When his mother realized she had drunk poison, she immediately sent all the household members into the underground secret shelter.
Intuiting that she would lose her reason shortly after being poisoned, she hid them so that his aunt wouldn’t harm the household members in the meantime.
The servants and maids also entered the shelter according to his mother’s orders. This was because there were several servants who had received his mother’s instructions regarding the laboratory, and there were also maids who had done odd jobs under their orders.
Even if his mother refused to confess to the end, once the government forces opened their ‘memories’ and began tracking, the charges would be unavoidable.
To prevent anyone from recklessly speculating who was involved, it was safest to leave not even a single ant alive.
His mother sent even the quasi-slaves and thralls into the underground shelter, and the beasts who received his mother’s orders took turns guarding the entrance from outside to prevent approach to the shelter.
Sarka was watching the situation inside the underground shelter together with the tutors.
The shelter was gripped with fear at the news that the family head had been murdered and that his rampaging mother had even broken through the government forces’ encirclement and was leaving the Miral Mountains.
If his mother left the Miral Mountains like this and was killed at the hands of humans, this shelter would turn into a pandemonium at that moment.
The moment their master died, the thralls whose hypnosis was broken would turn violent and attack the people they had been protecting just moments before.
There was no one inside the shelter who could control those thralls stamped with the Complete Pureblood’s seal.
The strongest defense wall would become the most cruel explosive, tearing apart everyone’s flesh.
Even if they succeeded in escaping to the surface avoiding his mother’s thralls, his aunt had already taken the family head position.
She was a person who wouldn’t leave even a newborn baby’s fingernail in the house if it was a trace of the mother she had hated for her entire life.
Extinction was approaching right before their eyes.
The government forces were dragging out time arguing with the human Exorcists over pursuit rights. As time passed, the probability of his mother returning to her senses decreased.
When despair appeared on people’s faces, Sarka finally declared he would leave the shelter and chase after his mother.
The tutors didn’t stop Sarka.
They packed food and weapons for him and said.
That only the young master could save them all.
No one inside here could face his mother, a Complete Pureblood who had drunk blood.
Even the Pureblood grade tutors who had educated Sarka were powerless before a Complete Pureblood.
His mother’s spouse, who only had high bloodline but had all combat-related memories deleted, was an existence no different from a young child.
The reason Sarka was the only one recognized by his mother, the reason he had monopolized her love, was because only Sarka was a Complete Pureblood.
The legitimate heir who had monopolized all of his mother’s attention and affection now had to monopolize the responsibility as well.
Sarka silently accepted that responsibility.
The tutors told Sarka about old secret passages and codes, shortcuts through the labyrinth, and Sarka selected the thralls who would share life and death with him.
Finally, the shelter door opened.
The tutors clothed Sarka’s shoulders with a cloak, tightened the clasp, and whispered in trusting voices.
To please return with the mistress.
That young master Sarka could do it.
Sarka looked around at the faces of the people watching him.
Faint hope remained in their eyes.
They wanted to believe in the son Camilla had trusted most, the prodigy who had never lost a match.
The legitimate heir of Camilla, the war hero.
But Sarka did not meet their expectations.
His mother was too strong.
She was like a giant mountain.
The more human blood a vampire drinks, the stronger a vampire’s power becomes.
His mother, who continuously consumed blood due to the poison’s influence, demonstrated abilities reaching 1.2 times her usual capacity.
When there’s a difference of three grades or more, the match becomes meaningless—that’s the vampire bloodline grade system.
Far from stopping his mother, even preserving his life by avoiding her attacks sometimes felt impossible.
Helplessness covered his entire body.
The thralls were swept away powerlessly like a swarm of locusts caught in a windstorm, and no matter how much he tore apart his mother’s body, it was relentlessly restored to its original state.
Though he intuited they absolutely couldn’t win, Sarka didn’t have the option to give up and return.
If they didn’t succeed, it was annihilation.
Even if Sarka died, he had to save his mother.
After passing the brink of death several times, Sarka confronted his mother in the final underground passage.
If they left here, the humans’ residential area was right at hand.
The Exorcists had completely surrounded the underground passage and were waiting to kill them both the moment they emerged.
Sarka was being ‘forced to commit suicide’ with his body taken over by his mother’s domination.
In principle, even mental connection between the same grades was impossible, but his mother, who had gained abilities two grades higher than usual by drinking blood, easily tore open Sarka’s mind.
When Sarka resisted the suicide command, his mother directly rushed in and tried to tear apart her son’s body with her bare hands. Crushed beneath her, Sarka fiercely attempted a mental counterattack.
The reason matches become meaningless in vampire duels when bloodline grades differ by three or more is because resistance is impossible when an opponent three grades higher attempts mental domination.
If you try to resist, only your own mind or body is damaged, and defense is meaningless unless the opponent voluntarily withdraws their domination.
However, within a 1-2 grade difference, a well-trained vampire can attempt a mental counterattack.
It was an advanced technique of taking advantage of the moment when minds were connected by the opponent’s attack to dig into a higher-grade mind that normally could never be pried open.
Especially mental-type vampires often succeeded in defeating physical-type vampires one or two grades higher using this counterattack technique.
Just as Sarka finally succeeded at the end of desperate attempts, even while half-strangled by his mother’s hands.
Sarka dug into his mother’s connected mind with all his strength, like striking down an awl with all his might to pierce through an iron plate.
He tore to shreds his mother’s mind that instinctively tried to expel the intruder, rummaged through the mangled memories, and fled deeper inside.
In his mother’s mind that shook like an earthquake as intense memories were stimulated, when he thought he might go mad together like this…
Focus returned to his mother’s eyes.
His mother, who miraculously recognized Sarka, hurriedly pieced together the body of the son she had been tearing apart.
Sarka, who had barely saved his life, grabbed his mother who had regained her reason temporarily and desperately pleaded.
To go back.
His mother shook her head.
Watching his mother declare it was too late, Sarka felt tremendous despair.
The war hero of the Pureblood Faction who never gave up. His mother who wouldn’t hesitate to do anything for survival calmly accepted death.
It felt like a giant mountain was collapsing.
But his mother grabbed and raised up her son who had collapsed in despair.
She was composed.
Soothing her son who was trembling finely, his mother whispered calmly.
“You must accept it. Your mother has been defeated.
The victor is Hilda. Haven’t I always told you? This is what politics is.
I was deceived. I’m paying the price.”
That woman was a warrior even as she accepted death.
His mother steadied her trembling son’s body, looked into those eyes, and whispered.
“But, Sarka. I won’t let you be defeated too.
Even if I’m slaughtered at the humans’ hands… I won’t let even my son inherit my dishonor.”
Her green eyes fixed unwavering and swept over her son’s face.
Sarka panted.
His mother, intuiting that she didn’t have long to maintain her reason, spoke quickly.
“I’ll lure those humans, so you escape this place and go to Hotdan through the underground passage.
There will be a safe that can be opened with this key. Inside is evidence of the fraud Hilda committed in the duel 15 years ago.
Take it and go to Hütivras. Disguise the ownership of that object as mine, and make your biological father Allend Hütivras submit it to the court.
By any means necessary, you must enter as his legitimate child and become a Hütivras. That’s the only way you can live.
That human’s dog was already deceived by me once, so he won’t accept it obediently. But you must make that man—or at the very least, draw out sympathy from and deceive that human woman he cherishes—to make him accept you.
Can you remember everything Mom said?”
Sarka looked at his mother for a moment without opening his mouth.
Sarka’s head trembled and then slowly moved left and right. A distorted voice flowed out shakily.
“…Rather… I’ll be the lure. Even if I die… you must survive and get out, Mother.
If you pass away, everyone dies. Your blood relatives… my… siblings…”
At the fading voice, his mother shook her head and firmly grasped her son’s arm.
Looking straight into her rigid son’s eyes, his mother whispered relentlessly as if telling him to come to his senses.
“Sarka. Among them, there isn’t a single Complete Pureblood.”
Sarka froze at the conviction in those eyes.
Wiping away tears from her son’s eyes that looked down at her blankly, unable to continue speaking, his mother declared in a voice that couldn’t be more solid.
“I’m going to die anyway. My hand has been completely overturned, and it’s only the difference between dying here at the humans’ hands or returning and dying at Hilda’s hands.
If it’s dishonor I must face anyway… I’ll pay my life’s price for my legitimate heir.
From the beginning… everything except you was worthless.”
It felt like the ground beneath his feet was shattering. Sarka shook his head.
His whole body trembled mindlessly. Sarka sobbed and grabbed his mother’s arm, pleading.
“…Rather, I’ll fight together by your side…
I don’t want to miserably flee and survive at the cost of your dishonor. I don’t want to become a human’s dog at the price of my blood relatives’ blood. Please let me die in Leogrante as a son of Leogrante…”
At that moment, his mother’s face, which had been composed throughout, changed with a beast-like light.
Sarka swallowed. A thunderous roar burst out.
“Weak words. How dare my son speak such words!?”
Sarka’s entire body trembled violently. His mother gripped Sarka’s body as if to shatter it and declared with a terrifying gaze.
“A son of Leogrante does not dare spout such weak words. Such a loser’s pleading doesn’t come from my bloodline’s mouth!”
The flat intonation held chilling dignity and authority. Sarka froze.
His mother, who had been looking down at her son who could no longer open his mouth, caught her breath.
Gripping her son’s cheeks that trembled finely and convulsed, his mother whispered with conviction.
“You don’t need to tremble. You can do it, Sarka. You have talent.
You inherited all my bloodline and all my talent. My brilliant diamond.”
Sarka could no longer cry. His body, from which even breath sounds had disappeared, stiffened rigidly.
His mother gripped Sarka’s arm, looked straight into her son’s eyes, and whispered.
“Although I was defeated by Hilda, my son won’t lose like that.
You’ll survive without yielding to any humiliation and proudly make my blood shine.
My son… will never disappoint Mom. Right?”
Sarka couldn’t open his mouth.
His mother raised up Sarka, who could no longer refuse.
His mother, a physical-type, lightly lifted her son’s body and sat him in the saddle.
Placing the reins in her son’s hands that had turned pale, his mother whispered with more brilliant affection than ever before.
“Never look back. No matter what sounds you hear, don’t stop, don’t look back, and keep running.
I’ll be watching you. I’ll see you survive to the end befitting my son.
Swear you won’t show your face to me.
On Leogrante’s… no, on your honor.”
Sarka’s hands trembled finely.
His mother was looking into her son’s eyes with terrifying conviction. Sarka knew there was only one answer he could give.
Finally, Sarka nodded.
Ecstasy and joy spread across his mother’s face.
His mother embraced her son and kissed him.
Sarka heard the sound of his mother’s heart beating. Probably the last pulse of kin.
His mother held Sarka desperately in her arms and whispered a legacy more powerful than any command.
“I love you. My son who will survive.”
Those words were shackles that would make Sarka absolutely unable to stop.
Amid screams and gunshots, Sarka ran without looking back.
Even when he heard urgent cries and screams, messy gunshots and horses’ wails, and at the end, an enormous explosion, Sarka gritted his teeth and didn’t look back.
Like that, he survived.
Sarka felt his hands trembling again.
When his mother died, all the household members died inside the underground shelter, or went missing after fleeing to escape his mother’s thralls.
Deaths like an ant swarm swept away in a flood, where he couldn’t even individually determine where or how they died.
All those numerous lives were Sarka’s responsibility.
It was a mission he absolutely couldn’t fail.
How many deaths stand on top of my failure, beneath my survival?
Sarka gritted his teeth.
The only reason Sarka alone was allowed survival, standing on those deaths, was solely because of Sarka’s bloodline.
If Sarka hadn’t been a Complete Pureblood, his mother would have killed Sarka before he turned two.
Even if he had somehow survived, like his siblings he would have lived his whole life with his head bowed, meeting a death torn apart by thralls underground.
In the world Sarka was born into, bloodline was like that.
To bear responsibility and duty according to innate ability.
But his father had abandoned that responsibility.
Despite being born a Complete Pureblood, he cast off all the discipline demanded of him and chose a human life.
Because he happened to inherit that man’s blood and survived by fleeing to that man’s house,
Now even Sarka’s bloodline had lost its power.
All the power and authority he had as a Complete Pureblood disappeared, and Sarka’s bloodline remained only as a reason for wariness and checks.
Now Sarka was a dangerous beast whose power must be seized and subjugated.
A puppy brought in unavoidably, a dirty stray dog that might threaten the family at any time.
One that didn’t obey, so they put on a leash and trampled him.
He couldn’t breathe.
Nothing remained.
How much further must he struggle?
He must survive.
To survive, he must become the successor and escape from his father.
He must become stronger.
There’s no way but to continue enduring, persevering, and building strength.
He can’t be this weak…
Sarka forced himself to steady his mind and rose. The vomiting had barely stopped, but his throat was still sour and his stomach churned.
His body hurt. If he could, he wanted to collapse and lie down again.
But there was no time for this.
Class time was approaching.
Sarka forced himself to release his hand from the bedpost and changed clothes.
From the beginning, Sarka had never been given the right to be weak.
