'How long?' was the one question on two people's minds. How long had they been stuck inside this dark place for?
When Linda and Fex had first met with Arthur, they had been ready to fight for their lives, but surprisingly the Punisher had not attacked them, rather choosing to listen to them.
"It looks like I was wrong about Quinn, maybe I should give him a chance." Arthur had said about listening to Fex. Unfortunately, before Fex or Linda got a chance to say anything else or ask him what he meant by that, the two of them found themselves trapped in a dark room.
It took them a bit to notice that for whatever reason Agent 11 had not been trapped with him. However, since the Punisher had chosen not to kill the two of them Fex wasn't overly worried for the Pure Agent.
An unknown amount of time passed with neither of them knowing what was going on. The two of them had quickly exhausted whatever conversation they could hold, opting to spend their time to do whatever they wanted… until they suddenly found themselves chucked out of that place and back in the lab, with the Dragon demon tier beast perfectly intact.
"How many days were we in there for?" Fex asked, yet there was nobody there to answer him. The two of them quickly turned around, trying to grasp their surroundings, half expecting that they were needed for some type of fight but there was no such thing.
"I don't think Arthur is here, but why were we hauled out here? Shouldn't we have been brought with Arthur… Do you think something happened?" Linda asked, but despite being a native, Fex had no idea about what the Original Punisher might have been thinking.
Suddenly, Linda felt something going on with Quinn, so she quickly shared that information with Fex. Unaware about the Dalki attacks, they both surmised that Quinn must have come to the Vampire World after they had arrived. The two of them decided since the Dragon was fine that they should head off towards the vampire settlement to assist in any way they could.
As they got closer they could feel huge surges of energy fighting, but they also noticed something else as they travelled through the forest. Fex had spotted a strange device that had already been destroyed, and he soon figured out what it was.
"That look like one of those Dalki jammers! They probably had these so Quinn or the others couldn't get here from the teleporters. Damn it!" Fex clenched his fist in anger. "We've been sent here to help, but instead we've been sitting around doing nothing while everyone else was fighting!"
The duo started to speed up until they eventually arrived at the settlement, though by that point the sound of fighting had stopped. Strangely when they entered the pooling area, they could see that all the vampires were on their knees bowing down to a certain person in front of them.
They could see it was Quinn, so ignoring the bizarre scene they pushed through, but none of the vampires paid them any attention and continued to stay in the respectful bowing position, waiting for Quinn to answer their question.
Not quite reading what was going on, Fex and Linda had come out from among regular vampires and were now in the row where all the Vampire knights stood.
"Quinn!" Fex shouted. "Are you alright, brother?"
Ever since Muka had declared that he wanted to make him the next King, Quinn had his head held down looking on the ground, but hearing Fex' voice he looked up.
"The two of you..you're oka..y.." Quinn's body started to waver, and suddenly his vision blurred as he collapsed, falling on the ground.
Seeing this, the leaders in front of him immediately got up and were about to run forward but there was someone else that had reached him before the others, and it was none other than Leo. The Vampire knight held Quinn by his back, making sure everything was fine, yet it seemed like it was only his body that was exhausted. He didn't know what Quinn had been through but even now the energy in his entire body was moving around like mad, unsettled.
"Please, let us take Quinn, we can look over him." Muka offered.
However, Leo just shook his head.
"He hasn't accepted your request, so he remains the tenth family's leader. I will take him back to the castle. I would suggest that each family worries about themselves."
"When he wakes up, it will be up to him whether he wishes to meet with any of you. That boy never asked to be involved in this whole mess. Nevertheless, he was dragged into it, managing to save your previous settlement not once but twice now. He has earned the right to do as he wishes."
Hearing these words, Ashley, who was now taking charge over the turned humans, immediately created two rows. Leo walked away with Quinn's exhausted body, the vampire soldiers, as they were known within the tenth family, escorted them making a clear path.
Seeing the miserable state of their saviour, the kneeling vampires couldn't help but be thankful. They clapped as the soldiers walked past with their saviour.
"What the…what the hell is going on?" Fex was confused, following Leo and the others, scratching the top of his head. Then in the crowd, he discovered a certain someone who was trying his best to bow as low as he could to avoid the vampire's gaze.
Alas, his luck seemed to have run out, and Fex was happy to question him about what they had missed.
"Hey, Mr 11, get over here!" Fex smiled.
——
As Leo had said, the vampires had decided to head back to their own inner castle areas, to tend to their own families. This included those that were in the pooling area. As for those that served in the King's castle, there were no survivors. The leaders had no choice but to kill the Royal Guards as they were under the influence of the Original King.
Muka had taken Bryce's and Arthur's body into custody, locking them underneath his own castle, where no one should have access. The area where the King's castle used to stand had been marked as a forbidden zone for the time being.
There were also strict measures placed on each of the tombs, in the castles. After finding out that the second leader was the one responsible for waking up the Original King, they didn't want any more Originals suddenly springing up on them.
Those that had lacked leaders currently, the Vampire knights from the families helped them select new leaders and representatives making sure everything was done according to order and tradition.
The strange thing was that even after two days had passed, Quinn had yet to wake up.
Leo wasn't worried, he could tell that the energy in his body was settling just slowly, but it was almost as if his body had yet to adapt to all his new found powers that it still hadn't finished settling.
As for Erin, she had stayed inside the castle. Leo had made it clear that the tenth castle was acting independently to the other families. They were doing as they wished until Quinn woke up, so Erin was safe in the territory of the Cursed family.
The people were free to stay with them, or leave to join other families, but not a single person who had been staying at the tenth family castle had left. Each day the day on everyone's mind was whether the tenth leader was recovering.
In the end, this left the other surviving leaders, and the families that had selected a representative to represent them, to have a meeting of their. Surprisingly, all of the vampire leaders, new and old, had agreed to meet in the pooling area, following Muka's suggestion.
They stood there, looking at the empty space, and the large craters caused by battle. Standing in the circle, there was no longer any council room, or anything like that.
"What is your plan, Muka, you seem to have gathered leaders on your side before all of this had happened, surely you thought of something?" Jake Muscat asked.
"I believe I already made my plan quite clear, I wish to make the tenth leader our next King. This was my wish even before the Original King has been awoken, yet now even more so. As an Original he will likely create an army and come back to exact vengeance."
"At the moment there is no one that can beat him, other than Quinn. If our King is not powerful then this whole settlement will fall, more so than it has done already."
Everyone was quiet for a moment as they took in what he had said.
"I believe Jake is asking the right questions though. You have heard his Vampire knight, it didn't sound like Quinn would wish to be our King. What you're saying is basically that without him we are doomed. …should the vampire families just live separate lives after everything we have been through?" Sunny asked. "What about the Absolute Blood power?"
"Even if Quinn refuses the position, at the moment he has possession of the Absolute Blood Control skill. We might have the King's blood armour, but that was useless against someone like Laxmus."
"Then we will just have to take the Blood power away from him if he refuses to become King." The young Nicu stated, who had become the representative for the first family. It was a surprise to the other families as well, but if he was selected through whatever means then it was fine.
"Oh." Jin raised an eyebrow. "Did I hear you correctly? Are you saying that if the tenth leader refuses to follow our traditions or refuses to become our King then you are going to force him to return the Blood powers to us? Sure, go right ahead, I would love to see what happens if you storm the tenth castle, just know that me and my family will take no part in that."
"The tenth leader is possibly the strongest vampire in existence and even if we were all to go up against him, none of us would survive."
Despite much discussion, the vampire leaders were unable to come to a unanimous decision on anything nor come to any type of agreement. In the end, they felt like the only choice was to wait for Quinn to wake up and give him his answer.
They could only pray for him to accept, otherwise they saw only ruin for the future of the vampire settlement.
*******
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