Building A Human Empire By Creating A Clan [EN]: Chapter 59

This was the third time.

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Vlad von Holstein sat on his throne.

With a bored expression, he rested his chin on his hand and lowered his gaze.

Below the throne, a human male knelt, awaiting his response.

Behind the man, dozens of young men and women were kneeling in the same manner.

Vlad scanned them one by one before speaking.

“They’re old.”

“Pardon?”

Vlad casually dismissed the man’s words.

Leaning back against the throne, he repeated himself.

“I said they’re old. The blood bags you brought.”

“Th-that can’t be…”

The man looked up in confusion at the slaves.

They were clearly young, with youthful appearances.

He had taken great care in selecting them for their looks, so how could they be considered old?

“P-please, take another look! These humans are so fresh—”

Vlad raised his right hand.

“Gah!”

The man, who had been stammering, clutched at his chest.

His heart stopped beating and began to shrivel.

His face contorted in pain from the crushing pressure.

“Again? A mere blood bag dares to speak to me like that?”

“I-I’m sorry… Cough!”

A torrent of black blood gushed from his mouth.

Each time Vlad lightly clenched and unclenched his right hand, the man rolled his eyes back, vomiting blood and writhing on the floor.

He clutched his chest with one hand and reached out to Vlad with the other, begging for forgiveness. Vlad smirked.

“Haa!”

The magic that had been gripping the man’s heart vanished.

Vlad lowered his hand, rested his chin on his hand again, and said,

“Return. And do not disappoint me again.”

“Haa, haa! Yes…! I-I will definitely! I will not disappoint you!”

The man, with no strength to stand, crawled out of the audience chamber.

The slaves left behind stared at Vlad with eyes full of terror.

Vlad found their expressions pleasing and chuckled.

“Bring them to me in a glass.”

A servant led the slaves away.

Soon after, a very tall man arrived.

“Konrad, you’ve come.”

“Father, were you playing games again?”

“Just a little amusement, amusement.”

Vlad waved his hand dismissively and chuckled.

Finding fault with their age was just a prank born out of boredom.

The target was merely a human, and a low-ranking noble at that.

Killing them for fun was nothing more than disposing of livestock, of which there were plenty.

‘How insignificant humans are.’

He scoffed.

It was pathetic, but also pleasing in a way.

Vlad had once been human, so he enjoyed seeing their inferiority.

The more inferior humans appeared, the more justified his choices became.

‘My decision to abandon humanity was right.’

If he had remained human, his body would already be dust.

Furthermore, no one would remember him.

But what was he now?

‘I am the Emperor of the Empire. The Emperor of the Empire I built myself. And also a pillar of the Grand Assembly [a powerful council of influential beings].’

Vlad recalled his younger days, when he used stones as tools.

He remembered the day he suffered from a high fever, as if he were ill.

He had become a vampire naturally.

‘I was starving for days. Even eating porridge and meat couldn’t satisfy the hunger that drove me mad.’

He bit the father and mother who were wiping the sweat from their child’s body.

It was the first time he had tasted human blood, and it was incredibly sweet.

Soon after, he devoured his screaming sisters and brothers.

The villagers called him a monster and tried to kill him.

‘A monster! I had transcended humanity.’

Still weak, he barely managed to escape.

He hid in a cave, avoiding the sun that burned his skin.

He spent a very long time in that cave.

‘It was a miserable time, but it was when I truly abandoned humanity.’

He devoured weak humans by night,

Sometimes he devoured other vampires,

And he devoured even stronger heteromorphs [beings of different forms or species],

He grew stronger, little by little.

‘After repeating that for a thousand years, then another thousand years, I finally sit on this throne.’

Vlad, who had been a mere human, became Emperor Vlad.

The term ‘bloodkin’ was used exclusively to refer to Vlad’s direct descendants, as he had devoured all other members of his race, using them as nourishment. In the process, he overcame the sun.

The only ones who could stop him, who had also absorbed the servants of his kin, were the elves, dwarves, and dragons, who had built up their history over even longer periods.

‘Now, the dragons are on the verge of extinction. Only the elves and dwarves will be my true opponents. I will continue to wait and bide my time.’

Just as he had annihilated his own kind and built an empire,

He would annihilate all races other than vampires and take the world into his hands.

Vlad confidently steeled himself.

‘If only it weren’t for that damn human.’

A sense of displeasure flashed through Vlad’s mind.

The cause was a human who had recently humiliated him.

‘Edar, Edar Lundringan.’

A scoundrel who dared to usurp the Lundringan name.

He had first seen him several months ago, at an emergency convocation [a formal assembly or gathering].

Raeragon, who enjoyed hunting humans, had brought livestock to the Grand Assembly?

Everyone was surprised and scrutinized the fellow curiously.

‘Raeragon said he was on par with us.’

Vlad didn’t believe it, even after seeing Edar twice.

How could a mere human possess power equal to his?

Even after being humiliated by that human twice, he couldn’t accept it.

Each time he faced him directly, he acknowledged it, even if it wasn’t bravado.

But as soon as he cooled down, he would revert to thinking it was just bravado.

Acknowledging him would shake the very foundation of his being.

‘A human… how dare a human be in the Grand Assembly.’

And the incident that shocked Vlad just as much.

Lord had given Edar the ninth seat.

‘Livestock, not even as food, had ever entered the Grand Assembly.’

They had brought blood bags near the Grand Assembly.

But never had anyone attended the Grand Assembly as a participant.

Most humans didn’t even know the existence of the Grand Assembly, even when interacting with other races. Yet, here was a human who was an attendee of the Grand Assembly, a human representing humans!

Vlad would rather believe that Edar was a dragon in human skin, not a human.

‘I must uncover his true identity.’

He was an existence that defied all common sense.

The eldest son of Thurdret, a human youth barely twenty years old.

Yet, even Vlad, who had lived an overwhelmingly long life, couldn’t fathom his depth.

He knew secrets that only Vlad knew, and he acted as if he knew everything about him.

Whenever he stood before Edar, he felt as if he were naked,

And he felt like he was standing under the sun, as he had in the old days.

‘The sun.’

The being Vlad had once feared the most.

The being that rendered him powerless when he was under it.

As he recalled it, another forgotten memory came to mind.

‘What on earth was that?’

The dizziness that had swept over him when he slammed his hand on the table at the Grand Assembly.

‘At first, I thought it was magical interference.’

The magical interference caused by the Evil Dragon, Tiamar.

When magic met the waves of other magic, the flow became tangled.

Originally, the meeting of magic and magic was either uneventful or simply bounced off each other.

‘Magic either mixes or bounces off each other.’

But Tiamar’s magic neither mixed nor bounced off.

Like barging into a group lined up in perfect order and disrupting the formation, it tangled the balanced flow of magic, making it difficult to control.

It was a phenomenon that caused creatures sensitive to magic to experience dizziness at best, and fainting or death at worst.

‘But it wasn’t magical interference. If it were, there’s no way I wouldn’t have known, and even if I didn’t, there’s no way the others wouldn’t have known.’

Lord was there too, wasn’t he?

The old man who sealed his mad daughter, who had annihilated his own kind, with his own hands.

The lizard who hesitated to kill his daughter, got injured, and lost his immortality.

There was no way Lord wouldn’t know about the phenomenon his daughter had caused.

‘What if it wasn’t magic, but another force that intervened?’

At that moment, the hand that had been tapping the armrest twitched.

‘No… that can’t be.’

Vlad was certain that it was impossible.

If it wasn’t magic, the only other force would be the power of the soul.

Unlike the magic that flowed in nature, it was a force rooted in the soul.

The soul was a mysterious entity that even Vlad, as well as the elves and dwarves, had not fully grasped, and therefore, they did not know how much or how it worked.

If anyone knew, it would be Lord alone.

‘Lord once said that the soul sometimes gives a different power than magic.’

Could that be the power that Edar Lundringan, that human, emitted?

But Vlad dismissed that as nonsense as well.

Could the soul of a mere human be superior to anyone in the Grand Assembly?

‘A mere human, and a lord at that? That’s absurd. I’d rather believe he became a god.’

Of course, that was also ridiculous.

How many beings in this world were called gods?

Even Horbid, whom humans believed in as a god, wasn’t a real god.

A human without even a single follower becoming a god that couldn’t even become one even with followers?

‘I must be out of my mind. Having such delusions.’

He pressed his temples with his thumbs and changed his train of thought.

‘I don’t know what Lord was thinking.’

He thought of Lord, who was weakening day by day.

The being who had ruled the world had now been reduced to an old man in the back room.

And the reason was simply because he couldn’t kill his daughter.

That Lord, who had seemed so transcendent, could be swayed by emotions.

‘He should have killed her. Or controlled her!’

He clicked his tongue.

But he understood his feelings in a way.

Wasn’t he also obsessed with his bloodkin?

If it wasn’t just bloodkin but his real child, it would have been even worse.

‘That woman’s soul. If I could obtain the fragment that sealed it.’

He clenched his fist unconsciously.

The moment Lord extracted Tiamar’s soul.

Vlad, Raeragon, Gothaba, and everyone else were there.

The light emitted by the soul was still vivid in their memories.

Even Vlad, who hated light, was in a state of ecstasy at that moment.

The emotions that had been dulled by the passage of time felt alive again, as if he had returned to the old days.

Vlad wanted to feel that moment again.

Not knowing if it was the corruption created by Tiamar’s soul.

“Umm…”

His neck twitched slightly.

Seeing this, Konrad tilted his head.

“What’s wrong, Father?”

“Nothing. I just had a thought. So, what brings you here?”

“Agathon sent a gift.”

Agathon?

Wasn’t he the youngest of the bloodkin?

A fellow who often whined because he was young.

Even though he was told not to interfere in the human realm, he didn’t listen.

Thanks to him, he had a hard time being mindful of the Grand Assembly.

For the fellow who rampaged in Wallachia [a historical and geographical region of Romania] without knowing his father’s troubles to send a gift instead of a request?

He smiled contentedly and leaned forward.

“A gift? Let’s see it.”

A servant received a wooden box from Konrad and opened it.

Inside the wooden box, a glass bottle was covered in cotton.

The bottle contained a red liquid.

When the lid was opened, a strong scent of blood wafted out.

“Hahaha, that rascal.”

Vlad laughed after smelling the scent.

“There’s no way our little one would just send a gift. What did he say?”

Konrad read the letter enclosed in the wooden box.

“It’s nothing much. He says he’ll give you a better gift next time.”

“A better gift? Is that all? Didn’t he mention anything else in detail?”

“He says he’s going to hunt that human.”

“Human? What human?”

To send a gift just to inform him of a human hunt?

“The human from the Grand Assembly.”

“……”

Wait, Vlad stopped thinking.

Who was going to kill whom? Edar, that human?

Who was going to kill him? Agathon, that little one?

“What nonsense…”

The words slipped out unconsciously.

Vlad closed his mouth and looked at Konrad.

Konrad blinked, waiting for him to continue.

Vlad suddenly realized that he hadn’t told the bloodkin the truth.

The fact that a human named Edar had defeated him twice.

He had simply said that a troublesome human was running rampant in the Grand Assembly.

‘How could I say that I was outwitted by him!’

The first time might have been understandable.

But the second convocation was a Grand Assembly that Vlad had convened himself.

How could he say that Vlad had lost the argument to Edar and retreated?

So he hid what was disadvantageous, and the price was now coming back.

“No! Tell him not to do that!”

He shouted, jumping up.

“Yes? But…”

Vlad approached the hesitant Konrad and snatched the letter.

Konrad’s eyes widened as he read the contents. It was already too late.

The Wallachian Noble Council had issued a summons to Edar.

The letter said that he would visit him soon with good news.

Crinkle

“You fool!”

Konrad was startled by Vlad’s roar.

“F, Father?”

“How many are there now?”

“In Wallachia, besides Agathon, there are two more…”

“Not that! How many children can I take with me right now!”

“Eight, including me.”

“Gather them all! Quickly! If you don’t hurry, Agathon will die!”

“Y, yes, sir!”

Konrad immediately turned around and left the audience chamber.

The servant collided with him and dropped the glass bottle.

The glass bottle shattered, and blood splattered everywhere.

Vlad thought of Agathon in that scene.

‘Agathon… Agathon, you foolish thing!’