Every script, tome, and scroll recording vampire history told the same story.
From the oldest stone tablets carved before kingdoms existed to the blood-bound grimoires guarded by the great houses, the account never wavered. The words could change, the symbols could evolve, and the medium could differ—but the meaning remained unchanged.
All vampires descended from a single ancestor.
The First Blood.
The Progenitor.
The Origin.
He was said to have awakened beneath a blood-red moon, to have defied death itself,
And through his eternal blood, a new race was born. Nobility, ancient houses, law, hierarchy, and the sacred weight of blood purity all descended from him.
Every vampire child was taught this truth before they learned to feed.
It was woven into their rites, oaths, and marriages.
Bloodlines were measured by how close they were to that mythical source.
Authority flowed downward from the purity of his veins. Even rebellion was framed as heresy against the First Blood.
Vampire society relied on this belief—without a single origin, blood had no rank. Without a shared progenitor, nobility lost its divine justification.
Without the First Blood, the old houses were just powerful families clinging to tradition.
So, no one questioned it.
Why would they?
The records were definitive. The consensus was absolute. The Ancestors themselves never denied it.
To doubt the First Blood was to doubt history itself.
And here stood Duke Draven, dismissing all that as a lie.
Valdis stared at his father in shock.
Duke Draven saw his son's expression and laughed.
"This was exactly how I felt when my father first told me," he said.
"But why?" Valdis asked. He quickly tried to think of reasons, but none made sense.
Saying it was about consolidating authority and power sounded foolish; Eldoria was a world where power was everything.
As long as you were strong enough, rules and laws didn't matter. The powerful ruled over those who weren't.
The powerless could do nothing but obey.
"The real reason is not something you should worry about right now. Just know that the vampires had to be united; otherwise, we would've been wiped out," he explained.
Valdis's pupils constricted.
'Vampires were almost destroyed by who or what?' he wondered.
Valdis was smart enough to realize that a secret of such magnitude was not something someone like him should know.
"Anyway, due to that situation, vampires at the time erased their original history and destroyed all evidence of their existence.
They wanted a unified race, not a bunch of powerful families fighting over every resource. So, the history of the vampire progenitor was created," Duke Draven said.
As he walked, he turned to his son and asked,
"Can you guess why?"
Valdis was silent for a moment before replying.
"If the vampires ever faced extinction and unity was essential for survival, the original vampire families had to be removed from the spotlight and their influence diminished.
A central figure, unrelated to those families, needed to be introduced. He would be a figure of worship, adoration, and a symbol connecting all vampires, ensuring they fought under one banner.
He would then be the reason for unity."
The duke paused, looking at him with pride in his eyes.
"Yes, all you've said is true. Those factors led vampires to shift from measuring talent by proximity to one of the five ancestors to how close they were to the blood ancestor.
This united the vampires but also diluted the bloodlines over generations," Draven explained.
"Diluted bloodlines? Why?" Valdis asked.
"Among the vampire ancestors, all five were male. The only way to reproduce was to mate with females from other races.
They chose races that embodied their innate affinities to enhance their offspring's talents in those areas.
But those races weren't vampires. While their offspring's talents increased toward their specific affinities, their vampire blood purity decreased.
They weren't pure-blood vampires anymore," he clarified.
Valdis nodded in understanding.
"So, how does the blood purity crystal measure blood purity then?" he inquired.
"Each blood law crystal contains the blood essence of a member of the five families.
The crystal can identify and purify the essence, removing impurities and leaving behind pure vampiric blood.
It does this because of the connection between vampiric blood and the law of blood, along with the crystal's special properties.
When a person tests their blood, the device compares it to the samples in the crystal and provides an evaluation," he explained.
"But if that's the case, members of our family shouldn't be able to be tested as we aren't related to one of the five, but separate from them," Valdis said.
"The thing is, although we are not directly related to the first vampires, but our blood is pure.
Even without a direct connection to the five families, our blood ha the same level of connection to the law of blood as the five families.
Plus, we had an inherent affinity, tying every member of the family to a specific affinity.
Revealing something like that would've raised questions and scrutiny during times of peace.
But during the war, it was a slaughterhouse. Vampires needed as much manpower as possible. By the war's end, our family had become a giant that no one dared offend.
Some tried, but we made examples of them swiftly," he said.
Valdis was stunned.
"So, within vampire society, we're anomalies?" he asked.
"Extremely powerful ones," Duke Draven replied with a smirk.
"Because they couldn't do anything to us, and because we contributed significantly in the war,"
we were made nobles with the title of Duke and given our own fiefdom to manage, while our origins were ignored," he continued.
"But what is our true origin?" Valdis pressed.
"Our origins are highly unique. The royal family remains at the top due to their innate connection to the supreme law of death, and ours isn't inferior," Draven responded with a smile that did little to conceal the pride he felt.
In Eldoria, laws are categorized into four types: minor laws, major laws, unique laws, and supreme laws.
Minor laws were the weakest followed by major laws then supreme laws were the most powerful.
Unique laws stood outside the normal classification
Unique laws are special; they may start as weak as minor laws but become as powerful as major laws upon mastery and are slightly more deadly and harder to defend against.
"We don't lose out to them!
What supreme law do we have a natural connection to?" Valdis asked in shock.
Duke Draven looked at him and said,
"If your bloodline purity reaches a certain level, you'll instinctively know. If not, the information will be meaningless, even if you know it."
Valdis nodded, contemplating their earlier conversation.
The discussion solidified his belief that without power, one would be at the mercy of the strong.
Soon, they arrived at the entrance of the awakening hall.