396 Neither a Hero nor a Villain
Lith suddenly had an idea as he looked at the man below him and it didn't take long for him to come up with an answer.
Lith raised the man's chin with the tip of his spear and made him look directly in his eyes. "Look anywhere else other than my eyes and this spear will go straight in."
The man's body trembled but he lightly nodded his head and looked straight in the purple eyes of Lith.
Lith stared at the guy with a neutral face and soon his eyes turned a deep blood red color as a black aura liberated out of his body and enveloped the man and him.
Lith's face became blurry for the man and soon, he was only able to look at a pair of glowing blood red eyes.
"Repeat after me." Lith said seriously.
Though he spoke normally, the man felt chills as his voice was heard in a distorted manner. It was as if there was a monster that was speaking to him.
The man gulped and mustered up courage to say, "Y-yes…"
Lith then continued, "I don't know why I am here."
"I don't know why I am here…" the man said slowly while looking at the red eyes of Lith.
"I don't know what was my motive to be here." Lith continued and the man repeated.
"I should be doing something else."
"I have no idea what happened here. I should be leaving this place."
As Lith continued to say these things, the man's mind slowly got clouded with just Lith's words and he couldn't think or remember anything but these words.
What Lith was doing was simple. He was hypnotizing the person while also ensuring he erased all his memories of this event.
In the years that he cultivated in seclusion and went for assassinations, he was with his mother. She had taught him a lot of things about his own body which he didn't even know were present. A lot of abilities and skills were dormant in him and they would get activated once Lith provided enough stimulation to them or used them frequently or reached a certain Magic Rank.
Some of his body's abilities were innate, some he got through assassinations, but most of these were properties that Lith inherited from his mother, Lilith.
Hypnosis or charm ability was something almost all noble vampires possessed. Though if they would be able to make it work was a different case.
Charms don't work on someone who is strong minded and willed. It also didn't work on people of superior bloodlines and so, a Baron Vampire, in most cases, was never able to charm a Viscount Vampire.
The current case where the man was getting hypnotized was not because he was weak willed, he was definitely a strong person who has been through countless battles, but the problem occurred due to him encountering Vampire Royalty.
Lith's bloodline was the world's strongest and now his Magic Rank was high as well. There was no way this man would be able to resist such a thing.
After the man was fully hypnotized and his memories of this situation were erased as well, Lith knocked him out. He then proceeded to do the same things with the two elves and the struggling-for-his-life vampire on the ground and knocked them unconscious as well and left the area.
Lith, although a vampire, still had some morals of his past life with him and this made him refrain from killing people mindlessly right now. He wasn't a villain to do this but he also wasn't some saint or hero.
Lith's motive was clear. Spare the innocent guys and kill the bad ones. Though that was the case, he would still kill an innocent person if it would turn out that they would cause troubles to Lith in future. He was following the path of what they called an anti-hero, and since he still had some morals, he didn't break the fine line between an anti-hero and a villain and become a killing machine.
By no means were the adventurers he spared innocent. They were participating in a war and should expect death to be a thing. But he didn't kill anyone except the skeleton because he wanted to test his abilities.
As for killing the skeleton, it was totally an accident.
It was for the first time after being a Rank 9 that Lith picked up his weapon. He didn't know how much power to imbue in it and so he casually imbued fifteen percent of his power into the spear and sent it towards the skeleton. This ended up killing the skeleton and even Lith was in awe knowing how much power he actually had.
Other than that, Lith's anti-hero mindset started to form right from the day when he joined the academy entrance exam.
Lith one-shot killed the students in the academy exams and also eliminated many in various other events this way. He knew that no harm would be done to them despite having them killed and so he went ahead with it. Though Lith knew that this would probably cause trauma to some, he hardly cared about it. His goal was to finish the exams quickly and so he followed through this.
The students were innocent of course and if it were some person with a hero personality, they would probably try to cause as minimal damage as possible to the other students and eliminate them.
All in all, Lith's mindset was being changed to suit his identity as the Vampire Prince, but his past life memories, it was playing its role in keeping Lith sane and kept the state of his mind good enough to not stray and sink deep into the abyss and lose all morality, thereby becoming completely evil like those demons chained in the Nine Floors of Hell.
…..
A few moments passed after Lith left and the four party members woke up from their unconscious state one by one.
"Where are we?" The elf in the group asked the vampire.
"How would I know? I am just as confused as you." The vampire replied.
The jacked man looked around and frowning, he said, "if all four of us are here, where is skeleton?"
The others looked around and found their fifth party member to not be there. Usually, when they would go out, it would be the five of them, but now their healer was missing.
Amidst their confused gazes and looking around, the jacked man's phone suddenly rang and as he picked it up and put it on speaker mode, soon everyone heard the skeleton's voice.
"Wh-what the fuck happened there? How did I end up getting killed!?" The skeleton said in a panicked voice.
"What do you mean? And who killed you?" The jacked man frowned and asked.
"Skeleton was killed?" The dark elf couldn't help but ask.
"Seems like it." The elf beside her replied.
"I have no idea! You guys… get out of there as soon as possible and assemble at the base. We'll talk later about it! Don't lose your lives!" The skeleton didn't explain further and hung up.
Everyone's faces were grim as they heard this.
"Now that he says that…" the jacked man touched his body and noticed a lot of areas where it was aching and wounds were present.
The vampire shivered as well and said, "I felt as if some deity had crushed me under its palm a while ago. Then the next thing I know… I woke up…"
The elves with their grim faces nodded and explained something similar happening to them.
"Whatever, let's get out quickly." The jacked man said and the party left the area.
…..
Inside the Shadow River Sect, Lith met Wan in the courtyard of the administration building.
"Did you figure out what their motives were?" Wan asked while sitting on a chair opposite to Lith.
"I know just as much as you do. You must've heard what they've said, right?" Lith looked at the sheets in front of him and said.
"I have some rough ideas. But if what I was thinking were true, there should've been another attack incoming right at this moment but there isn't any." Wan said with a serious gaze while looking in the direction of the two clans.
"Hmm… So something changed?" Lith asked.
"Probably." Wan replied.
Lith thought over the things while looking at the sheets in front of him and putting them down, he looked at Wan and said,
"I guess things changed because I suddenly entered the war zone."
"Could be the case, yes." Wan didn't deny. His assumption of Lith was someone powerful and skilled, along with a mysterious background. Not anyone could have an Amethyst Card and not only that, Lith's sudden growth also made him think of Lith as a genius.
If Wan could notice this, he was sure that the two clan heads were bound to notice this new player in the conflict as well. Wan thus guessed that they changed their strategies when they noticed Lith's prowess.
"Yeah. Anyway, I have a plan for you, want to hear it?"
Wan nodded. "Sure, go ahead." It wouldn't hurt to listen to Lith's plans, he thought.
Lith placed a blank sheet above the other sheet and started explaining things to Wan by drawing and writing things on it.
"So, here's the plan…"
.....
A/N: This is the fourth bonus chapter and past bonuses are done. Thank you so much for completing the goals!
Normal chapter + bonus for 750/750 GT completion will be handed out in a short while.
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