Chapter 99: The First Embrace

I stood silently beside Xingyu, gently stroking the colorless stillness of his face, and whispered, “Xingyu, in a little while you will be free. You will no longer have to endure the pain I caused you.”

When I spoke, Xingyu gave no sign of response. As one enslaved by blood, he had already lost himself.

“Blood is the curse of our race, the sorrow of our bloodline. If blood is stained by sin, then I will pronounce your judgment. Darknight Scythe Art—Condemnation.”

At my words, blood surged from Xingyu’s wounds in a violent rush. Even though he had lost his will, a cry of pain tore through him once. The blood drawn from him gathered behind me into a crimson scythe, and nearly every drop of his blood seemed to have been drained away.

I looked at Xingyu with grief-stricken repentance. “I’m sorry, Xingyu. In the end, I still could not protect your happiness. In the end, all I gave you was endless pain. Xingyu, forgive me.” Blood tears fell from my eyes. Then my gaze hardened like stone as I looked upon his face and murmured in a low voice, “I pass sentence. You must confess your sins in eternal death.”

With my voice still hanging in the air, the crimson scythe made of his blood whistled into motion, cutting toward his heart.

The scythe pierced Xingyu’s heart. His wide-open eyes slowly lost their light. His body grew cold by degrees, until at last it became only a corpse.

I watched his life fade away, my eyes holding no regret, only absolute resolve.

Then White Night drew near, closing in on us.

“What are you doing?” he roared when he saw what lay before him.

“And you?” I looked at the fury on his face. I do not know why, but I felt a wave of pity for him. Even with power, even with all plans prepared, he was at the end still utterly alone, with not even a single friend. I could not tell what kind of victory that life was.

In White Night’s horror-struck gaze, I swung my claws toward my own heart and drove my sharp nails in without hindrance. The pain was fierce enough to knot my brows, yet I smiled then—smiled with scorn, with relief.

“No!”

White Night bellowed in fury, too late.

Golden blood flowed from the fingers that had plunged into my heart, and slowly gathered in my palm. At last it pooled into a mass of gold. This was my primordial blood—the nearest thing I possessed to the source blood of Cain, the prime ancestor of the blood-clan. The blood of a vampire king had long coveted. In that moment, I withdrew every drop of my primordial blood without hesitation.

White Night quickened his pace, but everything had already happened in an instant. Without any power of teleportation, he could not be quick enough to stop it.

In White Night’s eyes—fear and anger both burning—I sealed every grain of that golden blood, almost all of my primordial blood, into the shattered heart of Xingyu.

“Xingyu… In the end, I have sent you into endless solitary stillness. I do not ask your forgiveness. I only hope that you will live well.”

Watching his body slowly regain life as it absorbed my primordial blood, I stroked his face and spoke softly. “This may be the last time I can feel your warmth. I could never bring myself to say it before; now I can finally dare to say it. Xingyu— I love you.”

Under the power of my blood, Xingyu’s body, scarred and pockmarked, mended at terrible speed. Wounds that had cut to the bone vanished. Even the fracture in his heart was restored. His consciousness too was returning. He heard me. He wanted to speak, but he had just come back from the dead and could not yet command his body. His lips moved a little, but no sound came. His eyes were frantic.

“Xingyu, I’m sorry. In the end I gave you only that first embrace. I wished for you to enjoy warm sunlight, to live in brightness. But in the end I am sorry—truly, I am sorry.” I smoothed his cheek once more and said tenderly, “Xingyu, you must live. Live in my place, and live in Xiaoyou’s place.”

I pressed my lips to his lips and then smiled.

“Xingyu, farewell.”

Then I spent the last scraps of my power. In the eyes of White Night and the pleading eyes of Xingyu, the space around him rippled like water, then vanished completely. With my final magic, I had teleported Xingyu away. I did not even know where. Bereft of any trace, White Night could no longer find him. Xingyu was safe, for now.

“Liliana, why did you do this? Why would you give him all this?”

White Night at last reached me, speaking in despair and fury. “What good was that man, that wretch, to deserve this from you?”

“Because every one of these torments was brought upon him by me,” I answered, my voice cold with disdain. “Now, it should be I who ends it myself. A person who knows only how to seize and possess will never understand what it truly means to love someone.”

“I don’t understand, and I don’t want to. As long as I get you, that is enough. I have already achieved what I came for. It no longer matters what happens to that wretch. Liliana—now you have no strength left to resist me. Come back with me, and stop this pointless struggle.”

“Is that so?” I replied with contempt. “You laid your traps this time and guessed none of this. Did you expect this turn?”

I looked at his blazing anger and added, “Then let me give you one more surprise. Domain—Lost Paradise.”

I burned my own blood to feed my magic and activated my domain, trapping White Night inside it.

“A domain?”

White Night glanced at the blackness around him and sneered. “Is this your last card? How unexpected—you still have enough power to cast a domain. But, Liliana, what can a domain do to me?”

“It is true that this little strength left to me was barely enough to keep the domain alive,” I said weakly. “I have no power left to attack you. But that is enough. I need only to keep you contained.”

My blood kept burning. For one of the blood-born, blood is life; with so much lost, my life ebbed as well. I did not know how long I could hold out. But I had to hold on. If I could keep White Night here one instant longer, Xingyu’s safety gained one more breath.

“Hah. Then I’ll tear your domain apart and see how you resist.”

White Night clawed through the void in an attempt to shatter the space.

Useless. Not the slightest change.

“This is Lost Paradise,” I said lightly. “It is where things begin and also where they end. It is a void where nothing exists. No attack here has any meaning.”

“What do you want?” White Night asked at last, seeming to understand that he was striking nothing.

“Nothing in particular,” I smiled at him. “Only that we stay here and watch the sunrise together.”

“What?” He widened his eyes in panic. “Are you mad? Are you trying to die?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am tired—tired of this endless life, tired of being a being who can only bring pain to others. I want it all to end. If both you and I die, then perhaps Xingyu and Liril’s lives can return to peace.” I said it with a smile of release. “The pain I brought them, I will end it with my own hands.”

“You’re mad. Completely mad!”

White Night shouted in terror. “I will not die with you. I still have things to do. My goal is not yet fulfilled. How can I just die now?”

He roared and came at me. “Take back this damned domain!”

His claws slashed toward my chest.

White Night lunged, wild and furious. I neither dodged nor flinched, only holding a mocking smile.

When his claw touched my chest, he hesitated—then, in the instant after, drove it in.

“I cannot die like this. I must stay alive.”

“You cannot,” I said as the claw entered my chest. “I cannot be killed.”

I said it and my body dissolved into flecks of starlight.

“What?”

White Night stared at the form that resolved from illusion into flesh and bone before him. “I told you—you cannot kill me. In this place I am an undying thing. So long as this domain remains, I am invincible. White Night, surrender your hope. I will not let you escape. Today, I end all of this.”

“Damn it—damn it! I will not die so easily,” he roared. “I am the Vampire King. I am the one meant to conquer this world. How can I die here?”

He came at me again and again, his claws thrusting into my chest over and over. Yet each time my figure vanished, and in the next instant appeared again nearby.

“I won’t believe it!” he shouted, and charged once more.