Chapter 899: The Appearance of the Shadows
“They’re right, we’ve made a mistake.”
Hao Ren recalled the last words of Amatura. After reading Amatura’s findings, Hao Ren and Hasse could not help but think of the innate hostility and conspiracy theories, but they had not figured out what the ‘mistake’ meant.
Was it part of a conspiracy theory, or was it the source of the innate hostility? Or was it something that Amatura’s findings had not stated?
“The problem now is that there is no information about the Ancattero family,” Hasse looked at Amatura’s body regrettably. “This information is missing from Amatura’s letters. I am afraid it has been destroyed or transferred. However, we now know that the Ancattero family is indeed studying the innate hostility phenomenon. If we could know their findings, you should be able to figure out the meaning of this last word.”
At this time, White Flame came up to Hasse. “Teacher, there is a situation,” she said.
“What happened?”
White Flame lowered her head. “We couldn’t find the body of Elder Andaherr and several masters and other missing persons,” she said.
Hasse’s eyebrows knit together. “Have you checked the rooms near the hall and the porch on the left?” he asked.
“Checked.” White Flame nodded. “I’ve also sent men to search the streets around the hall and nearby houses but found nothing. Master Teuton thinks that they must have escaped to somewhere else during the fierce battle. The scene is too messy, and we couldn’t trace them,” she said.
Hasse nodded with his eyes closed. Hao Ren reminded him, “The patriarch of the Ancattero family is not here, too.”
“They are the most powerful warriors. They must have escaped.” Hasse opened his single eye, which was glistening with light as he scanned the hall for clues. In his special vision, colors and strange things filled the hall. There were strange patterns and human faces on the broken tables, chairs and walls, souls of the dead, and residual energy. “There is the scent of Andaherr. She was here. She left in an unspecified direction,” Hasse said.
Hasse looked at Wayne, who was silent next to him. “You’re Wayne Walter. Do you know any sanctuaries in this city?”
Wayne opened his mouth but was hesitant to tell. Vivian shot him a glare then only Wayne said reluctantly, “There is more than one place like this, and I only know two or three of them, after all, I not an Ancattero family member.”
“Where do you think they might have gone?” Y’zaks asked.
“Looking along the horizontal axis of the family hall, you should be able to see a very high obelisk. Below the obelisk is the resting place of the Ancattero patriarchs. Vogus, if he were still sane at that time, should have escaped with his men there.”
Vogus was the name of the current patriarch of Ancattero.
Hasse immediately stopped the two demon hunters who were passing by and summoned Teuton, who was collecting blood samples. “Three of you follow Wayne to the resting place of Ancattero family to see if you can find out the whereabouts of the Elder Andaherr. Be careful. If you see the Shade of Chaos, call for help immediately.”
The three demon hunters were reluctant to let a vampire lead the team. Wayne protested too, but that drew a glare from Vivian.
At last, the four of them yielded and left to carry out the order. Vivian sighed helplessly. “It’s tough to deal with them, they were acting like children,” she said.
Hao Ren looked in amazement. Vivian was not only having absolute authority over the vampires but also the demon hunters. Though he knew that Vivian was a respected figure among the ancient demon hunters, he could not fathom how a vampire could exert such an influence by seniority alone. He sneaked up to White Flame and asked in a whisper, “It seems that demon hunters also fear Vivian.”
White Flame first looked at her teacher and then said in a low voice, “The younger generation of demon hunters may not know who she is, but the older ones know Countess Ancestor well.”
Hao Ren pouted. “What I don’t get is that how Vivian could have exerted so great influence based on seniority alone,” he said.
White Flame glanced into the direction of Vivian. Knowing that Vivian was not looking at them, White Flame whispered, “Imagine how influential a person is when that person has beaten everyone generation of your family before.”
Hao Ren was speechless.
“I can hear you,” Vivian said.
White Flame was stunned. Hao Ren came up to Vivian and said unabashedly, “Looks like you are notorious. Didn’t you say you’re a peace-lover?”
“I am,” Vivian said, rolling her eyes. “Apart from when I lost control of myself, I’ve never fought with anyone. Of course, scuffle once in a while was inevitable. After all, the world in ancient times was turbulent.”
Lily looked at Vivian, then Hasse and White Flame. “But I can see in their eyes that what you did to them in the past was no small scuffle,” she said.
Vivian looked away. “Life was hard back then during the barbaric era. I just wanted to fill up my stomach,” she said.
Hasse sighed. “But you wreaked havoc on the whole city,” he said.
Vivian blinked. “Most of the time, it was you who made a mountain out of a molehill! You mobilized the army of an entire city to guard your food. All I wanted was just a meal. Was it too much to ask?” she said.
Hao Ren could not help but interrupt them. “Seriously?”
“Yeah!” Vivian crossed her arms. “You know, I once took four potatoes from the demon hunters in Northern Europe. You know what, they sent 10,000 men surrounding the mountain to hunt me! Even Ebben, the werewolf didn’t go to such an extent!” she said.
Hasse, who used to be as calm as a millpond, became agitated. “When the oldest vampire stormed into the city impetuously, did you expect people think that you came in peace? Your mere presence was enough to throw the city into a state of emergency. Though I wasn’t present at that time, I could imagine how baffled the demon hunters at the garrison were when you ran away with only a few potatoes,” Hasse said.
Though Hasse did not have many encounters with Vivian in the past, he had heard of Vivian’ stories. They were silent, looking at each other and sighing. Hao Ren listened to their conversation and felt sorry for Vivian. He wondered how Vivian could mess up her life when she had all the fame and abilities.
Lily could not help but murmur, “Why did you look for trouble with these people when you could have just grabbed your food safely from the civilians?”
“Safely?” Vivian sighed. “I get a lot of attention wherever I go. What’s more, the demon hunters have eyes everywhere. Back then, when the demon hunters learned that I was on the Seine, they came to hunt me from as far as Nile River. At that time, I hoped that I was just a little-known small fry, at least I wouldn’t have drawn so much hatred towards me. But slowly, things got better. After the Mythological era, the world was more peaceful, and the demon hunters didn’t even bother to look for me anymore. I guess it was because I had consistently beaten their grandfathers, the later generations were too embarrassed, so they avoided me like the plague,” she said.
I will leave it to you to imagine the expression on Hasse’ face.
Vivian’s words had reminded Hao Ren of her similar encounters with the Ebben family. These things were almost unimaginable during the peaceful era on Earth. During the Mythological period, the melee among the otherworldlings was a norm and had produced many legends about the divine wars, Ragnarök, and the punishment of the gods. No one knew that the truth behind these divine warfare was all about a hungry vampire.
“There is rumor among the demon hunters and the otherworldlings that the Countess of the Crimson Moon is very moody,” Hasse forced a smile. “It was not just because she lost control of herself and became violent, but also because she often behaved weirdly. If not for hearing it with my ears, I would not have believed that she caused all that troubles simply because she was hungry.”
Hao Ren nodded. “It seems that she is very dangerous only when she is hungry, but if you feed her well she will be perfectly fine,” he said empathically.
Vivian looked at Hao Ren, knitting her brows together. “That’s a strange theory. Is that how you raise your cat?”
They were waiting for the investigators to finish sampling and analyzing the evidence in the hall. The tension between the demon hunters and the otherworldlings had subsided. Even Hasse did not realize that the killing instinct in his blood had dissipated completely.
The other demon-hunter investigators were even less aware of it.
Meanwhile, the shadows were lurking beneath the collapsed pillars, broken tables and chairs, and corpses but no one had noticed that.