Chapter 80: Why?

Chapter 80: Chapter 80: Why?

"How did you know?" Lucia’s feet finally touched the ground.

She dropped all pretenses and walked towards Derrick.

Ba-dump!

Even as he held the box containing her beating heart, Lucia did not seem to be afraid of death.

The heart was black in color, the sickening wet texture moved as it thumped with beat.

Even though it was not connected to a body or anything that kept it alive, the heart was beating on its own.

"Had a hunch. You see, I can read people better than anyone else."

"You have been making sure even as we fought that I don’t go near that throne. It made clear that you protecting something. Something precious. What could be more precious that a something that keeps you alive in a place like this."

It was only a partial truth.

Derrick had used All Seeing Eyes before and he saw something unbelievable.

Lucia had no heart in her body.

Her body was cold as if it was dead.

But something was keeping her alive. It was a trace of some sort of twisted energy in the place of her heart.

That energy had faint connection that was extended out of her body.

Derrick followed the connection and found the heard in the box behind the throne.

"You are quite clever for a human. I have fought many in my prime and after being sealed. But none had a mind like yours." Lucia’s words may sound like a praise but the indifferent look on her face said otherwise.

Lucia tilted her head, her gaze locking onto his with the chilling detachment of a predator assessing a particularly stubborn piece of prey.

"Cleverness is a poor substitute for power," Lucia murmured, her voice carrying an eerie, hollow resonance that seemed to drop the temperature in the room by a few degrees.

She took a slow, deliberate step forward.

"Tell me, little human..." A cruel, thin smile touched the edge of her lips, though her eyes remained entirely devoid of warmth. "How confident are you in that steady hand of yours? Just how certain are you that you can plunge that blade into my heart before I rip your own beating heart straight from your chest?"

Derrick didn’t flinch. He tightened his grip on the dagger in his free hand, the metal catching the dim, sickly light of the chamber.

He looked her dead in the eye.

"Very."

Even as he gave his confident reply, Derrick’s mind was descending into a chaotic storm.

Beneath his stoic facade, a deep wave of hesitation washed over him.

Do I have to kill her? Does she really deserve to die. She looks no different from a little child. How could she be a monster?

Looking at her, despite the grim reality of the black, pulsing heart that made it clear she was nothing but a vampire which fed on the blood of the humans to grow stronger and survive.

She still possessed the fragile appearance of an innocent child.

The thought of plunging a blade into her heart and being the reason for her death felt sickeningly wrong.

Lucia’s expression suddenly contorted, her brows knitting together in a sharp scowl of utter irritation.

"Stop whining and don’t be such a wimp!" she snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "Finish what you started!"

Derrick blinked, taken aback by the sudden outburst.

"I’ve practically screamed hints at you about being centuries old this entire time! Why on earth are you still hesitating?"

Lucia threw her hands up in exasperation, her eyes flashing with indignant fury.

"I am not some fragile human child who needs to be pitied!

Death is freedom for me. I have been sealed in this timeless place for who knows how long!

I don’t want to stay here any longer.

This pitiful, childish shell is nothing more than the physical result of the cursed seals they placed on me ages ago!"

The words echoed in the tense silence of the chamber, and Derrick’s blood ran cold.

She can hear my thoughts.

He did not need to think hard to notice this fact. .

The horrific realization struck him like a physical blow.

"Of course I can."

Lucia possessed mind-reading abilities, and his every doubt had been laid bare right before her eyes.

"Blood manipulation is just a basic ability all vampires have. My talents lies in the art of mind."

A cold sweat broke out across the back of Derrick’s neck.

The pieces clicked together with terrifying clarity, crashing down on him all at once.

Blood manipulation... mind reading... these might not be the only abilities she has.

With mind reading alone she could read his attacks and could have killed him whenever she wanted.

Every strategy he had meticulously planned, every tactical retreat he had calculated, every single hidden card he thought he was holding close to his chest...

She must have known them all.

At this time, Derrick was practically forcing himself to not think about the system.

[No need to worry host. Anything related to the system and your past life has been sealed away and won’t be revealed unless you allow them to be.]

Couldn’t you just hide everything.

The system did not speak again.

Derrick raised his head and stared at the blood eyed little girl standing before him and sighed.

He had genuinely believed he outsmarted her, that finding her hidden heart and threatening her with it was his ultimate checkmate move.

But he finally realized how wrong he had been.

She hadn’t been backed into a corner; she had merely been letting him play his part.

If she had wanted him dead, she could have crushed his organs, scrambled his brains, or drained him of every drop of blood the moment he stepped foot into the chamber.

The illusion of control shattered completely, leaving him standing naked before a monster who had humored him like a cat playing with a particularly slow mouse.

At this point Derrick could only ask one thing. The only question he had on his mind.

"Why?"