Fragments of consciousness floated and sank in the endless void.
Su Nian's last sensations were the earth-shattering explosion, the turbulent currents that tore apart the very essence of her soul when the dimensional passage collapsed, and... the faint, almost imperceptible tremor from the tiny light in her arms, before she was completely plunged into boundless silence and darkness.
There was no time, no space, only a void of chaos.
It felt like billions of years had passed, yet it also felt like only a moment.
A faint, stinging chill, like a needle tip, pierced through the thick darkness.
Su Nian's "existence" began to painstakingly recombine. The first sensation to return was pain—the lingering, omnipresent agony of her soul being torn apart, and an unprecedented sense of emptiness. It was as if a part of her essence had been permanently annihilated along with the burning pale golden source in the instant the passage collapsed.
She "looked" at herself.
The once dazzling, seven-colored spiritual consciousness was now as dim as dusty glass, covered with spiderweb-like cracks, its ethereal form so faint it seemed about to vanish with the wind. But what made her heart stop (if spiritual consciousness still had a heart) was—the fragments of Xie Chen's soul light that she had been desperately protecting in her arms… were gone.
No, it's not completely gone.
At the very core of his own spiritual consciousness, where it merged with the pale blue icy soul mark, clung to three or four extremely tiny golden specks of light, almost indistinguishable from dust. Their light was so faint as to seem about to be extinguished at any moment, yet they truly existed, like the last embers surviving after a violent storm.
A profound mix of sorrow and relief washed over her. Sorrow that most of "him" had likely perished in the dimensional turbulence; relief that a sliver of hope remained. This hope, thinner than a spider's thread, kept her from utter collapse.
Where is she right now?
Perception stretched outwards with difficulty. This place no longer seemed to be a mere dimensional crevice, but rather... a "fringe" filled with faint energy flows and fragmented material remnants? Like an abandoned junkyard outside the barrier of the main world, or an unstable buffer zone on the outer edge of some giant world bubble.
She tried to activate the soul ice crystals to respond to the pale blue mark and find a path to the Ice Crystal Temple. However, the mark remained, but it only provided a vague, directional guidance and a response that "the distance is extremely far, the channel energy is insufficient, and a stable connection cannot be established."
She failed.
She burned her very essence, almost sacrificing herself, yet still failed to reach the other side of hope. She merely escaped from one desperate situation to another unknown, equally perilous one. Now she is so weak that she can barely maintain her own existence, let alone undertake another leap.
Must we wait in this void, for even the last vestige of our consciousness to vanish completely?
Just as her consciousness began to fade again, slowly being swallowed by despair—
A powerful, targeted suction force suddenly emanated from a certain direction in this edge of the area!
That was not a natural phenomenon, but more like an energy vortex generated by a man-made, large-scale "summoning" or "hunting" ritual! This power was nothing to her in her prime, but to Su Nian, who was now exhausted and like a rootless duckweed, it was like encountering a whirlpool in a raging ocean, and she was completely unable to resist it!
"No……"
Her faint resistance was instantly crushed. Her shattered consciousness, along with those few precious golden specks of light, was forcibly captured and pulled by an irresistible suction force, thrown towards a world that was gradually becoming clearer and larger in her perception, exuding a dense aura of shadows and blood...
The feeling of crossing the barriers between worlds is completely different from crossing dimensional channels.
The latter is a forced leap at the level of laws, while the former is more like a passive and brutal "insertion".
Su Nian felt her consciousness being squeezed and distorted, forced to adapt to the underlying rules of this new world. In the midst of intense pain, she vaguely perceived the "tone" of this world—darkness, elegance, a strict hierarchy, and a pervasive, omnipresent...craving for "life" and "blood."
Immediately following was a more specific stream of information, as if forcibly indoctrinated, flooding her consciousness where she could barely think:
[Warning! A high-dimensional soul fragment (severely damaged) has been detected connecting...]
[World Setting: The continent of Catheran, under the Eternal Night Dynasty ruled by vampires.]
[Mandatory Quest Generation: Survival.]
[Identity loaded: Sacrifice. Number 73. Carrier of 'Special' blood.]
[World rules adaptation in progress... Soul energy severely insufficient to maintain spiritual state... Forced materialization and reshaping initiation...]
"Ugh—!"
An even more intense pain followed, as if an invisible force was forcibly shaping a body for her using the world's materials. Her consciousness was forcibly stuffed into this unfamiliar and fragile body, and all her power, including the faint Ice Soul Mark, was as if shackled, sinking deep into the depths of her soul, impossible to mobilize in the slightest.
She lost all her powers and became... a mortal.
A heavy sense of exhaustion and physical weakness overwhelmed her like a tide. In the last second before she completely lost consciousness, she only had time to use her last bit of strength to tightly wrap and hide the few golden specks of light attached to the core of her soul with all her remaining willpower.
I absolutely cannot lose him again!
...
Cold and hard.
Su Nian was awakened by the cold, and also by the rough stone slab beneath her.
She struggled to open her heavy eyelids, only to be met with darkness. The air was thick with dust, the smell of mildew, and a faint, almost imperceptible... stench of blood.
She lay in the corner of a cold, damp stone chamber, with only a thin layer of dry grass beneath her. The chamber had no windows, only a heavy iron door with a small window. Faint, unknown light filtered in through the small window, barely illuminating the room.
And the other people in the room.
There were about a dozen girls, like her, dressed in rough linen robes, huddled in different corners of the stone chamber. Most of them looked haggard, their eyes vacant, filled with fear and despair, and occasionally one of them let out a low sob.
This is a prison cell.
Su Nian's heart sank. A sacrifice... a vampire... she had indeed fallen into the worst possible situation.
She tried to sense herself. Her soul was still riddled with cracks and extremely weak. The Ice Soul Mark and System 088 were both silent, as if they had never existed. Only those few golden specks of light, which were being fiercely protected, emitted a faint warmth, reminding her that her previous experience was not a dream, and supporting her to not give up.
"You...you're awake?" A timid voice sounded from the side.
Su Nian turned her head and saw a pale-faced brown-haired girl, also dressed in prison clothes, looking at her with a fear of shared suffering in her eyes.
"Where is this?" Su Nian's voice was a little hoarse and dry.
“The dungeons of Blackrock Fortress,” the girl whispered, her voice trembling with tears, “we are all chosen ‘blood sacrifices’… Tomorrow, on the night of the full moon, we will be sent to the altar to be offered… offered to that noble prince.”
Prince...
The information from the setting sheet flashed through Su Nian's mind instantly—Xie Chen, Prince.
Her heart skipped a beat. Was it a coincidence, or...?
"Prince...which prince?" Su Nian pressed, her voice trembling with a tension she herself was unaware of.
“Who else could it be?” Another slightly older gray-haired girl with a faint scar on her face spoke coldly, her tone filled with a numb resignation. “The only prince of the Eternal Night Dynasty, who has been asleep for a thousand years and has only now awakened—Prince Xie Chen, the most direct bloodline of His Majesty Cain.”
Thank you, Chen!
It really is him!
The immense impact nearly suffocated Su Nian. She had transcended life and death, her soul shattered, almost annihilated in the dimensional turbulence, and yet... in such a way, so quickly, she encountered his fragments again?
But the cold reality woke her up the next moment.
She was no longer the ideal woman who could stand beside him, nor a substitute who could pique his interest. She was merely... a blood sacrifice. Number 73. In his eyes, she was perhaps no different from a piece of bread on a plate.
Moreover, her current condition was extremely poor. Her soul was severely damaged, she had lost all her power, and even her body was incredibly weak. How could she approach him? How could she complete her mission—to win back the prince's affection? Was she to rely on her "special" blood?
“I heard… the prince has a terrible temper,” the brown-haired girl added, trembling. “The last offering was… turned to ashes because the blood wasn’t ‘pure’ enough.”
Hope, which had just been ignited, was quickly overwhelmed by deeper despair.
She found him, but she might not even have the chance to let him "taste" her before it all came to an end.
Just then—
"Clang!"
The small window in the iron gate was suddenly pulled open, revealing the cold, pale face of a low-ranking vampire guard. His icy gaze swept over all the girls in the cell, as if he were taking inventory.
"Quiet down! To be His Majesty's offerings is the highest honor for your lowly lives!" The guard's voice was sharp and cold. "Tomorrow night, wash your bodies clean and don't defile His Majesty's dignity with your filthy blood!"
After saying that, the small window slammed shut, leaving behind a deathly silence and a deepening fear in the room.
Su Nian leaned against the cold wall and closed her eyes.
A desperate situation. A more visibly and hopelessly desperate situation than any before.
Power, status, position... worlds apart. She didn't even have the right to speak to him.
but……
She slowly opened her eyes, and deep within them, the resilience and wisdom honed through two worlds had not been extinguished by the loss of her power.
She is Su Nian. The Su Nian who intrigues domineering CEOs and drives immortal lords to madness.
Blood offerings? Special blood?
This may be a dead end, but who says... it can't be the beginning of an opportunity?
She recalled the core plot highlights of this world in the setting list—a dark and warm style, and making the castle feel lively and welcoming.
A plan so audacious it was almost absurd began to quietly take shape in her mind.
She needed to survive first, to live to see the prince. Then, she needed to make him feel that she was more than just "food."
Time passed incredibly slowly and agonizingly in the dungeon.
Su Nian no longer wasted her energy on fear or crying. She began to observe silently, adjust her breathing, try to adapt to this weak new body, and attempt to gather information about this world, about vampires, and about Prince Xie Chen from the fragmented conversations of the other girls.
She learned that this was the Eternal Night Dynasty, where vampires were revered and humans were treated like livestock.
She learned that Prince Xie Chen was a supreme being, powerful, ancient, and world-weary, indifferent to everything, even showing little interest in eating.
She learned that her "special" blood seemed to imply a possibility of being more "favored," or perhaps a cause of an earlier death.
Night fell again (though it was not very noticeable in the dungeon).
The guards brought dinner—a piece of black bread as hard as a rock and a bowl of murky, cold water.
Most of the other girls had no appetite or couldn't eat. Su Nian, however, forced herself to finish the bread and drink the water in small, determined bites. She needed energy, even if it was just a little.
After doing all this, she closed her eyes again, not to rest, but to immerse herself in the deepest part of her soul, trying to communicate with the dormant Ice Soul Mark, even if she could only evoke a faint chill to nourish and stabilize those few golden specks of light that were like candles flickering in the wind.
"Wait for me..." she said silently to the point of light in her heart, "This time, it's my turn to find you and get close to you."
Outside the dungeon, the Eternal Night Castle, belonging to the vampires, stood silently under the crimson moonlight, ancient and imposing.
And at the very top of the castle, in that magnificent palace suspended above all living beings.
On the cold throne, a tall, elegant figure rested his forehead on his hand, his eyes closed as if in a slumber. He had skin so pale it was almost translucent, short, jet-black hair, and an incomparably handsome face that seemed to have been sculpted by ancient moonlight, exuding an aura of languor and world-weariness.
Suddenly, his long, thick eyelashes trembled slightly, and he slowly opened them.
Those were extremely rare eyes, deep as blood-red amber. At this moment, a very faint hint of doubt, which even he himself did not notice, flashed across those eyes.
Just a moment ago, he seemed to... sense an extremely faint yet exceptionally pure and refreshing aura, mixed with the bloody smell that he found so tiresome and terrifying, and it vanished in a flash.
Like... the first drop of sweet spring water seeping into the frozen soil when the ice and snow begin to melt.
Prince Xie Chen frowned slightly, then quickly regained his usual indifference.
Perhaps it's because I've been asleep for too long that I'm having this illusion.
He closed his eyes again, shutting out all the disturbances of the outside world, including the upcoming, tedious sacrificial ritual.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com