"Oh, by the kitsune lord, it is you, Elysia... I-I'm so sorry." My father apologised as he realised what he had just said was to his own daughter.
"It really is you, our daughter." My mother held out her hand, beckoning me to come closer. I quickly knelt down and hugged both of them.
"Mum! Dad! You're actually alive!" I cried out, no longer holding back any of my emotions. I never thought that I would get to see my parents ever again in my life, but here they are in my very own arms.
"We can't believe you are alive too. We had surely thought you were killed all those years ago." My father referenced the time when I had to run away from our secluded cabin, which ultimately landed me homeless in human territory.
"No, I managed to run away." There was so much that I wanted to say and tell them. How I survived after running away, how my future wife saved me and all the crazy things we have been through.
"Thank goodness, I am so sorry we couldn't protect you." My mother tried to tighten her hug around me, but ultimately couldn't. Although they were physically healed, they were still very malnourished and needed rest to fully recover.
"It's okay, I'm fine now. But first, let's get out of this cell." It wasn't the most pleasant reunion, hugging on top of a bunch of rotting flesh.
"I'm afraid we can hardly move." My father tried to move his legs, but his body was so weak that he couldn't even lift it off the ground.Even holding me in their arms seemed barely within their capabilities.
"Someone is coming to help, so don't worry." Composing myself, I backed away from my parents and stood up while contacting Alice, as I will need a hand.
'Alice, I need you right now in the basement.' I didn't have a clue where she ended up after my show in the city centre, but I hoped she wasn't far at the moment.
'Right away!'
"Malinda! Are you okay out there?" I called out to Malinda, who seemed to have finished her grieving and was now getting the bodies off their hooks.
"Yes, madam, do you need something?" Malinda approached the hole that I had made, her puffy red eyes making clear that she had been sobbing a lot.
"I'm fine, but feel free to call the maids down here if you need them." I wanted to make sure Malinda had all the support she needed.
"Thank you, but I would rather they not witness such a scene. They are too young to witness this kind of mess." Malinda bowed respectfully, declining my offer, though it was completely understandable.
"Alright, feel free to ask me if you need any help." Malinda nodded and went back to tending to the bodies.
"What does that mean Alice? Is this thing my parents or not?!" I needed to know if I should kill this thing or if there was a way to revert it back.
"How do I put this... It used to be your parents, but from what I can gather, Teivel had experimented on them. If it's what I think it is, then this thing is supposed to be a true vampire. One with no weakness which can take any shape it desires." Alice gave her explanation, but it wasn't enough for me.
"H-How can you be so sure?" I wanted to deny Alice's words, but there was nothing else that could explain what was going on.
"I'm not sure myself, as I never got to see it, but I know it was something Alucard tried to create... If your grandfather somehow found this information in the dungeon, then he might have been pursuing this path as well." Alice went on to look around the basement, and so she happened to stumble across a book that was in a small compartment under the table.
As she skimmed through it I visibly saw her hand shake. I could see on her face that she was debating whether to speak up.
"Pass it here." Desperate for something, I snatched it out of Alice's hand and looked at the page she was reading. Instantly accepting the system message to absorb the information, my head was filled with the contents of the books.
"N-No, t-this isn't real." Dropping the book and cradling my head in my arms. I fell to the ground and began to scream. Malinda, who was extremely confused, took this moment to leave, but I could care less right now.
"ARGHHHH!!!!!"
"Elysia, please calm down."
Alice's voice fell on deaf ears, drowned out by my own screams. I could not hear her plea, neither did I care for it.
As for what was in the book, it described a hypothetical experiment for creating a new and stronger vampire species. It was said that by depriving vampires of blood and only feeding them the flesh of humans as well as fellow vampire kin, it will mutate their bodies to form the ultimate vampire.
However, this was just some dumb theory, followed by further notes added later by Teivel.
'Tarvin and Hanabi have long died. Now it's just some amalgamation of all the bodies I've fed it. An interesting development however is that it can take the form of all the people they have eaten. I must be getting close to this ultimate lifeform. I just need to keep feeding it more bodies.'
It was these notes that broke me. What I hugged and cried for wasn't my parents. It was just some monster that pretended to be my parents. No wonder it didn't recognise me, it was probably just trying to eat me.
To go through so much emotional turmoil to find out it was all fake, a sick experiment... It made me want to destroy everything.
The dark urge within me was screaming alongside me, telling me to get my revenge right now. I had let Teivel get such a merciful death when instead he deserved all nine hells and back.
Without realising it, my flames had gone rampant and I was on the verge of exploding this entire basement.