Chapter 295: Would you like to become a Vampire?

"How many people around you... wish to live?"

Aurelia asked a strange question and Lucian...

He frowned.

Obviously, the question was simple enough. What he did not understand was why she would ask something like that.

"Most do, I think?"

Lucian answered with an unsure look on his face.

"Sure, there might be people who wish to die, but when it comes down to it, not many choose death on their own."

"Do you truly believe that?"

Aurelia looked into his eyes. That look made Lucian think his answer through, this time, more properly.

"...there are obviously some who would choose death. And as unfortunate as it is, they do follow through. So yes, while I still believe many do wish to live, there are some who... choose not to."

"And why do you think that is? Why do some people choose not to live?"

The Vampire asked and Lucian...

He didn’t really have a proper answer.

He honestly... never gave it proper thought.

"Depression? Hopelessness? Feeling like a burden to others? Major life crisis maybe? Divorce, breakup, loss of a loved one, job termination?

I... don’t really know."

Lucian answered honestly.

Aurelia looked at him for a moment, then she showed a small smile.

"You missed quite a few."

Lucian tilted his head.

"People can take their lives for countless reasons, substance use, trauma, abuse, chronic illness, pain, financial collapse, legal issues, social isolation, loneliness, but...

What’s the bigger takeaway is that people rarely die by suicide because of one terrible day, more often, it’s the accumulation of pain, hopelessness, isolation, or despair until they can no longer imagine a future where that pain ends."

Lucian nodded at those words, what he did not understand, however, was that...

"...why are we discussing it all of a sudden?"

This was clearly not the place to have a conversation like this.

"The longer one lives, the more pain, hopelessness, isolation or despair they accumulate, wouldn’t you agree?"

Instead of answering Lucian’s question, Aurelia asked another question.

"I... guess?"

"Then what would you say about beings who have lived for centuries?"

"...what?"

And the instant Aurelia asked that question, Lucian’s expression changed.

"I am asking, if living longer accumulates more such emotions, then what about beings who have lived for centuries? How much pain do you think they have accumulated?"

Lucian did not have an answer to that question.

Aurelia, however, was not done.

"Immortality is not the blessing you think it is, Mr. Cross, especially not for us Vampires."

The Vampire then looked around the Gala and asked another interesting question.

"We Vampires get stronger with age, we do not need to train or understand complex spells. We are immortals and we simply need to live.

Then...

Didn’t you wonder why, despite us having such a distinctive advantage, we have still not taken over the world?

Should be simple enough, shouldn’t it?

We only need to live for a few thousand years and by then, we would have an Army of Blood Lords, an Army that, let alone Earth, could even take over the Demon Realm.

We have the potential to rule the Universe.

Then why... do we not follow through? Where are the Vampires who were alive a thousand or two thousand years ago? Why do you only see a few centuries-old Vampires here?"

Aurelia asked and the more he thought about it, the stranger Lucian felt.

He never gave it proper thought.

Every time he read about Vampires, he complained about how easy they had it all and forced himself to focus on his training, not giving it much more thought.

"...why?"

Lucian asked.

He had no clue.

And Aurelia—

"Because most of those Vampires have either put themselves into Coffin Sleep or they have... ceased to exist."

Lucian’s face changed.

Coffin Sleep.

He knew those words as well.

For reasons most beings in the world do not know, many Vampires put themselves to sleep. This stops their aging completely and also affects their Ascension.

So if a one-hundred-and-forty-nine-year-old Vampire puts himself into Coffin Sleep for the next ten or hundred years, when he wakes up, he would still be considered one hundred and forty-nine years old, not more, and would have his Crimson Ascension the next year.

Of course, most beings, including Lucian, never understood why Vampires would do that willingly.

Purposefully rejecting power seemed... foolish.

But...

When he connected everything with what Aurelia said, the truth behind it all felt... much more disturbing.

"We Vampires do not have it easy, Mr. Cross."

Aurelia then suddenly turned towards Lucian and smiled.

"Sure, many believe we are blessed with immortality, but to us, Immortality is not endless life, it is endless accumulation.

Especially when we Vampires have what we call Red Memory."

"Red Memory?"

Lucian frowned.

This was something he had never heard before.

Aurelia nodded at him.

"We Vampires are beings of Blood. Our Blood stores... experience. This is part of the reason why we grow stronger as our blood ages.

Our blood remembers every hunt, every wound, every time we feed, and during Crimson Ascension, all the accumulated experience makes us stronger.

But..."

Aurelia took a small pause, as if she was preparing herself to say what she was about to say.

"Hunters, wounds, feeding, these aren’t the only things our blood remembers. It remembers... desire, even grief.

We Vampires do not forget, Mr. Cross.

Human minds protect themselves by slowly forgetting the incidents that hurt them. What is it that you humans say?

Time heals all wounds.

That is not true for us Vampires.

Our blood remembers, to us, a traumatic event, a loss of a loved one, or an incident that took everything away from us, it is never any lighter.

Everything we felt that very day, we would feel the same emotions, with the same intensity, centuries later.

And with age, as such events continue to pile on one after another, at one point, we feel the pain of multiple traumatic events, all at the same time, for the rest of our endless lives."

"That is... torture..."

Lucian muttered out loud.

That one single memory in his head resurfaced on its own, his hands began to tremble and... as all of it happened to him.

He couldn’t help but think about what it was like for the Vampires to carry the same pain, with the same intense emotions for... centuries, or even millennia.

Aurelia smiled at his words.

"Cruel, is it not?

A Vampire’s strength comes from accumulated memory, and so does our suffering.

The very thing that makes us stronger than most beings in the world is also what makes our existence... harder."

Lucian didn’t say anything.

He honestly could not say anything.

In just a few minutes, the race he looked at with envy now seemed... pitiful.

He looked around the room again, at the hundreds of Vampires talking to each other. He began to wonder what it was like to live a life like them.

With... a perfect memory.

He wondered what it would be like to... constantly live the day his parents were taken away from him.

"Is this the reason Vampires put themselves into Coffin Sleep?"

Lucian asked in a low voice.

"It is one of the reasons."

Aurelia nodded.

"As broken as we Vampires are, we are also prideful. A Vampire taking his own life does not look good for his House, regardless of what the Vampire in question has been through.

Such an extreme step is often seen with shame, ridicule and... fear.

So instead, most Vampires put themselves to sleep.

Coffin Sleep is somewhat identical to what you humans call a coma, a Vampire who puts himself in Coffin Sleep stops... living.

And that puts his blood and the memory it bears at ease, finally giving the Vampires the rest they so desperately desire."

"I did not know."

Lucian admitted.

"Most people don’t."

Aurelia chuckled.

"They only see the glory, at how... easy we have it."

Lucian looked at her.

"This is also the reason many desire to become one of us."

"From what I was told, House Veyr does not make Vampires."

Lucian asked.

"There are exceptions."

Aurelia shrugged.

"There are some exceptional humans we bend the rules for, but in general, we do not turn Humans into Vampires because most Human Vampires would simply go rogue."

Lucian didn’t even deny that, not after everything Aurelia just said.

Vampires were different, other Vampires they knew were immortals just like them, they understood what Social Isolation did to them, they understood how important having a sane, healthy mind was.

Most Humans did not.

Many would instantly jump at the chance of becoming an Immortal Bloodsucker.

But very few considered the reality that a hundred years later, when the excitement vanished, the people they knew, be it friends, lovers, or even enemies—

They would have all turned into piles of bones.

Not many humans would be able to take that blow, and the Red Memory would only make it worse.

And just as Lucian was thinking all that, Aurelia turned towards him and—

"What about you?"

She asked a question.

"Would you like to become a Vampire?"