Witch Special

How to tell if a person is alive?

There are ideals, goals, pursuits, motivations, the need to eat, drink, defecate and urinate, and the desire to reproduce... There are many standards, and you can use the one that is appropriate depending on the situation.

So, what are the criteria for judging the dead?

No breathing, no heartbeat, no body temperature, no blood circulation. Aside from the fact that she could still move for some unknown reason, this woman was no different from a dead person.

Yet, she was fundamentally different from ordinary undead creatures. Undead creatures were driven by the evil within them. Though resurrected from the dead, their bodies had long since decayed or even disappeared, leaving them looking like skeletons, zombies, or ghosts. Such a living dead creature, seemingly intact and indistinguishable from a living being until touched, had never been seen before on the continent of Arad.

This discovery was so shocking that Cyrus didn't care that Princess Isabella had just fallen asleep. He woke her up from the bed and reported the woman's situation to her.

When Princess Isabella heard they'd found a living, breathing person, she was quite intrigued. This was resurrection, come on! How many people dreamed of something suddenly before their eyes? Even if Princess Isabella was still young and didn't need to worry about death, there were still people who needed it. If they could uncover the secrets of this woman, the value would be immense.

The matter was of great importance, and Princess Isabella instantly lost all sleepiness. She quickly put on her clothes and followed Cyrus to see the woman who had completely lost her memory.

The coalition forces treated the woman as a treasure and wanted to cut her into pieces for research that very day. However, Princess Isabella forbade those people to do anything inhumane to this poor living dead who had forgotten who she was. She believed that the memories in this woman's head were obviously more valuable than a corpse.

Are all my men so incompetent? They started human experiments without even trying to restore her memory. Princess Isabella's flat questioning was like a sledgehammer to the hearts of those who had suggested slicing. They lowered their heads in shame and gave up their cold-blooded and cruel plan.

How could a mouth with a temperature of thirty-six degrees utter words that were colder than the body temperature of that poor woman?

The coalition took the woman in and began searching for a way to restore her memory. At the same time, they sent their nimblest scouts, armed with magical night vision devices, into the subway station to search for any traces of the monsters. Having suffered such a devastating loss for no apparent reason, Princess Isabella was not about to let them go so easily.

Thus, Norni set up magic circles in the Orc Canyon that would produce clean water and bread; the coalition forces regrouped and prepared to retake the battlefield; and Lin Zhenxi refined the seeds of the demon flower, searching for crops suitable for growing in the soil surrounding the Orc Canyon. For a time, the three factions in the Orc Canyon fell silent. Even the monsters across the subway tunnel were unusually quiet, having not made any noise in the tunnel for several days.

The first person to complete the work was Noelni. After all, the work on her side was ready-made and was just some repetitive work. Although three hundred sets of Burning Rain Pillars sounded like a lot, it was actually just that simple when it came to doing it. If she kept her head down and focused, she could finish it in two or three days.

Then, on the coalition side, while there had been no progress in getting the woman to remember who she was, other research had yielded some remarkable discoveries. First, this woman was unable to eat, and normal human food held no appeal to her. Just as the coalition was curious about how she maintained her figure and function, she attacked the soldiers guarding her that night.

If the soldiers had not been working in groups of two and that soldier had not been wearing his helmet properly, his neck would probably have been bitten through by this suddenly crazy woman.

The commotion quickly attracted the attention of the coalition's top brass. When the hound Cyrus arrived to investigate, she discovered the woman's canines had grown longer and sharper, as if designed specifically for piercing skin. Combined with the soldier's description, Cyrus formed a half-baked hypothesis. She quickly fetched a bowl of freshly drained blood and placed it before the woman.

The woman was very restless at first, and was still struggling even when being pinned to the ground by the soldiers. However, when Cyrus placed the bowl of blood in front of her, her eyes were fixed on the liquid in the bowl, her nose twitched, and she stretched her neck to reach the edge of the bowl.

Cyrus brought the bowl of blood to her lips, and she eagerly gulped it down. After consuming the blood, her expression instantly calmed, and she stopped struggling. Her protruding canine teeth retracted. Before long, even her eyes regained clarity, no longer the hazy, veiled window to her soul.

Seeing her reaction, Cyrus asked the soldiers to let her go, then he squatted down and looked down at her condescendingly with his head down.

"Hey, can you speak? Do you remember who you are?"

"...I...don't know. I...can't remember anything." The woman answered, but her eyes were blank and painful.

But she spoke! Someone who had been completely unresponsive to the outside world had regained her ability to speak after drinking the blood. This discovery astonished the other coalition forces that had arrived. Cyrus pulled the woman up from the ground and shared her suspicions about her.

"Everyone, she should be a vampire, and she was transformed not long ago."

The legend of vampires also circulated in the Delos Empire. Although no one had ever seen a real vampire, after hearing Cyrus's words, everyone showed an expression of sudden enlightenment. Regardless of whether they understood it or not, they just followed the crowd.

This female vampire could only regain her sanity for a short period of time after drinking blood, and then she would return to her previous confused state. But even if she returned to a state where she could communicate, she had no memory of anything before she was transformed into a vampire, and she couldn't even remember who she was.

But Princess Isabella believed that this was mainly because she had been hungry for too long. As long as she could be supplied with blood regularly, her time of wakefulness would become longer and longer, and sooner or later she would be able to regain her past memories.

It's just a bowl of blood anyway. The coalition forces have so many strong young men and priests accompanying them. A mere loss of one or two hundred milliliters of blood can be solved with a healing spell. At most, you will have to go to the cafeteria to have a good meal afterwards to replenish the energy lost in your body.

If it was just a vampire, the coalition could definitely afford to support it.

As she drank more blood, the woman's intelligence seemed to be gradually recovering. She gradually began to have the desire to express her ideas. Although her language ability still had some problems, she could at least communicate with others.

Maybe if she persists, she can really remember her past.

Besides the vampire woman being raised by the coalition, the coalition also made progress in their underground tunnel exploration. They finally crossed the long, dark subway tunnel and reached the ruins of the town that Hunter Bourne had mentioned. Through covert observation, they determined that this was the monster's lair without alerting the monsters.

So Princess Isabella began to gather her strength, preparing to clear out the monsters lurking in the ruins of the town, open up the underground tunnel, and continue moving forward.

They had their own goals on this trip; the Orc Canyon was just a stop along the way. Every day they spent here would cause those waiting for news in the rear to worry a day more, so they had to set off as soon as possible. Now that they had ascertained the situation, Princess Isabella was eager to set off immediately.

Although she was anxious, as the leader of a team, she couldn't let her emotions cloud her rationality. She needed to be responsible for her team and make sure all preparations were complete before setting off. If her negligence led to anyone's death, she would blame herself in her heart.

But no matter what, the coalition forces, which had rested for two days, began to move again, and everyone started to get busy, except for the female vampire who had been relaxed and ignored in the past two days.

After all, after two days of observation, everyone had discovered that as long as they gave her a bowl of blood on time, this female vampire would remain extremely quiet, sitting in one place for hours without moving. If she stood up, it meant she was hungry again. Such a harmless creature was no longer worthy of special treatment.

The result was that when everyone was done with their work and suddenly felt that something was missing today, they discovered that the female vampire had disappeared.

Now everyone was dumbfounded. How could such a grown person disappear just by being away for such a long time?

But it's gone, and there's no time to worry about it now. The supplies prepared for the war have been distributed to everyone, and the battle with the monsters will begin soon. Princess Isabella had to suppress the news of the female vampire's disappearance and directly led the elite of her coalition forces into the subway tunnel, preparing to go to the other side to clean up those terrible monsters.

To mitigate the monsters' terrifying screams, they each wore earplugs. While this inevitably reduced their perception, it was an acceptable price to avoid being blinded by the screams. By forming a tighter formation, they wouldn't have to worry about monsters attacking from the side or rear.

The showdown between the coalition forces and the monsters in the terrifying habitat has officially begun.