The serrated metal fragment felt like ice against Camien's palm. Without glancing at the shadowy creatures closing in, drawn by the scent of blood, he growled "Follow me" and headed toward the shop's rear.

There was a rear window that appeared to be sealed shut. With a flash of ghostly light from his fingertips, the decayed window frame silently crumbled to dust.


"Hold tight." Without further explanation, he wrapped his arm around Ella's waist, his icy aura instantly enveloping her.

The next moment, weightlessness struck. Ella felt the scenery before her eyes plummeting and spinning rapidly, while the howling wind and faint, frustrated roars of their pursuers echoed in her ears.

This was not a speed or method of movement comprehensible to humans—it was the power belonging to the ancient vampire race.


When she finally regained her footing, she found herself at the edge of the Black Forest, with the filth and clamor of Black Water Alley completely cut off in the distance.

Camien immediately released his hand, as if touching her was some kind of taboo. His face was paler than usual, and the dark blood seeping from the wound on his left arm had already soaked through the tear in his coat, appearing particularly striking in the cold moonlight.


"Can you walk?" he asked, his voice carrying a barely perceptible weakness.

Ella suppressed the surge of energy caused by her previous rapid movement and nodded. She didn't ask about their destination, just silently followed beside him, maintaining a distance of one step.

Trust remained thin, but a certain tacit understanding, based on their shared experience of danger, was quietly taking root.

He didn't take her back to the main building of the official residence, but instead circled to the back of the estate, passing through a grove of ancient oak trees that appeared gloomy and dense even in daylight. Hidden among the trees was a low stone structure that almost merged with the mountainside, its entrance half-concealed by intertwining vines, easily overlooked unless deliberately sought.

"My study," Camien explained briefly, pressing his finger against an inconspicuous indentation on the stone door.

The stone door silently slid inward, and a mixture of scents—ancient parchment, dried herbs, and a very faint cold fragrance—wafted toward them.

The interior space was far more spacious than it appeared from outside. The dome was high, inlaid with phosphorescent stones emitting a soft glow, replacing flickering candles. All four walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with various scrolls, ancient texts, and leather-bound notebooks. In the center of the room stood a massive black wooden desk carved with celestial patterns and mysterious symbols, scattered with manuscripts and instruments. This place resembled not so much the dwelling of a Vampire prince as the sanctuary of a reclusive scholar or alchemist.

Camien walked directly to a cabinet near the desk filled with various crystal bottles and gauze, and began treating the wound on his arm with practiced movements.

Cleaning, applying medicine, bandaging – he performed the entire process meticulously, without even furrowing his brow, as if the wound deep enough to expose bone wasn't on his own body.

Ella stood in the center of the room, her gaze involuntarily drawn to the bookshelf. She recognized some familiar titles, and even several versions of ancient Hunter texts identical to those in her father's collection. Her heartbeat gradually quickened.

"It's safe here. No one knows about it except Samuel," Camien finished bandaging his wound, picked up the metal piece, walked to the desk, and placed it on a black velvet pad.

He looked up, his crimson eyes appearing unfathomably deep under the glowing moonstone light. "Now, Miss Vein, or should I call you Hunter Ella? We need to talk. About this emblem, about the Blood Plague, and," he paused, his voice dropping lower, "about your father, Elias Vein."

He finally tore away the last layer of disguise. Ella wasn't surprised, but instead felt a calm sense of closure. She walked to the desk and faced him across that desk piled with secrets.

"You know my identity. Since when?"

"From the moment you stepped into the ball," Camien replied frankly. "The scent of silver on you, and that hunter's vigilance hidden beneath your elegant appearance, cannot fool a nose and eyes that have lived for hundreds of years." He tilted his head slightly, looking toward a certain shelf. "I invited you, partly to find out why the Hunters Guild suddenly became so "interested" in me, sending such a… special assassin. On the other hand, it was because of your surname—Vein."

He walked around the desk toward that bookshelf and pulled out a leather-bound notebook that was already mottled and severely worn around the edges.

Ella's breath stopped instantly—that notebook's style was almost identical to the one her father often used!

Camien gently pushed the notebook in front of Ella. "This is a copy of the correspondence and research findings between your father and me from thirty years ago. The original must have been destroyed in that great fire back then."

Ella's fingers trembled slightly as she touched the cold leather cover. She opened the first page, and her father's familiar, somewhat untidy yet forceful handwriting came into view.

What was recorded was not Hunter techniques or Vampire weaknesses, but research on 'resonance of life essence,' 'compatibility studies of blood factors among different species,' 'seeking possibilities of coexistence beyond hatred and fear'… These theories were completely different from the Hunter doctrines she had been instilled with since childhood, and could even be said to go against them entirely.

As she turned page after page, her heart felt as if it were being tightly gripped by an invisible hand. In their correspondence, her father addressed Camien as 'the respectable scholar, Mr. Alcarte,' and the two discussed academic matters with rigor and passion, occasionally even sharing the cold, hard jokes that only researchers would understand. They had indeed been allies, united for a seemingly impossible ideal—to break down racial barriers and explore the foundation for peaceful coexistence.

"That massacre…" Ella's voice was dry as she looked up, her purple-gray eyes filled with confusion and pain. "If you were allies, why did…"

Camien's gaze darkened, revealing a heaviness that even the years had failed to erode. "Because we touched upon certain "taboos" that some people didn't want revealed. Our research may have threatened some deeply entrenched orders, whether within the vampire clan or… within the Hunters Guild." He pointed to the metal fragment. "The patterns on this are an extremely ancient, almost lost variant of sealing techniques, commonly used to confine and distort powerful energy sources. And its style leans toward… the heritage of certain ancient Hunter schools."

He walked to the other side of the bookshelf and took down a yellowed parchment map, spreading it out on the table. It was a map of Fog City and its surrounding areas from decades ago.

"Back then, the night before your family was attacked, I received an urgent message from your father mentioning that he had discovered some 'unusual energy fluctuations' originating from an abandoned observation station near the Hunters Guild Headquarters. He had a bad feeling and hoped I could assist with the investigation."

Camien's finger firmly pressed on a certain point on the map. "I set out that very night, but was ambushed on the way. The ambushers were well-trained, ruthless, and... used a potion similar to the predecessor of the Blood Plague, which could corrode vampire powers. By the time I managed to break free and reach the Vein mansion, it was already too late. The fire had consumed everything, and I only managed to find this copy that your father had hidden in advance at the edge of the ruins."

His gaze returned to Ella's face, with a frankness that bordered on cruelty. "The traces left at the scene point to a silver-haired, powerful vampire who wielded frost powers. Everyone believed it was me, or one of my trusted associates. I tried to investigate, but all the clues mysteriously ended. The real killer used our cooperation to meticulously plan everything, eliminating your father as a "traitor" while successfully placing the blame on me, destroying the budding possibility of peace."

Ella stumbled backward, steadying herself against the cold bookshelf. The foundation of vengeance she had firmly believed in for so long began to crumble piece by piece under the weight of irrefutable evidence and logical narrative.

The horrific scenes from the night of her family's massacre remained vivid, and the silhouette of that silver-haired vampire had been her nightmare for years. But what if… what if it wasn't Camien at all?

"Why… why didn't you tell me this sooner?" her voice choked with emotion.

"Tell who?" Camien's rhetorical question was calm and desolate. "The Hunters Guild? Would they believe the defense of a Vampire? Or those elders within the blood clan who view me as an outcast? Speaking out would only make the real mastermind behind this more vigilant, and would also put you… the only descendant of House Vein, in greater danger."

He walked up to her, very close, and she could clearly see the genuine red bloodshot in his eyes, as well as that bottomless exhaustion.

"I brought you into the mansion partly with the intention of using you to investigate the Blood Plague, but also wanting to keep you within my sight, to observe, and to protect. Until I could determine whether you were worthy of trust, whether you had the capacity to bear this earth-shattering truth."

Ella lowered her head, tears finally sliding down uncontrollably, dropping onto the weathered cover of her father's notebook, spreading small dark marks.

She had harbored hatred for ten years, honed her skills just to take his life, only to discover that the object of her vengeance might have been false from the beginning.

The belief that had kept her going collapsed with a crash, leaving not emptiness, but a more immense confusion and heaviness about betrayal, conspiracy, and responsibility.

She felt a cold hand placed gently on her shoulder, with a hint of hesitation, conveying something like comfort.

"Hatred is simple, Ella Vein," Camien's voice was unprecedentedly low, "while truth is often covered in thorns. Now, what we need to decide is not who was right or wrong in the past, but how to stop the true enemy who exploited the tragedies of both our families and now seeks to destroy everything with the Blood Plague."

Ella raised her tear-filled face, looking at the Vampire before her whom she had once sworn to kill.

His eyes held no victor's smugness, only an ally's gravity. The flower he had given her, named 'Night Shadow Rose,' which symbolized both warning and temptation, now carried a completely new and heart-stirring meaning.

She took a deep breath, forcefully wiping away the tears on her face. In her purple-gray eyes, the chaos gradually settled, replaced by a tempered, more determined light.

"Tell me," her voice still carried traces of crying, but had already regained its strength, "what should we do next?"