"'Enough! Stop!' He furiously slapped, shook, and shoved me, then delivered a hard slap across my face, forcing me off him. 'Don't drink any more!'
I opened my eyes — they had swiftly changed from a light azure blue to the deep crimson of blood, and from that moment on, they never returned to blue. In that instant, everything before me seemed to drift away, as though it had broken down into countless atoms and molecules, only to rapidly reassemble and reorganize right in front of me, forming a far sharper, clearer image. I could see every detail in the room — every shift of shadow and light stood out in perfect clarity. I turned my gaze toward the vampire and found him smiling at me. I could see every single strand of his hair, every pore on his face, every subtle movement — I could even feel the blood flowing through his body, carrying an alluring scent and desire — especially from his still-bleeding wrist. The sight of the blood flowing from the wound seemed to slow into a languid, irresistible slow-motion, stirring an overwhelming craving I couldn't refuse. At the same time, I felt that tremendous power surging, rolling, and rampaging through my body. It was both intimate and utterly foreign, something I couldn't yet fully control. I tried to open my mouth to speak, but no sound came out — as if an invisible force had locked my voice deep in my throat, refusing to let even a whisper escape."
"…So that's how you became a vampire, and from that moment on, you were no longer human."
"Yes." Edward stared into the distance, his eyes filled with an emotion impossible to decipher. "From that instant, I was no longer human. I could never return to my old life, forever separated from everything I had once loved."
"The very first moment after the change, I actually felt that the vampire suddenly seemed… more human. That rose-tinted filter I'd built around him was ripped away so abruptly it left me disoriented. All at once, he stood there, vividly alive, almost indistinguishable from a normal person. If you threw him into a crowd, no one would notice anything unusual. And then — he made me kneel and swear loyalty to him." Edward's lips twitched, as though he wanted to spit in disgust, but he quickly regained his usual refined composure.
"Swear loyalty? Why?"
"…Didn't I mention it earlier? He is… our king. The King of the Blood Clan."
"The King of the Blood Clan?!"
"Yes. I despise him." Edward curled his lip in revulsion. "That's also why he always seemed so noble to me before. I told you — he'd been waiting for that exact posture from me all along. He must have had his eye on me from the start. Even now, I still don't fully understand why he insisted on having me follow him, why he chose me out of so many others. Maybe it was precisely because of that strange curiosity of mine. If I hadn't spoken to him that day…"
"I didn't want to pledge loyalty to him. I hadn't even fully recovered from the transformation — everything had happened so fast that my head felt like it was exploding with pain. I could barely stand, and yet he forced me to my knees, made me recite the oath, and then asked if I would stay by his side. I hesitated for a moment… then nodded. Because I knew I had nowhere else to go. I could never return to that familiar little town. And right after that, he laughed. 'I knew you would choose to stay.' As if everything had always been under his control. What an arrogant, detestable man."
"The next few days, I spent entirely in the castle with him. He would tell me about the history of vampires — how they had existed for countless years even before humans appeared, all the way up to the present. But I had zero interest in any of that history. All I wanted was to go outside, to see the world with my new eyes, to experience this familiar yet utterly alien environment. But he absolutely refused to let me leave.
'You're not ready to go out yet,' he would always say, then forcibly keep me confined inside his castle.
'Why not?'
'Because…' His gray eyes flickered, as though he were hiding something. 'You've only just become a new vampire. I need to teach you the new rules — our clan's history spanning tens of thousands of years, our hierarchy, everything about us… Just listen!' At those moments he would often become particularly irritated, as if I had touched upon some sacred, untouchable taboo.
'You said earlier that vampires aren't afraid of anything, right?'
'Yes.' He gave me a faint glance, then poured himself another glass of wine.
'Then… do you die?'
'…Yes. Low-tier vampires fear sunlight; high-tier vampires do not. Like me.' He bared his teeth proudly. 'When we go too long without drinking blood, we become mindless monsters that only know how to attack others, and eventually our bodies wither and die. There are also a few other ways — draining all our blood, decapitation, and so on. Aside from that, most common human methods of death… simply don't work on us.'
'How do you determine low-tier versus high-tier?'
'Low-tier vampires are those turned by other low-tier vampires. Those directly turned by the King are high-tier. Low-tier vampires must go through a very long process of experience and existence to gradually gain their own power and eventually lose their fear of sunlight. It depends on their innate talent… Of course, the fastest way for a low-tier vampire to rise is to find a high-tier one and drink their blood.'"