Chapter 599 Who Am I?
The two continued laughing as their horses slowly made their way along the open road.
It took several moments before the laughter finally died down.
Leonid inhaled quietly.
"The truth..."
He looked toward the endless horizon.
"...is that I never adapted."
That answer immediately erased Liam’s smile.
He turned fully toward Leonid now, giving him his complete attention.
"What do you mean?"
Leonid chuckled softly.
"Everyone keeps asking how I adapted to becoming a vampire."
"They think I accepted it."
"They think I embraced it."
He slowly shook his head.
"I never did."
"I never stopped being human."
"Not even for a day."
Liam listened without interrupting.
"I still sleep."
Leonid smiled to himself.
"I don’t actually need sleep anymore."
"My body functions perfectly without it."
"But every night..."
"I still lie down."
"I still close my eyes."
"I still wake up in the morning."
"Just because it feels..."
"...normal."
He continued.
"I still watch television."
"I still play video games."
"I still read forensic journals whenever I can find them."
"I still waste hours watching documentaries."
"I still complain when movies have unrealistic crime scenes."
Liam laughed.
"I knew it."
Leonid nodded.
"And..."
A hint of amusement appeared in his eyes.
"I still hook up with women."
Liam nearly lost his balance on the horse laughing.
"Hahaha!"
"There it is!"
"I was waiting for something like that."
Leonid shrugged.
"What?"
"I’m still a man."
Liam wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.
"Fair enough."
Then his curiosity immediately took over again.
"Actually..."
"I’ve heard something."
Leonid glanced toward him.
"What?"
"Is that myth true?"
"The one about vampires having..."
Liam coughed awkwardly.
"...higher libidos than humans?"
Leonid didn’t even hesitate.
"It’s true."
Liam blinked.
"No way."
"It’s true."
"Like..."
Leonid searched for an appropriate comparison.
"...ridiculously true."
Liam stared at him for several long seconds before slowly nodding.
"Woah..."
"I wasn’t expecting you to confirm it that confidently."
Leonid simply laughed.
"Trust me."
"It’s one stereotype they got right."
The two shared another laugh before Leonid’s expression gradually became more thoughtful.
"But honestly..."
"That’s never been the difficult part."
Liam’s smile faded.
"The blood?"
Leonid nodded.
"The blood."
His gaze drifted toward the road once more.
"That..."
"...was the hardest thing to adapt to."
Liam’s curiosity returned immediately.
"So how did you manage it?"
Leonid answered without hesitation.
"At first..."
"I survived on blood banks."
"I hated every second of it."
"It tasted cold."
"Artificial."
"It kept me alive."
"But it constantly reminded me of what I’d become."
He continued quietly.
"Eventually I switched to animal blood."
"It wasn’t pleasant either."
"But psychologically..."
"...it was easier."
"I could tell myself I wasn’t feeding on people."
Liam nodded slowly.
"That makes sense."
Leonid smiled faintly.
"And now..."
He looked down at his own hands.
"I mostly starve myself."
Liam frowned.
"You what?"
"I push myself."
"I keep extending the time."
"I want to know exactly how long I can go before I lose control."
His voice remained steady.
"If I ever reach the point where I can’t think..."
"...I need to know it before innocent people find out for me."
Liam didn’t laugh this time.
He simply looked at Leonid with a new kind of respect.
The man riding beside him hadn’t adapted to being a vampire.
Every single day...
He was still fighting one.
Liam remained quiet for several moments after Leonid finished explaining how he deliberately pushed himself to the edge of starvation. The image lingered in his mind far longer than he expected. Every day, Leonid willingly walked closer to losing himself, not because he wanted to prove anything, but because he wanted to know exactly where the line was. He wanted to know how long he could resist before instinct consumed reason. It was a lonely kind of discipline, one that nobody would ever notice unless he spoke about it. Liam found himself wondering just how much of Leonid’s life was spent quietly fighting battles that nobody else even knew existed.
"So..." Liam finally broke the silence, his horse lazily trotting alongside Leonid’s. "What happens when you don’t take blood for a really long time?"
Leonid rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his fingers brushing against the light stubble that had begun to grow there. He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked toward the road ahead, as though replaying every stage of that experience from memory.
"It doesn’t happen all at once," he said eventually. "At first... I simply become angry."
Liam glanced at him.
"Just angry?"
Leonid nodded slowly.
"The kind of anger that doesn’t make sense. Little things start irritating me. Someone speaking too loudly. Someone asking too many questions." His lips curved into the faintest smile as he looked sideways at Liam. "Everything begins to feel like a personal attack."
Liam laughed.
"So you’re saying I should stay away from you?"
"I would recommend it."
The two shared a brief chuckle before Leonid’s expression became serious again.
"After that..." he continued, "...I start losing my sanity."
His voice remained calm, but there was an unmistakable heaviness behind those words.
"My thoughts become... distorted. It becomes harder to think rationally. Hunger starts replacing logic. Every living creature I look at slowly stops looking like a person or an animal." He paused briefly before finishing the sentence. "They simply become blood."
Liam’s smile disappeared.
"I’ll still recognize people. I’ll still know who they are. But instinct begins shouting louder than reason. It becomes harder and harder to ignore it." Leonid looked down at his own hand resting against the reins. "Eventually..."
He let out a quiet breath.
"I become wild."
"There really isn’t another word for it."
"I stop acting like myself."
"I stop acting like Leonid."
"I become a creature that’s only interested in feeding."
The peaceful road suddenly felt much quieter than before.
The gentle breeze that drifted through the open fields, the chirping birds hidden among distant trees, even the rhythmic sound of their horses’ hooves—all of it seemed strangely distant as Liam imagined what Leonid had just described. It wasn’t simply hunger. It was the complete erosion of who someone was.
After a while, Liam asked another question.
"So... what happens after that?"
Leonid looked at him.
"If you still don’t get blood..." Liam continued. "Do you eventually die?"
Leonid slowly shook his head.
"No."
"Our bodies don’t really work that way."
He adjusted himself slightly in the saddle before continuing.
"If starvation continues for long enough, the body eventually gives up trying to stay awake."
Liam frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"It shuts down."
Leonid’s voice carried the same calm certainty it always did whenever he explained something factual.
"I’ll fall into what vampires call a slumber."
"My heart becomes almost impossible to detect."
"My breathing stops."
"My body becomes completely unresponsive."
"It won’t move."
"It won’t react."
"It simply..." He searched for the right comparison before smiling faintly. "Sleeps."
Liam waited for him to continue.
"The strange part is that it isn’t temporary."
Leonid looked toward the horizon where the afternoon sun had begun its slow descent.
"If nobody gives me blood..." he said quietly, "...I’ll remain like that forever."
Liam blinked.
"Forever?"
Leonid nodded.
"It doesn’t matter if it’s twenty years."
"Two hundred."
"Or two thousand."
"My body will simply remain there, waiting."
He looked back at Liam.
"The moment blood touches my lips again..."
"I wake up."
"It’s as though no time has passed at all."
He shrugged.
"Think of it as an endless sleep."
Liam stared at him for several seconds before breaking into a grin.
"That..."
He shook his head.
"That is so cool."
Leonid couldn’t help laughing.
"I don’t think anyone has ever reacted like that before."
"I mean, think about it!" Liam said, laughing as well. "You’re basically immortal furniture until someone accidentally spills blood on you."
Leonid let out a louder laugh than Liam had heard from him in a long time.
"When you put it like that..."
"I suppose that’s one way of describing it."
The two of them laughed together, their voices drifting across the empty plains as their horses continued forward without needing much guidance. The road stretched endlessly before them, winding through rolling hills covered in wildflowers and patches of tall grass that swayed gently beneath the evening breeze.
Eventually, the laughter faded.
Neither of them felt the need to force another conversation.
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it had become surprisingly pleasant.
For the next hour, the group simply traveled.
The sky slowly changed above them, trading the brilliant blue of afternoon for softer shades of gold and amber. The warmth of the sun eased little by little as it drifted toward the horizon, painting the road in long shadows. Ahead of them, Tatiana and Irina were still talking, though much more quietly than before. Gregor was undoubtedly telling another unbelievable story, judging from the way Agatha occasionally shook her head while Mary smiled with that familiar amused expression.
Liam found himself absentmindedly watching Leonid again.
It wasn’t intentional.
He had simply noticed something about him over the past several days.
Even when Leonid laughed...
Even when he spoke...
Even when he seemed completely engaged in a conversation...
There was always a small part of him that felt... absent.
Like his mind constantly wandered somewhere nobody else could follow.
Liam studied him for another minute before finally asking,
"What is it?"
Leonid turned toward him, genuine confusion crossing his face.
"What is what?"
"You."
Leonid blinked.
"Me?"
Liam nodded.
"I’ve noticed something."
"What?"
Liam searched for the right words, finding the question surprisingly difficult to explain.
"Most of the time..."
"You look..."
He frowned slightly.
"...unconnected."
Leonid simply looked at him.
"It’s strange," Liam continued. "You’ll be sitting with everyone, listening to conversations, answering questions, even laughing at jokes... but sometimes it feels like you aren’t actually there."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"It’s like part of your mind is somewhere else entirely."
Leonid remained silent.
For several moments, he simply stared ahead.
Then, slowly, he lifted his eyes toward the sky.
The sun had already begun setting.
Golden light spilled across the clouds, turning them into streaks of orange, crimson and violet. The entire horizon seemed to glow as the day quietly surrendered to evening.
A faint smile appeared on Leonid’s face.
"It feels weird saying it."
Liam smiled.
"Then hit me with it."
Leonid chuckled softly before taking a slow breath.
"Alright."
He watched the sky for another few seconds before speaking.
"Before all this..."
"I was just a random human."
"There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about me."
"I wasn’t gifted."
"I wasn’t chosen."
"I wasn’t destined for greatness."
"I had a normal job."
"I woke up every morning."
"I went to work."
"I complained about paperwork."
"I came home."
"I watched television."
"I went to bed."
He smiled faintly to himself.
"I was simply living."
His gaze remained fixed on the horizon.
"But after I turned into a vampire..."
His expression slowly became thoughtful.
"...something changed."
"Not physically."
"I understood those changes."
"I’m talking about something else."
He placed a hand against his own chest.
"I suddenly started feeling like..."
He hesitated.
"...I was meant for something bigger."
Liam looked toward the evening sky as well.
"But we are fighting for something bigger."
Leonid smiled before slowly shaking his head.
"No."
He looked directly at Liam.
"You’re fighting for something bigger."
"This..."
He gestured loosely toward the road, the group ahead of them, and finally Liam himself.
"...is your fight."
"Let’s not pretend it’s mine."
"I’m just a casual plus."
"If you lost me tomorrow..."
He shrugged with an almost carefree smile.
"It wouldn’t really matter."
"I’m not that important."
Liam immediately opened his mouth to argue.
Leonid laughed before he could even speak.
"Don’t."
His smile never disappeared.
"Don’t try to make me feel better."
He looked directly at Liam.
"Do I look sad about it?"
Liam studied him carefully.
The surprising thing was...
He didn’t.
There wasn’t a trace of bitterness in Leonid’s eyes.
No resentment.
No jealousy.
No self-pity.
He wasn’t fishing for reassurance.
He genuinely wasn’t upset by what he had just said.
Liam found himself smiling.
"No."
"You really don’t."
Leonid nodded once.
"I know."
His gaze drifted back toward the sunset.
"But despite that..."
He grew quiet again.
"I can’t shake this feeling."
"It feels like there’s more to me than I know."
His voice became almost distant.
"Ever since I turned..."
"I’ve had this constant urge to find something."
"To understand something."
"Myself."
He laughed quietly, almost embarrassed by how vague it sounded.
"I keep feeling like there’s a part of me I haven’t discovered yet."
"A part that’s waiting."
"The problem is..."
He sighed.
"I don’t even know where to start looking."