章 84: 84. Tepes Faction and the Human Hunt.
Omniscient POV
In a huge fortress with towering walls on all sides and only one door, the Tepes Faction vampires gathered their shame: the dhampirs.
The Tepes Faction is a male-dominated vampire faction that harbors intense hatred and discrimination against women.
They also look down on other supernatural creatures and the weak humans, who serve as their regular prey and food.
Arrogant about their immortality, they disregard everything else.
They use the city as their playground, hunting down humans whenever they please.
The Tepes Faction vampires prefer fresh blood from living humans, keeping them alive for as long as they desire while subjecting them to unspeakable torment.
They do this to take their fresh blood from the source itself whenever they want. Many believe that the blood tastes different depending on the level of despair and emotions of the humans.
But sometimes in their torture sessions and twisted pleasure they also end up raping the captives. This often results in the birth of half-human half-vampire, dhampirs.
Dhampirs, being part vampire and part human, are spared from death but face severe discrimination and disdain.
They spend their entire lives caged in the fortress until the day they die.
They are given monthly rations to feed themselves, even though vampires can survive solely on blood.
But dhampirs, being half-human, could continue living on regular human food without needing blood.
Blood, being a delicacy among vampires, was not regularly provided to the inferior dhampirs.
However, as an act of 'kindness' every three months or so, the vampires allowed the dhampirs a taste of the lifestyle that noble vampires enjoyed— a luxury the dhampirs could never hope to attain, despite being children of the nobility.
This fortress was exclusively for dhampirs born from noble bloodlines. Common dhampirs faced even harsher discrimination and were sometimes killed on sight or at birth.
However, if a commoner vampire were to humiliate a dhampir of noble lineage, it could be considered an insult to the noble vampires. Thus, these noble-born dhampirs are imprisoned in the fortress for all eternity.
The vampires occasionally provide the dhampirs with humans to quench their blood thirst, gathering large numbers of humans and imprisoning them inside the same fortress alongside the dhampirs.
Despite most dhampirs still being children, their supernatural strength makes them formidable. This sets the stage for a cruel game of survival.
These young dhampirs, twisted like their parents, give the humans false hope by letting them run and hide, only to slowly hunt them down over several days.
Starving and desperate, the humans rarely survive long, often falling to the dhampirs before dying from lack of food and water. Some even try to commit suicide, but alas, even that escape is rarely granted to them.
Today was also that time of the month when a new batch of captive humans arrived at the fortress to start the cruel and twisted game of survival.
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*
Outside a bathroom within the fortress, eight children aged between 11 and 14 could be seen. They were all dhampirs imprisoned within the fortress. Despite their confinement, the place was surprisingly vast.
"How long are you going to hide, Vladi?! Get the hell out here right now!" exclaimed a boy with clear arrogance.
"Or we will break in right now!"
"Break in!"
"Break in!" echoed a group of children.
"Don't make this noble Llyoid Tremere-sama take action himself, you dirtbag!" the boy named Llyoid declared.
The Tremere were the fifth most influential family in the faction, and by noble standards, Llyoid held the third highest status within the fortress's make-belief hierarchical structure.
"Hii!! Ack!"
The only response they received was the frightened shriek of a young dhampir from within the bathroom stalls.
As they laughed and threatened to break in, another person entered the area.
"Where's Gaspy? Are you guys bullying her again?!" Valerie Tepes, the sole daughter of the fourth king of the Tepes Faction, inquired.
"Oh? So what if we are? What are you going to do, princess-sama? Beg your father to help her? But you are just an inferior female dhampir, while the other is a scaredy-cat whose existence wasn't even important enough that she received a man's name!" mocked Llyoid as he laughed.
Valerie remained unfazed and pushed past them to approach the stall.
"How dare you touch me, you filth! You two don't even have the guts to drink blood like real vampires!" retorted Llyoid as he and the other dhampirs looked at her contemptuously.
Despite their bullying and bravado, they never truly dared to harm Valerie or Gasper. Just as a scuffle seemed imminent, the sound of a bell ringing throughout the fortress interrupted them.
It was a signal that only rang when the vampires from outside arrived, demanding everyone's immediate presence or face punishment.
They realized it was the time of the month when the new batch of humans was delivered. Excitedly, they abandoned what they were doing and hurried to gather in the large hallway.
"Consider yourselves lucky today. Otherwise..." warned Llyoid.
"Yes, just as Tremere-sama says!" echoed several children.
"Hmph!" Valerie snorted disdainfully at his words.
"Damn girl! You are just a woman! Just wait until I am back. But you two are most likely going to hide these few days like always. Well, it just gives us more prey and more blood to drink. Lucky us!" remarked Llyoid as he exited the bathroom, followed by his small clique.
However, before leaving, he commanded one of the boys, "Shut the door," and the boy obeyed, sealing the door.
"Wait! Open the door!" Valerie yelled.
"Ha ha ha. Now you will face the punishment for being late!" Llyoid laughed as he and his clique hurried to the gathering place.
Valerie pounded on the door several times, but seeing that it wouldn't budge, she quickly broke it with her supernatural strength. It was just a normal door, incapable of confining a dhampir like her.
"Gaspy-chan! We have to leave. Open the door," Valerie instructed as Gasper, tears streaming down her face, emerged and hugged her tightly, continuing to cry.
"Waaaa! I was so scared!"
"There, there. Don't be scared," Valerie comforted her, patting her head warmly.
"We need to move now. If we don't get there before they finish counting, we will be in trouble!" Valerie urged as they both made their way to the gathering place.
*
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*
Kouske had unknowingly followed the correct cart, perhaps aided by Telos Karma indirectly or by tapping into its power unconsciously.
Regardless, he soon arrived at the fortress where the dhampirs were held. Walking alongside the cart with his Dark Curtain concealment skill active, he went unnoticed and effortlessly entered the place with the group.
Meanwhile, his insect familiars scoured the cursed city for human survivors and sought out the locations of the vampire clan heads, including King Tepes and his son Marius Tepes, fifth in line to the throne.
Kouske intended to sow as much chaos as he could before leaving this accursed place.
One of the cart guards stepped forward and began counting all the dhampirs. At their arrival, the children looked scared, though some smirked from ear to ear as the count neared its end.
Kouske scanned the group but couldn't spot Valerie or Gasper, feeling dejected as he thought they were kept elsewhere. Just as the counting was about to finish, he noticed two dhampirs running toward the group.
The smirking children snorted at their arrival. Kouske quickly identified the new arrivals as Valerie and Gasper, recognizing them despite their younger appearances.
Valerie, already a teenager around 16 years old, looked quite similar to how he remembered, while Gasper, looking much younger, was probably around 11.
"Hmm. Forty of you. Good that you all made it here. Don't blame me if I had to go drag you here myself. Now, these are the new batch of humans this time. There are forty of them. Enjoy, losers. We'll leave, as I'd rather not stay longer with you filths!" said the guard, looking disdainfully at the dhampirs.
Other guards echoed similar sentiments, some even hitting the dhampirs and venting their frustrations about the nobles. Unable to take revenge on the nobility, they took pride in abusing these abandoned half-breeds.
The guards dumped the imprisoned humans on the ground and left, the large door closing behind them. The beaten-down dhampirs began to regenerate and stood up, glaring contemptuously at the humans.
Kouske wasn't bewildered; he had a decent idea of how things happened here. If these were devil half-breeds, the servants could never dare to treat them this way so blatantly, highlighting just how prejudiced and corrupt the vampire faction was.
Things here were worse for the half-breeds, who were utterly disregarded. Only two weak mid-class vampires guarded the large door, showing the overall weakness of the faction.
Few vampires were even high-class, let alone ultimate class, and maybe only the leaders reached that level.
But these vampires were a disgrace compared to real vampires in the multiverse. It felt as if Ishibumi only took the worst traits of all vampires and put them in these things.
Kouske sighed, feeling that even his rage seemed unworthy of these trash vampires.
*sigh*
Kouske decided to stay and observe to determine who was worth saving. He wasn't soft enough to save all the children, knowing that most of them, except for Valerie and Gasper, were likely cold-blooded murderers just like their parents.
He planned to teleport the humans to a safe place and put all the dhampirs under the illusion that everything was normal, allowing them to continue their usual activities.
Meanwhile, he had already begun evacuating the trapped humans from this cursed city and put those who held them under an illusion.
Not wanting to linger in this place, he used Time Magic on the fortress to speed things up before anyone outside noticed something was amiss.
*
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*
"Where are we?!"
"Please let us leave!"
"We will do anything!"
"Please."
"I have a family."
"My newborn is waiting for me! She would die without care!"
"Please!"
"Don't kill us."
"At least let me live!"
"I can pleasure you guys!"
It was chaotic. All forty humans screamed, cried, begged, and threatened, but their pleas fell on the deaf ears of the heartless children.
Valerie and Gasper had already retreated to lock themselves away, avoiding the chaos and insanity.
Llyoid and his gang didn't stop them, too thrilled by the new arrivals and aware that dealing with those two could wait.
For now, they were too eager to 'dance' with their new playthings.
"Hey! Why are you all so scared? Unlike those adults who captured us, these guys are just children. There are forty of us adults here. We just need to overpower these kids," said a muscular guy at the back, trembling but trying to rouse everyone with his words.
Hearing this, Llyoid was ecstatic. He always liked people like these. They were the kind to instigate others but never did anything themselves, thinking they would be safe at the back.
The look of shock and despair, when he went straight for those guys instead of the attackers at the front, was delicious.
And the best thing was, there were always people like these in every batch.
"Yeah, guys."
"We can win if we work together."
"Stop begging and just attack!"
"But they are just children!"
"How could we!?"
"Then shut the fuck up and stay behind, you wimp!"
The screaming turned into confusion, and confusion birthed their quarreling. The dhampirs stayed in their place, completely calm and ecstatic about the situation.
Some of the men tried to attack from the front. The woman and the first instigator from before, the muscular guy, at the back kept smiling, thinking his plan had worked and he could test the power of these little monsters before getting handsy with them.
He was a professional kickboxer, but he couldn't do anything against those adult monsters, monsters in a man's skin.
He just wished these little monsters weren't as strong as those guys, and he could take them on.
But suddenly, one of the children rushed straight at him, making all his hair stand on end in fear as he looked at the creepy smile on the boy's face.
'Why me?! I stayed at the back!' the man thought before he was hit with an attack that felt like being struck by a moving truck.
Before he could even react, his body hit the wall, blood pouring profusely.
His senses dulled and his vision blurred. His body felt heavy. He couldn't feel his left arm; it was bitten off. From the corner of his blurry vision, he saw the boy chewing his hand and drinking the blood.
The screams of all the people around him filled his ears. The place turned into chaos as everyone rushed for the huge door in panic, pounding on it and screaming for help.
Snot and tears ran down their faces. Some wore looks of despair and disbelief. No one wanted to die.
They kept repeating that they didn't want to die in this place. The dhampirs laughed at the chaos. After a while, when no one could open the door, one of the dhampirs spoke.
"Do you want to live?" asked Llyoid.
Hearing his voice, everyone stopped, the place falling into silence. Finding hope in his words, they replied, trembling and stuttering.
"Then kill the person next to you. Whoever manages to kill someone first gets to live," said Llyoid.
The people looked confused and disbelieving. Could they take the lives of fellow humans just to survive? Unfortunately, not all shared these thoughts.
Among them were also criminals and rapists. Suddenly, a girl hit the back of a man's head with the heel of her sandal, making everyone scream in despair.
The man's face showed disbelief, pain, anger, sorrow, and betrayal. The girl mouthed a small sorry.
But before the man could take his last breath, a huge man behind the girl snapped her neck, killing her instantly.
"I-I killed her first. Let me live!" the man said, a crazed look in his eyes. Everyone screamed and fled.
"Ha ha ha. You did," said Llyoid, giving the man hope and smiling crazily at his survival.
But in the next moment, the man was on the ground, being hit by one of the children.
"Now you will stay alive till the end as our living blood supply!" said Llyoid, making the man look horrified before losing consciousness.
"Run, run, run, wherever you can...
Don't let the children catch you," sang all the children, smiling.
Everyone screamed and rushed inside to find places to hide. In the char many stumbled and fell, being stepped on by others and even breaking some bones. But no one paid any attention.
All just wanted to survive. Thus began the game of survival: The Human Hunt.
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[A/N: The next chapter will probably be the last of this arc. BTW, Gasper is a girl in this fic. Lord Vladi didn't care enough to even check whether it was a boy or a girl. He just named her Gasper and sent her away. Let's see how many years this goes unnoticed by Kouske. I mean, Gasper used to act and wear dresses like a girl in the original story, even though he was a boy. So Kouske wouldn't connect the dots when she acts the same and even has a male name...🤣 And misunderstandings can lead to accidents!😏]
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