Chapter Summaries

Abraham eagerly prepared to welcome Norton and planned to distract him with pleasure so he could gain control of the Blood Clan, but Elizabeth’s appearance and Norton’s orders ruined his ambitions. Abraham was left following Norton’s carriage to Sesvia’s imperial capital, assigned to gather food and attend him.

• Abraham waited in the snow with hundreds of women selected to entertain Norton, hoping to win his confidence and take control of the Blood Clan.
• When Norton’s carriage arrived, Abraham saw Elizabeth inside and realized she had become a First-Generation Vampire and grand duke.
• Norton barely recognized Abraham and ordered him to follow the carriage to the imperial city.
• Abraham told Norton he had gathered beautiful young women, and Norton assigned him to gather quality food and attend him.
• Abraham realized he had lost his authority over the Inquisition and followed Norton’s carriage toward Sesvia’s imperial capital.

Norton began turning Sesvia into a Blood Clan Holy City, ordering construction and establishing laws to govern humans, vampire slaves, and vampire clans. His reforms left Abraham astonished and gave every class a future to strive toward, while layers of oversight were put in place to control local clans.

• Norton launched a massive construction project to replace Sesvia’s crude buildings and ordered toilets and an underground drainage system built.
• Norton assigned second-generation vampires to govern territories as clan lords and placed production in the hands of third-generation vampire slaves.
• Norton established a contribution system allowing third-generation vampires and second-generation vampires to rise through the ranks over time.
• Norton arranged for humans to receive housing, food, and care, but required the sick and infertile to be converted into third-generation vampire slaves.
• Norton divided local authority between vampire clans, the Blood Red Church Inquisition, and an inspection department established by Elizabeth, leaving Abraham impressed by his governance.

Norton strengthened the Blood-Red Holy See in Sesvia while the Papal State’s twenty-year war against the Boya Empire and its allies escalated into a war of extermination. The chapter ended after the massacre of Savanea shocked the world and changed the nature of the conflict.

• Norton divided Abraham’s power and bloodlines, fostered Elizabeth’s line alongside Abraham’s, and barred people from leaving Sesvia as the Blood-Red Holy See expanded.
• After twenty years of war, Emperor Yalian II and Crown Prince Yalian III consolidated the Boya Empire’s resources and led peace petitions to the Papal State.
• Pope Adam ignored the peace overtures and ordered his armies to kill everyone taller than a wagon wheel in captured cities and villages.
• In 2252 of the Church calendar, Church soldiers massacred more than thirty thousand people in Savanea under the pope’s order.
• News of Savanea’s destruction shocked the world and transformed the war of attrition into a war of extermination.

Adam defended his order to massacre the populations of conquered cities, arguing that destroying the kingdoms’ foundations would secure the Papal State and give him time to address threats within it. Meanwhile, Yalian II read reports of the slaughter and the Papal State’s vampire and werewolf research, with no progress reported on cultivating Holy Knights.

• Archbishop Duoxia and the surviving cardinal urged Adam to rescind his massacre decree and protect the Church’s reputation.
• Adam explained that killing serfs as well as rulers would keep neighboring kingdoms from recovering and threatening the Papal State.
• Adam planned to suppress the vampires spreading through the Papal State after stabilizing the outside world.
• Yalian II read a report that the Papal State had taken three cities and slaughtered 110,000 people, but he did not consider the losses a reason to intervene.
• Yalian II reviewed intelligence about new vampires and the Eye of Holiness’s suspected werewolf research, which included producing spiked collars.
• The intelligence report stated that research into the fundamental basis of cultivating Holy Knights had made no progress.

Yalian II suspected the Holy See concealed the secret behind the Church’s powerful supernatural forces, while the coalition kingdoms united against the Papal State after its city massacres. The brutal war returned to a stalemate, and far behind the front lines Norton sensed a chance to advance in rank.

• Yalian II read a report about trainable Werewolves and concluded that the Holy See must be hiding a powerful secret.
• After the Pope ordered several cities massacred, the war’s stakes grew existential for the kingdoms fighting the Papal State.
• Crown Prince Yalian III led a reorganized coalition army against the Papal State, and fear for their families united its soldiers and leaders.
• Coalition and Papal State forces fought with fanatical resolve, suffering immense losses as the coalition pushed the enemy back across its borders.
• In the war’s twenty-sixth year, both sides reached another stalemate, while Norton sensed an opportunity to advance in rank.

Over five years, Norton transformed the Blood Clan’s Holy City and built the towering Scarlet Tower, where he settled with his family. A month later, as Norton sat motionless on its highest floor, a terrible wind swept through the city and plunged the vampires into agony.

• Norton expanded the Holy City into a Gothic complex and had fifty thousand Third-Generation Vampires build the Scarlet Tower over five years.
• The Scarlet Tower was completed with thirty-nine floors of carvings depicting Norton’s fabricated account of vampire origins, and Norton moved in with his family.
• Norton sat on his throne at the tower’s highest floor as his body continued to shed its skin and change.
• A strengthening cold wind struck the vampires throughout the Holy City, causing them to scream and collapse in pain.
• Abraham and Elizabeth fell to the floor, convulsing and clawing at their skin as the agony overwhelmed them.

Norton completed an evolution that left him physically stronger but grotesquely changed, while his dependents advanced along with him. He concluded that his existence governed the Blood Clan and that his death would destroy every vampire.

• Abraham endured a painful transformation into a huge, wingless Vampire Lord-like creature as his body mutated alongside Norton's advancement.
• Norton awoke at the Scarlet Tower with pure-black eyes and found that his body had grown fuller but his skin was still rotting and his back was hunched.
• Norton collected the flakes of skin shedding from his body and stored them in a wooden chest for Coal Ball and Plum Blossom.
• Norton recalled that vampire evolution progressed toward becoming a true vampire like Kuba, and believed his third-tier transformation was nearing completion.
• Norton reasoned that his advancement had forced all his dependents to advance, and that his death would cause every vampire to perish.
• Norton decided to revise the vampire history books again.

Norton's advancement transformed the Blood Clan, granting its vampires new forms and abilities, while Coal Ball and Prince Plum Blossom completed their evolution into Gargoyles. As the Tower of Blood summoned the vampires, Abraham followed Elizabeth upstairs, fearing how completely their existence depended on Norton.

• Norton's advancement raised all three generations of new-style vampires by one rank, giving Abraham and Elizabeth distinct Vampire Lord forms and more human-looking disguises.
• The third-generation vampires gained the ability to reproduce, while Coal Ball and Prince Plum Blossom became Gargoyles capable of turning to stone.
• The Tower of Blood's bell summoned the Blood Clan, and vampires beneath the tower knelt as Abraham and Elizabeth flew toward its highest level in their monstrous forms.
• Abraham hurried after Elizabeth up the tower stairs and wondered whether Norton's evolution had caused the changes throughout the Blood Clan.
• Abraham feared that any future misfortune or death affecting Norton might also destroy the vampires, and worried that Norton's shifting loyalties would leave him with little standing.

Norton declared himself the Blood Clan’s creator and claimed that every vampire’s life depended on his own, establishing his absolute authority over the clan. The chapter followed the founding of the Blood Kingdom and Norton’s increasingly erratic rule, which left Abraham and Elizabeth responsible for governing while Norton pursued grand monuments and tombs.

• Norton addressed the vampires of Sesvia, claiming that he had created the Blood Clan and that his death would kill every vampire.
• Abraham realized that Norton’s power over the Blood Clan could make vampires his slaves for life.
• In 2257, Norton established the Progenitor Power Supremacy System, founded the Blood Kingdom, and set ranks and contribution-based advancement for vampires.
• Norton declared his ambition to overthrow the Church within a hundred years, arguing that its worship of God threatened the Blood Clan.
• Norton gradually withdrew from administration, leaving Abraham and Elizabeth to govern as he conscripted vampire slaves to build monuments and vast graveyards.

His Holiness Adam investigated the coordinated advancement of vampires and werewolves and feared that Norton’s influence threatened the Holy See and the divine corpse hidden behind it. In 2257, he committed himself to the war against the Boya Empire’s allies, whose leaders split over whether to invade the Papal State or negotiate peace.

• His Holiness Adam observed the Eye of Holiness dissecting captured vampires and questioned Archbishop Duoxia about the mutations that had advanced vampires across the Papal State.
• His Holiness Adam learned that werewolves had also become more intelligent, powerful, and resilient, leading him to conclude that the same force had created and advanced both races.
• His Holiness Adam feared Norton might wield the power of creation and worried that vampires could discover the divine corpse and divine blood behind the Holy See.
• His Holiness Adam prioritized suppressing the new vampires and strengthening the war effort, while seeking Norton and Abraham, who had fled to unknown regions.
• In 2257, the Boya Empire’s allied forces pushed the Papal State’s army back, then argued over whether to invade the Papal State or negotiate peace, with Yalian II opposing an invasion.

After the Papal State massacred two nations and issued an ultimatum, distrust split the allied forces into wars between their lords and royal families. The Papal State withdrew its troops, leaving Adam free to focus on the Vampires, Old Norton, and Abraham, while His Holiness Norton faced danger.

• The allied army learned that the Holy Judgment Order and three thousand Werewolves had massacred Siwaka, prompting Yalian II to order Boya's forces to withdraw.
• A second report revealed that the same forces had slaughtered Boermo's nobles, royal family, and capital, devastating the Boermo contingent and frightening the other nations.
• A Papal State envoy delivered the pope's decree demanding that each nation keep either its royal family or its lords, but not both.
• Yalian III urged the allied leaders to resist the Church's scheme, but other lords accused Boya's royal family of setting a dangerous precedent and distrust spread among the rulers.
• In 2261, the nations' lords and royal families turned on one another, while the Papal State withdrew its forces and Adam prepared to confront the Vampires, Old Norton, and Abraham.

With the Boya Empire’s allied forces distracted by internal strife, His Holiness Adam turned his attention to the vampire crisis and the growing vampire-worshipping circles in the Papal State. In 2261, he launched the Demon-Hunting Campaign, which intensified into widespread purges and trials of people accused of collaborating with vampires.

• Vampires’ population growth accelerated after their advancement allowed third-generation vampires to reproduce.
• Vampire worshippers and Blood Feast circles spread through the Papal State, attracting vampires and members of the privileged class.
• His Holiness Adam declared vampires agents of the death god Jonah and warned that those who became vampires would be condemned to Hell.
• The Holy See sent the Werewolf Legion and Holy Knights to help purge vampires, while churches offered bounties and held Masses to cleanse cities.
• His Holiness Adam produced eighteen volumes of scripture to intensify public hostility toward vampires, and the campaign led to trials and executions of innocent people.

Norton ruled the Blood Court as a lavish and ruthless monarch, forcing vampires to build monumental structures while presenting himself as compassionate. Despite his oppression, the Blood Court fostered human intellectual and technological growth, and Norton pursued his plan to erase the old vampires and destroy the Church rather than seek eternal rule.

• Norton watched fourth-generation vampires labor on a hundred-meter pyramid and leap from its top to return to work after their bodies regenerated.
• Norton lamented the slaves’ suffering, and his female chronicler recorded his words as proof of his benevolence.
• The Blood Court enforced laws against vampires killing at will and abolished human slavery, while its people gained time and resources for learning and creative work.
• Scholars praised the Blood Court’s flourishing humanistic thought and early technological progress as an Enlightenment.
• Norton continued his plan to bury the old vampires, elevate the new Blood Clan, and eliminate the Church, which he considered the old era’s sole threat.

After returning to the Blood Court’s Holy City, Norton strengthened the court by ordering a human knight force to oppose the Church and began arranging experiments in the Tower of Blood. He left Elizabeth to carry out his new orders as bats fed on his deteriorating body.

• As the Papal State’s vampire hunts and massacres intensified, Norton encouraged human culture and intellectual movements in the Blood Court to increase productivity.
• Norton ordered Grand Duke Abraham and Grand Duchess Elizabeth to establish a force of human knights, offering them reduced slave service in return for their years of service.
• Norton returned to the Tower of Blood after several years away, his body more stooped and ulcerated, and Elizabeth greeted him eagerly.
• Norton ordered Elizabeth to capture werewolves, human criminals, and animals and confine them on the Tower of Blood’s thirtieth floor.
• After Elizabeth left, bats descended from Coal Ball and Plum Blossom’s aging descendants and fed on the scraps of Norton’s skin.

Norton decided to investigate how his flesh and blood caused mutations, hoping to understand his own nature before someone else exploited it against him. He began experiments in the Scarlet Tower by feeding a piece of his skin to a human prisoner, but the chapter ended before the results appeared.

• Norton reflected that his flesh and blood could introduce new genes into living creatures and decided that studying the effects could help him understand his own power.
• Norton went alone to the thirtieth floor of the Scarlet Tower, where the Blood Court had gathered human criminals and various creatures as experimental subjects.
• Norton opened a cell containing two gagged prisoners and seized one man's head as he screamed.
• Norton tore a piece of his skin and forced it into the prisoner's mouth, while the removed skin quickly grew back on his body.

After thirty years of political centralization and intellectual growth, vampires had become an open force across the Southern Continent. As Yalian II lay dying, he warned Yalian III to avoid war, guard against both the Church and vampires, and refuse immortality; he died urging his son to free the Boya Empire from the Church’s control.

• The Southern Continent’s nations centralized their rule and entered decades of cultural, intellectual, and technological development, while the Holy See and Blood Clan also grew in power.
• Yalian II lay dying in the Boya imperial capital as members of the imperial family gathered around his bed.
• Yalian II advised Yalian III to avoid war for fifty years, treat vampires as a possible ally against the Papal State but never trust them, and prevent the Church from reviving.
• Yalian III called for vampires to turn Yalian II, but Yalian II stopped him and rejected immortality, arguing that the imperial family had to lead by example and preserve the nation’s stability.
• Yalian II died after telling Yalian III to work to break free of the Church’s control.

Norton spent thirty years conducting experiments with his flesh and blood, learning how he could control mutations in living creatures. His research revealed that deeply mutated creatures such as Coal Ball and Plum Blossom could not reproduce, while uncontrolled mutations produced Lovecraftian results.

• Yalian II died of old age, prompting public debate over why he had refused to become a vampire.
• Norton continued his experiments on the thirtieth floor of the Scarlet Tower, using criminals and creatures as subjects over thirty years.
• Norton discovered that his flesh and blood caused mutations and that he could direct their forms with his thoughts.
• Norton found that deeply mutated creatures were generally unable to reproduce, while shallowly mutated parents could have offspring with the mutations he envisioned.
• Norton concluded that Coal Ball and Plum Blossom had become too deeply mutated to produce offspring, and found that mutations without a predetermined form were Lovecraftian.

Norton watched two creatures grown from his flesh and blood collapse into writhing masses that babbled about the fundamentals of life, then had Coal Ball and Plum Blossom devour them. He named the unstable, terrifying new form of life the Primordial Lifeform and remained wary of what he had created.

• A prisoner who listened too long to the babbling went mad, twisted apart, and reassembled as a living mass of flesh.
• The two masses of flesh crawled toward one another, but Coal Ball and Plum Blossom swallowed them before they could merge.
• Norton reflected that creatures grown freely from his flesh and blood mutated before collapsing into this form, unlike species whose shapes he deliberately fixed.
• Norton named the strange, malleable lifeform the Primordial Lifeform and feared its rapid assimilation and unknown nature.

After thirty years of experiments, Norton realized his body and soul might be the source of the mutations and feared he was following the path of God. He emerged from his laboratory to learn from Abraham that the Blood Clan had become the third great empire.

• Norton examined the mutated creature and concluded that his flesh and blood might cause mutations because he was the world's first aberration.
• Norton wondered whether he was the only old-era vampire and resolved to keep his blood contained and stop his experiments.
• Norton left his thirty-story laboratory after thirty years, drawing the attention of the Blood Clan in the imperial city.
• Abraham welcomed Norton and reported that the Blood Court had expanded fivefold, gathered over ten thousand human knights, and become the third great empire.

Norton took full control of the Blood Court and ordered it to focus on national development rather than seizing more territory, while Abraham privately concluded that Norton might be hiding his true nature and considered how to protect himself. Norton’s return after thirty years stirred the Southern Continent, where the public had turned him into a romanticized figure, though they still regarded vampires as vulnerable to the Church.

• Abraham reported that the Blood Court had enslaved transformed royal families and taken their territories, but the death of Yalian II had made other rulers hesitate to become vampires.
• Norton rejected a forceful expansion of the Blood Court and declared that he would lead its development and overthrow the Church.
• Abraham studied Norton's rotting, swollen body and reasoned that Norton might be an old-era vampire using New-Type Vampires as a cover, then feared that Norton would eliminate him for knowing too much.
• Norton sat alone atop his tower, drinking blood and looking out over the night sky.
• Norton's return after thirty years caused a stir as his carefully cultivated noble vampire image inspired popular fiction and vampire-themed entertainment, even as people continued to trust the Church's ability to destroy vampires.