Chapter 2

The auctioneer suddenly lifted his right foot and drove it hard into my arm.

The Origin Crystals scattered across the floor.

He stepped forward and crushed them under his heel. "A broke little rat with no magical aura whatsoever dares to make a scene in front of the high lords? Then let me teach you exactly what kind of posture a Ventrue mongrel should take in this castle!"

"Guards! Smash this rat's knees! Make him kneel below the stage like a dog and watch with his own eyes how this little bastard gets broken in!"

"Yes, sir!"

Four heavily armored guards closed in on me. Their greatswords came down with a shriek through the air, showing no mercy.

My gaze turned cold. On instinct, I tried to draw on the Abyssal power of the Progenitor buried deep within my soul. But the moment my awareness sank inward, my heart dropped.

There was nothing inside me.

No magic. No power moving at all.

What was going on?

I quickly checked my condition and understood at once—I had slept for too long, and my strength had slumbered with me. If I wanted to reclaim it, I would have to wait until midnight, when the blood moon stood at its peak.

It was only eleven.

There was still a full hour before my power returned.

In that brief moment of hesitation, the greatswords slammed down onto my shoulders.

My body dropped hard. My knees bent under the crushing force, as if I would be driven to the floor the next second.

I clenched my teeth and endured the blow without going down.

The noble vampires below the stage had found their favorite kind of entertainment. They whistled in excitement and shouted over one another.

A few drunken barons even hurled half-smoked cigars and scraps of food at my face.

"Push harder! I want to see him on his knees, barking like a dog!"

"Hold his head still! I'm going to pour my wine down this idiot bastard's throat!"

"If he won't kneel, then make him watch while the other little rat gets flayed alive!"

The auctioneer snapped his right hand through the air and drew a long whip from his sleeve, blazing with harsh golden light.

It was a scourge whip enchanted with holy light from the Divine Court.

To vampires, who feared the element of light, being struck by that thing was no different from having a branding iron shoved into their guts.

Crack—!

The sharp snap of the whip tore through the air and lashed across the silver-haired boy's back inside the cage.

"Gah—!"

He cried out in agony. The already tattered cloth on his body instantly turned to ash.

A blackened, split-open wound ripped across his back. Holy light crawled through the injury with a sickening sizzle, preventing a vampire's natural healing from taking effect.

"Beautiful!" The high-ranking vampires below the stage felt no pity at all. If anything, the brutal scene and the heavy scent of blood only drove them into a greater frenzy, their eyes burning red as they roared like beasts. "Again! Hit him again!"

"Make him scream louder!"

Amid the deafening uproar, the boy convulsed and collapsed inside the cage.

Cold sweat and blood streaked across his face, but he still forced his head up and stared at me through the bars.

"What... what branch family are you from, sir?" His lips were colorless, and his voice shook with sobs as he shouted desperately at me. "Don't worry about me... just go! Please, run! House Ventrue... it's already gone!"

"Live... just live. Hide in some sewer somewhere and survive under a different name!"

I looked into those eyes dimmed by despair and heard the words, "House Ventrue is already gone."

Something inside me finally snapped.

He was not only my blood descendant. He was the last pureblood of House Ventrue.

Even if I could not call on a single shred of power at this moment, I would never allow my offspring to be treated like livestock for the amusement of these lowborn maggots.

Whoosh!

The auctioneer raised the scourge again, this time saturating it with holy battle aura as he whipped it straight toward the boy's face.

If that strike landed, it would punch straight through his skull.

I threw off the guards pinning me down and shot upward, catching the whip with my bare hand.

Holy light exploded in my palm. The heat instantly charred flesh from my hand, filling the air with the stench of burned meat.

But I did not even frown. I let the blood drip from my palm without a sound.

"Wh-what?!" The auctioneer's face froze. "Are you insane?! You actually caught a holy whip with your bare hand?!"

I gave the whip a savage yank, using the force to launch myself straight to the holy silver cage. I grabbed the silver chain around the boy's neck with both hands and tried to rip it off through sheer physical strength.

The instant my fingers touched the chain, the anti-magic runes carved into it and the high-purity holy light flared into a blinding white glow.

Even though I gritted my teeth so hard I thought they might crack, the silver chain did not move an inch. If anything, the magical backlash only tightened it further around the boy's neck, pressing out a ring of glaring blood.

My strength was still locked away by a thousand years of slumber. I had no way to fight an enchantment like this.

"Stop pulling... please, stop!" Seeing my fingers turn white with strain, almost to the point of tearing themselves apart, the boy broke down and sobbed, desperately shoving at my arms. "You can't break it! It's a high-order anti-magic chain... your hands will be ruined! Please, don't worry about me. Just run!"

Helplessness and humiliation twisted through my heart.

I was the Progenitor of all vampires, and yet now I could not even tear a dog collar from my own descendant's neck.

"Surround this suicidal little rat!" the auctioneer shrieked, finally recovering his wits.

Dozens of high-ranking guards poured in like a tide, locking down the cage and hemming me in from all sides.

Then, at that razor-edge moment, a terrifying pressure belonging to a high vampire lord descended over the castle without warning.

Every noble in the room changed expression under that overwhelming force.

"My God—it's Lord Claude!"