Chapter 14 is a bit late. It's like 5:18 in the morning here. I should go sleep soon. Anyways, many thanks to RagNarok for proofreading and generally helping. He gave me many great ideas. Great guy.

Anyways enjoy!

Chapter 14: Sister’s Development

I opened my eyes to a pitch black room. Even though it was so dark in here, I could still see clearly. One of the many gifts given to me by Dread Father. I rose up from the bed. I didn’t have any clothes on, so I quickly dressed myself. How long was I asleep this time? I wondered. Dressed in a black shirt and grey pants, I opened the door. I was thirsty, but it wasn’t completely uncontrollable. I quickly found myself two slaves. They were surprised to see me. I waved for them to come over. I bit into the neck of one girl. I drank her blood, until her eyes wavered, then closed. I let her fall to the floor. She wasn’t dead, just unconscious. The other girl soon followed. A guard walked by.

“Lord, you’re awake!” He said.

“You, take these girls to the sleeping quarters and have someone take care of them.” I said. The guard took the girls, then left. I walked to where ever Bogat was. Arriving outside his door I knocked. “Come in” he said. I opened the door and walked in.

“Ah, Isaac! You’re up, good morning. Or evening rather.” He said. I nodded and sat down on a chair.

“How long did I sleep for?” I asked.

“Two months.” He replied.

“I see, have everyone gather in the meeting room.” I said. After, I left the room. Soon after everyone was in the meeting room. Except for the kids, they were playing somewhere with their maids.

“As you see, I have awoken. There are a few things I want to address. First, Bogat, tell me the status of the castle. How is the population?” I asked. Bogat stood up.

“The population of the castle and village is around 1500 people. There are around 1000 villagers outside in the village, and 500 inside. Of the 500 slaves inside 150 of them are guards. Another 100 of them are the maids, cleaners, cooks, gardeners and stable keepers etc. Then the around 200 slaves left are the blood dolls. There are also another 150 guards outside in the village, making sure everything is in order and that no one tries to escape, although there haven’t been any escape attempts so far.” Bogat said.

“I see. How about your vampire protégés? Have they been made yet?” I asked.

“Yes all of us have made a vampire each, except for your family.” Bogat reported, once again.

“Good, bring them here after the meeting is over, so that I can see them. Now onto the next matter. We don’t have any craftsmen here. We need blacksmiths, tailors, enchanters and the like. Bogat I want you to go the city to get the craftsmen. Kato you’re our head mage, so you are going to find us a good enchanter or two. When you bring them back, you can either make them vampires, or ghouls. We should also look into getting a few more mages. For this you should find someone promising. Maybe from the village, or something. Then you should bind them to you with your blood and train them. To motivate them you could promise them vampire blood if they do well, then in the end turn them into vampires. But first get the enchanters. Lilia and Aylard, you are in charge of training the guards. I want them to be elites. At the moment we don’t even have a single C rank guard. Make them into something that inspires fear in others. Tell them if they do well, they’ll become potential vampire candidates. Eric, you are to go to the village. See if you can find someone that has potential as an assassin. Then train them together with your underlings. In eight to ten months Valen will be here with our assassins. That’s when we start our operations. I want them to be ready by then. Of course if you can also have your vampire underlings go through the training sometimes, if they are skilled enough. Also, Kato, how is my brother.” I said. Kato stood up to answer.

“Marcus has fed twice. Both times his victims died. I did as you said and had him wait until he lost his reasoning, but I must say I did feel bad for him once, so I let him feed earlier, but he actually refused. He didn’t feed until he lost all control of himself, even if the girl was in there with him until he became like that. But I have noticed that there are some bad effects of him not eating. Even though the maturing period has passed, he didn’t gain much strength after it. He’s still a pureblood, but he might be even weaker than a normal vampire. Hopefully this will change when he starts feeding regularly.” Kato said. I could see that he was a bit worried. It also worried me. I would have to go see him soon.

“I see, that’s not good. If he gets too weak, I’m afraid we’ll have to start force feeding him. But let’s wait a while longer. On another note, I am going to the capital to get my sister. Maybe I should have gone before I turned you all, but she has already been there for a few months already. I’m sure she could handle two more. It will be a good experience for her, in case she ever gets captured again. I leave tomorrow, and I’ll be going alone. You're dismissed” I said. Then everyone left to go get the new vampires. Soon seven new faces were in the room.

“So you’re the new guys. We haven’t met before since I’ve been asleep for two months, but you all probably know who I am. Serve me well” I said. Then I turned around and left. Serana and Amelia followed me. We went to our room, and on the way we met Alicia and had her come too, for a chat. Then all four of us were in the bedroom.

“Are we going to have sex?” Amelia asked.

“No, I’m still a bit drowsy from sleeping. Let’s just relax, since I leave for the capital tomorrow.” I said.

“Yeah, you’re going to get your sister from the Lord Commander. I can’t wait to meet her, and have some girl on girl time. Felicia is way too boring. She is always so nervous around us. Your parents as well, it’s like they’re scared of us. This is because you had to go and do that to Marcus!” Amelia said. Serana chuckled on the side.

“Hey, he insulted you! And it’s not like it was permanent damage…” I replied. Then Alicia stood up.

“Wait, you’re going to pay the Lord Commander a visit to get your sister. Lord Isaac, please you have to help me. My sister was bought by the Lord Commander back when we were sold! Please, can you go get her too? Her name is Alice, she looks just like me, since we’re twins.” She said. Her name was Alice? That’s the same name as my sister’s.

“My sister’s name is Alice too. Alright, I’ll get her as well.” I said. We spent the rest of the day talking and doing other stuff. I also taught Alicia how to paint. When morning came, the four of us had slept together, but we didn’t have sex. We just slept for once.

The next evening I set off on Iluvatar. Kato and Bogat weren’t leaving yet, since they had to prepare some things first. Iluvatar ran at full speed for the capital and in only a few days, we arrived. The guards of the city gate were scared when they saw the giant wolf running at them, but then they relaxed as they recognised the famous Night Wolf of the Coldblood family. It was quite the mystery how they had managed to tame it so thoroughly. It had never gone against its Master’s wishes. When inside the city, I headed for the Palace. Visitors were only allowed inside the castle, they could only wander outside in the public gardens. When I arrived at the entrance two guards stopped me with their spears.

“Halt! Visitors aren’t allowed in the castle!” The guards said. I looked at them menacingly, piercing into their souls with my sharp gaze.

“Let me in and tell the Lord Commander that Isaac Coldblood is here to see him.” I said with a cold voice. The guards shivered in fear at my voice, and when they heard who it was they were even more afraid. They didn’t dare disobey. Recently the Coldblood family had gotten very powerful in the Fenlai Prefecture. Even the Lord Commander had to be polite to them, lest he wanted to be abdicated.

“Yes Sir! Please follow me!” The guard said, scared. I followed the guard, and we soon arrived in front of a door. The guard knocked.

“Come in.” A voice resounded. The guard opened the door and we entered the room.

“Lord Commander! Lord Isaac Coldblood has come to see you!” the guard announced. The Lord Commander was surprised. The Coldbloods had left the city months ago.

“Lord Isaac, you have come to see me? We haven’t met before, since I was unable to come to your wedding, right? My name is Charles Fenlai, lord of the Fenlai Prefecture. What is that you need?” He asked, very politely. The guard left and I sat myself on a chair.

“A few months ago you were traveling at the outskirts of the prefecture, right? You arrived at a farm, near a forest, where you saw a very beautiful girl. You decided to take her as a concubine right?” I asked. Charles was very surprised that I knew this. It was no secret that he had gotten himself a concubine, but not many people knew where she was from. The Coldbloods must be very formidable to know of this.

“Yes that’s right. I saw the girl and fell for her at first sight. As a thank you to the family I started sending them some money, but when the second payment was arrived, the family was gone. It seemed like they had disappeared very suddenly. The farming tools were still on the ground. I feared that they might have been killed by a monster.” He said.

“You don’t have to worry about that. That girl, Alice, she’s my sister, and I have come to take her back. Our family has also been brought to our new home.” I said. Now, Charles was even more shocked.

“You’re her brother? You? But doesn’t that mean you’re from a farming family? How the hell did you become the heir of the Coldblood family?” He asked.

“That’s not important, but I’m taking her back with me.” I said. Charles started getting afraid now. It didn’t seem like he wanted her to leave.

“Do you really have to take her? How about you ask her first? Let me go get her.” He said, then rushed out before I could answer. Soon he brought back a beautiful girl. She seemed confused. Why was she being taken to see this person so suddenly? Then while she was wondering, the person turned around. She lost her breath. Tears starting swelling up in her eyes. She lost the strength in her knees, and fell to the floor.

“Brother!” She yelled. She started crawling over to me.

“Isaac, is it you? You aren’t dead? You haven’t changed, you haven’t changed at all!” She said.

“Yes, it’s me Alice. I’m finally back, and I have come to bring you back to my castle. Mom and dad are there. Marcus and his family as well. We’ll all be reunited at last.” I said. I was truly happy. I hadn’t seen my sister for over eight or nine years.

“You’re taking me away? Away from Charles? You can’t!” She said. Dumbfounded. I was dumbfounded. She didn’t want to go? Why?

“What? Why not?” I asked, confused. It didn’t seem like it was a “You can’t or you’ll die!” situation. More like a “I don’t wanna go!” situation.

“I love him! He’s so kind and nice to me, and he doesn’t have any other concubines. Only me. And most importantly… There’s a baby inside me. We’re expecting!” She said with a big smile. Dumbfounded! Shocked! I was dumbfounded and shocked! I slowly turned my head towards Charles, with a look that could make it seem like the world was ending. Charles went on his knees and begged.

“Please forgive me Great Master Isaac Coldblood! I love your sister and would have married her if possible, but she is of common birth so it was not allowed. But now that she is the sister of the oh so great You, then you just have to announce that she is your sister. Then I can marry her. Please, Great Master Isaac of the Coldblood Clan, I beg you, don’t take her from me!” Charles begged very seriously. And it’s not like he’s an old man, he’s still in his twenties. He became the Lord Commander after his father died. That was shortly before I became a vampire. I looked at him, then my sister. She was also looking at me with begging eyes. But she was also very confused. Charles, the supposed most powerful man in the prefecture, was begging her brother to let him have her. Since when did he become so important?

“Fine. Since you actually do seem to love each other, then it’s fine. But there are conditions. First condition is that she is coming back with me for a visit. I want her to meet my wives and new family. Second condition is that in ten years you have to step down, and both of you move to my castle. I’m not willing to wait any longer. If you refuse to step down in ten years, then I’ll kill you. Understand?” I said. At the last words I let my killing intent and aura flow a bit.

“Y-y-y-yes I understand! Thank you so much big brother Great Master Isaac of the Coldblood Clan!” He said and kowtowed over and over again. Alice looked ecstatic as well.

“There’s one more thing. You should have a slave around here, also called Alice. She’s the twin sister of my concubine. I want her as well.” I said.

“Alice you say? I will bring all the Alices in the castle, for you to see!” He said and rushed out. A while later more women were in the room. Some were older while some were younger. I walked up to one of the girls.

“You’re Alice, right? Your sister, Alicia, is my concubine. She asked me to take you with me while I was here getting my own sister.” I told her. When she heard these words, she got really happy.

“Really?! Alicia is fine? Great! When do we leave?” She said.

“Soon.” I replied, then turned to Charles.

“Transfer her slave rights over to me.” I said. Charles replied with a “yes Sir” which caused the Alices to be surprised. To think that the Lord Commander would call someone Sir. They were all somehow happy at seeing this, but the happiest one was Alice number two. That is Alicia’s sister. She had realized that she was being taken by a very important person, and her sister was that important person’s concubine. She could definitely profit from this. Her days of slavery were over!

After her slave rights were transferred over to me, we left the city. Both Alices were very scared when Iluvatar appeared. But they managed to calm down sooner or later. We travelled as quickly as their weak mortal bodies could handle, but it was still a lot slower than on my way there. We also had to make stops to eat and sleep. A vampire could manage to stay awake for a very long time, but wasn’t the case of a human. One night, while we were sleeping, we awoke to a rumbling noise. I saw a platoon of armed knights marching in our direction on their horses. They weren’t sent by Charles, since they came from the other direction, so I was a bit puzzled as to what they wanted. I stood still, waiting for them to arrive. Soon the squad stopped in front of us, and one horse rode forwards. On the horse was an armed knight, but this one's armour had many curves and on its chest there were two bulges going out. It was a woman.

The woman got off her horse and stopped in front me, then took off her helm. In front of me appeared an extremely beautiful woman, almost rivalling my wives. Well she was still a good distance away, but still. For a human she was ridiculously beautiful, but that didn’t affect me. Alicia was still more beautiful than her. But she had been tempered with by my blood. And then there was Amelia and Serana. Being surrounded by such godly beauties, this human wouldn’t affect me.

“Civilian we need your provisions for a squad, since we are running low.” She said in a cold voice. That was asking a bit much. We only had enough food to last two humans one or two weeks. There were more than ten knights there, so it would only last a few days.

“Why should I give you our food?” I asked with an even more cold voice, while showing a small smirk. The woman was a bit taken aback by the response, but immediately recovered.

“Listen here, that was an imperial order. We are royal knights from the Royal Capital of Kalderon kingdom. All of us here are B ranked, and I’m even late stage, so if you refuse my orders, then I will kill you” said the woman. My smirk grew into a smile. Then the smile started quivering until it burst out in1to full laughter. I stood up, grabbed my sword and let the full power of my aura and killing intent blow into their faces.

“You will kill me?! COME AT ME AND I WILL SHOW YOU WHAT TRUE FEAR AND POWER IS!!!” I screamed into her face with a sinister smile on my face that could make hearts stop. She was shocked. That aura was terribly powerful, and she completely taken aback, but being as experiences as she was, she quickly recovered.

“Knights attack!” She shouted.

“Girls, run and don’t look back! I’ll find you when I’m done.” I said menacingly. The girls nodded and immediately ran. Some of the knights started chasing them, but I was not about to let them, so I charged in their direction and appeared in front of them like a flash. I smiled at them, then swiped my sword at their necks. Soon three necks decorated the ground. The woman looked on in shock at my speed.

I lifted one hand up to air and channelled some mana into it. Suddenly a ball appeared above me. A small insignificant ball, but the ball grew. It grew until it was one meter tall, two meters wide, then split into two one meter balls. The two balls grew again, doubling in size, then split into two again. It repeated like this until there were ten balls. It might have sounded like it was slow, but it only took around ten seconds. After the ten balls had appeared, they suddenly started splitting rapidly, until there were hundreds of small black balls. All of the small balls changed shape to form arrows.Then i let them fly towards them.

The hundreds of small black arrows flew towards the group of knights at shocking speed.

“Shield yourselves!” The woman screamed, while covering herself with her shield. The former black balls rained on them, like a storm of arrows. After it was over corpses littered the ground. There were only three knights left. One of them was the woman. But they were injured all over. My body flashed and I appeared in front of them once more.

“Who are you?!” the woman asked. I smiled at her.

“I’m Isaac.” I said with a voice so gentle and kind that it sent shivers down the spines of the three survivors. Then I put my sword down. My body flashed and I appeared before one of the knights. I transformed my hands into claws and pierced both his shoulders with a finger each. While the man was screaming I started lifting him up, causing the screams to echo even louder. The other two knights looked on in horror. I let go of him, but as he fell down, my hand flashed and I stabbed him in the middle of his throat. I then grabbed him and started draining the blood out of him. It was tasty, ridiculously tasty. This was the first time I tasted blood from a B ranker. It was as good as Alicia’s blood, but it was different. It gave a different feeling to it had a different taste.

As I was finished drinking his blood I turned away from him and walked towards the other knight. As I was walking towards the other knight I raised my hands and snapped my fingers. Suddenly the corpse of the other guy burst into flames. Suddenly there was nothing left of him, except ashes that would inevitably be blown away by the wind. The man started screaming and tried running, but I used my ice magic to make ice spurt up from the ground entrapping his feet.

“What are you?” the woman asked, horrified from seeing her entire squad get exterminated in a matter of seconds, just because she had tried to rob a random traveler of his food.

“Don’t tell me, you haven’t heard of the legends? About the monsters that roam the night drinking the blood of innocents. The monsters of eternal life, the rulers of the night?” I said. I continued walking towards the trapped knight.

“You’re a vampire? But they don’t exist!” She said. I ignored her and decided to ask her a question instead, as I made the ice slowly spread up the knights legs while I tasted his blood.

“This knight, he is at the middle stage of rank B, just like that other guy. But he should be strong enough to kill someone of the late stage. Why is that?” I asked. The woman was shocked at this question.

“How do you know that they can do that? You shouldn’t have been able to estimate their strength from that massacre!” She said.

“I can taste it in their blood. By drinking their blood I can feel their strength.” I explained. The woman had a more understanding look. It’s not that she fully believed that he’s a vampire, but it was the only possibility she could think of.

“I see. But I won’t tell you this secret.” She said. How annoying.

“You won’t? How about this, if you tell me I’ll let live in my castle. I won’t kill you.” I said to her, hoping that she would tell me.

“No way, as much as I would like living, if I do tell you, they’ll hunt me down and make me suffer a far worse fate.” She said. How annoying!

“Don’t worry there’s no way they’ll find you where I live. And if they have some tracking spell on you I can easily dispose of it.” I said. Hopefully this would be enough.

“You can? Well, that was some very powerful magic and you specialize in darkness magic, which is the best for concealing stuff. Alright if you promise me that you’ll let me live, and also let me tell my husband that I’m fine, then I’ll agree.” She said. Perfect!

“Alright, I agree. Now tell me!” I said, getting impatient.

“It has to do with the method we train in. Knights have to train in a special method from the beginning to become this powerful. I don’t really understand it fully, but it has something to do with the light element entering our body. It also makes us more effective against undead and demon type monsters, not that it was much help against you.” She said.

“Good” I said. One word. Then I flashed again, and when my body appeared again, my sword was inserted into the woman’s throat. She was looking at me in disbelief. She grabbed her throat, trying to stop the blood from flowing, but there was no use in trying. Soon her blood soaked body lost all its strength and went limp. She was dead.

She was too naïve, but it had been her only hope at coming out alive. So I don’t blame her, I couldn’t have removed that tracing spell, even if I had wanted to. After all, I was only an elementary mage. I just seemed more powerful because I put vast amounts of mana into the spells. This was something only vampires could do, since they had more mana than they knew what to do with. Even if human mages have huge amounts of mana, they wouldn’t be able to do this, since they would lack the mana control needed. Control usually increases as you increase in mage rank, but vampires had inherent talent for mana control. They would always be able to control mana very effectively. Some more than other though. Kato had way better control than any other vampire, and I also had far better control than the others. The reason being, I’m the progenitor and Kato has sacrificed other properties for mana.

After killing that woman I walked over to the frozen knight. I stood before him, rose a finger, touched him. Suddenly the ice started shattering and he turned into little ice particles, flowing in the wind. Then to finish, I set fire to all the corpses, removing all evidence.

Then I started looking for the Alice duo, and found them quickly. They knew better than to ask any questions. But they were also very surprised. They had half expected me to die, or at least return gravely injured. After all they had heard that woman say that they were all B ranked. But no! Instead he returned only moments later, not a scratch on my body, only the blood of my enemies.

We immediately resumed our journey, and after travelling for many days, we finally arrived at my castle. The girls were awestruck.

“This is your home?” My sister asked, shocked by the size of it. It even had a village.

“Why is it so remote? Seriously, we had to travel for days in a forest to get here!” She complained.

“It’s so that no one can find it. When you return to the capital, you are never allowed to talk about this place. Not even with Charles. He’ll have to wait ten years to see it. And there is something that I have to tell you when we get there.” I said. She looked confused. Moments later we arrived in the castle. I had everyone gather in the meeting hall, except for Marcus. I was sitting in my seat, Alice next to me. The other Alice was meeting her sister again.

“Everyone! Alice has returned! But she won’t be staying.” I said. There was a moment of silence, but all of a sudden both mother and Felicia stood up.

“What?! She gets to leave, while we were forced to stay? Even after what you did to Marcus?!” Felicia complained. Instantly my eyes sharpened, and all of a sudden I was standing in front of Felicia. I grabbed her throat and lifter her up off the ground, then stabbed my hand into her abdomen and threw her to the side. Mother sat down again, while Alice looked shocked and horrified. She was about to speak up, when I returned to my seat.

“Felicia, don’t speak against me again or I’ll imprison you for a hundred years. And relax, there’s a reason for this. It turned out that Charles, the Lord Commander, and Alice fell in love. Now Alice is pregnant, so I let her stay there. But both Charles, Alice and the child have to return here in ten years. At that time, Charles will abdicate. Only then will I turn them into vampires.” I said. There was a moment of silence, but then Alice spoke up.

“Vampires? You’ll make us into vampires? What are you talking about?” She asked confused.

“Alice. Every single person in here, except for you and Sara, are vampires. All those years ago when I disappeared, it was because I became a vampire. The first vampire. Two months ago I returned to the farm to get you guys, and make you into vampires, but you weren’t there, so I made the others into vampires first. Then I slept for two months. After that I went to get you, intending for you to be a vampire as well, but now that will have to wait a few years. That’s also the reason as to why I haven’t aged.” I said. She looked scared, like she had realized that she walked into a den of wolves, dressed like a juicy sheep.

“That’s not true right? You’re just kidding me, right?” She asked nervously. I started laughing.

“No, I’m serious, but don’t worry, we won’t eat you. We have enough blood dolls around here, so we won’t go hungry anytime soon.” I said. She seemed a bit reassured. After several people here were her blood and flesh. She trusted them. What made her worry were the others, but after realizing that they weren’t eying her with hunger in their eyes, but instead curiosity, she calmed down.

“By the way, where’s Marcus?” She asked. Here it came the question I didn’t want to answer.

“Marcus is imprisoned right now. You see, he doesn’t want to eat anything, and when we go without blood for too long, we lose control of our self. We lose our mind and go insane, until we can drink again, so he has to be locked up most of the time, so that he doesn’t go on a rampage. He’s only allowed out after he has fed, and only for a little while. It’s tragic, but I don’t want to force him to eat yet, but if this continues I will force him. It’s very bad for him not to eat.” I explained. Alice seemed a bit sad to hear this, but she accepted it.

“I see. If that’s the case, then it is indeed best to keep him under locks. If he were to find out that he went on a rampage and massacred a lot of people I think he would be devastated.” She said. Well it’s good that she understands. But that’s not really the main point of keeping him locked up. It’s more so that he doesn’t see little Isaac and Sara. And I also lied about letting him out from time to time. Ever since he entered that room, he hasn’t exited it once. Not that it’s a horrible room or anything.

After the meeting was over I decided to go pay my brother a visit. I went into the castle’s dungeon. There were many cells down here, but that’s not where I was heading for. I continued down the dungeon until I arrived at a thick door, made out of some kind of steel. In this hallway there were many such doors. They were all made out of very strong material. We had built these cells for the sake of imprisoning vampires. I put the keys into the keyhole and opened the door. I arrived in a dark room. Seemed like the lights were off. Marcus was sitting in a chair, staring into the nothingness. When I closed the door, he suddenly pounced at me like a ferocious beast. I grabbed his neck and threw him against the wall. He slowly stood back up again.

“I’m sorry brother, seems like I lost control once again…” he said. I turned on the candle that was there with fire magic. There was also a fire starter there, but I didn’t bother using it. I sat down on his bed. There was only one chair in the cell.

“Marcus, why don’t you just eat? You’ll get used to it, and you don’t have to kill your victims. In fact, with what you’re doing now you’re killing more than you would if you just fed regularly. Every person you feed on now gets killed, because you lose control, but if you just fed regularly you won’t lose control. If this continues, then I’m going to have to start force feeding you. I know I said that I wouldn’t do that, but things have changed. Feeding so rarely is hurting you. You’re a pureblood vampire, so you should be much stronger than a normal vampire at your level, but now you’re even weaker than a normal vampire, even after feeding. You won’t die, but I fear that you might enter a very long hunger induced coma or something. After I turned you all into vampires I had to sleep for two months because of all the energy I used. Something similar might happen with you if do this. It will make your body weaker and weaker until there is barely any blood essence in you. At that point you would enter a long coma to recover it. It might last years or even centuries, and I won’t let that happen” I said. Marcus looked at me in shock. He had not expected for something like that.

“Even then, I cannot make myself willingly drink someone's blood! I would rather enter that coma. And if you have to force feed me, then there’s nothing I can do, but I won’t do it willingly.” He said in a moody voice. I closed my eyes for a while, then left the room, not saying a single word. The last thing Marcus heard was the sound of the door locking, then the madness started looming in on him again.

End of chapter 14.