Live.
"God once said to Adam, 'For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.' But there is no god here… and you are no Adam. Even so…
ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
He murmured the words as the rain of blood slid down his face. His eyelids were half-lowered, his expression oddly rapt, as though he had just been granted some terrible revelation hidden from the rest of creation. And so Ashen slaughtered the gathered vampires for what felt like the hundredth time.
When their cries of agony had finally ebbed into silence, he lowered his head and looked upon the carnage he had wrought.
"How very enlightening…"
"Is it, truly? You have done this a hundred times now. I do not think there is much enlightenment left in it."
The voice came from behind him, from the one who had watched this massacre a hundred times over and had apparently grown tireless enough to offer commentary. Blood from the downpour had reached her as well, staining her pure white dress red, though she sat with lazy possession in his throne as if it had been made for her alone.
"That is where you are mistaken, my dear consort."
His boots crunched through the corpses as he walked, and his voice took on the grave, reflective cadence of a man explaining a profound truth, or perhaps merely one that delighted him. "I knew vampires were divided by rank, but I did not yet understand what that truly meant."
"But each time I killed them, I understood them better. The way their bodies broke apart beneath my spells. The way their blood evaporated beneath my power. The way their necks came away beneath my spear… they told me far more than they ever could have confessed."
"Newborns are the most fragile of the lot, yet also the most spirited. Like cubs that have only just discovered their fangs, eager to use them, never realizing how absurdly innocent they look from the outside."
His gaze drifted over a few corpses too ruined to be recognized by the eye.
"Their mature kin are far more resilient, but in the end, still futile."
A faint smile touched his lips, and the blood upon his face only made that smile seem more deranged.
"As for the elders… they are more interesting. One must destroy the heart, then the brain, and bleed them dry all at once."
"And the Ancients…" He raised a fist, and a magic circle bloomed across his knuckles.
Bang—
A corpse that had been quietly knitting itself back together was vaporized the instant he struck it with a contemptuous flick.
"...Not even a drop of blood may remain, if their death is to be complete."
He threw his hands upward in almost religious exaltation.
"Isn't that fascinating?"
The one he addressed did not share his enthusiasm. She sagged into the throne as though his rapture were a tedious weather report, and replied with a weariness bordering on contempt.
"From where I'm sitting, all I see is a madman inventing excuses for his massacres so that the last scraps of his sanity can cling on a little longer."
"Ah, you cannot simply expose me like that, love. What would you do if I went truly mad?"
He wagged a finger at her in mock reproach.
"What else? Spread my legs for you until you bleed the stress out of your system, obviously."
"Ah yes." He swept his hair back, his face lighting with theatrical recognition. "How could I forget your magic pussy that takes all my pain away? How careless of me."
"Don't call it weird names, hey!"
"I am merely calling it what it is, dear."
"Argh… I can't reason with you."
***
After a massacre that was slowly but surely becoming a kind of ritual at the start of each loop, Ashen started his work in earnest.
"Hmm… how many concepts are actually stuffed in this? Truly intriguing."
Right now, he was sitting with a sample of his own blood, studying it.
After hundreds of loops, he had basically identified every concept that made it what it was, so what he was currently doing was merely a review.
"First blood reinforcement, note it down," he spoke to Seraphine, who was holding a notebook by his side.
"The blood becomes a medium of enhancement, thickening with power, carrying energy through the body and exponentially increasing strength, speed, and reflex, scaling with quantity and quality."
Scrib…scrib…Scrib…
"This concept is also present in all vampires, but abnormally powerful in mine."
"Next… Ancestral Bloodline Manifestation. The blood also carries the echoes of those it originated from, allowing their traits to surface. Traits such as instincts, techniques, and even fragments of will."
Then he added, "I've never felt any of that, however, so the foreign wills must have vanished with the soul of the original Primordial."
"The next one… is one we have already seen in action. Crimson Reconstitution. As long as blood remains, the body can rebuild."
Seraphine kept nodding and nodding along with his words.
"This concept only appears for Ancients and Primordials."
"Next is Boiling Blood…"
Scrish…scrib…
"...Hemokinesis Internalization…"
Scrib…
.
.
.
"Sanguine Evolution. Every injury teaches the blood. Survive poison once, and your blood resists it. After surviving fire, your tolerance increases. Over time, your body becomes a walking record of everything that failed to kill you."
This content has been misappropriated from NovelFire; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Scrib…
"..."
With each new concept, Seraphine realised how absurd the race known as the vampires was. Her conjecture that they were wiped out by their own hands started to have more and more substance in her mind.
"And finally… Blood Record, allowing the blood to hold memories in parallel to the brain."
"... that's all I can see for now. But it's enough for what I need."
"What are you planning, anyway?"
"Secret~"
"Haaah… this kid is going to drive me nuts," she pressed the space between her eyes in frustration.
"But mom… can't I have my own secrets? I'm old enough, you know? Around 877 and 9 months!"
"Please don't remind me…" Seraphine visibly cringed, "Every time you say it, I also remember that I've become an old hag."
"Never! My girl is forever 18!"
"That's right, that's right. Eighteen. Good." Seraphine nodded along with a satisfied smile on her face.
"Alright, Sera." He jumped from his seat, with her in tow since she was occupying his lap. "I need to do some final touches to the final plan. In the meantime, you can say goodbye to this place. We are leaving in the next loop."
"Oh? You sound so sure."
"Hm. I'm finally ready to wrestle you out of the jaws of time. You can look forward to it," he winked.
"Is that so… then, our honeymoon will finally come to an end. What a shame," she smiled wistfully.
"Hah, we can have as many honeymoons as you want after everything is over, love."
"That's a promise."
"You bet."
***
After trying everything and failing, Ashen had set his sights on blood. The Blood concept and its derivative, to be exact.
Unlike vague concepts, such as the sins that need to be integrated with skills and techniques to show their real might, concrete concepts, such as Blood, showed their might even without these constraints.
Though integrating them with techniques proved to be much harder, Ashen did not need to do so for his plan.
The plan in question was to learn a new concept that would allow Seraphine to survive by defying the pull of time on her body.
Ashen eventually came up with the concept that he called the Everlasting Conservation.
This concept was constituted of three main components.
The concept of Blood Record, the concept of Crimson Reconstitution, and the core that bound the idea… Sloth.
The theory behind Everlasting Conservation was as such: the blood "remembers" its ideal state. Instead of frantic healing, it slowly reverts to that remembered form, piece by piece, with a relentlessness that is nigh impossible to interrupt.
Sloth knows decay best since that is the inevitable outcome of its prolonged existence. And as long as one knows something, they would invariably know how to avoid it.
That is how he eventually made blood converge to the opposing state of decaying.
The relentless, everlasting characteristic also came from the same source, Sloth.
It sounds contradictory at first; sloth is supposed to be inactivity, while relentlessness is constant pressure. But if you twist the perspective a bit, they actually mesh perfectly.
A single moment of laziness is but a pause.
A day surrendered to idleness may pass for rest.
Yet when that same day repeats… endlessly, relentlessly, without deviation… it ceases to be respite and becomes Sloth.
Thus, the Sin of Sloth is not the absence of motion, but its perversion. It is persistence turned inward, a will that no longer strives, yet refuses to cease, enduring, not toward growth, but toward decay.
Ashen just borrowed the Everlasting component of his Sin to make Blood just as persistent in its task.
Body reconstruction is the task in question, and Blood Record served to extract the "ideal state" that the blood should strive for.
When this concept was combined with the already present Sanguine Evolution, it only became a question of time before the body adapted and completely resisted the erosion of time.
He had spent eight hundred loops designing this concept; now, all Ashen had to do was transfer everything to her.
And to do that, he had to first prepare her body accordingly, so…
"Seraphine, what do you know about affinities?"
She tilted her head, "You mean between people? Just what is publicly known, I suppose."
"Well, do you know that when two people reach maximum affinity, they can share their mana, their vitality, and most importantly… sex starts feeling even better?" he grinned mischievously.
"Oh… I did not. Not two people had ever had the level of matching affinity that you speak of, not even twins, so I reckon no one else would know either."
She asked curiously, "How did you stumble on this information?"
"I did not know of it; instead, I experienced it myself, hehe," Ashen answered carefreely.
"Who?"
Her voice suddenly got frigid, as she would kill whoever dared to have such a connection with what was hers.
"My wifey back home, of course~"
"Ally? Oh, then it's fine." Seraphine's demeanor melted back into nonchalance. "But I don't think this phenomenon was natural, right?"
"Bingo!" Ashen clapped twice, "I used Somatic Autonomy for that, so, do you also want the same? It will be much faster with the quantity of mana I have now, as well as my mastery of the skill. Not to mention that second times are always easier~"
"Sure." Seraphine did not hesitate.
"Nice! Now sit here and let me do my magic," he pointed at his lap, making her raise an eyebrow since she could plainly see the bulging erection under his trousers.
'Will it really feel that good…?'
'Only one way to find out…' She unhesitantly walked forward and positioned her buttocks right over it.
"Go ahead, mister. Let's see what's so special about it."
***
"no…I'm in…heaven…Oh ah hng haah… Ash… please… no more…"
Hump—Hump—Hump—
"Sorry… I…just…can't…"
As she watched the naked man loom over her, thrusting with desperation like his life depended on it, Seraphine got to thoroughly understand what was so 'special' about maximum efficiency between two souls.
Whenever they connected, it felt like a missing piece of her had finally returned home, making her so happy beyond normal pleasure that it threatened to rewrite her understanding of happiness.
When he pulled back, it felt like she was losing a part of her soul that she could never live without again.
So even as her lips asked to stop, her body was latching onto him with all of its pitiful might, terrified of the time he would let go.
She did not care about any other benefits or dangers this bond might have; this alone made it irreplaceable to her.
They had been entangled for nearly the entirety of this loop, and whenever she felt overwhelmed, he was there to rejuvenate her and plunge deep into her for yet another round of animalistic sex.
In the corner of her mind, she felt like this dangerous feeling would make her into a slave to it, rendering her just a doll that existed to unite with him for the rest of her life.
But all the same… she did not care. If that is her fate, she would gladly embrace it.
'As long as it is you… You can keep going for as long as you want….haah ꨄ︎'
Fortunately for her, she was spared the fate of eternal enslavement under the feeling of bliss because he had decided to finally stop.
The ringing of his time concept had become annoying enough to clue him that this loop's end was coming.
And unlike other times, he did not plan for a redo.
"Ahh… No… come back…" her hands flailed helplessly while her legs tried to keep him down, but he stood like a statue.
"Argh… we can resume later, love… for now, your husband has a job to do, so please behave.."
"Hnnn…" she complained with a nasal voice, but stopped her attempts.
His face gradually lost all expression until it turned blank.
'Somatic Autonomy, converge it all.'
The skill moved to do what it was simulated to do thousands of times already.
Blood obeyed.
It surged from every extremity of his body, abandoning limbs, abandoning skin, abandoning hesitancy itself, all of it converging toward a single point: his heart.
Badum—badum—badum—
The sound grew heavier with each pulse, each contraction louder than the last, until it filled the room like a funeral bell.
New blood was being born even as the old returned. Yet it was empty and devoid of the peculiar "weight" that had been carved into it through myriad concepts.
…and that was because the Origin blood that housed the core of everything that he was also converged into the center of his heart.
"Fuuuh…"
'Let's do this.'
The time of her death was rapidly approaching, but he slowly moved his hands to her chest with boundless consideration.
The procedure he was about to perform would cause her to enter a state of 'death' for a brief moment, and that would make the Heart of the Time God react and reverse time, but he had an answer to that, too.
'For that brief moment… I will have to hide from Time.'
Blindstep—
The world turned monochrome as he pulled her and himself into this secure dimension.
Then…
SHRRRK—!
His hand plunged into her heart, five fingers ripping it from her chest without hesitation.
"A—glarrk…" Seraphine's eyes widened as blood spilled from her lips when she tried to form words. Though her eyes did not hold any questioning or resentment, only curiosity, almost childlike in its nature.
Ashen did not have the mind to answer it because he, himself, was getting overwhelmed with his own feelings.
Sorrow for having to kill her, even if it was only temporary. Hurt at watching her miserable state. And… overwhelming, encompassing joy for finally being moments away from escaping this wretched hell.
"ha…hahahaHAHAHAHAA…," wild laughter erupted unbridled, "FINALLY I CAN LEAVE THIS HELL HHEHEHEHEE."
Then… he ripped his own heart.
He placed the still beating organ in the hollow of her chest, then activated the last component of his plan.
HourVault—
The accumulated vitality of a millennium converged in her body.
The body had already died, but that was no issue. Time had already been deceived, and he had free rein to do as he pleased for now.
And so… he gave her everything that could be called his.
His blood, heavy with all that it had endured.
His concepts, carved into him through suffering and repetition.
His accumulated vitality… and at last, his heart.
All of it… for a single, unyielding purpose.
"Live…live…you will LIVE!!!!!!"