Chapter 3: The Girl Who Crawled Out of the Grave

Cold.

So cold.

Peggy, her eyes unclose at death, lay in the cramped coffin, gradually regaining consciousness. She only felt a burning pain throughout her body, as if thousands of caterpillars were burrowing into her skin, filled with an unbearable itch.

Father, dead.

Mother, dead.

House, burned.

Even I...

Scenes from before her death suddenly flashed through her mind.

The killer had bitten into her neck, and despite her desperate struggles and screams, she couldn't break free.

Her cries had awakened her parents, who came through the door to check.

Then, the killer's claws slit open her father's throat and pierced her mother's chest.

Turning her head, Peggy saw the lips of Levett, the maid from the Achilles family, still stained with fresh blood. Levett had greeted her at the door when Peggy used to go to high school.

Then she set the fire, turning the whole bedroom into an inferno...

It hurt—so much pain.

Peggy in the coffin screamed hoarsely, her voice as harsh as an old pigeon's, filled with the unrest of death, mourning, and hatred.

Finally, she forcefully pushed the coffin lid open, a hand emerged from the ground, feeling the long-lost cool air.

Hmm? Aske, who was sitting on the tombstone, looked over. This girl woke up so soon? I didn't expect her to until midnight...

Struggling out of the grave, Peggy was covered in mud and fallen leaves. She was a seventeen-year-old girl with Armenian heritage, her ink-black hair falling loose behind her, with small braids on either side of her face.

She had the distinctly mixed features of East and West, with the deep, sculpted facial features of Westerners and the delicate, fair complexion of Easterners—a bona fide beautiful NPC.

No wonder in her previous life when she was homeless, she caught the eye of a player passing by.

The scabs from the burns she suffered before death fell off like shedding skin, revealing smooth skin underneath. She breathed lightly, propped herself up with her hands on the edge, and pulled the rest of her body out of the ground.

Then she saw Aske sitting on the tombstone.

"Resurrected from death," Aske clapped his hands with a snap, "Congratulations are in order."

"Achilles!" Anger erupted from the depths of her heart like a volcano, and Peggy sprang up from the ground in an instant, her right hand extending into claws as she lunged at Aske.

She wanted to tear this murderer to shreds!

But she was met with a cold flash of light. She was slashed and sent flying.

Mountain Crashing Strike.

At the same moment Peggy lunged, Aske had already jumped down from the tombstone, his hands wielding a sword in a downward slash.

It was the military swordsmanship technique Mountain Crashing Strike from the Holy Solomon Empire, where the swordsman held the blade above their head with both hands, then brought it down with a vicious chop that usually ended the fight upon hitting the enemy.

But Peggy was no ordinary person. She staggered to her feet, a ghastly wound slashed from her left shoulder to her lower right abdomen, nearly revealing her ribs and internal organs.

Knowledge from Flesh I surged into her consciousness, guiding her to channel her physical power to the wound. The flesh around the wound squirmed and fused back together, healing almost instantaneously.

"Not bad," Aske expressed satisfaction.

Such a handy extraordinary ability made Peggy not only a capable damage dealer but also a temporary damage taker when necessary. She would be a perfect addition to his team.

Peggy charged forward again, this time not recklessly straight ahead but in a swift arc, quickly circling to Aske's undefended back.

Another cold flash passed, and she was slashed and sent flying again, the sword leaving a fearsome wound on her skull.

"Let me teach you something," Aske had already turned around, his longsword casually slung over his shoulder, "When you try to flank, don't glance to the side. Keep your eyes locked on mine, pretending you want to charge head-on—covering up your tactical intentions is an important step."

"It was you!" Peggy lay on the ground in pain, her physical power healing the wound on her face. Because of the great expenditure, her spirituality began to dry up, and her consciousness almost fainted, "Achilles! Was it you who killed my parents, wasn't it?!"

"No," Aske said directly.

Peggy paused, her facial expression turning rigid.

After the two confrontations just now, Peggy had recognized that she was no match for Aske.

Although she didn't know how the carefree young noble of the past had suddenly turned into such a fearsome swordsman, if he could kill her with ease, then there was even less reason for him to fabricate a lie to deceive her.

"The murderer is your maid, Levett," Peggy said, enunciating each word clearly.

"Yes, but she did not act under my orders," Aske explained. "In fact, they only take orders from the current mistress of my house, and she is a vampire."

Peggy's body trembled as the pieces in her mind finally fell into place.

"You're not?" she asked tentatively.

"I'm not," Aske replied. "You are."

"I am... I am..." Peggy looked at her own hands, her face ashen, "a vampire."

The summer thunderstorm was so fierce that in an instant, the rain began to fall densely.

In the rain at night, Aske stood with his sword, watching the girl before him kneel on the ground, curling her body in agony, her fingers digging deep into the mud.

Her heart-wrenching cries were drowned out by the wailing wind and rain, unheard by anyone.

The rain grew heavier, showing no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Aske sighed, walked over and picked up Peggy. She did not struggle, nor did she resist, allowing him to carry her as if she were a piece of lifeless, rotten meat.

This graveyard was built upon a small hill, with the highest point being an abandoned house where the caretaker would occasionally reside for the night watch. Approaching the door of the abandoned house, Aske knocked.

No response.

He pushed the door open and found the remnants of wood from the last fire in a dark corner, which he lit. Peggy was placed beside the fire pile, lying on the ground with empty eyes, seemingly having lost all sanity and consciousness.

"Actually, becoming a vampire isn't all bad," Aske began as he took off his soaked cotton armor, trying to dry it by the fire. "Look on the bright side, your appearance is now fixed at 18, the age of blooming youth. To be eternally 18, that's enviable indeed. Plus, you don't need to eat, drink, or breathe, just take blood regularly and stay forever young. Ha, while other women shed blood every month, you'll be drinking blood."

"I'm a monster," Peggy murmured, her mouth moving mechanically.

"So what if you're a monster?" Aske countered. "The ugly ones are the monsters, the attractive ones... they're called supernatural beauties."

"Is there a difference?" Peggy asked with a mournful laugh.

"Of course," Aske replied, as he poked at the fire, making it crackle and pop. "Have you ever heard of the Magic Tide?"

Peggy fell silent.

"When the Magic Tide arrives, times of chaos will emerge, and heroes will rise," Aske said. "Right now, we're at the beginning of a Magic Tide, and the Level Limit for Extraordinary Levels has been raised to 5. Knowledge of Hidden Bloodlines is about to be no secret anymore. You might not quite understand what I'm saying, so let me give you an example. At the end of the Third Epoch, you know about the last three giants of the Solomon Republic? Octavian chose the Dragon's Bloodline, Mark Antony chose the Devil's Bloodline, while Lei Bida was a Purebloodist, rejecting any Extraordinary Bloodline."

"So Lei Bida was the first to be eliminated. In the end, Octavian was victorious in the civil war, declaring himself the lifelong leader of the Solomon Republic—a move that was seen as the milestone of the Republic's transition to Empire," Aske continued. "In Octavian's later years, the Dragon's Bloodline had completely corroded his human Bloodline. After his death, his Extraordinary Power dissipated, and he could no longer maintain his human form, revealing a Giant Dragon true body nearly twenty meters in length. It took no fewer than 40 Power Armor Knights to remove the Giant Dragon's massive corpse from the palace."

"People weren't afraid of this?" Peggy asked, raising her head and biting her lip.

"Not frightened," Aske explained. "The Solomon Sect didn't exist yet at that time. Under the Pantheon belief system, people took pride in their family's Extraordinary Bloodline. In fact, after Octavian's death, his Giant Dragon corpse was sent to the Solomon Pantheon to be enshrined as the Dragon God Caesar Augustus. From then on, Roman Emperors would adopt the name Augustus, believing it contained the Dragon God's power, which would protect them in their grasp over power and allow them to look down upon the world."

Peggy hugged her knees uncomfortably. She was somewhat persuaded by Aske's words, and of course, there was also some instinctual fear. After some thought, she asked again:

"Has there ever been a Vampire Bloodline in history?"

"Oh yes," Aske said. "Vlad III, the Grand Duke of Transylvania, took the Blood Clan line's Bloodline. If I remember correctly, he reached the 4th Level. The Transylvania Duchy itself is a believer in the Catholic Church, and you see, the Grand Duke himself didn't have any issues. Both the Transylvania Duchy and the Khanate Duchy are parts of the Church Court's eastern defensive line, set up to counter the invasion of the nomadic nations migrating from the direction of Siberia."

"Um..." Peggy felt her head was spinning. She had never left Constantinople from childhood and knew nothing of the world outside the East Solomon Empire. However, Aske's words greatly inspired her—the Vampire Bloodline was not scary; it was just one of the myriad Extraordinary Bloodlines.

"Why are you helping me?" Peggy asked, gazing into the fire, the flickering light casting mysterious shifts in her expression.

"Because we share the same goal," Aske answered. "You want revenge for your family, don't you?"

"Yes," Peggy clenched her trouser legs. She was still dressed in the linen shroud she had been wrapped in before her supposed burial, and the coarse texture made her feel somewhat unreal. "What do you want to do?"

"Kill my entire family," Aske said as he tossed a log into the fire. "Of course, it's my own family I'm referring to."

Peggy turned her head to look at him in astonishment.

"Don't look at me like that," Aske said with a smile. "My parents were already killed by that woman. The butler and the servants were turned into Vampires, and they still occupy my ancestral home. Though I'm not that attached to the house, it's still the inheritance left by my parents. I can't let outsiders reap the benefits."

"I understand," Peggy said softly. "We have a common enemy."

"That's right," Aske said. "In the near term, your enemies are the Vampires who killed your parents. But in the long run, the Church, the Night Watchmen, and the Demon Hunters are your true adversaries. Without corresponding Extraordinary Strength, as a member of the Blood Clan, once you're exposed, you'll soon be tracked down and killed."

"You possess the Extraordinary Trait of Flesh I, which means your starting point is higher than most people in this city, including me. What you lack now is just the conversion of Extraordinary Power into Physical Power, as well as the experience of using them. I can teach you that. Of course, it's not for free; you'll need to sign a Soul Contract."