Chapter 179 - 125 : Adaptation Protocol

Chapter 179: Chapter 125 : Adaptation Protocol

[Foreign Energy Detected]

*The process continued, drawing upon the accumulated state of the host’s body. The abnormal energy had persisted for an extended period, repeatedly damaging the host’s physical structure. The host remained alive, but the conflict had not reached a stable resolution.*

[Host Condition: Unresolved]

[Foreign Energy: Uncontrolled]

[Duration of Conflict: Thirty-One Years]

The process continued without interruption.

*Examining the relationship between the hostile energy, the Blood Seed, and the Living Blood sustaining the host.*

No answer emerged at once.

*The energy had failed to destroy the host, yet the host had equally failed to overcome it. Instead, both had become entangled in a prolonged struggle, each forcing changes upon the other.*

*Further assessment begins.*

[Available Energy Source Detected]

*Blood.*

The vast pool surrounding Ethan provided a substantial reserve of material.

*The organ known as the Blood Seed had already demonstrated its capacity to refine that material into Living Blood, which in turn sustained the body’s repeated recovery.*

*The existing process could continue for a time, but continuation alone offered no guarantee of resolution.*

[Alternative Method Required]

The process shifted its focus toward the foreign energy.

*Its destructive effects were clear. What remained uncertain was whether those effects represented its entire nature. The energy had continued to ravage the host, but its prolonged presence had also forced the body to adapt in ways that ordinary recovery could not explain.*

*A possibility emerged within the accumulated calculations.*

*The foreign energy might not need to be expelled.*

*It might be possible to alter the relationship between the energy and the host, adapting the former to the latter rather than allowing their conflict to continue indefinitely.*

*The possibility is neither accepted nor rejected.*

*Examining...*

[Potential Application Detected]

[Compatibility: Unconfirmed]

[Adaptation Pathway: Incomplete]

The process began evaluating the available means of proceeding.

*The Blood Seed is the most suitable existing structure for further integration, but its capacity to sustain the host do not establish whether it could also mediate the foreign energy’s transformation.*

*More information is required.*

The calculations continued.

*The amount of blood available was measured against the estimated demands of the proposed process. The host’s current condition was assessed alongside the degree of adaptation already achieved. Possible pathways were examined, discarded, and examined again as the calculations reached their limits.*

[Calculating...]

[Calculating...]

*The required resources could not be determined with certainty, nor could the duration.*

The Immortal Ring did not halt the process. It did not attempt to force an immediate resolution where none could be established. Instead, the available conditions were reorganized around the possibility that the energy itself might be made useful.

*For thirty-one years, the host known as Ethan, his body had endured the foreign energy through repeated destruction and recovery. The Blood Seed had continued its work, the blood pool had supplied the material it needed, and the host had remained in slumber rather than exhausting himself in a futile attempt to force a recovery.*

*The conditions now permitted another approach.*

[Vampire Template Detected]

The process shifted once more.

*The Vampire Template had become part of the host’s existence, yet its relationship with the foreign energy had not been fully established. If the energy could be adapted through the template, its destructive effects might be redirected toward a purpose the host’s body could withstand.*

*Whether such a transformation was possible remained unknown.*

The process continued.

[Adapting Foreign Energy with Vampire Template...]

[Required Energy: Calculating...]

[Estimated Duration: Unknown]

[Adaptation Protocol: Initiated...]

Year 34.

The following year brought some relief from the drought, though not enough to undo the damage it had caused. Rain returned to parts of the territory, allowing farmers to plant again, but the previous season’s losses could not be recovered in a single harvest.

Some families had consumed the grain they had set aside for planting, while others had sold livestock or tools to buy food during the worst months. Even where the rains came in time, many farmers had fewer resources with which to work their fields, and some struggled to cultivate all the land they had once managed.

The people who had left their villages were also slow to return. Some went back when the rains offered hope of another growing season, while others sent a family member ahead to assess their land before deciding whether to follow. Those who had found steady work elsewhere were reluctant to abandon it without knowing whether farming could sustain them again.

Others had spent most of their savings on food and the journey itself, leaving them with little to restart their lives. A better season had given them a reason to return, but not everyone could afford to act on it.

The harvest was better in several districts, yet the improvement began from a much lower point than before. Fields that had once produced enough to feed a household and leave a surplus for sale now supplied little beyond what the family needed.

Some farmers had to settle the cost of seed and tools before rebuilding their stores, while others still carried unpaid rents from the previous season. Grain was reaching the markets again, but much of the county’s population had yet to regain the security it had enjoyed before the drought.

Prices began to ease in better-supplied districts, though they remained high in the city of Vermont and in villages that depended on grain brought along the main roads.

House Veymont’s purchases had helped several settlements through the worst months, but they had never been large enough to replace everything the drought had taken. Nor could the house continue buying grain at a loss indefinitely. For the county to regain a dependable income, the mines needed to recover, the farms had to produce more, and trade had to return to something closer to its former strength.

The weather had improved, but the problems it had exposed remained.

The roads continued to trouble Lucian. The commander had reorganised the patrols, and there were stretches where merchants and travellers could move with greater confidence than before. Yet smaller armed groups remained active, and the better harvest offered them new opportunities. More carts were carrying grain, animals, tools, and other goods between villages and markets.

A successful robbery could provide a gang with food, money, weapons, and animals, allowing it to remain active for longer. Some men had also begun demanding payment from travellers in exchange for passage, presenting their threats as though they were offering protection from other gangs.

According to the commander’s reports, several groups had become more organised than ordinary thieves who gathered whenever a convenient target appeared. They used lookouts, chose routes that offered several ways to escape, and arranged for stolen goods to pass through different settlements. One group might attack a cart while another waited farther along the road to intercept anyone sent to investigate.

They did not all answer to a single leader, but some had learned from one another, and a few experienced men had brought a measure of discipline to those who followed them.

Their numbers were difficult to establish. Some groups consisted of only a handful of armed men, while others could gather a larger force when they believed the reward justified the risk. Several included former soldiers who understood how patrols operated and knew better than to fight a well-organised force on favourable ground. A few possessed low-level martial training, enough to make them dangerous in close encounters, but they were not invincible.

They still avoided the Count’s stronger detachments, relying instead on surprise, terrain, and the difficulty of covering a large territory with limited manpower.

What made them troublesome was not their ability to defeat House Veymont in battle, but their habit of avoiding the kind of battle in which the house’s superior strength would matter most.

When the commander sent soldiers to clear a suspected camp, they sometimes found only abandoned shelters and traces of recent movement. On other occasions, they captured a few men, only to discover that the prisoners knew little about the other groups beyond their own contacts. Some had joined for money, others for protection, and still others had followed leaders they already knew from the war.

Even when an operation succeeded, the remaining men could scatter into another district, forcing the soldiers to choose between pursuing them and maintaining the posts entrusted to their protection.

The commanders were not failing in their duties. They were facing a problem that required more men, better information, and more money than the house could easily provide.

Lucian did not blame them for the limits of their orders. He met with them again and asked which changes would produce the greatest improvement without weakening the county’s other defences. They agreed to exchange reports more frequently, keep better records of the groups’ methods, and avoid sending large patrols after every uncertain sighting.

Where repeated attacks suggested a pattern, the commanders would coordinate their movements and try to intercept those responsible before they could scatter.

Lucian also asked the Viscounts to improve communication between their own guards and the garrisons stationed near the borders of their holdings. House Veymont could not reasonably expect small detachments to watch every road, but the nobles beneath it could help identify suspicious movements and use their own men when trouble appeared on their lands.