Chapter 433: The meeting.
A silence fell around as Victor spoke his words.
Vlad stared into Victor's red eyes for a few seconds, and then that silence was broken.
"Initially... I was just going to invite the three Countesses here."
"Scathach Scarlett, representing the military."
"Annasthashia Fulger, representing food management."
"Agnes Snow, representing domestic and foreign policy."
"...."
"Initially, that was my plan... But that changed when I realized this matter involved you too, Victor."
"Actually, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that you would be the person most affected when this matter explodes."
"...." Victor narrowed his eyes slightly.
And he wasn't the only one, Scathach, Natashia and Agnes narrowed their eyes too.
"Cut the mystery, Vlad. What happened?" Agnes asked impatiently.
Vlad ignored Agnes, he was used to the woman's lack of respect, he just continued to stare with a neutral gaze, a gaze that made even the Gods flinch in fear.
And internally, he couldn't help but think:
'Ahh~, it's always been like this, right? He was never afraid to face me, even the first time he met me, he was always like that, he always had this brave personality.'
He just stood there, straight, like an indestructible pillar.
A quality he wanted his children to inherit, but none of them did.
Unfortunately, the fate of the Progenitor's offspring is sad. This seemed to be a rule of the world or something, but no matter how many children a Progenitor had, none of their children would completely inherit his blood, not even Ophis has 100% of his blood.
And the quality of the little girl's blood was very low compared to a real Progenitor, proof of this lied in the fact that she had no power to control 'blood' or give 'value' to souls, an ability exclusive to Progenitors.
'Progenitors are not born by 'artificial' means, they are created by fate.' That was the conclusion Vlad came to after observing the story.
Just take Victor for example. Due to the event of 'many' coincidences, he had a chance to awaken his Progenitor blood, effectively becoming the second living Progenitor of Vampires.
Stopping to stare at Victor, Vlad looked into the eyes of each of the Vampire Counts.
"Ladies and gentlemen."
"Count and Countesses."
"War is coming."
Alexios snapped his finger, and a window appeared in the middle of the table, and in that window, an image appeared.
In a completely red world, thousands of beings of various shapes and sizes were seen.
Where the eyes roamed, all that could be seen was just a sea of beings.
And these Demons were all looking for a common ground.
A big golden gate that looked quite luxurious.
"A massive war, an unprecedented war is coming." Vlad's voice echoed around as the Counts stared at this image with shocked eyes.
"A war that only happened in the age of Genesis."
"And the stage for this war is Earth."
The image of a gigantic Demon over five meters tall was seen, it had large sharp tails, four sharp claws, hellish red eyes and several horns on its head.
This Demon was on its feet impatiently, and in his hand was a chain that connected to a collar that hung around a Demon woman's throat who appeared to be badly hurt.
She was shaped much like Morgana, with succubus wings, horns, and tails, she has long, night-black hair, golden eyes, and a sinful body.
"...." Victor couldn't help but shake his hands when he saw the creature in front of him, his smile threatening to break and grow wider, even if it was just an image, he could tell how strong that creature was.
'Now, I understand what he means about this involving me...'
Memories of the little Demons appearing in the human world and creating a base popped into Victor's head.
'If I'm not mistaken, this image is a recording, if the period of time that Vlad made this recording, and called the meeting... That means that the Demon invasion is more advanced than anticipated, and all this happened well under the eyes of Supernatural Beings...' With just a little bit of information, Victor was able to understand more or less what was going on, and if what he thought was correct.
The shit was long gone on the fan, and it was only a matter of time before all this shit exploded.
"Diablo, won the war."
"Lilith, The Mother of Demons, has lost and is being used as a prisoner for the sole purpose of opening the Gates of Hell when the time comes."
"My spies could not determine the cause of Lilith's defeat. Even though she didn't have the same number of Demons as Diablo, Lilith was undoubtedly strong, she alone could fight Diablo... But that was in the past."
"Beings evolve, and get stronger..." Scathach spoke after getting over her shock.
"Isn't this a normal result?"
"...Yes, indeed. Beings evolve, but you know that when beings reach a certain strength, progress towards getting stronger becomes slower."
"....." Scathach, Agnes, and Natashia understood this very well.
"Diablo and Lilith are the same, as ancient beings who reached the height of their strength, they evolve slowly over time, but the strength disparity shouldn't be that great."
"Lilith's army was completely destroyed when Diablo personally attacked, Lilith didn't stand a chance."
"..." Scathach opened her eyes wide, only she and Vlad understood how ridiculous what Vlad just said was.
"In the past, they were even, but something happened… Something that broke the balance of Hell."
"Interference from a third group is very likely."
"Of course, we cannot ignore the help of a possible artifact."
"Or an 'exceptional' existence."
Scathach put her hand on her chin and began to think:
'In a fight between High Level Beings, the slightest advantage in power is crucial, this small advantage can result in the defeat or victory of a being... But the difference of someone who had the same level shouldn't be so great.'
The example of this is Scathach, Natashia, and Agnes.
Although Scathach was getting stronger thanks to Victor's blood, and her strength level is slowly increasing,
She would not suddenly gain a strength that would be able to easily crush the two Countesses.
This is irrational.
'An exceptional existence, a possible artifact, or the help of an outside group... Too many possibilities, too little information... I don't like it.'
"Do you understand now why I called you?" Vlad asked Victor.
"Yes." Victor nodded in understanding.
"If you don't want to lose your loved ones, I suggest you bring them all to Nightingale."
Natashia couldn't help but look at Vlad with different eyes:
'Looks like he really learned from his previous mistake.'
She just thought he would be another grumpy old man who didn't mind repeating his mistake, but as expected of an Ancient King, he learned from his mistake.
"...." Victor remained silent, he was obviously thinking about Vlad's words.
"Knowing the context of this meeting, I will now move on to the main subject-."
"Before that." Victor interrupted Vlad.
Vlad stopped talking, and went back to looking at Victor.
"I have some information you're going to want."
"Oh?" Vlad raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
"When I was in the human world, I accidentally came across low-level Devils capturing human beings."
"By tricking one of these Demons, I followed them to an underground base that appeared to be some kind of factory, and in that factory, they were creating Demons from the corpses of humans. I blew up this factory because of the disgust I felt at the time."
"!!!"
Everyone's eyes opened wide.
"Where was this factory?"
"On the border between Canada and the United States, it was in an isolated and open area"
"Alexios." Vlad ordered his subordinate, even with not so precise location information, for Alexios this was not a problem, with his power, he could easily find it just by investigating the 'past' of that land.
"Yes, My Master." Alexios wasted no time, and quickly disappeared into a portal.
"Victor, are you sure of what you saw?" Scathach asked seriously.
"Yes."
"You specifically saw Demons turning Humans into Demons, right?" Natashia asked seriously.
"Yes..." Victor looked at the women with a strange look.
"…why is this so shocking?" Agnes asked confused.
'Indeed, why is this so shocking...?' Victor had no memories related to Demons.
"...." Natashia and Scathach looked at Agnes with a look of disbelief, it was as if they were seeing a dumb woman.
"Have you never read the records of your ancestors?" Natashia asked.
"...No?"
"...." The two were even more speechless, just what kind of Clan leader has no interest in her own Clan's past!? This was information passed from leader to leader, things related to weaknesses of other races, etc.
It was mandatory knowledge.
'As expected of Agnes, the woman who only cared about her husband.'
The two women thought at the same time.
Before Natashia could explain anything to Agnes, a portal appeared, and Alexios exited the portal.
"Master, I found traces of corruption at the site."
"...." Vlad's face darkened slightly.
"...fuck." Natashia spoke in disbelief.
"Is the invasion already so advanced!?" She spoke in shock: "How did no one notice anything? Or rather, how did these Pigeons not notice anything?"
"Shouldn't they be experts in the field of Demons?"
"...Oh, I forgot to mention, that I saw a magical barrier around the factory."
"Magic barrier…? How expected are those greedy bitches.." Scathach spoke in disgust, she didn't distrust Victor's words, she knew his special eyes after all.
"…Did you 'see?'" Vlad asked curiously.
"...." Victor was quiet and just smiled, he already revealed too much, he didn't want to give more information regarding his skill to this old man.
"...Although Witches are greedy, I don't think they would risk being enemies of all races to help Demons, they have a lot to lose." Natashia spoke in a neutral tone.
Scathach was silent, Natashia's thoughts made sense, but even so, the possibility of the Witches being involved was not completely null.
They could always help 'indirectly', and if the shit hits the fan, they'd stop trading with Demons altogether.
'They might as well help out before the invasion happens, and then go back to the 'good guys' side and make money on that side too.' That was also a possibility that Scathach was thinking about.
This kind of attitude was not uncommon for Witches, if a war were to break out, they would benefit as much as possible from both enemy forces.
"This is bad, if several factories are spread out at strategic points, the damage will be too big..." Natashia commented lightly.
If the human world disappeared, everyone would lose, after all, Nightingale itself had business with the human world, and like it or not, humans were, in a way, the Vampires' food source.
Vampires were their 'natural predators'.
Despite being able to drink the blood of other Supernatural Creatures, humans were more chosen, because as their population was larger and there was no chance of much trouble if they caught a few random humans. They were small, and there was also the fact that the variety of tastes of human blood is highly prized by Vampires.
"Tsk, can someone explain to me why the devils having a factory is a bad thing?" Agnes asked with mild annoyance, she felt she had been left out of the discussion.
'I would like to know too.' Victor thought, but didn't say anything, just remained silent.
"One thing that Demons and Angels share in common is... They need the 'environment' to exert their strength." As a teacher, Alexios began to explain:
"Demons need the Energy of Corruption, and Angels need Holy Energy."
"If any of the 72 pillar level Demons step on Earth in their real body, they will slowly get weaker, the same applies to high level Angels and Archangels."
"So when these beings come down to Earth, they need to create a territory."
"Angels have Churches as their territory, because of that, in the past it was quite common to see Angels descending on Churches, another tool they can use is their 'Saints', humans who have been blessed by the God of the Bible, and all these Saints have a common ability, they can declare a territory."
"And just as in the Church, within that territory, the Angels can freely exert their full strength without being weakened."
"In contrast, Demons have their factories that use negative emotions to corrupt humans, and after killing them, reincarnate those humans as Demons, and make them spread the 'corruption' that is contained in their body."
"The factory itself is a demonic structure that corrupts the surrounding area into a hell-like land."
"And as you know, the miasma of Hell is quite lethal to ordinary humans. If one place on Earth is corrupted enough to become a small region of Hell, all humans in that place will die."
"......" Agnes and Victor opened their eyes wide.
Agnes for being shocked by the information.
And Victor for understanding the consequences this entailed if Demons spread these factories across the world.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that planet Earth would become a new Hell for Demons.
....
