My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

Twenty years before returning through time, Victor lay with his eyes closed while listening to Serafall speak. The room remained silent, illuminated only by a small flame on the table, and his mother occupied the chair beside the bed. Her voice was lower than usual, without the firmness she used before soldiers or the impatience she showed whenever someone made a mistake near her.

"There was an incident inside the Valentine Family’s main headquarters," Serafall said. "I do not know exactly how it began. By the time I realized what was happening, the werewolves were already inside the walls."

Victor opened his eyes but remained lying down.

"The main headquarters?"

"Yes."

She continued looking at her own hands. There was dried blood between her fingers, even though she had already washed her arms more than once. Victor noticed it but did not ask whose blood it was.

"It was not a small invasion," Serafall continued. "They knew the entrances, the barriers, and the patrol schedules. They attacked several points at once and prevented the family’s forces from organizing. By the time the reinforcements understood what was happening, the internal routes had already been blocked."

Victor took several seconds to comprehend the scale of what she was saying.

"How many died?"

Serafall did not answer immediately.

"Almost everyone."

The Valentine Family was called the strongest family among the vampires. Its troops controlled important territories, its elders carried centuries of experience, and the best young talents of every generation were trained inside the main headquarters. It should not have been possible to eliminate a structure of that size in a single night.

Even so, Serafall was sitting there telling him it had happened.

"They destroyed the headquarters, burned the archives, and killed anyone who tried to leave," she said. "The Valentines were erased from the world before anyone understood what was happening."

Victor turned his face toward her.

"Who arranged it?"

Serafall remained quiet.

The flame on the table moved with the air entering through the window, but she did not look away from her hands. When she finally answered, her voice was heavier.

"If I knew, I would have killed them all."

"So you never found out."

"I did not have time."

Victor frowned.

Serafall slowly closed her hands.

"I remember the flames, the corridors collapsing, and people screaming. I remember grabbing you and running." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Even though I was strong, I ran like a coward. I did not search for the ones responsible, I did not return to help the others, and I did not try to defend the headquarters."

"You were protecting me."

"I was afraid."

Victor did not answer.

Serafall finally raised her eyes and looked at him.

"I knew that if I moved away from you for even a few seconds, someone could kill you. So I kept running. I heard people calling for me and did not stop. I passed wounded soldiers and did not stop. I left the headquarters while it burned because you were in my arms and I could not think about anything else."

Victor studied her expression. Serafall did not normally admit fear, much less guilt. That night, however, she seemed too exhausted to hide either of them.

"You were not a coward," he said.

"Perhaps not." She looked at her hands again. "But that was how I felt."

The memory ended with her voice still trapped inside Victor’s mind.

The present returned together with a sharp pain in his chest.

Victor sat alone in a private training room inside the mansion, his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees. The energy of the Divine Blood Body Refinement Method had been circulating through his body for several hours, concentrated mainly in his heart and blood vessels.

The first stage had already stabilized completely. The layer of resistance that had once felt like invisible armor had become natural, responding to his movements without interfering with his control. Because of that, he had begun the second stage before the deadline Rakshasa recommended, although he had waited long enough not to compromise the first ring.

The pressure inside his veins increased.

His heart accelerated and sent blood through his body with far greater force than normal circulation. The vessels should have ruptured. Instead, the essence accumulated along their inner walls absorbed the pressure and began rebuilding them, increasing their elasticity and resistance with every circulation.

Victor kept his breathing controlled.

The blood passed through his arms, legs, organs, and brain. With each cycle, the vessels expanded for a fraction of a second before returning to their normal size. Small ruptures appeared in the weakest areas, but his regeneration closed them immediately and left stronger structures in their place.

When the final cycle ended, his heart beat nine times.

The first pulse made the floor tremble slightly beneath him.

The following beats came at regular intervals, each one closing another part of the new essence structure. Victor focused his perception on his chest and felt a second ring form around his heart, surrounding the first without directly touching it.

On the ninth beat, the circulation stabilized.

The pressure vanished.

Victor opened his eyes and released a long breath.

He had reached the second stage.

He raised one hand and observed the veins beneath his skin. They did not look different, but he could feel the flow far more clearly. A single intention was enough to accelerate circulation and direct more blood toward a specific area. His muscles responded faster, his body temperature could be altered with ease, and his regeneration received energy before he even had to consciously think about the wound.

It was an important evolution.

Even so, the satisfaction did not last long.

The memory of Serafall remained in his mind, especially the part he had never managed to clarify in the previous timeline. Werewolves had attacked the Valentine headquarters, but no one had discovered how they entered, who supplied them with information, or why the most powerful vampire family had been unable to respond.

Victor had returned through time and changed many things.

He found Carmilla and freed her from the seal before she remained lost for more years. His encounter with Scarlet had been an accident, but he had also saved her and completely changed the fate she should have followed. The greatest prodigies of the Valentine Family, who had died far too early in the other timeline, were alive and gathered together again.

Rowena had also appeared by chance. Victor had not planned to find her, much less carry her inside a ring, but her presence had already prevented problems he would not even have noticed on his own.

Jake had not caused the same incident as in the previous life. Edgar Valentine had been exposed before he could continue acting within the family, and Rakshasa had eliminated him. An important internal threat had disappeared long before the night when the headquarters should have fallen.

Natasha was also alive and healthy.

Victor had not returned through time with a plan to cure her. It had happened through a sequence of decisions and coincidences he could never have predicted, but the result remained. One of the most important people in Serafall’s life would not die from the same illness that had slowly consumed her in the other timeline.

Furthermore, Victor himself was different.

Back then, Victor had not possessed enough strength to decide anything. He depended on Serafall to survive and could only be carried while she fled from the flames. Now he possessed his own powers, vastly superior regeneration, Lilith, the three energies, and Rakshasa’s techniques. Even if the attack happened again, he would not need to remain hidden in his mother’s arms.

In theory, everything was better.

Victor slowly stood and walked toward the wall of the room. He accelerated his circulation for several seconds, testing the second stage. Blood reached the muscles in his legs almost instantly, increasing their physical response without causing pain or excessive pressure.

The technique worked.

The changes in the timeline were also real.

Even so, something still felt wrong.

Victor placed one hand against the wall and closed his eyes. He had no proof, vision, or concrete information. It was only a constant feeling that he had altered the consequences without fully understanding the cause.

Edgar was dead, but he had never confessed to participating in the destruction of the headquarters.

Jake had been controlled, but he did not possess the power to plan an operation of that scale.

The werewolves were involved in laboratories, hybrids, and secret agreements with Ghideon, but that did not explain how they had managed to destroy the Valentines so completely in the previous life.

Perhaps the attack Serafall remembered had not been merely an invasion.

Perhaps someone had opened the gates.

Victor removed his hand from the wall and studied his fingers. He had already saved many people who would have died in the future. He had destroyed threats before they could grow and had become strong enough to take part in what was coming.

But he still did not know who had planned that night.

Nor did he know whether his changes had truly prevented the incident or merely altered the form it would take.

Victor closed his fist.

"Strength..." Victor murmured, still feeling the second ring around his heart. "I need more strength, but if I continue advancing this way, I will end up becoming weaker. I need time. Haste is the enemy of perfection."

He remained still for several seconds, allowing his circulation to return to its normal rhythm. Rakshasa was right when she said direction mattered more than speed. The difficult part was accepting that while an unknown threat approached a date only he knew.

Victor walked toward the weapon rack and picked up Lilith. The blood sword reacted to his touch, adjusting its weight and length to fit his hand more naturally. His body refinement still needed time to stabilize, but he could practice swordsmanship without directly pressuring the second stage.

"Now I should improve my swordsmanship. The better I absorb the techniques, the greater my chances of surviving that old Heavenly Demon..."

"I am saddened to hear that my daughter’s disciple thinks so poorly of me."

Victor stopped.

It was not only the sword’s movement that ceased. His breathing, the flow of blood, and even the intent circulating through his muscles stopped at the same time. He did not turn immediately because, during the first second, he could not decide whether he had truly heard that voice or whether some ancient memory had crossed his mind.

The problem was that Lilith reacted as well.

The blade contracted inside his hand. It did not try to attack, change shape, or protect Victor. It simply shortened by several inches, like an animal that had recognized something far above itself and was trying to appear smaller.

Rowena said nothing.

Her silence was worse than any warning.

Victor expanded his perception throughout the entire training room. He felt the cracks in the floor, the weapons on the racks, the wind entering through the windows, and three servants walking through a distant corridor. He could follow his own heartbeat and identify the exact position of every drop of blood spilled during the refinement.

He found no one else.

Even so, the voice had come from behind him.

Victor tightened his grip around Lilith and slowly turned.

A man sat on the rack where Victor had left several towels before training. There was no sound of wood bending beneath his weight, nor any disturbance in the air around his clothes. He was simply there as though he had always occupied that place, although Victor had looked directly at the bench less than a minute earlier.

Yu Jin Cheon.

Rakshasa’s father.

"What an insolent child," Yu Jin Cheon said as he looked at him. "And to think my daughter is so infatuated that she handed my techniques to a child like you."

Victor’s face turned pale.

"W-what—"

"How adorable."

He seemed to teleport directly in front of Victor and placed one hand on his shoulder.

"I am going to teach you some manners."

Demonic pressure struck Victor, and he fell to his knees.

"Show your respect to the Heavenly Demon."