Vampire: World of Blood

"... B-Big... HUGE WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Lucy said as she turned around, her head raised upwards to see Merciless; her reaction was pure shock at his current form.

Ophelia was no different either.

"Holy shit... is that really you, Merciless?"

Ophelia's eyes locked on Merciless, who held Anastasia in his arms like she was made of glass, effortlessly carrying her in a princess hold.

He was impossibly tall, towering over everyone in the area they found themselves in. While still shorter than the king, who stood at a monstrous six meters, Merciless had grown to over eight feet tall, easily dwarfing the rest of them.

His muscular frame radiated raw strength, but what caught her off guard was how much his appearance had changed. The youthful, almost boyish face she remembered was gone, replaced by sharp, mature features of that of a man in his prime.

His once-golden hair now flowed like dark silk, curly but not as curly as it used to be; wild and primitive was the best way to put it, and his eyes seemed to have properly taken on the form of a royal vampire, neon in color hard to miss, but in Merciless case he had four eyes, and his black sclera was evident.

Even his tails had changed, now larger, more menacing, and brimming with power akin to that of a level 5 vampire, which was insane if you take into account just how powerful a level 5 vampire was.

And to make things worse, his presence was suffocating. Lucy couldn't help but notice how much stronger he felt, but at the same time this wasn't just a Level 5 aura; it was something darker and heavier, and she couldn't put her hand on it either.

For one, the corruption radiating from him was terrifying, not just because of how much there was but because of how refined and potent it had become compared to before. It felt like he wasn't just radiating it but rather flooding it outward and taking it back in at the same time.

Lucy couldn't hide her confusion. How could a mere Level 3 vampire rise to Level 5 in such a short time? It defied everything she understood about vampire power and growth.

Folding her arms, she scrutinized Merciless, her voice steady but tinged with skepticism as she struggled to maintain her usual calm, approachable demeanor.

"So, you're really Merciless?"

She asked, narrowing her eyes.

"I mean, it's hard to believe. How does someone undergo this kind of transformation so quickly? Just what the hell happened to you?"

Lucy asked Merciless, who just maintained a fair smile, as he said.

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

"... Is that so?"

"Yes."

"..."

Merciless let out a heavy sigh, his expression unreadable.

"You want answers? Fine."

He said, his tone calm, but he gave a warning.

"But don't say I didn't warn you."

He turned slightly, his imposing tails swaying with an almost hypnotic grace.

"Each of you, grab onto my tail. I'll share my memories with you; everything I've experienced during our time apart will become clear."

Merciless extended two of his tails, their blue tips glowing faintly as they hovered in front of the others. Inwardly, he reflected on the ability he was about to use, a power that had remained dormant until now.

'This is the first time I'll use it.'

He thought, a mix of curiosity and determination settling over him. <<Memory Connection>> I gained it when I hit level 5, but it's not a combat ability, so I never had the chance to test it.

The concept was as clear as the power flowing through him. It links minds and connects consciousness between two or more people. At its simplest, it's good for things like telepathic communication or reading someone's thoughts.

But if pushed further...

His gaze flicked briefly to the glowing tails, the potential of the ability running through his mind.

'At full power, I can use it for far more. I could turn someone's memories into weapons, fuse their imagination with mine, or even use their experiences to enhance my shapeshifting through Memory Skin.'

'But since I don't know these two well, our link is minimal. For any real results, I need direct contact, and their trust would help immensely in this case as it will weaken their minds to my influence. Trust allows deeper access, just enough for me to plant a <<Fallacy Parasite>> inside their minds without knowing I touch their minds in this manner. It's one of the five blessings I gained alongside Profane Honesty and Living Lie after ascending to Arbiter.'

'The power of Fallacy Parasite is straightforward but deadly. I can create immaterial entities crafted from commanding memories; these parasites are lies personified, influencing the truth within someone's mental state. The commands are based on lies, and whatever lie forms them translates into an entity with a specific purpose.'

He considered the situation carefully as he continued.

'In this case, I lack a strong connection to these goth beauties. But if my plan is to work, and if I want to gain leverage over their progenitor to claim the clan as my own, I need to get closer to the granddaughter first, then the mother, and finally the grandmother. Well, fuck the father; sooner or later that man will become a host for one of my tails; I already have plans for him. He has potential from what I have seen in Ophelia's memories about Lucy's father.'

'So too, as many other people I have seen in the memories of all my teammates, as such they are on my list of potential benefits; but I will admit it is a pity, but their friends and family are too useful to give up and play a blind eye to; the benefits I can reap, especially in Alucard and Jordan family, are immense.'

Merciless said to himself and went on.

'There are so many people to break, so many bodies to claim, and so many minds to infect, manipulate, and convert. So many memories to delve into and rewrite, so many powers to steal and cultivate, and so many people to get close to and seduce. Heh, all in due time. Everything will unfold exactly as I envision it. With knowledge comes power, and I've amassed an obscene amount of it.'

Merciless smirked to himself, his thoughts tinged with anticipation of the future he was hoping for.

'Heh, I can't wait to be done with this exam. The memories I've collected here have revealed so much to me from forbidden knowledge, ancient memories, opportunities, weaknesses, and a bountiful amount of finite possibilities. But patience. Merciless, patient. The journey has just begun, and there's no need to rush. Timing is everything.'

'And, of course, Lucy's abilities are valuable too. Every power, memory, and fragment of knowledge she holds could be transformed into an aspect within my blood as ink, another resource for the Fantamonicon. I'm not just after proximity; I'm after everything. By this world standard, I am weak, but my knowledge makes up for weakness, and with it, I am confident anything can be overcome with prep time, even the Gods.'

He spoke with a subtle smile on his lips, though it remained unseen by those around him. It was a devilish grin; while everyone else remained oblivious to his manipulation, charisma, actions, brutality, connections, and seduction, Merciless was prepared to play all his cards to get what he desired.

Much like Lucy, who is power-hungry and ambitious, often cruel and unjust when it serves her interests, Merciless operates with both directness and indirectness.

For the sake of power, he could appear as a saint, a man capable of boundless good. However, if power could only be attained through evil and questionable deeds, he would not hesitate to embody the most repugnant aspects of the word if necessary.

And that was just how Merciless works; in this case, Merciless already had a plan.

His tails flexed slightly as his mind churned, calculating his next move. He had already created two parasites, birthed from the fabrication he called <<The Lie of Memory Invasion>>.

These lie-born entities had a straightforward function: they allowed him to penetrate the minds of his targets, whether they were conscious or not. Once inside, he could sift through their memories, extracting every detail he needed.

These parasites would stay with them for as long as they lived; this way, he didn't even need to be close to them to see what they thought or what new memories they would have.

Jahad vampires, due to their whore-like nature, were notoriously resistant to memory manipulation; it was a hallmark of their bloodline. But resistance wasn't the same as immunity.

With the right strategy and a bit of finesse, even their defenses couldn't repel his parasites. The genius of his creation lay in its nature: these parasites were lies. The mind, unable to distinguish the intrusion from its own truths, couldn't recognize or reject them. Unlike the body's immune system fending off invaders, the mind was defenseless against something it believed to be real.

The brilliance of the strategy lies in the nature of perception itself.

How could the mind differentiate between its own imagination and a being akin to external projection when both stemmed from the same cognitive processes? In the intricate theater of the brain, memory stood as the ultimate arbiter of truth. To remember was to establish, to establish was to acknowledge, and to acknowledge was to accept experiences as the truth.

What one sees, feels, touches, smells, hears, and tastes. All this manifested as memories, the tangible fabric of reality as the mind understood it.

In this case, the parasites weren't tampering with existing memories. They didn't rewrite or distort the past they once saw and the present they currently feel.

Instead, they acted as beacons, subtle constructs woven into the mental plane that in their case was an unmanifest mental plane, meaning they have yet to shape their mind into a proper inner world like him and Jordan, to have a mental construct is to reach a high level of perception.

Through these mental parasites, Merciless could peer into the clueless minds of Lucy and Ophelia, bypassing their defenses. The lie they carried wasn't an attack; it was a doorway, or a beacon in their minds, one that Merciless could step through to observe, analyze, and claim the knowledge he sought.

Merciless wielded his voice like a weapon, seductive and unhurried, a melody that flowed effortlessly, captivating anyone who heard it. His tone was as enchanting as that of a siren, carrying an otherworldly beauty that drew listeners in. But it wasn't just the sound of his voice that held power; it was the force behind his words. Whether truth or lies, everything Merciless said was imbued with the weight of his blessings Profane Honesty. To those who heard him, his words weren't just convincing; they were irrefutable truths.

"Just grab my tail, and everything will be revealed. After that, feel free to ask as many questions as you want, I'll answer them all."

Merciless said, his tone calm and inviting.

Ophelia folded her arms and tilted her head.

"Hm… well, I don't see any harm in it... Besides, isn't Merciless some kind of bio expert? We've seen what he can do, like stealing abilities and all that. I'm pretty sure, thanks to that damn slime, he's got some of my powers now as Jordan explained. Speaking of which... Merciless, quick question. You didn't order that slime to attack us, right?"

Merciless scratched his head, looking slightly sheepish.

"Well, no... the thing is, Substance is one of my new experiments. At the time, I installed safeguards in her biochemistry to keep her inactive, but it seems some side effects kicked in that triggered her annihilation mode. In that state, she will target any living organism in hopes of retrieving its DNA. That mode is specifically designed for terraforming planets and causing mass extinction events."

"You see I created Substance to archive DNA for study and to assimilate useful traits later to myself. I didn't anticipate she'd cause you trouble like she did. For that, I sincerely apologize and humbly ask for your forgiveness."

Merciless spoke in an apologetic tone, and both Lucy and Ophelia seemed to believe him, despite his words being complete lies.

With a casual gesture, he added.

"Anyway, let's move on. Just touch my tail. This is something better seen than explained. If I tried to tell you everything, we'd be here for hours."

With that, Lucy and Ophelia exchanged a glance and nodded before reaching out to touch the glowing blue tips of Merciless's tails. The moment their hands made contact, Merciless activated Memory Connection, forging a direct link to their minds.

As promised, memories began flooding into their consciousness; except these weren't real memories. Merciless was feeding them fabricated memories, a product of the Living Lie blessing.

In their minds, years of information passed in an instant. They witnessed countless battles, moments of determination, sorrow, enlightenment, and triumph, none of which had ever happened.

Merciless crafted a story of false memories to show them what he wanted them to see: that he had been unlucky enough to fall into a trap within the exam, plunging him outside its bounds.

He portrayed himself struggling to survive in the far reaches of the Primix dimension, a place flooding with danger of all kinds, a place filled with horrors that required more than brute strength to escape. They saw his supposed pain, his battles, his bloodshed. He fabricated tales of meeting allies and enemies, showing them moments of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. He even included glimpses of information he'd gained from the queen's memories, blending real and fake details seamlessly.

He wove stories of love and loss, of non-existent sexual encounters, near-death experiences, and mental breakdowns from isolation and madness. His memories showed him evolving from the blonde-haired young adult they once knew into his current, far more formidable mature form.

One key lie stood out: Merciless claimed he met a powerful spawn during his exile, a mysterious woman who agreed to help him return to the exam. He explained that while years passed for him in that place, well in the different constructs where the concept of time was evident, only a few months had gone by in the exam construct.

And when he returned, the exam was still ongoing.

The fabricated memories were vivid and profound. Ophelia was deeply moved, tears of blood streaming from her eyes as she felt genuine sorrow and empathy for what she believed Merciless had endured. Lucy, however, reacted differently. Where Ophelia found herself emotionally shaken, Lucy saw the potential in Merciless's transformation and even felt a sense of admiration for his supposed journey.

Natrually of course he planted his parasite deep within their minds, as he showed them his fake life memories.

"Wow... not gonna lie, big buy, this stuff is insane."

Lucy said, rubbing her temples as if trying to soothe the ache caused by the flood of information.

"The things I'm seeing are quite gnarly... and, well, kind of cool as they are fucked up, how the hell did you survive the outside is what I would ask if I wasn't seeing it for myself. You really are the Seventh Lord's son. If it were any other vampire who fell into that madness you found yourself in, they would've completely lost their minds, and kicked the bucket long ago... but hey look at the bright side, that horrific experience has molded you into a proper man if you ask me."

Lucy's words hung in the air, but Ophelia's reaction was different. Despite her usually brash demeanor, tears of blood welled in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks and staining the desert sand below. The crimson droplets lingered only briefly before evaporating into the dry air, leaving faint traces behind.

"How?...

"Hmmm?"

Merciless said looking in the direction of Ophelia who just looked at him and asked.

"How the hell are you so calm about this.. don't you feel I don't know wrong?"

Merciless just looked in her direction and replied.

"Do you think circumstances care about where they throw you in life? Crying wouldn't have changed a damn thing. When I was in that hellish place, I faced death more times than I can count. But I fought, and clawed my way through, and eventually, I made it back here. I won't lie, there were moments I wanted to give up, to let the final death claim me. But like hell was I going to surrender so easily."

"That said, it wasn't all bad. What I went through made me stronger than ever, and I didn't come back empty-handed. I brought back wisdom; years of it. I know more about the Primix Dimension than any of you examinees could ever hope to. Even if you pooled all your initial knowledge into one, it wouldn't amount to a speck of dust compared to what I've learned."

Merciless said his tail pointing at his head, to gesture his comment.

"And here's the thing: the House of Ghal is hiding a lot, using all of you as pawns. Most of the spawns beyond the second wall you're trying to reach? They're nobodies, weaklings. But if you want real power, I can show you where the true powerhouses reside. That's why I called you both here. I want to make a deal."

"So I will ask this only once... are you guys perhaps interested in what I have to offer, of course I don't mind explaining this deal to you if you wish to hear me out that is."

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