Rise of the Blood Sovereign

68  Last Night in Linston

Inside the forest near the city of Linston.

Three Silver Knights showed up at the area where Adam and Lyle had evolved. The leading knight looked at the area of the forest that had seemingly lost all vitality and life and crouched down to further inspect it.

"Poison?" One of the knights asked as the leading one shook his head.

"No, there would be acidic traces left on the ground and trees, but they simply withered, lost all life from whatever creature it was that evolved here."

"Hmm, it could be the power of rot, corruption, vitality-drain, and other such powers."

"Correct, any of those would leave similar traces, but I'm also interested in why there is blood here, not to mention that the size of the affected area is too large for a single Tier I evolution, there might have been 2 or 3 creatures that evolved here." The leading knight said before standing up.

"Should we scout the surrounding area, and try to figure out what monsters evolved here?"

"No, I don't think we need to do so, look over there." The leading knight said as he pointed at one spot. The other two knights went closer, only to find footprints.

"It seems it was two humans that evolved here, their footprints start there, but disappear after a couple of steps, that's probably their way of telling us that we don't need to be alarmed and spend manpower on scouting around."

"But why would people choose to evolve here?"

"Could be for a couple of reasons, but whatever it is, they definitely didn't want to be seen, hmmm." The leading knight said before turning around.

"We'll report our findings to the commander, our job here is done."

"Yes sir!" The other two knights said before following after the leading knight.

As for Lyle and Adam, the two had passed about two-thirds of the way back to Linston at this point. They had finally achieved Lyle's main motivation for coming to Linston and had successfully reached the realm of Bronze Knights.

That would make going back to Orsvald and the headquarters of the organization easier for Lyle. As long as he wasn't meticulously inspected by a Golden Knight or above, people should still believe that he was in the same realm as before, perhaps just weakened from the system appearing in the world.

The two went back to the inn and rested a bit.

There was nothing for them to do except for waiting till tomorrow, which was when another caravan would be leaving for Orsvald.

They couldn't go to dungeons to gain soul power or figure out just how powerful they had become since even before the system's arrival and that mana increasing, the two dungeons that were available for Bronze Knights were not really meant for low-leveled Bronze Knights.

With the dungeons evolving and becoming more dangerous, Lyle inferred that probably only high-leveled Bronze Knights could clear them right now. He and Adam would be asking for the death penalty if they entered the dungeons.

Not to mention that entering such dungeons would give away their identity. People could put two and two together and figure out that it was them that had evolved in the forest recently, which could lead to unnecessary trouble for them in the future.

Neither Lyle nor Adam knew about the knights that had arrived in the forest shortly after their evolution, but Lyle had suspected that something like that would happen.

Even though they had gone deep inside the forest in order to avoid anyone noticing or seeing them during the evolution, it was not a perfect plan and there would always be a chance that a sensory-type knight could sense the mana that was being drawn over to them.

Evolution would make quite a commotion usually and the mana that would be drawn could be sensed even without one having any mana-sensing abilities or skills.

For Lyle, mistakes were never an option and he would always make sure not to leave behind any clues that would trace back to him.

But after evolving, Lyle had actually found something interesting.

[ Alert, the system has found irregularities in the host's body, running a check ]

Ding!

[ The host's body has been filled with seals that severely limit the mana of the host. ]

Ding!

[ During the evolution, a part of the seals have been destroyed, the host needs to continue evolving in order to get rid of all the seals, only when the host reaches Tier V will the seals be completely destroyed. ]

'Seals, huh?' Lyle commented as he saw the notification from the system. He finally knew why his mana was always his weakness, and why he never had the same amount of mana as others.

His mana channels and even the area where the mana organ was located were all put under seals which limited their performance severely. Even with the evolution destroying only a little bit of the seals, Lyle could still sense an improvement over his previous total amount of mana.

'But when was this done, who did it?' Lyle thought to himself as he stared at the ceiling of his room.

'Did the organization do this?'

'No, there would have been no benefits to them, all of us have joined them ever since we were kids, our loyalty isn't something that is questioned, and everyone else had more mana than me in the very beginning, so that means it was done before I joined them.'

'My mother?'

'My father?'

'Could it be that the seals are because of them?'

'But that would mean that the seals had been placed ever since I was a baby, but why, why would anyone put something like that inside a baby?'

'Just who were my parents, for my birth to actually be like this?' Lyle thought to himself once more before shaking his head.

It was useless for him to have such thoughts and questions.

It wasn't like he would be able to get any answers right now, or in the near future. He needed to become stronger before being able to even think of getting the answers.

'Whatever it is, it seems the empress knows about it or does she?' Lyle thought back on how the empress had given him a gentle look and advice before his eyes closed and he was gone from the rock during the evolution.

He still didn't understand just why she would tell him something like that, why she was so certain he would look for her, but if it was to not only look for his father but to also gain answers to his origins, she was definitely the one person that could answer them, other than his father.

He guessed that his mother's family could also answer him, but he had no idea who they even were or where they lived. Were they perhaps the ones responsible for his mother's state?

For the two of them living in the slums, even though his mother's bloodline was seemingly incredibly pure and powerful, to the point of even improving his evolution to a vampire lord, it simply made no sense.

His mother was just a weak woman that did all she could in order for the two of them to survive in this world. If she had such a bloodline, then it shouldn't have been possible for her to be weak, and yet she was, and she died of a normal disease, drowning in a pool of her own blood.

'Wait, how did my mother die?' Lyle suddenly asked himself.

He remembered the scene of his mother lying face down on the floor after he had returned home one day. He was a small kid, so his memory of that was still blurry, not to mention the shock he had gotten after seeing his mother in such a state.

'Was that truly a natural death, she was sick, but was she that sick?'

'Was my mother killed?'

'God damn it, I thought I would have some answers by now, but all I have are more questions than before.' Lyle said as he clenched his hands in fists.

His origins were something he always wanted to find out.

Who exactly was he, who was his mother, and who was his father?

Why his mother and he were abandoned and were forced to live in such a place when it was obvious his father was a high-ranking vampire that definitely had noble blood?

Was what his mother and father did, was her getting pregnant and giving birth to him the reason?

Lyle had no idea, there could be many reasons for their situation and the lack of contact from his father.

Hell, he had no idea what the man even looked like. His mother never mentioned him, not even once.

And with such thoughts in his head, Lyle spent most of the night awake, only managing to sleep for about 3 hours before getting up and taking his stuff out. It was finally time for him and Adam to make their way to Orsvald.