Boom—!!!The deafening explosion made the entire castle groan.Boulders from the ceiling mixed with dust and came crashing down; Veridian's consciousness was torn violently out of endless chaos by that very shock.What greeted him was an agony more unbearable than death.It was as if someone were stirring his brain with a red‑hot iron rod!Two utterly different sets of memories collided and tore at his mind like madmen.One belonged to the twenty‑first century—the corporate drone who had been slowly eaten alive by cancer in a sterile hospital room.Another presence belonged to this world: a young bloodkin named Viridian.A vampire?He collapsed onto the biting cold stone floor, gasping laboriously.His sharp canine teeth had pierced his lower lip; a faint metallic tang of blood spread through his mouth, reminding him of the absurdity of this reality.What made it worse was that the memories in this body were filled with a despair deeper than a cancer ward.He belonged to the thirteenth

Dark, damp.The stench of rotting muck blended with unknown filth fermented so intensely it felt tangible, enough to make any normal person gag on the spot.But Viridian inhaled deeply, letting the darkness enfold his body. An unprecedented sense of security soaked through his cold limbs and bones.There was no holy light scorching the skin, no sun gazing down upon the masses.Here there were only the shadow and silence that shared his origin.This, then, was his paradise.He leaned against a relatively dry corner of a pipe, unable to wait as he sank his consciousness into his mind. The faintly blue panel still hovered quietly, but the data on it had undergone earth-shattering changes.[HP: 15/15]By drinking that trainee knight's "blood of sin," not only did he replenish the life he had lost under the Holy Light, it even strengthened his frail body, forcibly raising his maximum HP by 5 points!A faint but real warm current still flowed through his veins—a lingering echo of sin and vit

Almost at the exact moment the giant crocodile's massive body completely turned into a desiccated husk.In Viridian's mind, the long-awaited final verdict from the system descended like an oracle with a thunderous proclamation![Quality Transformation Complete!][Congratulations, Host! You have acquired your first permanent talent: [Talent · Hardened Skin (Basic)]!][Talent · Hardened Skin (Basic)]: Passive talent. Your skin has been tempered through countless trials, its physical structure qualitatively transformed, with toughness and density greatly increased. Effect: grants a fixed reduction to physical damage taken.Viridian's breath halted for a moment.It's done.He slowly raised his left hand.It was a hand belonging to the bloodline—pale and slender, knuckles well-defined, the skin so fine it resembled the finest porcelain, even appearing somewhat delicate.But Viridian knew it was no longer the same.He moved to the nearby stone wall, bent down, and picked up a shard of stone

Wasting not a second, Viridian's body became a blur as he darted through the chamber.He rummaged through a wooden crate for a few rotten but still sturdy planks, and tore several of the toughest tendons by hand from the crocodile's corpse.His movements were precise and efficient; in his mind he had already assembled a flawless sequence of linked kills.Step one: the tripwire.He fashioned a tripwire from sinew that blended almost seamlessly with the filth on the ground, one end tied to the trigger of the hunter's hand crossbow he’d found in the crate.The crossbow was cleverly wedged with stones in an ideal firing position, the bolt smeared with the fetid, necrotic blood of the giant crocodile—enough to cause septicemia.The arrowhead was aimed precisely at the entrance of the passage, at the most vulnerable adult spot: the lower calf.Step Two: the bait.When everything was set, he picked up a sharp shard of stone and struck the metal door of the alchemical gate hard.Bang! Bang! Ba

Viridian's footsteps came to an abrupt halt three meters from the woman.His heart felt as if gripped by an invisible giant hand; even the flow of his blood seemed to falter.Something was wrong!This woman radiated a chilling, uncanny strangeness from head to toe!Just moments ago she had been beaten senseless like a rag doll by Grib, her life hanging by a thread; now she could erupt with such terrifying power, even... take pleasure in her "food"?Most deadly of all, Veridian's enhanced extraordinary hearing picked up a fact that made his hair stand on end—The woman's heartbeat had completely vanished the instant she lunged at Grib.Not a cessation like death.But a self-shutdown of bodily functions under an extreme rush of excitement![Warning! Unknown high-concentration vampiric aura detected!][Attempting to parse target... parsing failed!][Target bloodline purity: ???][Threat level: Extremely dangerous!!!]On the deep-blue panel, a string of scarlet question marks and exclamati