‘This is bad…This is really, really bad! How could this happen?!’

Verine’s thoughts were in complete disarray as she struggled to comprehend the situation she found herself in.

That man, the blond one with the half mask, he just barged into a place she was hiding in, and without a word of warning beat her senseless to a pulp.

As Lesser Vampire, Verine Nain was far stronger than a normal human being, even a Holy Knight level warrior would be overwhelmed by her strength.

Yet, she was easily bested by that man.

It was almost as if he already fought her before, studied her every move and came up with perfect counters.

And now, she found herself bound by some strange spell that made her unable to defy his commands.

‘He is the same man who set a trap for me a few months ago, ate my heart and set me on fire. After eating my heart, he most likely gained the ability to sense me…That must be why he was able to track me down….Ugh! This is so frustrating! Just when I was beginning to regain my strength, he shows up like a plague and ruins everything!’

‘What can I do? At this rate Lord Roltimer will easily hunt me down and I will become just another dish on his plate!’

Lord Roltimer, the Greater Vampire, he was the one she dreaded above all others.

Undead Queen represented the peak for undead kind, Demon King was the peak for demon kind, and Knight of Light was that for human kind.

By that train of thought, Greater Vampire represented the peak for vampire kind.

In the world, there are less than a thirty Greater Vampires, the purebloods, they were extremely rare.

One of the reasons they were so rare was due to the practice of cannibalism.

Originally, when two vampires interacted with each other, they would battle to death, resulting in the stronger one consuming the weaker one, adding the power of the weaker vampire to that of the stronger vampire.

But because this kind of practice would lead to the extinction of Greater Vampires, they chose to no longer consume each other and settle for the next best dish – Middle and Lesser Vampires.

Unlike the Greater Vampires, there are hundreds of Lesser Vampires within the human kingdom alone, making them a perfect prey to hunt down and feast upon.

Lord Roltimer was known as the Gourmet among the Greater Vampires, for a reason.

He would only hunt Lesser Vampires that were young women that suited his tastes.

If he marked one as his meal, then no matter what, he would hunt her down and turn her body into a something delicious…

Once, she and the other unfortunate Lesser Vampires were captured by Lord Roltimer’s servants.

Not willing to become someone’s meal, Verine resorted to consuming the hearts of her fellow prisoners in order to gain enough power to escape her cell.

Ever since then, Lord Roltimer was after her.

She did manage to lose track of him when she entered the Merok territory within the Holy City, but she knew it was just a matter of time before she would be found.

Unfortunately, since she consumed the hearts of the other Lesser Vampires, her value in Lord Roltimer’s eyes skyrocketed.

For him she was like a roasted turkey stuffed with venison.

In short, she was a dream meal of every Gourmet.

Since, she was a vampire; she needed to consume blood to survive, so she hid herself in the shady areas of the Merok territory, feasting upon anyone who was unlucky enough to wander around her hunting grounds.

But it seems doing so had attracted the unwanted attention from someone terrifying.

‘His right hand…He is an undead disguised as a human’

While Vampires were mistaken for undead, and did in fact have many similar traits to them, there was a clear distinction between them.

The simplest difference would be the lack of heartbeat in Undead while the power of the Vampires was directly proportional to how many hearts they possessed.

Eating another Vampire’s heart did not make the Lesser Vampire grow additional hearts, but instead enhanced the existing hearts, making them more powerful.

That is why; losing one of her hearts to that undead fiend was a rather crippling experience to her. She lost practically one third of her power, and no matter how much human blood she drank, it was not enough to get back what she had lost.

Compared to other creatures, human blood was not sufficient.

It was enough to sate her hunger, at least temporarily, but human was not enough.

Consuming human hearts was not a solution either, most human beings are weak, and their hearts do not provide enough power.

But even then, there was one other reason she could no longer eat hearts.

Ever since one of her three hearts was stolen, Verine found herself unable to consume human hearts or any hearts in general.

Her body was weakened to the point that she could not eat solid food.

Verine could think of two reasons.

First one would be that her body needed to restore itself before being able to digest human hearts.

Second reason she could think of was that it was a psychological response.

Maybe having her heart ripped out and eaten had ended up affecting her, making her unable to eat human hearts without throwing them up.

It was most likely a combination of both, weakness and psychological trauma, which made her unable to consume hearts, for the time being.

This was why she was forced to rely on drinking blood.

At the very least, she could still drink blood with no problem.

Human blood did not really taste like anything special.

If she had to give an equivalent, it would be comparable to a stale bread.

Not exactly a tasty treat, but it did allow her to survive and recuperate to a certain extent.

The blood and flesh of Lesser Vampires were far richer than that of humans.

As a result, many Greater Vampires had become addicted to the taste of Lesser Vampires.

Cannibalism made individual vampires grow stronger but at the price of cutting down their population.

That was one of the reasons there were nowhere near as many vampires as demons and humans within this world.

‘What does he plan to do to me?’

Masked man suddenly turned around, picked up a large rock, and smashed her across the face, making her fall down. Then he proceeded to squash her head like a pancake with the rock.

“Master! What the hell are you doing?!” Morphus cried out in fear.

“Confirming a theory. And it seems I was spot on”

Instead of dying, Verine’s damaged features were quickly regenerating.

Within a minute, it looked like nothing happened to her.

‘What the hell was that?’ Verine could barely think straight after that man just brutalized her.

“As long as the hearts are not removed, she can regenerate near indefinitely.”

“That is some crazy healing power!” Even Morphus was impressed by the regenerative power of a Lesser Vampire.

“If the Lesser One is like this, I can only imagine what the Greater One is like…” Dark Lord muttered in deep thought.

Then, he proceeded to take out a small mana stone from his pocket, put it inside Verine’s mouth, and then snapped his fingers.

Her head immediately exploded, sending pieces of her skull flying in different directions.

That was no ordinary mana stone; it was imbued with explosive magic, activated by Dark Lord’s mental command.

The finger snap was just for sake of visualizing the mental command.

Seeing that Morphus was looking in horror at the scene of exploding Lesser Vampire, Dark Lord casually put his hand on his subordinate’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, she will be fine.”

“Isn’t this tad bit too excessive? Even if she can regenerate…”

“That is exactly why she is a perfect subject for me to test out my latest weapons on. You wanted her to be left alive so that she can be of use to us, right? That is good way to use her”

“Isn’t it too cruel?”

“Not by a long shot” Dark Lord had much more sinister plans brewing in the back of his mind.

By now, Verine completely regenerated her head.

While she had her hearts, she possessed great regenerative power, which in some ways was close to immortality, but it did not prevent her from feeling pain inflicted upon her.

Take away her hearts; she will be just as mortal as a human being.

Vampires could survive if all their hearts are taken away, but they would be left as mortals, unable to defy death.

Without word of warning, Dark Lord took out a tomahawk from his storage ring and proceeded to throw it at Verine’s head, splitting it open in the middle like a juicy watermelon.

“Must you keep doing that?” By now, it was just painful to watch.

“Yes I do, yes I do” Dark Lord answered with a childish grin.

As a side effect of his curse, Dark Lord developed a rather extreme case of sadism.

And now he had a perfect toy to get his frustrations out on.