Chapter 12: Not to Be Taken Lightly
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
This was not the first time John had ever seen a starving bloodkin. He had seen his sister starving before. She had been starved for a short time because she was too willful and had been punished by their mother. At that time, her complexion was like cement, haggard and painful, and John had felt very uncomfortable looking at her.
Now he saw Burton, a bloodkin older than him. This room and the passage to the upper floor were under a repulsion spell, repelling any creature other than bloodkin. There was a mass of cushions and quilts on the floor; in the middle lay Burton, dressed in a silk shirt, his body shriveled like a mummy.
Burton’s waist was encircled by a thick iron ring, with a chain as thick as his arm nailed to the floor. Presumably, he did this himself, and had used magic to throw away the key to an unknown place. Physically strong bloodkin could probably break the chain with little effort, but the current Burton was so weak that he was unlikely to do so.
John straightened his tie with one hand, as nervous as if he were going to meet an interviewer. He was a wild bloodkin, hadn’t met many other elders before, and wasn’t quite sure how to greet in the most polite way.
“Forget it, he’s like this anyway…” John moved closer over, put on his insulated gloves, and picked up the silver shackles.
The mummy-like Burton, who was curled up into a ball on the cushions, moved his head slightly but said nothing. John didn’t know if he was too lazy to care or just didn’t have the strength to move.
John first cuffed Burton’s feet, then went to pull his hands. Burton seemed to understand John’s intentions and began to struggle. Weakened, he was no match for John, who quickly subdued him.
“The shackles are to prevent you from beating me up when you’ve had enough…” John said apologetically, then took the blood bag out of the cooler.
He just needed to pry open Burton’s mouth, forcefully pinch out his fangs to poke the blood bag, and hold the bag in place so Burton couldn’t resist and could only suck blood.
John straddled Burton and gripped his face. At this moment, the dried up vampire suddenly opened his eyes and met John’s gaze.
Coraci and Sir Kimplin could only go down at most six or seven steps along the tunnel. The lower part was affected by the repulsion spell so they could not enter. The headless knight’s body paced anxiously around the small parlor, and Coraci said to the knight’s head on the table, “Sir, could you please fill out this form…”
It was a short form from the Unthreatening Creature Protection Association, the kind for a simple registration. While he was filling it out, a few muffled sounds came from deep in the basement.
“They should be fine. Burton is not a violent person, and with his physical state, he can’t beat that bloodkin.” The knight’s head twisted in a different direction.
“Sir, I would like to ask a rather personal question. If you are uncomfortable, you do not need to answer,” Coraci said.
“Please ask.”
“Why don’t you put your head back on…”
The head laughed out loud, “You know, Burton asked me the same thing over two hundred years ago!” His body picked up the head and gently placed it where the neck should have been. The head could not fit against the neck, as if separated by a layer of floating fire.
“See, we can’t put our heads back,” the knight said, “and in retrospect, many humans can’t tell the difference between the headless knights and the Doomcaliber knights… Actually, I can’t tell the difference either, we all look pretty much the same with helmets on.”
Coraci knew a little about it, but it was the first time he’d heard that the headless knight’s head couldn’t be put back in place. He said, “I’ve heard that the Doomcaliber knight is bound by the oath he made when alive, while the headless knight is bound by the hatred he felt right before he died.”
“Yes, it is rather humiliating to be beheaded by an enemy,” said the head, “and in capital punishment, beheading is more cruel than hanging, for it not only takes a man’s life, but cuts out his soul and leaves the dead man bound by a curse. Previously, I had to come out every night to look for my head, to look for my enemy, who was actually long gone from the world, which I never realized at the time. I could not feel the passage of time, and every day I woke up with hatred…until I met Burton.”
Deep underground there were a few more muffled sounds, and it sounded like John was subduing Burton. The knight’s body shrugged and continued.
“Burton stopped me, kept me awake, told me what era it was, helped me look for my head…” He patted his head on the couch, “Later we found my head and discovered that it couldn’t even be attached back, but that was enough. The anger of hatred in my heart gradually receded and peace was restored. I wanted to thank him, and even wanted to pledge allegiance to him with the ancient knight oath — he refused. In the end we became ‘friends’. We are both dark creatures, both have endless lives, so this is the best.”
Hearing this, Coraci glanced at the dark tunnel. After years of working in the Association, he had seen a lot of sadness, happiness, partings, and reunions between dark creatures and humans. Obviously Burton’s state was not normal; this bloodkin was like a depressed human. Now, no one could ask him to think rationally or be considerate of others. Therefore, he wouldn’t know what Sir Kimplin was feeling.
“Sir, I don’t feel right,” Coraci said after a moment of silence.
What was taking John so long to come back… If it had gone well, the three blood bags should have been finished long ago.
The knight and Coraci walked into the tunnel and went down the steps until they could go no further. Coraci called John’s name several times, but no one answered. However, the sound of scraping against the ground came from deep underground.
“John, answer me!” Coraci shouted again. This time he got a quick response, and John howled in a long, drawn-out way.
“What’s going on?! What’s going on?” Coraci asked urgently.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” John stuttered from the lower level. “Oh my god, how did this happen… I literally have no face to see you guys…”
After a short while, John came up anyway. He was carrying a cooler in one hand, clutching his blazer and shirt in the other, his upper body naked, with the words written in blood on his chest.
[Leave me alone.]
In the cooler were already emptied blood bags, and John’s complexion was good but his expression was very dejected, like a sheepdog that had done something wrong.
“What the hell is going on here?” Coraci questioned.
John bowed his head. “He hypnotized me… I drank all that blood myself without realizing it, and wrote this with the remaining few drops…” He pointed to the writing on his chest.
“Do you have any more blood bags here?” Coraci turned his head and asked the knight.
“Not for a while.”
“Mn, it’s not far from dawn.” Coraci pulled out a tissue and handed it to John, telling him to wipe the blood off his chest, “We’re not prepared enough. Let’s continue tomorrow night, I’ll bring blood bags and other exorcists. John, I may need to stab you then.”
“What?”
“A small cup of blood will suffice,” Coraci said, gesturing to show how much. “I’m really sorry, it’ll have to be you. The Association doesn’t have that many bloodkin.”
“Can we start with local anesthesia?”
The human and the knight’s head exchanged glances again.
“John… But medical anesthesia does not work on bloodkin…”
Just before dawn, the car entered the city and stopped in front of a cheap apartment building. Mr. Wu Jiu remembered John’s address. As he was getting out of the car, John found Coraci asleep in the back seat. He pulled out the seat belt and strapped Coraci in, and saw a small loose-leaf notebook on Coraci’s lap.
The notebook was open, and on it were a few scattered words. At first John thought it was something important, but upon closer inspection, it was Mr. Author’s book of materials… Coraci recorded many strange creatures; the focus was not how to deal with them, but on their appearances, their preferences, their likes and dislikes, as well as his own varied comments.
About today’s events, in addition to “headless knight’s head cannot be re-attached,” Coraci also wrote “There are some times when bloodkin may seem very brave, but in fact they are as afraid of pain as humans. Every creature is contradictory.”
John looked at Coraci’s sleeping face in surprise. He knew that these words referred to himself. He was suddenly curious about the notebook. Maybe Coraci had written something else in the beginning, like when they faced the demon together, like the elevator incident…like Coraci’s other impressions of him.
Sitting in the front seat, Wu Jiu stared at John and seemed to ask with his eyes, “Mr. Lockland, are you getting out or not?”
John scrambled out of the car and realized he had just been staring straight at the notebook and Coraci himself.
Back in the rented basement, John called his father before going to bed.
After his father complained about his sister’s willfulness, John asked, “I recently read a novel about… There was a bloodkin who tried to starve himself to death.”
“And did he die?” Father asked.
“I haven’t gotten to the end yet.” John dare not say that he really met an elder of the same race. “That character is very strange, as if once he makes a decision, he cannot change his mind. He was so disheartened that he had to starve himself to death. Can we starve to death?”
His father snorted and said, “In theory, yes, but… relying on ourselves to starve ourselves to death? Impossible! It’s like the fact that humans can’t strangle themselves with their own hands unless they use an external aid. Humans can smother themselves to a certain extent, but then their hands don’t have enough strength, so they cannot strangle themselves to death. We are the same: when we starve to a certain extent, our bodies will lose self-control; then you will not care about anything, you will not not remember anything — the mind will only think of blood. Unless you were kidnapped, controlled, or completely immobilized, death by slow debilitation is possible. The process takes a long, long time, beyond what you can even imagine.”
John felt a chill down his back, and he didn’t dare to think about that horrible scene in detail.
After talking to his father for a while longer, they said good morning and hung up the phone to get ready for bed. Before going to sleep, John suddenly remembered what Coraci had said at the headless knight’s house: “Let’s continue tomorrow night. I’ll bring blood bags and other exorcists.”
Other exorcists? Who is Coraci going to bring?
John worried that it would be Liz and Carolyn; if it was Carolyn, she might kill Burton. In fact, John was overthinking. Liz and Carolyn, at this very moment, were hunting for heart-eating ghosts — too busy to care about them.
When he got home, Coraci also made a phone call before going to bed. A gentle female voice transmitted from the other end of the receiver.
“Good morning, Deville Coraci. Are you awake or just waking up?”
“No need to ask, you know me, Smith,” Coraci closed the blackout curtains and yawned as he curled up under the covers, “I need to ask you a favor: Are you free tomorrow night?”
“Hey! Call me Anastasia!” The female on the other end of the line said.
“It’s a bit of a tongue twister, Smith.” 1
From The Unthreatening Creature Protection Association’s Guide to Unscientific Monsters:
Vampires (Blookin)
On Feeding:
A bloodkin’s fangs usually remain hidden within the gums, only extending when they hunt. These fangs guide the prey’s blood, making it easier for the bloodkin to drink — it’s not just about being sharp. When bitten, prey don’t feel any pain. Instead, they experience a strange calm, a tingling numbness.
Note: In many other settings, being bitten by a vampire is described as producing a feeling similar to sexual climax, or the victim faints and later awakens under hypnosis with no memory of the encounter. That doesn’t happen here. Bloodkin in this story do not have such abilities. Some who excel at spellcraft might cast magic to make prey unconscious or to erase memories, but ordinary bloodkin cannot. Since this setting already gives them the powerful ability to form a bond after three feedings, I deliberately increased the difficulty of hunting to balance them.
On Sustenance:
For bloodkin, feeding is not about filling their stomachs. It isn’t mere consumption. They need the essence of blood to maintain their bodies — they seek the power carried in the blood itself.
One feeding might require:
- countless rats (and their blood tastes foul),
- one dead baboon for primate blood,
- about 300–400 milliliters of human blood (less for witches or other gifted humans),
- perhaps only a single sip of demon blood.
What they gain isn’t satiety but a rush of strength. Even if a cruel bloodkin drains a victim completely, their belly doesn’t swell like they’ve overeaten. Bloodkin don’t need three meals a day like humans. Their feeding resembles wild predators of the savannah — they can go days between meals, as long as they don’t become dangerously depleted.
Wild vs. Domain Bloodkin:
This distinction is like vagrants versus noble houses. There’s no inherent difference in ability. However, domain bloodkin usually receive better education, making them stronger in self-control, magic, and combat skills compared to their wild counterparts.
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