he recognized their rebellious intentions toward him.
• Norton kept Lino City’s vampires outwardly obedient to the Holy See while enforcing a ban on public defecation and ordering the elite to fund public toilets.
• Norton ordered Abraham to confiscate religious objects and destroy images of God, then arranged for Church knights, missionaries, and the city’s elite to become vampires under his control.
• The large pit Norton had ordered built inside the church was completed.

Norton lured the Holy Knights into an ambush at the Church, using a water-filled pit and vampire forces to overcome them. After one Holy Knight resisted the vampires’ restraints, Norton hurled a greatsword and knocked him into the pit.

• Norton ordered Abraham to lure the Holy Knights out while the vampires gathered around a water-filled pit.
• A Church knight dragged a Holy Knight into the pit, where the knight struggled helplessly underwater.
• A golden-armored Holy Knight charged from the main hall and fought off the vampire knights’ attempts to restrain him.
• The Holy Knight broke free of the ropes and charged at a Church knight.
• Norton threw a greatsword and smashed the Holy Knight into the pit.

Norton tested whether the Holy Knights’ wounds that could not heal came from their swords, then drank the blood of two drowned Holy Knights and grew stronger. The chapter left Abraham overwhelmed by Norton’s newly intensified aura.

• Norton watched the vampires recover the drowned Holy Knights and learned that the Church knights were weaker, while the Holy Knights’ attacks prevented vampire wounds from healing.
• Norton had a Church knight bring him a Holy Knight’s greatsword and stabbed a third-generation missionary vampire, whose thigh healed quickly.
• Norton concluded that the Holy Knights themselves, not their weapons, caused the effect that stopped wounds from healing.
• Norton drank the blood of both Holy Knights, and his body grew about ten centimeters taller as his strength increased.
• Norton roared as his powerful aura filled the area, leaving Abraham despairing at the Progenitor’s might.

After becoming stronger, Norton used his expanded Pressure to secure control over Lino City and impose a new order that fed the poor while forcing the population to work for the Church. His reforms sparked a rebellion among the dispossessed middle classes.

• Norton activated his expanded Pressure, which covered Lino City and the surrounding forests and let him monitor activity across the area.
• Certain that nothing in the city could threaten him, Norton summoned Lino City's powerful elites and forcibly turned them into third-generation vampires.
• Norton confiscated the elites' grain and distributed it to the poor in daily quotas, then seized their wealth and land for the Church.
• Norton classified everyone outside the vampire Church as a blood slave and required them to work without pay in exchange for grain tied to their harvests.
• Outraged by the loss of their wealth and status, Lino City's middle classes raised forces in rebellion.

Norton reshaped the Church into a tool for controlling vampires and planned to make the public believe that new-style vampires had weaknesses that did not apply to him. He ordered Abraham to stage public deaths that would spread this false account, then silenced Abraham’s objections with Coal Ball’s supernatural attack.

• Church knights attacked a tavern where residents had been criticizing the Church, and opposition in Lino City fell silent as many people disappeared into Church custody.
• Norton sat on a throne in the cathedral and explained that vampires descended from Kuba were vulnerable to sunlight, heart attacks, and silver.
• Norton told Abraham to turn death-row prisoners into third-generation vampires, let them escape, and have them killed publicly using the weaknesses he had described.
• Abraham questioned Norton’s plan, and Coal Ball tore flesh from Abraham’s neck, preventing his wound from healing until Norton crushed the stolen flesh.
• Abraham kowtowed and promised to carry out Norton’s order, while the vampires below trembled at Norton’s tyranny.

After the Church vampires leave, Norton considers the consequences of killing two Holy Knights and decides to let new-style vampires spread openly beyond Lino City while keeping his local forces controlled. He plans to preserve his rule in the city and build a Blood Empire capable of resisting the Church, though Karl and Archbishop Duoxia remain at the Holy See.

• Norton drinks blood and reflects that he is gradually becoming a true vampire.
• Norton realizes the Holy See will detect the deaths of the two Holy Knights and send people to investigate Lino City.
• Norton decides to lift restrictions on new-style vampires spreading beyond the city, while keeping Lino City’s vampires strictly controlled.
• Norton plans to maintain his power in Lino City and develop a Blood Empire that could contend with the Church.
• Norton justifies the deaths caused by the vampire upheaval as a release from a harsh world and notes that Karl and Archbishop Duoxia are at the Holy See.

His Holiness Adam learned that Archbishop Duoxia had become a vampire and heard his report that a new kind of vampire had taken over Lino City. As Adam approached Duoxia with a grand procession, Duoxia remained outside the Holy See, alarmed by the powerful force surrounding it.

• While sweeping the great hall, Karl overheard His Holiness Adam learn that Duoxia feared entering the Holy See after becoming a vampire.
• Adam studied a portrait of Duoxia and suspected the new vampires in Lino City were connected to the mutated Werewolves in Holy Lord City.
• Adam ordered an investigation of Lino City and set off to meet Duoxia, while Karl watched the pope's procession in awe.
• Duoxia waited in a guarded farmhouse, explained that he had fled to warn the Church, and worried that the force around the Holy See was unlike the Church's familiar holy light.
• A lavish procession of nuns, Church knights, and Holy Knights brought Adam's gold-plated carriage toward Duoxia's farmhouse.

His Holiness Adam questioned Archbishop Duoxia about the vampires who had taken over Lino City and considered how their mutations violated the rules he believed God had established. Rather than send Duoxia to die, Adam ordered him taken to the Eye of Holiness for research, leaving Duoxia furious and helpless.

• Archbishop Duoxia greeted His Holiness Adam, who had him restrained despite Duoxia’s gratitude for being helped to his feet.
• Adam marveled that Lino City’s vampires could turn living people and reproduce, mutations that seemed to break the limits God had placed on life.
• Duoxia reported that vampires had taken over the Lino City Church, including Low-Ranking Bishop Good and Father Abraham, and urged Adam to send knights to purge them.
• Duoxia offered to die in God’s holy light, but Adam said he would be more useful as a vampire research subject in the Eye of Holiness.
• Duoxia accused Adam of coveting vampire immortality as the Holy Knights carried him out of the cabin.

Norton reformed the Church and released vampires into other cities, while the Papal State’s war of plunder devastated the surrounding nations. Two years later, reports of new-style vampires spreading across the region suggested a vampire scourge was beginning.

• Norton exiled third-generation vampires from Lino City under Low-Ranking Bishop Good and recruited large numbers of new clergy.
• The Papal State conscripted hundreds of thousands of poor people, whose plunder and atrocities spread across the Southern Continent.
• The Boya Empire’s emperor ordered troops massed at the border and planned a major attack on the Papal State.
• Reports of vampire attacks spread through the Papal State, including cases in Joseph City.
• The Church began hunting the new-style vampires, but their numbers appeared to grow instead of decline.

Pope Adam shifted his attention to Lino City's new-style vampires and the Boya Empire's coalition, while continuing the Church's experiments at the Eye of Holiness. He learned that the vampires Archbishop Duoxia created had several weaknesses, but their vulnerability to silver remained unexplained.

• Adam set aside plans to use Church knights against Lino City temporarily and focused on the Boya Empire's allied forces, while still intending to purge Lino City's vampires.
• At the Eye of Holiness, Adam ordered the Church to breed werewolves while castrating all but the breeding stock to prevent their widespread reproduction.
• Adam visited Archbishop Duoxia, who reported that the new-style vampires could be harmed by holy objects, sunlight, silver, and stakes through the heart, but could not create more vampires.
• Adam considered why crosses suppressed the new vampires without burning them and wondered what made silver harmful to them.

His Holiness Adam learned that Norton, not Father Abraham, appeared to be the progenitor of the new-type vampires, while wrestling with his own envy of eternal life and fear of becoming corrupted. In Lino City, Norton indulged in the power he had gained and declared himself nearly invincible.

• Archbishop Duoxia urged His Holiness Adam to focus on the Church, and Adam concealed his jealousy of vampires’ long lives because the divine corpse behind the Holy See kept him bound there.
• An attendant told His Holiness Adam that the new-type vampires in Lino City appeared to have been created by Norton rather than Father Abraham.
• Abraham brought Norton blood from young virgins and reveled in his authority over Lino City’s vampires.
• Norton reflected that power had made him resemble the Church he once suffered under, but admitted that ruling and enjoying blood slaves pleased him.
• Norton assessed that he was near the peak of the second tier and believed that, with the Holy Judgment Tribunal destroyed and the werewolves nearly wiped out, his era of invincibility had begun.

After worrying that the Church might learn his identity, Norton ordered the vampires to dig escape passages from Lino City. He left the hall surrounded by his bats and spoke to Coal Ball, whose growing size made him wonder if it would become a Gargoyle.

• Norton realized that Bishop Good and the other vampires could expose him to the Church, so he decided to improve his escape plans.
• Norton ordered Abraham to summon the vampires and have them dig passages from the church out of the city.
• Norton decided he would take Abraham with him if they had to flee, since he relied on Abraham and could use him to hold off pursuers.
• Norton walked out of the hall as his bats swarmed around him, while the people of Lino City spread rumors linking vampires to bats.
• Coal Ball, now as large as an ordinary dog, clung to Norton's leg, and Norton wondered if it would become a Gargoyle.