Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Chapter 482: I think my Mother cursed my Father

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The Function being at night, Caius had the day to himself. He could have gone along with Arlette to the Leopold Coven but chose to spend the day at the Von Helsing Estate instead.

He spent hours in the Arena, shirtless as he trained with his sword. He mostly practiced forms and sparred against dummies that were enchanted to move. The dummies were made with materials that made them especially sturdy even against attacks at the sixth circle so Caius could go as hard against them as he wished. It also meant, for every mistake he made, he was punished... hard.

So many times, he lay on the ground, his body aching as he tried to catch his breath but never did he think to stop. If anything, he got more keyed into the spars, easily losing track of time.

When Caius did take a break from weapon training, he worked on his Von Helsing Regimen.

As a Vampire, he was already at the physical and magical peak of his circle, but the Regimen was getting him more acclimated with his inactive muscles so that he could draw on the true extent of their might.

At least that was all the Regimen was usually meant for. Since Caius had gotten a sliver of Divine energy within himself however, he had found even more use for the Regimen;

His Divine energy was only within his blood, coursing through it the same way Mana did, but whenever he practiced the Regimen, Caius’s body opened up in a way that caused the Divine energy to flow out of his blood and meld itself into his inactive muscles, speeding up his acclimation with them, while also strengthening and pushing them past their limits.

Caius did have plans for the Divine energy he carried but they were far from yielding fruit. Really, he expected that the only times he could truly make use of his Divine Energy were whenever he went against creatures that particularly abhorred it such as Demons and Fiends like Belron.

He also planned to get capable enough with it to mix it into his mana to strengthen his spell casting somewhat. But this was a very welcome boon. With this, Caius found he might not have to wait too long to begin gleaning the benefits of Divinity.

Already, after practicing the Regimen and letting the Divine energy into his muscles, Caius clenched his fist and found greater strength bubbling within. He hadn’t felt such a significant boost—without using Trait Acquisition Potions, of course—since he had advanced into the Fourth Circle.

And this was only with the little bit of Divine Energy he had acquired so far. By feeding on Arlette, who was strengthening her Divine Seed with the use of the Arcane Circle, he could reach even greater heights.

’Imagine the whole gang was here,’ Caius thought with a melancholic smile.

The ’gang’ of course, referred to his other partners who also had the Arcane Circle and were strengthening their Divine Seeds. He knew because they made it a point to mention it whenever he spoke to them on the ’Loqui-Links’.

Really, no day passed without him speaking to one of them or the other. The longest gap between conversations with one person so far was with Kaya. And Caius knew why which was why he quickly waived all attempts she made to apologize and just asked simply;

”Are you alright?”

Caius already knew what Kaya was going to face when she got home. In the original canon, the oppressive air was a major detail of Kaya’s minor storyline but she didn’t battle it until after she had graduated from Lochxen.

With how much he had interfered in the canon so far, Caius had a feeling the timeline was going to change so when communication with her paused, he knew he had been right.

While he waited to hear from her, only a few days after Brogan’s defeat, Caius came very close to getting involved. Of course, he was very far from Kaya and wouldn’t make it in time to help personally so he had an alternative planned;

’Ophiuchus’, thanks to its massive reach all over the Empire, had a base in Aeisling County. It would take but a call to get a few of the Mercenaries to storm the Aeisling Grand Manor and carry Kaya out of there.

With this alternative, Caius expected a battle would be inevitable and there would likely be an uproar in the County for a kidnapping happening in the Count’s own home but that was all fine if Kaya was safe.

Through the Divinity they shared, Caius could sense Kaya, however, he could only sense that she was alive and could not accurately sense the state she was in. Because of the distance between them, he couldn’t even use that connection to track her precise location.

And so, after days of waiting, the alternative was looking very good. In fact, Caius was minutes away from giving the ’Ophiuchus’ Merceneries the go-ahead when Kaya’s call came through.

”Of course,” Kaya answered with a laugh, ”Why wouldn’t I be?”

For a second, Caius said nothing and just studied her face as best as he could in the holographic display.

”You fought it, didn’t you?” He asked.

Kaya didn’t ask how he knew. She was getting used to his seeming omniscience.

”Yes.”

”And you won,” Caius said with a sigh of relief. That one wasn’t a question.

Kaya just gave him a wide grin.

”Was there ever any doubt?”

”No,” Caius laughed, ”No, I suppose not.

Still, you can tell me how you did it, can’t you?”

And so Kaya did. Every last detail. So much so that Caius might have thought she had gotten a third-person view of it all because she was including parts that hadn’t actually involved her personally such as conversations between her brothers and the Estate Guards when she should have been lost to the world and inside her Mental space at the time.

”The Arcane Circle?” Caius asked with his eyes wide in surprise.

”Yep,” Kaya said with an emphatic nod.

”Wow,” Caius said and he was truly impressed.

He had never thought it could be used in that way. And yet, as she recanted the tale, it made perfect sense. An Arcane Circle created to target and manipulate an emotional drive should be able to trap Emotions. This gave the Circle an actual combative use rather than just being an amplifier as it currently was.

”Caius,” Kaya called with a solemn expression.

”Hmm?”

”The magic of the emotions... What gave it life; It’s Elven Magic,” Kaya said.

”It is?” Caius asked, again with surprise.

This was yet another development that was deviating from the original canon.

”I felt it when the emotions became trapped in the Arcane Circle. I’m certain that it’s Elven,” Kaya said.

Caius stroked his jaw. In the original canon, the battle had been tough but Kaya, harnessing Nature Energy, had eventually obliterated the Malevolent Aura into nothing and hadn’t needed to invite it into her mental space. However, the trauma of the attack shook her Father’s mental state so much that he never recovered. He died shortly after that, with his son, Kaide Aeisling succeeding him.

In the original canon, Kaya and her father never had a moment of seeming like righting the wrongs in their relationship and so it just soured for years until finally, defeating the Malevolent Aura was practically the same as defeating her father.

Unlike what happened now according to how Kaya recited it, the original Canon had Count Revon Aiesling accept the Malevolent Aura and lose himself to it. By that point, there was no more reluctance in the Count.

In the original canon, Kaya fully believed she had killed her own father and embraced that for better and for worse. She left the Aeisling County soon after for a journey of self-discovery now that she was a graduate of Lochxen. That journey eventually led her to her mother.

”Caius, I think—” Kaya said then, pulling Caius out of his thoughts of canon events as she swallowed and continued,

”I think my Mother cursed my Father.”