[There will be a century of pain for you, incompetent fool!]

Frei gritted his teeth, expecting a wave of pain while walking in a line of slaves, but after several minutes of walking forth with his heart racing, he still felt nothing.

"That is strange, is Gabri'El turning senile or something?" He muttered and continued to observe the changes that had happened after the bright flash in the sky.

  It was hard to put into words, but the eyes of everyone looked more alive and their actions more natural. Frei tried to put two and two together and thought that he knew the answer.

"Souls. It has to do with souls." He whispered, It was only a guess, but he was almost certain that the people around him had now a soul, including NPCs. He had no idea if the monsters undergone the same process, or what will be the long-term consequences of the change. For him, the important part was that Gabri'El seemed to struggle to keep his hold over him.

"Yes, and another important part." He tried to activate his old abilities again, but had no luck. With the system whole and connected to the Divine Universe again, the explanation for him to be unable to use his demonic abilities was only one, he had not enough souls. Unless the experiment gone more crazy than he was willing to accept.

  Frei had been torn away from his thought by the commotion around him. There were beast roars everywhere and sounds of iron chains scraping against each other, the slaves suddenly not as obedient as they used to be. The dark elf guards immediately jumped into action to pacify the sudden commotion, beating the slaves with whatever they had at hand. Frei tried to stay calm to receive as little attention as possible, but it was hard to do, the interlinked chains not letting him completely ignore the sudden actions of the slaves next to him.

"Whoever keeps making a ruckus will be killed on the spot!" Iralion shouted while drawing his sword and many of the slaves turned stiff when they saw the sharp blade of his lightly curved weapon.

  After the mob of slaves calmed down, they continued in the direction of Waldorf for many days. Frei noticed that he was a bit hungry, a really odd discovery considering he had previously waited in his cage for seven days without the slightest notion of hunger, even the places where the chains bound him were a little sore. He felt like he was in a dream that was slowly turning into reality, gaining substance.

  With this kind of bad premonition, they arrived at their destination. It turned out that it was not Waldorf itself, a settlement the walls of which they could see in the distance, but a nearby castle, its opened gates welcoming them into its cold courtyard. The architecture of the castle reminded him of gothic cathedrals, its towers and keep towering into the sky, the feeling magnified by the fact that the castle stood on a cliff, its gates accessible only from the front, as its walls had been made as if a part of the steep cliff.

  After they had exited the forest and passed through the gate, the line of slaves was being dismantled, the slavers sorting them out and leading them underground.

"What about this one?" Iralion with another two thugs passed by a man that was sorting out the goods.

"Weak male, too old, blood." He waved in a direction of one of the entrances to the castle's dungeon and before Frei could fully grasp the meaning of his words, he was already confined in a small cell with numerous other prisoners.

"Werewolves own the castle, we will be eaten!"

"They've said blood, we will be drained by a vampire!"

"No, they will turn us into their mindless slaves!"

"They will make us work in the mines until we die!"

  Frei had multiple options of how he was supposed to end presented by his scared fellow prisoners, but he did not like any of them. Shortly, yet another man arrived, dressed in black leather armor, he walked slowly next to the cells. He said nothing, only passing by, occasionally stopping briefly when some of the slaves piqued his interest. However, he left without a word and Frei could only guess that it was another round of selection.

Victor, level 20 Vampire

  Given that Frei was a player, he could see the identity of the man and had to admit that the guesses of the prisoners were quite accurate.

  Shortly, he was relocated to another cell and a considerable amount of time passed. He was not able to count days due to absence of sunlight, he counted six meals before he had been finally taken out yet again by Victor and saw the light of the day when they exited the castle dungeon. He had been led to the castle keep, to a cold room made of solid stone where numerous slaves had been aligned to await their fate.

  The chamber reminded him of a small throne room of medieval castles, with shields adorned by elaborate coats of arms hanging on its walls and stone pillars creating an aisle that would normally lead to a throne. Yet, instead of a throne there was a massive wooden table with chairs around it.

Victor walked to stand in front of the table, looking at them with his red eyes.

"You should be grateful, you have been chosen as those who have some level of ability. At the beginning, I will turn you into my subordinates to see if you can use your limited potential. Those of you too clumsy to serve as my subordinates will be used in another way." He smiled, revealing his sharp, pointed teeth.

  Frei deduced that the vampire had to possess some sort of an ability to inspect their statuses to be able to tell their potential without really testing their abilities. One by one the vampire called them forth and fed them a few drops of his blood. When the third person received the blood, the newly turned blood slave began to laugh and ran quickly out of the room. Victor did not try to stop him and simply walked to the window and watched, when the man ran out of the keep into the sunlit courtyard, he crumbled like a puppet with its strings cut and turned into dust when the direct rays of the sun landed on his uncovered skin.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"First lesson, you have to shield yourselves against direct sunlight." Victor said and surprisingly, the first man who had received "the gift" ran out of the room, emboldened by the knowledge, yet Victor still did not move a finger to stop him. It took the man longer, but eventually even he emerged out of the castle keep, trying to escape. This time, the escapee was veiled in several layers of cloth making Frei wonder what would happen.

"Undress." Victor said with confidence in his voice and the running man began to throw away his clothes without care.

"No, no! What is happening to me?!" They heard his distant shout, but soon his skin was bare and he ended up the same way as the first man.

"Second lesson, my will is undeniable as you will be vampires of my bloodline. I can command you to do whatever I want." Victor scanned the stupefied people that were left. "Do not be foolish and fall in line, before you join their ranks."

He gestured in the direction of the two corpses in the courtyard that had been turned into charcoal, wind slowly blowing apart the unfortunate escapees' remains. After the gruesome display, no slaves had the courage to resist and soon even Frei stood before the vampire, to consume a drop of his blood. He had no idea if it was a special kind of blood, or a specific ability had to be used to make it more potent, but the moment he gulped and the small drop began traveling down his stomach, several lines of text appeared in front of his eyes.

[4 hostile actions has been stopped]

Name Frei Galgani Level 3 Determines your overall strength. Increases by completing quests. Race Lesser Vampire Race Stat Ratio 20 : 10 : 10 : 10(30): 10(20) STR : DEX : AGI : INT : SPI Racial Traits [Very Strong and Resilient Body.] STR + 100%, damage taken reduced by 50%, all healing effects tripled [Significant Talent for Dark Magic] INT + 200%, SPI + 100% when using dark attribute spells, [Dark Vision] Can see in the dark, [Blood Puppets] You can control lower level entities after feeding them your blood (consumes one drop of your blood per day per controlled target) Acquired Skills/Spells [Shroud] Hides you in the shadows, effective when in shadows.

He stood there in a daze for a time, while Victor continued the ritual with other slaves, not waiting for him to take in all the changes.

"We are done here." The vampire walked briskly out of the room and his voice came shortly after. "Follow me!"

The instant he said it, all the people around Frei turned their heads in the direction of their master as if someone pulled a thread connected to them and walked in the direction of Victor, but Frei . . .

"Wait, wait, wait, something is off." Frei did not feel a thing and was startled by the reaction of the other slaves. "Could it be?!"

  He recalled all the system text and focused on a particular line that appeared again. He had seen it when he had turned into an elf, but had not payed it much attention back then.

"Four hostile actions has been stopped." He mumbled and remembered the equivalent from before that stated that two hostile actions had been stopped right after he had became on elf. When he recalled the table with the races, it all suddenly fell into place.

Race Bonus Penalty Vampire Very strong and resilient body. Significant talent for dark magic, dark vision, unique control abilities. Hated by most races, weak to holy attribute. Weak to light and silver. Elf Talented for magic, agile. Few in numbers. Hated by Dark Elves.

"Hated by most races, weak to holy attribute. weak to light and silver. One, two, three. Being controlled as a lesser vampire is four." Frei followed his lesser vampire comrades while thinking about the strange phenomenon. "Few in numbers, hated by dark elves. One, two."

It perfectly fit with the number of "hostile actions" stopped and Frei was quite sure now that he knew what was going on. After the Galacron's attack directed at the interface of the Divine Universe, it entered Safe Mode, preventing him from doing anything with it, but intercepting all harmful actions to his soul, including penalties of the Fabled Universe. That was the reason why Iralion had not killed him, but had been confused instead, even though he should have been hated by dark elves.

"Wait, does that mean that I am immune to silver, light and all the negative shit vampires are vulnerable to?" Frei smiled, but quickly corrected his attitude, as he did not want to fall out of line and make a commotion.

"This is incredible, but I am still surrounded by enemies that are all as strong as I am." He sobered up when he looked around, he was basically in the midst of Victor's private army. Following behind others, they soon arrived to a different part of the dungeon that would clearly serve as their home.

"Beasts go here and here, who can be better mingled with humans goes here. Wait for further instructions." Victor separated them into six groups of four. There were others already waiting in some of the chambers. When Frei entered a chamber that had been assigned to him, his eyes nearly fell out when he saw Nitarja lying on a bed.

"Nitarja? Is that you?" He sat down on one of the beds, staring at a catkin that looked exactly like Nitarja before they had been swallowed by the Fabled Universe.

"Hello, Frei." She did not look happy at all. "It seems we will both be blood slaves."

"You do not know that." He tried to provide her with a bit of hope.

"I do, there is no way out after you have become a blood slave. We are done." She replied gloomily and Frei had to avert his face from her to hide his smile.

"We will see about that." He whispered under his breath and began to think of how to break the bond his old companion was chained with to Victor.