My Blood Legacy: Reincarnated as a Vampire

Dante surveyed the battlefield, his eyes scanning the grotesque, twisted bodies of the hybrids. Something was off, not what he expected after so many fights. He felt something very wrong about the situation, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Something's seriously wrong..." Dante murmured, looking at the scene before him again, once more in an open field littered with countless, utterly distorted hybrid monsters.

"Dante, I don't want to doubt you, but are you sure this isn't some plan of Fenrir's?" Siren asked while cleaning the blood from her claws.

"I'm starting to doubt myself too. I don't feel any divine energy coming from them... Something's definitely off with these guys." Dante replied as more hellhounds emerged to absorb the hybrids.

"Indeed, there's no trace of divine energy from them," Lilith knelt next to one of the dead carcasses.

Her eyes gleamed as she began analyzing the body before her, but unfortunately, she could do nothing. Having lost her immortality, she had also lost a great deal of her former analytical prowess. Now, she was no different from a Demon King.

Of course, she was still far above any of the current Demon Kings, and even if all of them combined their strength, they wouldn't measure up to half of her current power.

"I'm sick of this shit," Valentina said, slamming Gungnir into the sandy ground. "Let's head to the capital. I'm wiping out every single werewolf until I find who's responsible for this." Her voice was seething with rage.

It was hard to blame Valentina. She had been fighting for hours against what felt like an endless wall of mindless flesh. As a natural-born warrior, she craved a real fight, something challenging. But all she found here were hollow bodies that barely reacted.

"Stop acting on impulse, Valentina," Dante said, his voice deep. He felt a strange pain course through his body for an instant, as though something was trying to invade his very essence. But he took a deep breath, and the dark energy of Tiamat absorbed the disturbance, stabilizing him. "These monsters are just the symptom.

There's no point in obliterating everything without understanding what's behind it."

Dante looked toward the horizon with a mix of frustration and fatigue, his eyes fixed on the twilight beginning to descend over the field. "Ah, shit," he muttered, his voice dripping with disdain. "I'm starting to get sick of this shit too." He no longer displayed the same anticipation as before. The endless battles, the answers that never came... it was all starting to weigh on him.

But as always, he faced the situation head-on.

Without much hesitation, Dante gestured with his hand, summoning the dark power that resided within him. "Come here," he commanded, his voice resonating with authority as an army of infernal creatures emerged from the shadows around him.

The miasmic hounds, grotesque and powerful, gathered, each of them with glowing red, hungry eyes, their translucent forms dancing on the edge between physical and spectral.

They waited silently, ready to obey their master's command. Dante glanced at one of the twisted hybrid corpses on the ground, which still exuded the strange, incomprehensible aura he'd been investigating. Picking up the dead hybrid's carcass, he lifted it with disdain and tossed it toward the infernal beasts. "Hunt anything with that scent," he ordered, his voice firm and relentless.

The miasmic hounds approached the carcass, sniffing deeply at the remains, their eyes glowing brighter as they picked up the hybrid's essence. One by one, they began to disperse, disappearing into the shadows, heading toward anything that shared that same energy signature.

Lilith watched the scene carefully, her expression concerned. "This won't be enough. I don't think a few hounds will be able to find the people responsible for this," she remarked, but Dante simply sighed.

Dante let out a heavy sigh. He was exhausted. The weight of recent battles, the constant feeling of being on the brink of something larger and darker, and now the absorption of an energy he barely understood... It was all wearing on him in a way that not even his long life and vast power could alleviate. He looked at Lilith, his eyes reflecting a weariness that went beyond the physical.

"I'm tired, Lilith," he said, his voice softer than usual. "I just want to sleep. I'm drained after all the trouble with this new energy... it's exhausting even what I thought was impossible to deplete." He ran a hand over his face, as if trying to rid himself of an invisible weight. "I just need some time."

Lilith raised an eyebrow but kept her tone understanding.

"Alright... Let's head back," she said.

Location: Unknown

In a deep chamber, hidden beneath the ruins of an ancient fortress long forgotten by the maps of the world, a hooded figure sat in absolute silence, observing a series of floating magical mirrors. These mirrors didn't reflect the figure's face but instead scenes of carnage, where grotesque hybrid monsters were being torn apart and absorbed by demonic creatures made of pure miasma.

Each mirror displayed a different location across the continent: dense forests, dark caves, even cities laid waste by the hybrids. In every one of these places, the figure's creations were being annihilated by beings the figure had never encountered before. What should have been an uncontrollable terror for mortals and a substantial threat to the world's factions was being eliminated like trash.

One by one, the grotesque hybrids were being hunted down and destroyed.

The figure, its hood obscuring its features, clicked its tongue in irritation. Beneath the dark cloak, glowing eyes flickered with a mixture of frustration and fascination. Long, skeletal fingers tapped rhythmically on the armrest of a chair, the sound soft but echoing like a menacing whisper in the depths of the chamber.

"So… the Demon Emperor has discovered my little game?" the figure murmured, leaning forward, eyes fixated on the mirrors showing demonic hounds devouring the hybrids like mere scraps of rotten flesh. "Or perhaps… it's not him?" The voice was low and sharp, like the hiss of steel slicing through silk. "This is… intriguing."

Raising a bony hand, the figure made a delicate gesture in the air. In response, one of the mirrors enlarged, zooming in on Dante, Lilith, and Valentina standing amidst the dead hybrids, their presences dominating the battlefield. The figure watched closely as Dante, with a seemingly casual gesture, summoned more miasmic hounds to consume what was left of the creatures.

The power flowing from him… the strength. But more than that, the resonance between Dante and the infernal entities.

"The Demon Emperor is absorbing part of Tiamat's energy… fascinating." The figure tilted its head, a curious expression just visible beneath the hood. "But how… is he managing the corruption so well? That's not something an ordinary demon should be capable of. Even a sovereign of his own realm… this energy should be tearing him apart from within." A crooked smile formed on the pale lips.

"Or perhaps… he's not so ordinary after all."

The figure rose from the chair, the long robes dragging across the stone floor with a hissing sound. It walked toward the nearest mirror, extending a hand toward the image of Dante. "You should be writhing in agony by now, Emperor. And yet, here you stand, absorbing every fragment of power that should have been a curse."

Closing its fingers into a fist, the figure distorted the image in the mirror, as if the liquid surface was resisting the touch. For a moment, a dark aura radiated from the hooded figure, making the air around it vibrate and the mirrors flicker, but it soon relaxed, letting out a soft, amused sigh.

"Well, this is merely a setback. Nothing we can't work around… or learn from." The figure took a step back, its eyes now burning with renewed determination. "If the Emperor wants to absorb my creations, then so be it. He's only giving me more information about himself." With a gesture, the mirrors began to rearrange themselves, showing other locations where the hybrids were still hiding.

But one by one, the mirrors displayed the same thing: Dante's miasmic hounds emerging from the shadows and tearing through the creations. The hybrid beasts, which were supposed to be the figure's most terrifying weapons, were being hunted like easy prey, crushed without mercy. And it wasn't just happening in one place. It was happening across the continent, simultaneously.

The monsters were being wiped out.

The hooded figure stared in silence for a moment, the weight of the situation settling in. Then, with a deep breath, it spoke softly, though the words carried a cold, menacing weight.

"Very well, Demon Emperor. You want to play with darkness? Let's see just how deep the abyss goes."

"Damn you…" he muttered, though there was a faint tone of admiration in his voice. "You really are destroying everything, aren't you?" His eyes gleamed with a new fire. "If that's what you want, Emperor… then I'll give you a true challenge."

The figure turned toward the deep shadows behind him. There, indistinct forms shifted, presences far more dangerous than the hybrids. Beings he had kept hidden, waiting for the right moment. "Prepare yourselves," he said with a sinister smile. "Let's show the Emperor the true power of Tiamat."

With a gesture, the shadows began to take shape, and he watched as his darker creations awakened. These were not mere hybrids, but entities forged from fragments much closer to Tiamat's own power. Creatures of pure destruction, shaped by chaos and malice.

"You want to hunt my creations, Dante?" The figure's voice echoed through the dark chamber. "Then hunt this."

With a simple movement, he unleashed the creatures, sending them to the surface, directly toward where Dante and his allies were located. A new wave of monsters would emerge, much stronger and deadlier, ready to face the Demon Emperor and test the limits of the power he dared to absorb.