Chapter 159: 086. Ruppel Olfolse -4 (Part One)
**
Inside a dark cavern located somewhere.
Numerous large pots were installed in this particular section of the cavern where heavy amounts of demonic energy flowed about freely.
Count Timong, along with the assistance of other Vampires, opened the lid of a large pot and checked out the contents inside.
Many zombified children inside tilted their heads this way and that, before reaching up with their hands and flailing ungainly about.
Count Timong stared at the zombie children and muttered out indifferently, “They need to be ripened a little bit further, but since Ruppel’s body won’t last long, we don’t have much of a choice. I’ll just pick one to replace his body.”
Each of these numerous pots found within the cavern were meant to safely store away the zombified children, as they were replacements for Ruppel’s ever-rotting body.
Temporary body replacements could be crafted by pouring large amounts of thickly-flowing demonic energy and toxins into the pot alongside the suitable zombies. This place was the manufacturing plant where the undead were left to ripen for a dozen-plus years in that condition until they reached the desired maturity.
In a way, this process was similar to artificially creating a Progenitor Vampire. Of course, the length of time necessary to create a Progenitor was insanely longer in comparison.
“Hey, you. Go and summon Ruppel. He needs to have his body replaced.”
Count Timong’s order caused the Vampires to visibly wince. They exchanged glances with each other before replying with troubled expressions.
“T-the thing is… Lord Ruppel… currently isn’t here.”
“What was that?!”
“He told us that he’d be going out to hunt some livestocks.”
Count Timong’s expression crumpled to an unbelievable degree as he tutted loudly. “He’s still going outside to hunt some prey?! This is why children shouldn’t become Vampires, they are just too thoughtless!”
While saying that, he reached inside the pot and pulled out one of the zombified boys. The undead creature flailed about while dangling in the air.
Timong carried on with the inspection of the zombie’s status, only to pause briefly when a thought suddenly occurred to him. He then turned his head and asked the Vampires, “Hold on. Where did he go to hunt the livestocks this time?”
His questions promptly shut the mouths of all the Vampires present.
…Because Ruppel made them swear not to divulge that information.
“You are all my assistants, not Ruppel’s servants.”
Count Timong growled with thick bloodlust in his voice, and the Vampires began trembling as cold sweat trickled down their faces.
They exchanged yet more glances with each other, and eventually replied with some difficulty.
“He… he told us that he’d be heading to Aslan’s royal palace.”
Timong’s expression became utterly blank in an instant. But that lasted only for a brief moment before his whole face crumpled hideously. “Uwaaaahk?! That stupid, stinking little brat! How can his learning ability be this sh*tty?!”
His hunchback-like back suddenly straightened up and he held his head in anguish.
That Ruppel, he was always far too impulsive.
He became a zombie as a newborn baby, then he had been left abandoned as one for the next ten years until he ended up in the hands of the Vampire King.
Despite the King personally injecting demonic energy and knowledge into the boy’s head, the latter’s mental age was still no better than seven, maybe eight years old.
Moreover, Vampires didn’t necessarily enjoy any further ‘mental growth’ after becoming an undead, so in that regard, Ruppel was literally a little kid even now, as evidenced by his utter lack of self-restraint on display.
Ruppel was always running away from White, yet the boy tried so hard to enrage the latter no matter what. Just to piss the Crown Imperial Prince off, Ruppel raided and razed villages of the Theocratic Empire, slaughtered the empire’s subjects, and even murdered Yulisia in the imperial palace. All so that he could ‘ridicule’ White Olfolse.
He was doing it all out of ‘hatred’. Vampires hated the fact that once upon a time they used to be humans as well – after all, humans were treated like livestocks by the undead.
And that was why most of those who turned into Vampires would either choose to devour their former family members or just kill them outright.
“That trash brat! A punk who won’t even live for a year without me finally has gone and did something stupid! I’m telling you, all the youthful Progenitors are just too brainless! Too brainless!”
Count Timong tutted unhappily.
It seemed that the side effects of turning a measly little zombie into a Progenitor in one breath were running rampant here.
The boy’s soul was clearly broken, while his body couldn’t handle the load and had to be constantly replaced. On these points alone, he would’ve been treated as a defective product.
Yet such a creature was so full of himself just because the Vampire King granted him some blood and demonic energy.
The boy didn’t even have a lot of experience in fighting proper battles. No, all he had ever done was to hunt frail and defenceless livestock up until this point. Even then, his penchant for talking a big game was unrivalled.
Veins bulged on Count Timong’s forehead.
He shot a murderous glare at the Vampires and issued a new order, “Make preparations for warp magic.”
“S-sir?”
The Vampire assistants tilted their heads in confusion before finally remembering something and nodding in sync.
“Ah, you mean for the interdimensional warp experiment? Should we prep the captured clergymen to be used as the living sacrifices?”
“No, not that. We’ll just be moving to another location. We are going to leave this place for a while.”
“We’ll be moving to another location?”
The Vampires became even more puzzled by what Count Timong had told them. This would be his first time leaving the cavern in several decades, after all.
The Vampires nodded in unison before asking a question.
“Where should we set the coordinates for?”
Count Timong shook around the young zombie in his hand while making his response, “Aslan’s capital city. We’ll be taking as many Vampires as possible to the royal palace.”
“The royal palace, you say?”
“That’s right. We’ll need plenty of offerings, so go and gather many humans. Since the distance itself is quite considerable, we will require a great deal of demonic energy to warp that far.”
The Vampires nodded in understanding.
“Understood. We shall go and round up around fifty humans as sacrifices.”
“Bloody hell. It doesn’t matter whether that brat dies or not, but…”
Count Timong muttered unhappily, then glanced at the zombified child in his hand. Suddenly, the hunchbacked Vampire’s mouth opened incredibly wide. His jaw dislocated and the cheeks grotesquely tore open.
The now-huge maw crushed the zombie’s head and began munching on it.
The skull shattered, and along with the chilling noise of meat being chewed away, bits of blood dripped down from the corners of his lips.
“…Because his majesty treats the brat as his personal pet, I can’t have him die, now can I?”
Indeed, the issue here was that the Vampire King wanted to keep the Second Imperial Prince Ruppel around. The reasoning itself was pretty simple; only the boy was capable of transferring to different bodies and taking over his victim’s flesh at will.
Meaning, the boy would serve as a truly wonderful source of nutrition once he matured enough to be served as ‘sustenance’ for the Vampire King.
To the Vampires, Ruppel still remained a useful creature.
**
The pillars of blood continued swirling madly around Second Imperial Prince Ruppel’s vicinity.
Despite the location being in front of the immature world tree, the aura of life still dissipated away, only to be replaced by the power of demonic energy.
The once-green garden rapidly began rotting. Even the leaves of the world tree were dyed in darkness.
Numerous servants and maids nearby screamed and urgently ran away from the vicinity of the battle.
Charlotte, the woodmen, hashashins, Harman, and Tina, all glared at Ruppel inside the centre of the tornado of blood.
The boy grinned deeply.
Sure, he was flustered just now, but eliminating these humans before his eyes shouldn’t prove to be all that difficult.
‘Five minutes. If I don’t finish them off within that time frame, I’ll end up in grave danger.’
Now that he had activated his demonic energy, both White and Oscal should have sensed him. Before those two showed up, Ruppel needed to kill all these people, abduct the Third Imperial Prince, and escape from here.
But then, just before the tornado of blood could slaughter the humans blocking his path…
Ruppel flinched nastily and furrowed his brows. He sensed a strange presence and turned his head towards the royal palace.
‘What was that?’
He had caused this much commotion, yet other than some minor disturbances, there was not one sign of human activity coming from the building. It was almost as if all those people who should be inside the palace had evacuated to somewhere.
Paladins should be urgently moving about to create an encirclement in order to stop him, but there wasn’t even a hint of that happening, either.
Could they have all run away in that short amount of time?
Their response was swifter than what Ruppel had bargained for. Maybe someone noticed his presence even before he started his rampage and alerted everyone else?
But, even if that was the case, what about the Paladins? They weren’t the kind of people to run away in fear, now were they?
‘Does this mean the Third Imperial Prince has also escaped, too? That’s no good.’
A puzzled expression floated up on Ruppel’s face. But then, his face gradually hardened until it was completely filled up with pure shock and astonishment.
“What the hell is that now?!”
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