Chapter 83: Defective Inventory: The Assistant General’s Blindness

Drip... drip... drip...

The rhythmic, agonizing splash of fouled water echoed down the narrow, claustrophobic stone corridor, striking the slick floor with a hollow ring.

The heavy air was thick with the scent of damp rust, stale copper, and decaying flesh.

This was the transformation block.

It was the exact, terrifying layout of the cage aisle where Cassius had first opened his eyes after his own conversion, a place frozen in perpetual, subterranean torment.

Overhead, a single fluorescent lamp flickered violently, casting jagged, erratic shadows across rows of reinforced iron bars.

Inside one of these identical, narrow cells, a newborn vampire boy sat huddled against the freezing stone wall.

He was barely fourteen years old. The high-tier virus had forced a grotesque mutation across his fragile frame, leaving him with translucent, corpse-pale skin that clung tightly to his prominent, skeletal ribs.

His fingernails had hardened into jagged, black talons, and his jaw was stretched unnaturally wide to accommodate razor-sharp fangs that gleamed under the erratic, buzzing light.

Where am I... what did they do to me? the boy’s mind screamed frantically, his thoughts spiraling into absolute terror.

’My hands... these aren’t my hands! Why is it so cold? Somebody help me!’

Unlike the mindless, hollow drones that populated the surrounding cells, this boy wasn’t empty. His wide, bloodshot eyes darted frantically through the darkness, filled with the agonizing, raw shards of his old human memory.

He remembered a name. He remembered the warm smile of his mother.

His jaw strained, his lips parting in a desperate attempt to call out, to scream, to beg for his life.

’Mom! Please, where are you?! Help me!’he screamed within his own skull.

But his mutated vocal cords refused to form human speech. The air caught in his throat, choked by the rapid structural shifts of his anatomy. No words came out.

He could only unleash low, ragged, and desperate growls that ricocheted uselessly off the damp stone walls... the tragic, suffocating sound of a human soul trapped and screaming inside a predatory monster’s body.

In the brutal hierarchy of the Vampire System of Apocalypse, holding onto human memory without the right tools was a literal death sentence.

The system demanded total absolute submission, a clean wiping of the slate to make room for the predatory objects. Without a cold, hyper-analytical genius like Cassius’s to systematically separate trauma from logic, a normal human mind simply could not handle the violent separation from its own humanity.

The boy’s brain was a battleground. His human memories... a mother’s smile, a warm house, the panic of the apocalypse; clashed violently against the parasitic vampire instincts screaming for blood.

Thump-thump! THUMP-THUMP! THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

The intense psychic friction sent his new vampire heart into a volatile, uncontrollable frenzy. It hammered against his ribs at an impossible, dangerous rate, his chest heaving as the internal pressure built to a breaking point.

Clank... clank... clank...

The heavy, rhythmic thuds of armored boots suddenly vibrated through the floorboards. Down the corridor, the massive silhouette of the Assistant General emerged from the shadows.

Driven by rigid, mechanical military protocol, the officer moved with absolute tunnel vision. His eyes were blank, cold, and entirely desensitized to the horror around him.

He didn’t even look at the boy’s face. He simply stepped up to the iron door, slid the key into the lock with a sharp clack, and swung the heavy gate open.

In his gauntleted hand, he lifted a massive, high-tech syringe. Inside the glass cylinder, a glowing, volatile serum swirled:

An infectious coding needle designed to permanently inject the slave protocols directly into the newborn’s nervous system, turning him into a compliant dog of the court.

The newborn boy looked up, staring at the gleaming metal needle. He let out one last, furious, heartbreaking growl, baring his fangs in a final stand for his stolen humanity. The growl was this powerfull that it finally sounded human, or like other rare vampires:

"Nooooo! Get away!!!"

But the sheer, unadulterated psychological torture of the mental clash had already reached its absolute apex.

The boy’s internal systems completely collapsed under the weight of his own memories. With a sickening, internal pop, his frantic vampire heart literally ruptured from the unbearable stress before the metal could even graze his skin.

The Assistant General didn’t stop his robotic cruelty. Blinded by absolute tunnel vision, his mind operated purely on structural routine.

He forcefully slammed the gleaming needle into the boy’s neck, aggressively plunging the infectious syringe into what was already a corpse.

The dying biology violently rejected the system.

Squish. Gush.

A massive stream of dark green blood exploded from the boy’s fangs and puncture wound, instantly flooding the stone floor and cascading out into the narrow aisle like a foul river.

This green fluid was the ultimate marker of a low-tier, disposable slave vampire.

Yet, despite his boots being submerged in the rising green tide, the Assistant General remained frozen in a blank stare. His mental programming left him trapped in a cognitive loop.

Unless the name of Lord Vilucious was spoken aloud to reset his focus, his tunnel vision could not transfer.

Splash... splash... splash...

A panicked squad leader came sprinting down the corridor, churning through the thick green river. He skidded to a halt outside the iron cell, slamming his fist against his chest armor.

"In the name of Lord Vilucious, is the work done?!" the general shouted.

Snap.

The verbal trigger hit the Assistant General’s brain like a jolt. His rigid spine straightened, the blank haze in his eyes instantly dissolving as he looked down at the corpse at his feet.

"Tch. Useless piece of trash," he cursed loudly. With an irritated click of his tongue, he violently ripped the empty syringe out of the dead flesh and shook the green stains off his gauntlet.

To his hyper-conditioned mind, this wasn’t a tragedy... it was merely a piece of ruined, defective inventory that had broken before it could be properly registered as a functioning slave.