Strength 99999 but the Holy Sister

The tremors in the ground lasted for a long time. One day, the residents of the town discovered that the castle that had been high above them, pressing down on them and making them feel nervous and breathless, had disappeared in the "earthquake".

……

Fabrice himself couldn't remember how long it had been since he had fallen into a coma. For vampires, especially the upper vampires, coma itself was a somewhat incredible state, because they had long since separated from the human body structure and lived on blood.

There was no other way. Even though he was a vampire, he couldn't stand this kind of torture. Every time he was thrown away by Elsa, the magic power in his body solidified. He had nowhere to use his magic power. He couldn't use the various methods that the vampires were proud of. Naturally, he could only take the beating.

"Fabrick, wake up..."

Arman's voice.

When she woke up from her coma, the first thing she saw was the dirty Alman - Alman crawled out of the ruins, but she didn't dare to use magic to clean herself in front of Elsa, so it remained like this.

"Arman?"

Fabrik's shoulders trembled, and when he saw Alman clearly, his eyes widened.

"Arman?! You..."

Fabrice was stunned for a moment, then frowned.

He did not address Alman as "chief" or "sir", but called him by his name without any courtesy - he and Alman used to be senior cadres in the organization, and Alman's strength was even inferior to his, but now Alman took the position of leader because of the support of Duke Charblis, and he was somewhat dissatisfied.

And Alman was not dissatisfied with him, but just breathed a sigh of relief and said:

"I'm glad you woke up. I thought you were going to die. Fortunately, Lady Faris's healing magic brought you back. Thank Lady Faris for her kindness."

"Farris...Mistress?"

When did Alman start to address others as "sir"?

Fabrik's cloudy eyes slowly cleared. Following Alman's gaze, he saw Elsa. Elsa sat leisurely on the ruins nearby, a beam of dancing flame in her hand. That light made Fabrik's eyelids twitch, as he felt the long-lost illusion of burning flames from the beam. He knew that was the feeling he had when he was a weak vampire facing the sun.

But even scarier than the sun is Elsa.

The terrible memory before the coma suddenly reawakened.

"Arman! You're the one who brought her here!?"

Fabrik's knee-jerk reaction was to blame Alman for Elsa's appearance - although that was true, even if Alman didn't lead the way, Elsa could easily find this place.

Alman did not answer. He was too lazy to answer Fabrik's words. At this time, he just needed to obey Aisha's instructions.

"Come here, I have something to ask you."

Elsa spoke, and Fabrik didn't dare to say anything to Alman. This made Alman inexplicably feel superior - he could certainly see that Fabrik was not at all convinced that he could sit in the position of leader. Although it was the clone who sat on the leader, it was himself who forced Fabrik to kneel down. Isn't this a victory?

……

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385. If there is no bloodline

Alman brought the blood-soaked Fabrik to Elsa. Fabrik had completely woken up from his coma, and the memories and scenery before him—his castle had long been reduced to ruins, and now that he knew Elsa's identity—all of this made him feel an immense fear of her.

Elsa stared at him calmly.

"What a castle filled with darkness and blood! Even now, I can still smell the lingering scent of blood. Marquis Fabrice, can you hear the roar of the vengeful spirits? Do you remember how many people you've killed?"

Fabrice opened his mouth, but no words came out.

This land had indeed long been polluted by the undead, which was his intentional act, but how could he possibly remember how many people had died here?

"I heard you've been conducting research on Dead Apostles? Tell me about it briefly. I'm interested."

Elsa said, which made Fabrik a little confused - facing Elsa's question, he had no idea where to start.

Are you admitting you've experimented on living people? Are you kidding me...

Or is it just a way of beautifying it? But does it really work?

Ultimately, it all came down to whether Elsa wanted to hear the truth or a lie, and Fabrik wasn't sure.

"Lady Faris doesn't like to beat around the bush. I advise you not to hide anything."

Alman said calmly from the side - in his opinion, it was a fantasy that Elsa would be interested in Dead Apostles. It was obvious that Elsa just wanted Fabrik to confess.

The corners of Fabrik's mouth twitched, and he just wanted to go up and punch Alman.

Fabrique hated to see Armand's face.

First, there was the mysterious leader, then there was the Duke of Charlblis who rarely interfered in foreign affairs, and now there was this terrifying Lady Faris. How did Alman always find supporters? How could he always be able to suppress him?

Fabrice couldn't understand.

"Lady Faris, I only did it at the leader's behest..." Fabric was silent for a moment, then finally spoke, doing his best to excuse himself. "In order to gain a shortcut to the ancestral bloodline, the leader had several cadres, including me, conduct research on the vampire curse. Initially, my research wasn't about Dead Apostles, so everything I said was true!

We were just doing it for... for... we all believed... that if we could truly uncover the secret of the Ancestral Bloodline, the leader might be able to break the bloodline curse and become the true Ancestral, and I might even become the Duke of the Blood Clan... Even if we don't succeed, just being able to confirm the existence of the Ancestral Bloodline would be a matter of extraordinary significance to the entire Blood Clan..."

Aisha looked at Alman beside her and asked, "Do you know about this?"

The sudden question made Alman's heart skip a beat. He quickly explained, "I don't know much about this matter. The leader assigned different tasks to each cadre. I only learned some of the facts by chance..."

Elsa doesn't believe in chance.

Considering that after the leader's death, Alman's clone was able to integrate a number of cadres and take the position of leader in such a short time, it is not difficult to guess that Alman might have made some secret arrangements when he was in the organization. Perhaps Alman's purpose was not necessarily to usurp the position of leader, but he certainly would not be completely ignorant of it.

Facing Elsa's scrutinizing gaze, Alman continued with a stiff upper lip, "I'm not fully aware of the research, but as far as I know, there was another person among the original participants, Becky's original owner. But she seems to have been assigned a new task later..."

Alman was indeed unaware of this. Elsa even suspected that Becky's original owner, like Becky, did not report the complete information. Otherwise, why would she go to Sky Island alone in the end?

It can be seen that many cadres in the organization actually have their own little thoughts.

Elsa looked away noncommittally, looked at Fabrik, and gestured, "Continue."

Upon seeing this, Fabric lowered his head and continued cautiously, "These studies have lasted for over thirty years. Initially, we were summoned solely to explore the secrets of the Ancestor's Blood, but later the leader accidentally acquired the 'Unfinished Curse'. From then on, the leader became obsessed with the curse and ordered me to resume my research on Dead Apostles..."

"How long?"

"Four years..."

It is hard to imagine how many people lost their lives in this castle over four years.

"Do you have the 'Unfinished Curse'?"

"No, it's not with me... The leader always carries it with him. I only have the part about the Dead Apostles. Maybe others have it, but..."

"Who else knows about 'The Curse'?"

Elsa intends to destroy the "Unfinished Curse" to prevent other vampires from restarting this research in the future.

Fabrice grimaced.

"I can't say..."

"why?"

"Blood contract... The leader asked me to make a blood contract..."

"It's okay, you can say it."

Aisha said.

Even if there was a blood contract, it would have disappeared after being punched a few times by Elsa. Elsa and Tricia had already verified this situation, but Fabrik obviously didn't know this. He thought Elsa wanted him to die on purpose, and his face became even uglier.

"But……"

"Nothing to worry about. Just say what I told you to say."

Alman also said: "If Lady Faris really wanted to kill you, you would have died long ago."

Things had come to this point, and Fabrik had no way to refute anything. He couldn't fight back, and he certainly couldn't escape either, so he could only accept defeat.

He gritted his teeth, his shoulders trembling, and it took a lot of determination to quickly recite a name.

But he did not face death and pain.

Besides being shocked, he also felt great fear - the blood contract was one of the most stringent spells of the vampires, and it was broken without his knowledge?

"Are there any others? There can't be only one person, right?"

Without hesitation, Fabrik named several names. Without Aisha telling him, Alman wrote down all the names. Some of them were his acquaintances, while some he had never even met.

Elsa chuckled, "Pray your companions won't curse you."

Elsa's cold smile made Fabrik's heart skip a beat.

"Are you going to kill me?"

Elsa didn't answer him, but continued to ask, "You have studied Dead Apostles for so long. So, Fabrique, with your accumulated knowledge, can you turn a dead person into a vampire without the help of vampire blood?"

……

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386. The knot in my heart

Elsa never told anyone, including Charlie herself, what happened on the day she rescued Charlie more than a year ago.

Everything Charlie knew was her own guesswork from her fragmented memories. Although they were all facts, the piecemeal arrangement of the facts might not be as romantic as Charlie imagined. Whenever Charlie asked about the details of that day, Elsa would just evade them.

At first, Elsa concealed these things simply to take care of Charlie's feelings, but now, there is an additional layer of subtle intuition.

Because the characteristics of the Dead Apostles described by Alman were so similar to the state that Charlie was in when she just woke up. It was not until Elsa let Charlie suck her blood that Charlie recovered from her madness and bloodthirstiness - isn't that the process of Dead Apostles becoming vampires?

The biggest difference between Shirley and the Dead Apostles is that Shirley retains her complete memory and personality, which is inconsistent with what Alman said.

"Without going through the bloodline of the vampires...?"

Fabric couldn't quite grasp Elsa's thoughts. Why would a human want to know such a thing? Didn't humans deeply detest the Dead Apostle curse?

But he didn't dare to refuse Elsa's words, so he could only bite the bullet and say, "If there is no help from the vampires, then there is only one way to achieve what you said, 'resurrect the dead and turn them into vampires'..."

"——Dead Apostle?"

"Yes, yes... Only by resurrecting it as a Dead Apostle and then drawing enough soul power and blood from the living can it evolve into a complete vampire... It is said that the first vampire was born from a Dead Apostle and became the great ancestor."

"Just 'maybe'?"

"The evolution of a Dead Apostle into a Vampire is extremely difficult. As far as I know, the success rate is only about 20%... If they fail the first time, they will never be able to evolve into a Vampire and will completely degenerate into a bloodthirsty monster..."

Fabrice explained.

Elsa pondered for a moment. This was not the answer she wanted.

"Let me ask you another question - is it possible for a Dead Apostle, or a vampire born from a Dead Apostle, to retain their memories and personality?"

"This……"

Fabrik looked troubled. He felt that Elsa was deliberately making things difficult for him, but he had no evidence.

How could a Dead Apostle retain his or her personality when evolving into a vampire? Simply succeeding was already a remarkable feat—since Elsa knew the Dead Apostles, she must have known this fact.

Dead Apostles are the transformation of corpses. The reason why they cannot retain their memories of their previous lives like ordinary vampires is because their souls have been broken. Therefore, by sucking the blood of their own kind and gnawing on their flesh and blood, they are essentially reshaping and correcting their own soul fragments through the soul projection of others.

He gritted his teeth again and said, "As far as I know, this is not possible..."

At this moment, Alman stepped forward and questioned, "Fabrik, I told you not to try to hide anything—Dead Apostles can evolve into vampires, and the loss of memory is simply due to the loss of their souls. How do you know it's impossible to preserve them completely? Even necromancy can restore the memories and personalities of the deceased, and the 'Unfinished Curse' hasn't been fully resolved yet. How can you be so sure?"

Elsa glanced at Alman, and Alman immediately smiled ingratiatingly. In fact, he knew it was impossible, but he asked this question on purpose, just to make Fabrik talk less nonsense and not make Elsa unhappy.

Sure enough, some anger appeared in Fabrik's eyes. He didn't dare to do anything to Elsa, but he was not polite at all to Alman.

He said in a deep voice, "You know absolutely nothing and are talking nonsense! After death, the soul immediately shatters and dissipates. The 'Curse' cannot restore the soul. I've studied it for four years, and I still can't combine the 'Unfinished Curse' with necromancy. Such a sophisticated curse is so much more advanced than necromancy! This is why the Ancestor is so great... What do you know when you haven't even come into contact with the 'Unfinished Curse'?"

Faced with Fabrik's anger, Alman just smiled and didn't get angry.

Elsa asked again: "What if I don't pass the 'Unfinished Curse'?"

Fabrice was on the verge of tears.

How could one awaken a dead person without a spell? If someone else had asked him this, he would have definitely beaten that idiot up, but facing Elsa, he could only utter one sentence:

"That's even more impossible..."

……

Elsa still didn't get the answer she wanted.

No matter what happened, it was a miracle that Shirley survived. So as long as Shirley was doing well now, it didn't really matter what the truth was, right? But when Aisha thought about how she almost turned Shirley into an irrational Dead Apostle, she always felt a knot in her heart.

Elsa hated this feeling, so she wanted to find out more and more, but Fabrice obviously could not give Elsa a satisfactory answer. The only clue was probably the so-called "unfinished curse".

After rechecking the area around the castle to make sure there were no missing Dead Apostles, Elsa stopped in front of the ruins of Marquis Fabrice's castle. Holding a cross in her hand, she bowed her head and prayed softly, comforting the souls of those who had lost their lives there.