Fallen Prince ☆2
[Hyung, I won't be able to live that long. That's why I need your help.]
"What…?"
[Why do you think Tetra Anax fell to ruin? From the start, precognition and information-gathering abilities are a poisoned chalice. An overwhelming flood of information pours in, and you lose your sense of living in an instant—you can't endure it.]
"..."
The young man, looking like a vagrant, clicked his tongue after hearing his younger brother's confession. Rationally, he already knew this, yet he had believed it would be fine. His brother was optimistic, gentle, and mild-mannered, and he had vaguely trusted that no matter how mentally grueling things became, he would overcome and endure them. But was that not the case after all?
[I don't have the power to suppress them the way Anax of the past did. But if I don't suppress them, the vampires' desires will surely overflow beyond control.]
"The vampires' desires?"
Tetra Anax, the king of vampires, had oppressed and restrained vampires in order to make humans and vampires coexist. But to vampires who had lived for long ages, this was unbearable. Wasn't the young man here—though not a vampire, but a similar being, a werewolf—already ruined as proof?
The young man again wet his throat with liquor. High-proof spirits couldn't possibly quench thirst. Rather, they dried out his body fluids, yet to endure that thirst, he once again drank.
He wiped his mouth roughly with his sleeve and looked at his younger brother.
"It's simple. Crush them with force, like the old Tetra Anax did. Unless they're true demons, vampires become powerless under the sun anyway. I don't know why you're whining like this."
If the vampires' desires were anything beyond simply drinking blood to survive, then Tetra Anax was effectively holding their leashes. Tetra Anax, the king of vampires, used his precognitive and telepathic abilities to hide the existence of vampires from humans, providing them a land of repose. To fall out of his favor meant no longer receiving Tetra Anax's protection. Unless one was a powerful vampire who could endure sunlight, for most vampires it was ruin itself.
Serin, his younger brother who had newly inherited the position of Tetra Anax, wore a bitter smile. Before him, the one called Tetra Anax—the Sage of Seirius—had ruled vampires with cold and merciless power. He commanded private armies and powerful vampire minions, suppressing vampire society. Those who followed his will enjoyed wealth and glory; those who did not hid in the darkness like the urban underclass, becoming criminals—or else lived like hippies.
'Well, Argo of Esprit didn't rebel against Tetra Anax, but he already looks like a hippie.'
Thinking this, the young man tilted the bottle. Isaka Bergenev—who had wandered conflict zones as a mercenary—was now facing the new Tetra Anax, Serin, who was his brother. From ancient times, children conceived by humans infected with Lilith—mental entities that transcended the flesh and moved between bodies—could become either vampires or lycanthropes, and those born thus became beings not to be ignored in the world of fanaticism and magic.
But his younger brother was far too kind to guard the throne of the night, that world of fanaticism and magic. It was fine that he couldn't be cruel to monsters who survived by drinking others' blood—but was it acceptable to take that so far as to endanger his own position, even his life?
And in the end, was he planning to leave the dirty work to his older brother? Even if you take only the best parts of life, there should be limits. Did he want help simply because he didn't want to dirty his own hands?
[What if vampires could endure sunlight regardless of their abilities?]
As Serin said this, he took out a small plastic pill bottle. It looked like a Tylenol container, and bore the logo of the medical corporation owned by Tetra Anax.
"In that case, Tetra Anax's authority would certainly be undermined. If they could walk around like humans even in broad daylight, they could easily conceal their identities. But surely not?"
[That… will become possible.]
If so, it would be another renaissance incomparable even to the invention of electric light.
If vampires could endure sunlight and enjoy immortality simply by drinking others' blood, humans would willingly choose to become vampires. And if even a tiny fraction of vampires—who had lived hidden away in loneliness for ages—were willing to increase their kind, vampires would spread in the blink of an eye.
In the past, Tetra Anax's overwhelming power had bridled and shackled the vampires. But the new Tetra Anax clearly could not be so forceful.
After Alexander's death, Alexander's empire was split by his generals. The same was true of Genghis Khan; the death of a being with overwhelming charisma and power almost inevitably brings fragmentation. With Serin as he was now, even managing such internal problems alone must have pushed him to his limits.
Isaka Bergenev again drank, then tossed the empty bottle behind him.
"So that's why you need my help? Because you don't want to dirty your hands, you want me to get dirty in your place? Why do I look so easy to you? What meaning beyond blood does the fact that we're brothers have—what affection—that makes you think I should go that far?"
[...]
"Foolish. Look at me. I can't even control my own life. I've longed for freedom and peace, but once I finally gained true freedom, I realized how empty I am… ah…"
Saying this, Isaka covered his face with both hands.
[Hyung, I need you. I truly need you. If I could convey my heart to you, I'd even want to take out my own heart and prove it with my own hands.]
Serin quietly watched Isaka.
☆ ☆ ☆
How much time passed like that?
The body of Isaka—who seemed frozen with his face covered—began to move.
"…Fine. I'll do it."
He knew well how foolish this was. Why, after being toyed with by fate, did he have to dirty his hands again—for the sake of a younger brother who, at his mirror point, was loved by everyone?
Why must someone who had already suffered so much do this again?
Because it was the request of his only brother? Because of familial affection? If only it were something that simple.
What he felt toward his brother was not simple.
They had lived lives too different to speak lightly of brotherly affection.
Born as children of Lilith, the two brothers—especially the elder—had his identity exposed from the start, drawing countless assassins and evil beings who sought to capture him to achieve their ends.
To survive, he had to roam battlefields. While his younger brother attended school in a warm home, living peacefully with family, the elder bore the killers' attention meant for both of them, wandering through hell. There were simply too many dark beings hunting Lilith's children; to live, he had to do anything.
Enduring those trials, Isaka longed for freedom—hoping and hoping that a day of rest would someday come. Perhaps that was why, when he served as bait to draw all eyes, and his brother ultimately devoured the King of the Moonlit Night, Tetra Anax, becoming the new Tetra Anax himself, Isaka was instead happy.
His brother, who had grown up loved by family in a safe, orderly country, gained wealth and honor. It would be only natural if the elder brother—who had been the victim—resented him. But Isaka was genuinely glad.
The position his brother took—the name Tetra Anax—was a poisoned chalice. Someone had to take it, and many coveted it, but it would surely bring disaster in equal measure. One could enjoy wealth and honor, but what Isaka Bergenev wanted was not simple wealth and glory.
'Freedom—at last, freedom! O God, at last we are free.'
Isaka Bergenev, who had lived a life of imposed fate since birth, was overwhelmed by the freedom that finally arrived.
But what did freedom mean to one born a wolf?
Mercenary, mafia, arms dealer, drug trafficker…
The things he had done to survive now swallowed him whole.
Even under freedom, the way he lived was no different from before.
Before, fate had forced that way of life upon him. Now that freedom had come, it was entirely his own responsibility.