Ysabella trained alone, trying to create a new magic that she could use to kill Malakar. She concentrated her blood in the air and crystallized it little by little until it formed a blade with a beautiful red hue. Marks of the same color ran along both sides of the weapon, going from one end to the other, but when Ysabella tried to complete the technique, the blade simply dissolved in the air.
"Scarlet Blood Magic: Throne..."
Her technique had failed. Ysabella let out a sigh and sat down, looking at the empty space where her creation had disappeared. She remained silent for a few seconds, trying to figure out what the mistake had been, until she heard a voice behind her.
"You seem to have accumulated too much magic in a place that has no resistance."
Upon hearing Sylas's voice, Ysabella turned her face and saw him approaching. He was carrying a glass with monster blood and held it out to her before sitting down some distance away. Ysabella took the glass and also moved a little farther away, maintaining the space that usually existed between the two.
"So I guess I have to put more magic into the resistance itself, instead of accumulating it and then shaping the magic, right?"
"Exactly. The problem with this magic is that you divided it into two parts: resistance and power. Instead, you should let the magic itself form the necessary resistance."
Ysabella looked at the space where the blade had disappeared.
"That's exactly what I want. I want to improve this magic even further."
Sylas watched as she began drinking the blood. He noticed that Ysabella still made a point of keeping a certain distance, just as before. In that place, she seemed to want to stay away from everyone and had probably only allowed her own father to approach her that way. To make matters worse, Sylas knew the reason.
"Do you want me to tell you a few things about the owner of the blood you drank?"
"Yes."
The answer came immediately. For the first time during that conversation, Ysabella seemed genuinely excited. She wanted to know everything about that man who had given her such absurd power.
The problem was that, sooner or later, she would probably discover his true identity, and perhaps that would happen faster than he expected. Therefore, if he wanted Sylas's story to remain consistent with Enrico's, he would need to use a period of his life that could be explained without raising suspicions.
Enrico decided to use precisely the years when the parents of the original Enrico left him alone at home, when he was still very young and they did not even really know how he survived.
'Thank you for being horrible parents to Enrico, Mr. and Mrs. Solcren Ferreira.'
Before beginning to speak, however, Sylas changed the subject.
"Before that, you should tell me a little about yourself as well. I'm interested in knowing why you hate vampires so much. Of course, if you want to talk about it."
Ysabella remained silent for a few seconds.
"...My mother was human."
She lowered her gaze slightly as she began telling her story.
Twenty years ago, her mother had been one of the many humans captured by the blood hunters. She was kept imprisoned until the moment when her blood was supposed to be extracted. At that time, her father, Solin, was quite an adventurous vampire and constantly clashed with his own father. Ysabella's grandfather had ordered him not to invade that place, but Solin decided to do exactly the opposite.
"So, to go against his father, he entered without permission?"
"Yes."
A small nostalgic smile appeared on Ysabella's face as she remembered the stories her mother told her about herself and her father. On the day Solin invaded the place, he met that human for the first time. Even though she was imprisoned, her mother remained surprisingly calm while trying to convince him to free her, but Solin did not release her that day.
Instead, he became interested in her.
He began secretly returning every day just to talk. The more time he spent by her side, the more he admired her calmness in that situation. That was also the first time Solin had truly seen a human up close, and that curiosity eventually turned into something greater.
Until one day, to Ysabella's mother's surprise, Solin simply destroyed the prison and took her out of there.
Her grandfather became furious. He shouted endlessly about the audacity of his son, but the woman who had been freed remained calm, saying that she was fine.
In the end, he allowed her to go to the human world and gave her a pendant capable of bringing her back to the castle. Then it was her turn to begin visiting him every day.
And it continued that way until the two finally got together.
Then Ysabella's grandfather found out.
Incredibly, he was only annoyed and decided to hide his son's relationship with a human from the council. It was no exaggeration to say that he agreed with many of the council's ideas, but there was something he considered too precious to sacrifice: his own son. Because of that, he would never do anything that could seriously hurt him.
One year later, Ysabella was born.
She was the first hybrid in history to survive for so long. All the other hybrids had died early after their identities were discovered. Ysabella, however, grew up happily for fourteen years, until the moment the council finally discovered her existence.
To allow his family to escape, her grandfather decided to stay behind and face Draven. At that time, the two were at the same power level, although Draven was about to reach the Ninth Circle within three months.
"On the day my grandfather died, we could only hide. My father was an Eighth Circle, while my mother was a Sixth Circle. But, as my grandfather said... who would protect me if the two of them died along with him?"
Sylas remained silent for a few seconds before answering.
"...That must have been the right decision your grandfather thought of at the time."
"Yes. It was either him or all of us."
After that day, Solin began training like a madman to protect the two of them. One year later, he managed to reach the Ninth Circle and finally put an end to the council's persecution of his family. With his new level of power, he considered facing Draven to take revenge, but ended up thinking about his family and decided to simply withdraw, preferring to live peacefully and no longer obey the council's orders.
When Ysabella turned fifteen, she began training nonstop, just like her father. One year later, she had reached the Fourth Circle and continued increasing her evolution percentage at a considerable speed. For some time, the three of them managed to live peacefully.
Until Solin had to leave to face some invaders in his territory.
After he left, some time passed until Draven himself appeared at the mansion. His goal was to capture the two of them. Ysabella's mother tried to face him, even though she had recently reached the Seventh Circle, but ended up defeated by powerful magic that left her nearly dead.
"So your mother is somewhere in the castle, possibly unconscious? I don't think she was captured. If that had happened, you would be nervous now."
"My father hid her in a safe place."
The moment Ysabella's mother became unconscious, her father returned to the mansion in fury. Draven sensed the danger and simply took Ysabella with him toward the exit.
She still did not possess enough power to resist, and before Solin's attack could hit him, Draven disappeared through a magic circle that appeared when he stepped on the doorway, taking Ysabella with him.
"And you must have seen the rest. I was taken to that prison and remained trapped for seventeen days before you appeared. All these bloodsuckers only care about themselves. If you look closely, none of them came to stand beside my father. At most, the rebellion is doing something, but they are doing it for other reasons."
"I understand."
That was the part of the story Sylas did not know. Even so, he knew it was not everything.
In the original story, after Ysabella was captured, she had been locked in a cell and handed over to Malakar. He was mainly responsible for making her reveal information, while the guards also participated in the tortures. That happened repeatedly during the days she remained imprisoned. That was what had been described in the story, but Enrico had always suspected there was more.
He had noticed it in Ysabella's eyes from the first day he saw her.
She did not want to tell him.
Ysabella remained silent for a few moments, but then a memory returned to her mind.
"You must be hungry, aren't you? Take this."
The voice seemed distant.
She saw herself again in that cell, while someone placed a vial of blood containing some drug into her mouth. That day, after Malakar left the cell completely destroyed, Ysabella could not stop crying. Her mind was dominated by a single thought.
'I'll kill all these bloodsuckers, especially you, Malakar.'
As far as she remembered, she managed to resist, but even so, it was humiliating.
It was on that day that she began saying the word "bloodsuckers" with more hatred. Her mother had explained the meaning of that word to her. And, at that moment, Ysabella used it with complete certainty to wish harm upon those people.
All of them.
She looked back at Sylas, remembering the eyes he had shown when he found her on that first day.
"Why did you have those eyes that day?"
Sylas remained silent.
Thinking about it more carefully, he decided not to tell that part of his own story as Enrico. He would transfer it to Sylas's identity. His initial plan was to use Sylas only as a loyal follower, but that situation had opened an opportunity.
'At first, I was going to use Sylas's identity only as a loyal follower, but I can use this.'
"I'll be brief, because I prefer not to talk much about my past, even though I've already overcome it."
"That's fine by me."
Sylas lay down, looking at the sky. Some images from his past began to appear in his mind. At that time, he was too young to fully understand what his parents' true personalities were like.
"We can say that my parents would do anything for money when I was even younger. My father taught me how to steal. He was a thief his entire life and, since I was a child, the punishment from the authorities if I were caught would be much smaller. As for my mother... we can say that she had been a night worker before having me and a con artist after I was born, especially after suffering an accident near a construction site."
Ysabella remained silent for a few seconds.
"What a shitty family."
"I know."
At first, he was just a child who stole food from stalls. Then he began stealing people's wallets. During that period, he also had to learn how to fight in the streets because there were other children doing the same thing. That area of the city was extremely poor, and many children of the same age survived that way.
"One of those days, I ended up bumping into a man who became interested when he saw me defending myself against some children my age. So he asked to speak with my parents."
That day, the man offered money in exchange for some jobs. At first, they were only small thefts, but as Sylas grew, the jobs began becoming more dangerous, until the moment that man offered him the worst one.
His parents did not think for even a second before accepting.
"And that was it. He offered some jobs and my parents agreed. I even fought in cages. To be honest, it isn't an exaggeration to say I was the best of my age."
Ysabella looked at him for a few seconds.
"...Did your body manage to withstand all that? Didn't it get worse?"
"I don't know. And I don't care either. At most, I care about letting it rest so it can improve even more."
"You should care more about your own body."
Sylas looked at her with a confused expression. It was the same look he had shown in that cell when they first met. He really did not seem to understand the reason for that question.
'She's different from me...'
Then he remembered that each person dealt with their own pain differently.
"Why should I care if it's already all dirty?"
Ysabella stared at him in disbelief.
The answer seemed absurd, but when she looked into his eyes, she found no obvious sign of suffering. It was as if Sylas truly did not care about it.
"Don't look at me like that. Instead of caring about something about me that even I don't care about, you should worry about figuring out how to kill Malakar."
Ysabella looked away.
"...You're right. And what about the owner of the blood? Did he go through something similar, since you know him?"
"I already told you about myself. So, if you want to know about him, you'll have to wait. For now, just worry about your revenge."
Ysabella closed her eyes for a few seconds.
When she opened them again, she was looking downward.
Malakar was in the middle of the room, staring at her angrily.
A dark smile slowly appeared on Ysabella's face. She set her thoughts about Sylas and the owner of that blood aside. She would have other opportunities to ask about the two of them.
At that moment, there was something much more important.
'Yes. That's right. For now, I just need to get my revenge.'