The First Vampire

Colorful glazes cast enchanting light and shadow, with statues of the seven original Holy Knights standing on both sides of the palace, gazing at those within.

The nobles of the Radiant Empire who had come to attend the ceremony gathered solemnly.

In the melodious sound of bells, Prince Harrison strode into the palace with his head held high.

Cheers broke out.

The Pope Gregory, holding the crown symbolizing the supreme authority of the empire, stood on the left of the throne, silently watching Prince Harrison.

An intense desire from deep within made Prince Harrison quicken his pace a little.

Arriving before Pope Gregory, Prince Harrison knelt on one knee, waiting for his coronation.

However, as time ticked by, Pope Gregory did not put the crown on Prince Harrison’s head.

The palace suddenly quieted down.

Prince Harrison looked up in confusion, only to see Pope Gregory’s emotionless gaze.

“Your Holiness?” Prince Harrison called out softly.

Pope Gregory finally spoke, but his tone was extremely cold: “I’m sorry, Your Highness. The lord requires a new shepherd.”

Boom!

Prince Harrison felt as if he had been struck by lightning, standing there in a daze, completely at a loss.

Sound around him suddenly disappeared, and Pope Gregory seemed to be getting further and further away.

He stretched out his hands vigorously, trying to grasp the crown, but caught nothing.

Pope Gregory’s face also began to blur, until in the end, it actually turned into the face of Colin Angler!

Prince Harrison tried to cry out, but found himself unable to make any sound.

Out of nowhere, a whip suddenly appeared in his hand.

Prince Harrison looked down and found that his regal attire had turned into worn-out military uniform –

And it was the uniform of the Eastern Pegasus Army.

Turning around abruptly, Prince Harrison found himself surrounded by a group of skeletal Eastern soldiers, their eyes filled with a rage that seemed ready to devour, advancing on him step by step.

“Why don’t you give us food?”

“Are you really more noble than us?”

“How dare you enslave us?”

fear suddenly enveloped Prince Harrison, he ferociously brandished the whip, trying to scare away the Eastern soldiers in front of him.

However, such threats were hardly effective.

Amid the roars, these Eastern soldiers rushed at Prince Harrison like a pack of beasts.

“Ahhh -”

Prince Harrison let out a desperate scream, then found his body plummeting rapidly.

Looking back, he saw an endless dark abyss behind him…

“Harrison, Harrison?”

Hearing his mother’s voice, Prince Harrison woke from his nightmare, sitting up abruptly, panting heavily.

Only then did he realize he was drenched in cold sweat.

Queen Midela gently wiped her son’s pale face with a silk cloth, asking worriedly, “What happened? Did you have a nightmare?”

Prince Harrison nodded, the look of fear not yet completely gone from his eyes.

“What nightmare has scared you like this?”

Prince Harrison hesitated for a moment, but finally recounted his nightmare, as well as what Colin had said to him on the city wall during the day.

After that, Prince Harrison looked at Queen Midela, whose eyebrows were tightly knitted, and asked nervously:

“Mother, are we nobles like the supervisors outside Silver Moon City? Are we just tools chosen by the gods to enslave our own kind?”

Queen Midela wanted to refute this, but for a moment, she found that she couldn’t find a single convincing reason.

After a moment of silence, she suddenly asked, “What do you think?”

“I…” Prince Harrison struggled for a moment, then gritted his teeth, saying, “I think, why does the emperor of our Lorenzo family have to be crowned by the Pope?”

Queen Midela sighed inwardly, suddenly realizing that Colin had succeeded.

He managed to provoke Prince Harrison’s wariness of the Church.

This must be their retaliation.

When Queen Midela first tried to sow discord between Queen Isa and Colin, Colin reciprocated by successfully sowing discord between Prince Harrison and the Church.

Seeing the pale-faced, stern-eyed son, Queen Midela suddenly felt a headache.

The conflict between theocracy and monarchy in the glorious empire’s history was not something new.

However, those emperors who tried to challenge the authority of the Church had ended up in quite desperate situations…

“Harrison, do you know? There was an emperor from the Lorenzo family who shared your thoughts. At his coronation, he did not invite the Pope, but had his queen crown him.”

Prince Harrison’s eyes lit up, eagerly asking, “What happened next?”

“Next, the Pope issued a decree, repealed the emperor’s Church membership, and released his subjects from their oaths of loyalty to him.”

Prince Harrison instantly became nervous, “Just because of the Pope’s decree, the empire’s subjects are really unwilling to remain loyal to the emperor?”

“Yes, the four Duchys almost simultaneously declared that if the emperor could not obtain the Pope’s forgiveness, they would no longer recognize his sovereignty.”

Prince Harrison’s face instantly turned pale, and the sparkle in his eyes also vanished.

After a long time, he asked again in a low voice, “What happened after that?”

“Having become the target of all the arrows, the emperor had no choice but to beg for the Pope’s forgiveness.

On a heavy snowfall night, the emperor climbed the Holy Mountain barefoot, knelt in front of the Holy Light Cathedral for three days and three nights, before finally receiving an audience with the Pope.

The once proud emperor could only lie prostrated before the Pope, arms outstretched in the shape of a cross, and weeping bitterly as he confessed his sins.

The Pope beat the emperor ten times on the back with a thorny whip and harshly reprimanded him for his sins. Only after humiliating the earthly king to the extreme, did the Pope declare his sins forgiven, restored his Church membership, and agreed to crown him.”

Hearing this, Prince Harrison began to tremble uncontrollably.

The scene from his nightmare re-emerged before his eyes, bringing him a suffocating fear.

Queen Midela cupped her son’s pale cheeks in her hands, had his eyes look into her own, and solemnly said, “So, Harrison, until you are absolutely sure, never reveal even a hint of disrespect for the deity!”

Prince Harrison struggled, painfully saying, “Mother, are we just to be tools of the deity? Just like the supervisors outside the city, we could be discarded and massacred at any time…”

“Harrison, that’s Viscount Angler intentionally misleading you. How could we nobles possibly be as feeble as those supervisors? Even if the commoners make trouble, they cannot shake our reign.”

“No, this is not about whether our reign can be shaken. Viscount Angler is right, as long as we are troubled by the power of the commoners to defeat the nobles, we fall into the Church’s trap.

The Church doesn’t care who wins or loses, they just want a qualified governing tool.

If the Lorenzo family cannot control the imperial situation, they can completely select a new royal house!

Unless we unite and resist that lofty…”

“Shut up!” Queen Midela suddenly sternly stopped Prince Harrison’s rambling.

Pulling her son’s face closer, Queen Midela darkly warned, “Resist? Harrison, do you think the eastern captives and supervisors outside the city could resist the well-prepared Dark Cavalry if they united?”

Prince Harrison shook his head in agony.

Queen Midela sighed. “So, stop thinking these dangerous thoughts. Go to sleep. You are the first heir of the Lorenzo family. As long as you don’t do evil, what reason would the Pope have to refuse to crown you?”

Prince Harrison hesitated for a moment, seemingly wanting to say something but ultimately not uttering a word.

He looked down obediently and nodded, “Yes mother, I understand.”

“That’s good, sleep.”

“Yes.”

Watching her son fall back asleep, Queen Midela’s eyebrows furrowed tighter and tighter.

After a long while, she turned off the magic lamp and walked out.

The sky tonight was starless, with only a silver moon high up, casting a cold glow on the world below.

Colin’s young face suddenly emerged in Queen Midela’s mind, and then, a hard-to-grasp smile climbed onto her lips:

“Garcia, is this your choice?”