Hecate opened her eyelids, exhaustion casting a shadow over her face. She found herself staring at the desolate crimson skies as an eerie silence hummed into her ears.

Her body ached, quivering as she willed herself to rise from the hollow desert upon which she lay. It took seconds. These moments seemed to have lasted for an eternity.

But she stood up, breathing in the gentle breeze of the blood-tainted heavens. She gazed at the blurred lines of the horizon, relieved.

"Where am I?" Rubbing her eyes, Hecate observed her surroundings. It was a hollow and expansive desert that stretched as far as the eye could see.

As she pondered her circumstance, a headache struck her out of nowhere. It was as though her head was splitting apart.

Fortunately, it was nothing more than the pain of recollection. Memories from before losing her consciousness flooded her mind.

She was fighting against a gargantuan aberration, the Avatar. When she utilized her Microcosm, the abomination crushed them through its gravity suppression.

The crimson-haired vampire could barely maintain Severance. Without warning, she felt a moment of pain behind her neck. She felt her partner catching her as she fell.

There was that expression of concern that quelled her anger.

"I see... Damien knocked me out." A wry smile formed on her face as she sat down on the hollow sand, staring at the blurred lines of the horizon.

Hecate didn't fault her partner, understanding that she was too weak to fight against the Avatar's suppression. It was a waste, as she could have lost her life maintaining the Microcosm.

But she couldn't help but clench her fist and grit her teeth.

She already drank his blood, so why was she still weak? Was she meant to be a damsel in distress? Forever saved by her partner?

Hecate grasped grains of hollow sand and threw them in the air. The wind merely dispersed it as if saying that what she had done was futile. It made her angry about her weakness.

"What do I have to do to become stronger?" she muttered under her breath, holding her knees together and laying her head over them.

The crimson skies remained unchanging. A representation of who Hecate was. No matter what, she wouldn't become more than a vampire whose body sealed an ancient progenitor.

"Is that really true?" A soft and gentle voice asked, coming from behind the sulking crimson-haired vampire.

She was startled by the unexpected voice behind her, instinctively launching herself forward. Looking back, she saw a clone of herself.

It was thoroughly the same as hers, but there were apparent differences. Whether it'd be the golden eyes and the regal mannerism.

The identity of the interloper didn't take a genius to uncover. Other than herself, there was another entity inhabiting her body and mind. It was the ancient progenitor sealed within her.

"You..." Hecate narrowed her gaze, cautious and cold. The arrival of the ancient progenitor wasn't exactly a piece of good news for the vampire.

"This is the first time we have conversed with one another face to face." The ancient progenitor gazed upon the expansive horizon and glanced at her. "Don't be nervous. I won't bite."

The progenitor's voice felt maternal, even giving a tease. But Hecate knew better than to trust a single word escaping from those lips of hers.

The ancient pregonitor chuckled at the angry puppy before her and stepped forward. "You shouldn't be too tense, Hecate."

"As I said before, I won't bite."

"Do you even know my name? My identity?" She whispered into the ears of the crimson-haired vampire, who immediately took a step back.

"I don't need to know your name or identity. Don't pretend that I didn't know what you tried to do in New Janus." Hecate confronted the ancient progenitor, dauntless.

"I won't deny that." The progenitor smiled at the vampire and continued. "However, I believe that you should be curious about why you feel weak compared to your lovely partner."

Hecate raised her eyebrows and questioned. "You know Damien?"

"I see through your eyes and hear from your ears. I taste with your tongue and feel with your skin. Your partner is an Aberrant whose limits appear to be unshackled."

"You are already being left behind. It would only take a month for your partner to widen the gap between the two of you. You wouldn't be able to look him in the eyes."

The ancient progenitor uttered as her golden eyes glowed with dominance. "Would you like me to introduce myself, Hecate?"

Hecate pondered for a moment before hesitantly nodding. She was curious about the identity of the ancient progenitor sealed within her.

"I'm glad... People in this world consider me as nothing more than an ancient progenitor pest. It is saddening." The ancient progenitor lost her smile, but the vampire knew more than to believe it.

Progenitors were another category of beings that should never be trusted. They look at everything alongside their kind as insects or pebbles on the ground.

Their arrogance was unmatched, so they could be naturally deceitful, as why would they feel bad towards the creatures they considered imperfect?

"I am Apate, the Progenitor of Daemonia." The golden-eyed vampire lightly bowed, a theatrical gesture. "I believe that as a vampire."

"You should have heard of my kind."

Apate looked at Hecate, whose velvet eyes widened in surprise. The crimson-haired vampire pointed at her and remarked. "That Daemonia?"

The golden-eyed vampire tilted her head and inquired. "Is there any other Daemonia that existed?" To which the crimson-haired girl answered with a shake of dismissal.

Daemonia... An ancient species in the former world of the Vampire and Lycanthrope. Before the rise of the two species, Daemonia reigned over the world as its ruler.

However, it all changed when a civil war fractured the species, plunging them into extinction. Vampires tend to tell stories about how the Daemonia could devour the soul.

They were deceitful, evil, and destructive.

Hecate didn't expect that the ancient progenitor sealed within her was the progenitor of that long-extinct ancient species.

"How did they even seal you within me?" Hecate asked, staring at the golden-eyed version of herself. Apate felt amused and posed a question.

"When did I say that those blood-suckers sealed me inside of you?"

"Huh?" The crimson-haired vampire raised her eyebrows as Apate shook her head. "I wasn't sealed into your body by them. I was already inside."

"Severance isn't some random Blood Technique that you awakened. It has existed before your birth, from your ancestors to their ancestors."

"Do you not even question why your power could erase concepts? How could anyone have such power in their hands?" Apate wondered if the new species had regressed in terms of intelligence.

"My fault..." Hecate rubbed the back of her head, uncomfortably chuckling while hiding her embarrassment. She thought of her power as something natural.

Never did she question it throughout her whole life. She merely considered herself unfortunate to have awakened it.

Apate looked at the crimson-haired vampire, pondering where she had gone wrong. "In any case, I was sealed into Severance."

"I became a part of it, and it became a part of me."

"Only my descendants can wield Severance." She started into the velvet irises of Hecate, whose pupils shrank after realizing what she meant.

"Are you saying that the ancestors of vampires are the Daemonia?" The crimson-haired vampire remarked. Apate shook her head, amused. "Of course not."

"Why would leeches be my descendants? I meant that your bloodline is my descendants. The last Demonias, a hybrid of two species."

Hecate furrowed her eyebrows, not buying anything that left the lips of the ancient progenitor. Apate merely chuckled at the sight and questioned her.

"Your bloodline is the only vampires capable of living without blood."

"Have you ever wondered why the rest of your kind considered your blood as an abomination? Why did they think of your family as freaks of nature?"

"Because matured vampires cannot live without blood. It doesn't matter if they resisted it. The urge would remain." She expounded and continued. "If they do not drink blood, they become weak."

"And when they become weak, they die."

"What are you saying exactly?" Hecate narrowed her eyes, cautious about what her so-called ancestor planned to do. She wasn't naive enough to believe everything she had said.

However, she also wasn't extremely stubborn. Since the beginning, she had considered herself different from her peers. She also thought her family was unlike anything.

Her identity as a hybrid could explain many unknowns, such as her redundant need for blood. It wasn't precisely a lifeline for her.

It was more of a delicacy.

But to normal vampires, it was both.

"The Severance is your greatest weapon. It is your Blood Technique. But to tap into its deepest capabilities, you must also touch the other side of yourself."

"Only a Demonia can wield Severance effectively. If you want to become stronger. There's only one path for you forward."

Apate grinned and hugged Hecate tightly. At first, the crimson-haired vampire was unbothered. Though she noticed the progenitor's tight grip over her body.

"You must learn to embrace your inner demons."

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