CH 68 - The Key of Pure Blood

CH 68 - The Key of Pure Blood

Beneath the sweet and bustling bakery that glowed with life during the day, Evelyn stood alone in the deep shadows of the basement, surrounded by the damp scent of earth that never truly dried. Old candles flickered weakly around her, casting dancing light across the surface of an ancient leather-bound book spread wide on a stone table. Her sharp eyes scanned the faded ancestral vampire script etched into the pages words slowly being erased by time.
She had read hundreds of texts over the centuries she’d lived. But today, the words before her made her cold, silent heart beat just a little faster.
"Sanguis Purissima, Clavis Eternae."
"The purest blood, the key to eternity..."
Her fingers trembled slightly as they traced the symbol etched onto the page the same one she’d glimpsed faintly on Elara’s neck, back when the girl used to visit her shop often.
“My god… So this is the reason…” Evelyn whispered, not in fear, but with the kind of hunger that only power could awaken. Her breath grew heavy, and she looked up at the ceiling as though she could see through the earth above to the twilight sky hanging over the city.
“If I get it… If Elara’s blood becomes mine, it won’t just be the vampires who bow. Every living creature will kneel. The whole world… at my feet.”
She frowned, eyes racing across the text, connecting all the scattered pieces of knowledge that had long danced at the edges of her mind. It all fit. The mark she’d seen on Elara that day the ancient crest of Aurelion, passed down only through the oldest bloodline was the final clue she’d been waiting for. Elara wasn’t just any pureblood. She was the center of an ancient ritual. A living key that could either rebuild the vampire order or erase it forever.
Evelyn let out a low, bitter laugh.
“Lucien,” she murmured, spitting the name like venom. “Do you even know what you're guarding? Or are you just too blind to see you're protecting the very thing that could destroy us all?”
She paced slowly around the stone table, brushing her fingers over vials and dried herbs hanging on the wall. Her hand paused on a small bottle filled with congealed blood. She stared at the dark liquid, then turned her gaze to the map pinned to the wall.
A red mark stood out clearly, Lucien’s estate the place where Elara was now.
“I don’t need an army,” she whispered coldly. “All I need is the right moment… and that blood will be mine.”
Above her, the bakery buzzed with laughter, small talk, and questions about favorite pastries. Ordinary humans, blissfully unaware that the place they bought their evening sweets was the very ground where the fate of the world was being rewritten.
“Funny,” she said to herself. “They think vampires are just myths. They call this a plague. A virus. Ah… ignorance has always been humanity’s sweetest weakness.”
She stepped closer to a small basement window—the only one that peeked out at the sky. The sun was already dipping below the horizon. Shadows stretched long between the rooftops. In just a few hours, night would fall. And Elara’s protective seal… was starting to weaken.
The world was about to change forever.
And when that blood finally flowed into her hands, there would be no more Aurelion. No more humans. Only one name would echo through the new world, Evelyn.
But even she didn’t know…
That someone was watching from afar. Someone who understood the true value of Elara’s blood. And that shadow, hidden just behind the bakery walls, had already begun to move.
“Your time is running out, pureblood… I’m coming. And the world will remember me as the queen of eternity.”

Deep within the Regane Library, hidden between moss-covered stone walls and towering shelves that scraped the vaulted ceiling, Daeron stood alone in silence. A golden glow from an old lantern swept across the rows of ancient manuscripts most of them brittle, their pages yellowed by time. Yet behind that fragility lay a terrifying strength knowledge no living being was ever meant to unlock.
The Regane Clan’s library was no ordinary archive. Like Aurelion’s perhaps even darker it held forbidden sections. Parts of it were sealed off, even from noble blood, unless granted special permission. But Daeron wasn’t just any noble he was the keeper of the deepest scripts, the one who had read the secret records containing truths even Lucien didn’t know.
His long, pale fingers unrolled an ancient scroll, written in a hybrid of old vampire tongue and the language of witches. On it, a distinct symbol stood out: Sanguis Nexus the blood link.
Daeron frowned.
“So this is the reason,” he murmured, eyes scanning a line that spoke of a grim prophecy about pure blood.
“The one who holds the first blood will stand at the center of the storm. Hunted not by one race, but by all who have tasted life and thirst for eternity—humans, vampires, creatures of the dark, even the wolves who lurk in the shadows of night. They will all come.”
He closed his eyes. His breath deepened. This scroll... had never been shown to anyone. Not to other Reganes. Not even to Lucien despite Lucien being the core of Aurelion’s power.
“If Lucien knew…” he whispered, “he’d realize this is no longer just about a war between clans. This… this could break the balance of the world.”
Daeron sank slowly into a large wooden chair covered in aged dragon-hide. Its creak echoed like a groan from the past. He stared into the small flame dancing inside the lantern, as if trying to divine the future.
“That girl… Elara,” he said quietly. “She’s the key to everything. If Gabriel or another vampire gets her blood, we’ll lose power forever. If the humans get to her first, our race could be erased from history. But…”
His eyes narrowed sharply, full of thought.
“What worries me more… are those who’ve stayed silent for too long. The werewolves. If they start hunting too… then destruction is inevitable. They’ve never forgotten what pureblood once did to their kind. Half their clans were wiped out. Their hatred runs deep. And if they catch even a trace of Elara, they won’t stop.”
Daeron stood. The air in the room seemed to shift with him, books trembling slightly on their shelves, as if they too were restless, eager to be opened and understood. But he knew—not every answer lay in these pages. Some could only be found through action.
“I need to tell Lucien,” he said firmly. “Before it’s too late.”
But just as he turned to leave, a cold gust blew through the back corridor of the library. One book fell on its own from the highest shelf, landing open on a page marked by a symbol Daeron had never seen before. A mark that, according to the text, would appear at the nape of the chosen one’s neck. The symbol pulsed faintly… as if it knew it was being watched.