The Blood Elixir

'I...'

'I definitely thought that she would be a pawn...'

'I was going to toss her anyway...'

'But...'

'But even after thinking that, why does my heart pain so much?'

Luke cried the entire day and the next two days too when he heard the news about the death of his other trustworthy members from lower realms. No one was on his side, no one strong enough to protect him.

After this Luke too died and now he was reincarnated as a boy named Jay and the same was true for Isabelle too.

It seemed as if she too reincarnated just like him, however, the difference was, she retained her memory since the start which Luke only remembered everything recently.

Furthermore, Isabelle had the same appearance as earlier - with deep red eyes, silver-white hair, and a fair complexion. Luke had a portion of his appearance retained - his deep black dead eyes and black hair.

Of course, his blood was now red instead of black so he didn't retain it completely!

[ End of flashback ]

"But look Luke, it's such a miracle right that we met again... Also, I reincarnated as a vampire just as I was earlier but there is a lot of difference...", Isabelle said with a smile.

"Different? I don't see any difference."

"You are still like a kid as you were earlier.", Luke laughed and tried to tease her when he said that.

"Nope, can't you see?"

"I've grown up!"

"Hmph!"

Seemed like she was a bit dissatisfied with what Luke said. She still had a child-like appearance after all, so Luke wasn't the one to blame.

'She is strong for sure...'

'But not as much as she was in the past.'

'I wonder what happened...', Luke started to wonder.

[ recap of ranks ]

E class star 1 -> D class star 1 -> C class star 1 -> B class star 1 -> A class star 1 -> S class star 1

These were the ranking orders from the weakest being E class to S class. Of course, a 1 star would always move forward to one star without the improvement in the star quantity after all that was something decided during birth.

Similarly, one could move to a higher class with respective orders of stars. An E class with start 2 would only be able to go to D class star 2. His stars being the same, but class increasing.

That would have been the case as long as one didn't intend to climb the tower. If one did climb the tower, then the rank order would change.

No one could jump directly from E class star 1 to D class star 1. So one would go through the intermediate phase which would result in more star seas.

So appropriate would be E class star 1 -> E class star 2 -> E class star 3 -> E class star 4 -> E class star 5.

After reaching this phase, all the star seas would fuse leading to the formation of another phase - a phase of breakthrough.

So a single star sea would expand to fit all the stars from other seas. One would rise to D class star 1.

[ recap ends ]

So when Luke saw Isabelle and Sam, he concluded that she was at least S class 4 star level which was pretty weak in his mindset because there were other stronger angels out there.

Even he could grow stronger than that easily - was what he thought.

In any case, now Luke smiled since he knew that he found one companion. The previous reasoning of pawns and other things never appeared in his mind and this time he genuinely saw Isabelle as a friend, but he still had to get the Blood Elixir.

"So tell me, Isabelle, where is the Blood Elixir?", Luke asked.

"..."

She smiled and said, "I have kept it safe for you."

However, that wasn't the answer what Luke was looking for. He wanted to know where it was precisely. For a second he thought that Isabelle was trying to play mind games but then he understood what she wanted when she stared at the food.

"Sigh, get the blood elixir here. I will finish this food meanwhile." - was what Luke said.

"Okay Luke.", she smiled and vanished almost instantly.

Luke finished the food too without wasting any time and drank the little wine that was given to him in a golden cup.

'I wonder if Isabelle will help me in my revenge...'

'It is revenge against God so...'

'I don't know if she will agree or not.'

Luke waited patiently for quite some time after which Isabelle returned.

She walked close to Luke and then knelt on the ground while showing the Blood Elixir to him.

"Here Luke, this is the Blood elixir which you had hidden that day."

"I retired it for you.", was what she said.

Luke looked at the potion and almost immediately identified that it was the same elixir. It was no counterfeit or deception.

Luke was impressed and ashamed at the same time. In his previous life, he used to doubt her and even now he doubted her because of which he felt ashamed.

But when he took it into his hands and then took a closer look, he found something different.

He was at first confused by this and upon carefully recalling, he realized that something was wrong, definitely wrong.

"Isabelle..."

"Yes Luke?", she raised her head when he called out her name.

She thought that she would find kind eyes but instead, the eyes which she found seemed lifeless. It was as if death was glaring at her.

"Who the heck dared to drink my Blood Elixir?", he asked with rage.

The elixir was in fact halved from the previous. Even a drop of it was enough to restore a portion of Luke's power, however, he still wanted to know who drank it because the said person would have also gained similar powers as him!

"..."

Isabelle didn't reply and just swallowed a large amount of dry saliva.

"I..."

"..."

To be continued...