38. The Price of Vanity

Belial felt the sorrow and fear that Constancia had experienced back then.

Constancia watched as a mature Kindred leaped toward the mountain, slamming into the sealed boulder with the force of a charging elephant, only to be bounced back with most of his bones shattered.

She saw another ancient Kindred summon swarms of corpses to assault the sealed boulder fiercely, but it was completely useless. Constancia doubted that even explosives would make any difference.

The Kindred joined forces, attempting to chisel open the boulder with tools from the subterranean city, but they failed as well. They began searching for other exits within the subterranean city, yet Constancia knew they would not succeed; Cappadocia's ritual would not leave behind such a simple flaw.

The Kindred pleaded with their progenitor to show mercy while refusing to admit their own guilt, but Constancia knew otherwise—every single one of them was a sinner. Cappadocia had built great cities among the mountains, and these self-righteous noble Kindred had committed unforgivable sins within those cities, treating mortals just as humans treated livestock.

The progenitor was right to do this; these sinners deserved to die, and they deserved to taste what it was like to be reduced to livestock and food. But what about Constancia herself?

She loved mortals; she treated them well and viewed them as her own children. True, she drank blood too, but she had never killed a single person for the sake of feeding. She helped the poor, rescued the weak, and when humans fell ill, she gave them money to find a doctor. When the bitter cold froze the earth, she prayed that the disaster would pass them by quickly.

Why was her loving father treating her this way?

Was this a trial set by him?

Constancia knelt on the cold stone slabs and began to pray.

She was Cappadocia's daughter, and the status of all other Kindred was beneath hers, yet she was actually very young. Her immortal life had begun only twenty years ago. She was powerful, but they did not know it; they only knew she appeared weak.

They proposed torturing Constancia because they knew of Cappadocia's fondness for her. If they did this, perhaps Cappadocia would not bear to watch and would step forward, giving them a chance to escape.

Constancia understood her plight, and she had no intention of awaiting her doom passively. She could resist those villains and kill them as a warning to others, but she could not risk angering everyone. She was by no means a match for all the Kindred present; among them were elders who had lived for hundreds of years, enough to contend with her single-handedly.

She needed to strike first and unite the forces she could among them. She had to lie and make them believe her.

Constancia had never lied in her life, but doing so turned out to be easier than she had imagined.

She secretly sought out some young and formidable Kindred, telling them she knew how to escape and that this entire ordeal was merely a test by Cappadocia. She explained that she was present to act as an arbitrator, and if they survived this arbitration, they would be granted the chance to lower their generation.

To the Kindred, lowering one's generation was a supreme reward. A sixth-generation Kindred could never compare to a fifth-generation one; it was not merely a matter of status, but of raw power. With every drop in generation, one gained unimaginable strength.

These Kindred were persuaded by her words, agreed to help her, and drank her blood, becoming her thralls. Under her covert command, they began to slaughter the ancient ones among the Kindred. She did this before the rest of the Kindred could even begin to unite.

It almost felt like second nature.

In truth, she knew the prominent elders of Cappadocia's lineage inside and out. Her Kindred father had told her, "You must watch your friends closely, and you must watch your enemies even closer." Cappadocia had told her the personality, preferences, scandalous secrets, and grudges of every single person in his clan. In the past, she had simply listened to these stories as tales of old, never imagining she would use them.

But now was not the time for playing games.

She plotted without a moment's rest, spreading rumors, instigating conflicts, creating panic, and consolidating her power. She flaunted her might, using her knowledge of the elders to win some over and divide others. She devoured the souls of her compatriots through cruel methods and rewarded the young Kindred by letting them drain the elders' blood to lower their generations.

Ten days after their imprisonment, the elders in the cave were all dead, and the place fell under Constancia's control.

She believed she had passed the test, but why hadn't her father come to release her yet?

Every Kindred carried a curse within them—the beast born of the craving for blood. When Kindred committed atrocities and lost their humanity, the beast would begin to stir, driving them completely out of control.

Constancia had fallen. Her mind was entirely seized by the beast, and the subordinates she had gathered were no different. They were still trapped in a desperate situation, and her lies would eventually be exposed. When that day came, she would face a horde of utterly enraged, frenzied monsters.

She was starving, and their situation had not improved in the slightest. She knew she would inevitably have to feed on their blood.

They had once been the lords of Europe, reveling wildly in human blood and enjoying endless pleasures, but within ten days, they were about to become a pack of mad dogs tearing each other apart.

When Kindred grew weak and desperate, they could choose to enter torpor—a state akin to a human coma, from which they could not decide when they would wake. If it were a simple famine, Constancia could have used this method to escape disaster.

Not now, however. As long as even a single one of these people remained, she could not use such a method.

She had to become the ultimate survivor, even if she had to commit monstrous crimes.

Before losing her sanity, she hid alone in the darkness, praying to her father. Yet this time, a voice answered her.

She asked who the owner of the voice was.

He told her he was the angel of death.

Since she was a devotee of death, how could she not spread death?

...

Belial could no longer sense Constancia's consciousness; this masterpiece of Azrael had fully awakened.

The fallen archangels were all searching for their respective proxies, and Belial looked at Longinus's hand, feeling that his luck was not too bad.

The defensive line laid down by Norris was breached by Typhon, Christina, and Malacheni simultaneously. In his panic, Norris retreated to the side of the coffin, using the final power of the sealing stone to create a circle of transparent white barrier.

This bought him time, but it was precisely this moment that Constancia had been waiting for.

Norris pushed open the coffin lid, believing the Kindred inside was still in deep slumber and that he could drain her blood without encountering any resistance. Even if she wasn't asleep, the sealing stone would protect him.

Yet he was wrong on both counts: Constancia had already awakened, and the sealing stone had failed.

A pale hand reached out from the stone coffin, its long nails piercing Norris's neck. In an instant, Norris deflated like a punctured ball, quickly withering into a husk on the ground.

Typhon, Christina, and Malacheni halted their assault, shocked by the scene and focusing their full attention on the stone coffin.

Constancia stood up from the coffin. She was also a pale lady, like a statue carved from alabaster, with disheveled hair and tattered clothing, casting a malicious gaze upon everyone present.

She was still hungry; feeding on kin had become her instinct.

Malacheni recognized who she was and asked, "Constancia? You... is it you? How could this... What on earth happened here?"

Constancia walked toward Malacheni like a phantom, her posture so chilling that even the terrifying-looking Malacheni shuddered and stepped back.

She cried out, "What on earth did father do to you?"

Constancia replied, "Why are you so fortunate, my sister?"

Malacheni said, "Fortunate? Look at me now. Do you call this fortunate?"

Constancia said, "I was betrayed by father. What about you?"

Malacheni replied, "I died at the hands of the one I loved. Do you want to compare who has it worse?"

Constancia said, "Not quite. I am simply still hungry, and this hunger seems forever insatiable. I am sorry, my sister."

In a flash, she had bitten into Malacheni's neck. Malacheni let out a wail, attempting to turn to ash and escape, but it was futile. Constancia drained the last remaining demonic blood from Malacheni's mangled body, and her flesh shattered—not as a trick to flee, but as her ultimate death.

Constancia looked toward Typhon and Chris, both of whom quickly leaped backward, distancing themselves from the kin-devouring witch.

They knew they could not withstand her; in her eyes, they were nothing more than food.

Typhon said, "Ancient one, we have no grudge against you!"

Christina said, "We are also enemies of the Giovanni clan! We bear you no ill will."

Did they still not understand? When sheep bleated before a human, could it stop the human from using them as food?

Belial watched this petty and ridiculous farce coldly. The behemoth would eventually capture Constancia and find the trace of the Morningstar upon her, but he could afford to wait until this Kindred farce came to an end.

Constancia attacked Typhon. Typhon radiated a tide of blood, her longsword sweeping through the air like a giant python, but Constancia easily shattered the wave of blood. Her combat style was simple—neither necromantic magic nor bizarre Kindred tricks, but possessing an extraordinary, berserk strength.

Long bones protruded from her fingertips, thrusting toward Typhon. At that moment, Christina's golden sword light struck Constancia. The blow had no effect on her, but it bought Typhon a narrow escape.

A burst of force emanated from Constancia's hands. Nana cried out in pain as she crashed to the ground, her bones fractured.

Lamia threw a thermite bomb high into the air and then detonated it with a gunshot, engulfing the beast-like pale girl in flames. But she quickly burst out of the fiery encirclement and, in the blink of an eye, struck Typhon, missing her heart by a hair's breadth.

Lamia kept firing at Constancia, causing the latter to abandon Typhon and lunge toward Lamia.

How could this fragile human, akin to mere dust, survive beneath the hands of a demon's creation?

At that moment, Belial blocked Constancia's path. His hand, stained with black shadows, tightly gripped her wrist.

Constancia freed her other hand and clawed at Belial, but he hurled her away. She flew at least two hundred meters, shattering the structures along her path like sand.

If Belial wished, he could destroy this entire mountain range.

Belial could not help but smile; the feeling of displaying power before the insignificant was wonderful. After all, he was a great demon, and he too craved vanity and worship.

Typhon, Chris, Lamia, and Broken Bell stared at Belial in horror, still unaware that this was no longer Longinus.

This was not an act of saving anyone; Belial simply did not want Lamia to get hurt and wake up the saint who had just quieted down, thereby ruining his clues for revenge.

Belial summoned his school of fish, his deep-sea behemoths, his Leviathans, transforming the entire cavern into his ocean.

Typhon asked, "Fishbones, what on earth have you done?" The tremor in her voice delighted Belial.

Belial replied, "I told you, I have always kept my true depth hidden. Do you believe it now, Madame Duchess?"