Chapter 339 – Your Blood Is So Sweet – The Useless Teammates (05)
Things on Trey’s side were calm and peaceful.
But over at the Duke’s castle, the situation was far from good.
After Edith ran out, she happened to encounter some people from the Church halfway. Hearing the saint’s account, they felt sympathy for the knight commander, but the idea of storming a vampire’s lair still made their hearts tremble.
Even the paladin commander had gone missing—how could they, who weren’t even as skilled as Trey, possibly stand a chance? The place was crawling with vampires, and it was nighttime, too. Wouldn’t they just be offering themselves up as food?
When Edith saw the hesitation on their faces, she was about to accuse them of being cold-blooded, but the words stopped on her lips as she suddenly calmed down.
Charging in recklessly would be suicide. They had to go rescue him, but not by confronting the vampires head-on. They needed a plan.
As expected of the clever strategist of the Church, Edith came up with a fairly complete plan in less than half an hour.
Every member of the Church carried a small vial of holy water, meant for emergencies involving vampires and other dangers. It couldn’t kill vampires, but it could buy enough time to escape.
Edith told everyone to take out their holy water and picked a few guards who were skilled, brave, and not afraid of death to go back to the castle with her.
…
The Duke’s Castle
After Bai Tang and his group left, the vampires there finally dared to move.
They looked at one another uneasily. They had wanted to curry favor with the prince, but who would have thought the prince had been hiding his true strength, pretending to be weak while mingling among the food? Now that they had offended him, who knew if he would take it out on them later?
Among vampires, hierarchy was strict—just being one rank higher meant being able to crush those below with ease.
Worried about this, none of them were in the mood to play anymore.
The higher-ranked vampires excused themselves and left one after another. Gradually, the hall emptied out, leaving only those loyal to Duke Adams—or those too afraid to offend him—such as barons, viscounts, and lesser vampires of the lowest bloodline.
“Clean this place up. You can take whatever’s left of the food back with you,” Duke Adams ordered. It was his way of compensating them for helping clean up the castle.
“Yes, my lord.” The duke’s status was far above theirs—so even if they were unwilling, they didn’t dare refuse.
Several vampires, along with the duke’s butler, dragged the corpses of the dead vampires away.
It wasn’t difficult work, and before long, the castle was tidy again.
They sat in the banquet hall, enjoying the now-cold but still delicious food.
That was when Edith returned to the castle with her people.
She and a few guards climbed over the wall and slipped inside.
There were very few people left in the castle, and that gave them a great advantage.
The protagonist’s halo seemed to be working at this moment.
Guided by Edith’s intuition, they managed to reach the castle kitchen without incident — and added holy water into the vampires’ wine and drinks.
Holy water couldn’t kill vampires, but it could make them suffer.
The castle was too large, so they had to split into two groups — one to hold off the vampires and slow them down, the other to search the castle as fast as possible.
I hope they haven’t been taken to the banquet hall yet, Edith prayed silently.
She hid in a corner and watched a vampire walk into the kitchen, pick up the wine and food, and carry them out.
“You three, go upstairs and look for them. I’ll go check the banquet hall up front,” Edith instructed.
“Edith, that’s too dangerous!”
“We don’t even know how many vampires there are. If you go to the front hall alone and get caught, none of us would know what happened to you.”
Losing one Paladin Commander was already bad enough. If the Church lost its saint as well, that would be a devastating blow.
Edith paused to think — they had a point.
“All right, you come with me. The others, go look for Trey and Tang,” she said, pointing to one of the more quick-witted guards. Then, realizing they might not know who Tang was, she added, “They might be kept in separate places. If you see a very handsome young man, bring him back too.”
There were quite a few humans captured by the vampires. Edith wanted to save them all, but she knew her strength was limited. If possible, she would rescue everyone — if not, at least Trey and Tang.
The group split up, each taking their route. Edith was lucky enough to make it all the way to the front hall.
Inside the banquet hall, figures moved in the dim light. The scent of food mixed with the thick stench of blood, hitting her nose with nauseating force.
Edith covered her nose, trying to breathe as little as possible. The smell was so strong it made her want to vomit.
She listened as the vampires chatted and joked, gossiping about the Vampire Prince behind his back.
It was from their conversation that Edith learned the patriarch of the vampires had awakened.
Her heart sank, and unease filled her chest.
The situation was already bad enough — if a vampire leader truly rose again, would humanity still have any hope of survival?
Edith kept listening, and soon found a weakness hidden in their talk:
The current leader, Duke Adams, was at odds with the newly awakened Vampire Prince.
That made sense, though — once someone tasted power, it was hard to give it up.
Especially among vampires, where hierarchy ruled everything, power was even more important.
Perhaps this could be used to her advantage.
If she could spark conflict within the vampire ranks, their strength would weaken — and the Church’s chances of winning would rise.
Edith’s mind worked quickly, turning over possible strategies.
But the young subordinate who had followed her, lacking both experience and courage, accidentally let the hem of his robe slip into view while moving.
Though he quickly pulled it back, a vampire had already noticed.
“Who’s there?!”
After what had happened with Trey and Bai Tang, the vampires no longer dared to underestimate humans. Who knew if it was another reckless fool daring to trespass?
“Run!” Edith hissed, seeing the vampires closing in. It was too late to stay hidden, so she grabbed her companion and tried to flee.
But they didn’t make it far.
Before they could get away, the vampires caught up to them and dragged them back to the banquet hall.
“Duke Adams, these two foolish humans were spying on us,” one of the vampires said respectfully.
Duke Adams studied them closely, then reached out and grabbed Edith’s chin, leaning in. “People from the Church…” he murmured.
His subordinate’s expression darkened at once. “The Church’s people? Duke Adams, allow me to kill her.”
The vampire holding Edith bared his fangs, about to drain her blood.
“Wait.” Duke Adams stopped him with a raised hand. He looked at Edith’s defiant face, and an idea began to form in his mind.
To become the leader of the vampires, a title alone wasn’t enough — one needed true strength and the power to command others.
Bai Tang’s status as Prince of the Blood was no secret among them.
Power without real battle experience — a prince who was pure as a blank sheet — could never truly make all vampires submit.
And this girl… she was the perfect piece to test the prince with.
A plan formed quickly in Duke Adams’s mind.
“They must have accomplices. Search the castle and capture them all.”
The vampires scattered and went upstairs. Before long, they had caught everyone who had come with Edith.
Adams had them imprisoned together with the humans they had captured earlier.
Under the faint moonlight streaming through the window, Edith scanned the crowd — but neither Trey nor Bai Tang was among them.
Could it be… that they had already been killed?
The thought made Edith’s heart sink deeper and deeper.
Perhaps they hadn’t added enough holy water, so it was taking effect too slowly—or maybe the vampires simply hadn’t drunk it yet. Either way, it wasn’t until the vampires began to grow drowsy that muffled cries of pain finally came from the guards outside the door.
Edith saw this as the perfect opportunity. She and the guards quickly untied each other’s ropes, and just as they were preparing to escape, the humans the vampires had captured began to plead,
“Please, take us with you. I don’t want to die.”
As the Church’s saint, Edith had been raised with strong moral teachings; she couldn’t stand by and watch innocent people die. If they hadn’t begged her, she might have been able to walk away—but once they spoke, she couldn’t ignore them.
“All right. You can come with us. Keep quiet, don’t make a sound,” she said, despite the obvious displeasure on the guards’ faces. She insisted on bringing them along.
The rescued civilians knelt before Edith and the guards, knocking their heads to the ground.
“Thank you… thank you…”
“Get up, hurry! We have to leave while we still can.” Edith urged them up, leading the group through the corridor toward the back door.
She had a good sense of direction and remembered the route they had taken earlier.
The vampires groaning in pain were mostly of the lowest bloodlines.
Their ranks were low, and their resistance to holy water was weak. Fortunately, the ones guarding the prisoners were also low-ranking.
As Edith’s group stepped over the unconscious vampires, one of the freed civilians noticed the jewelry on a vampire’s body. Greed flared in his eyes.
These vampires robbed and killed humans anyway, he thought. Taking a trinket or two isn’t such a sin, right?
He quickly justified it to himself, crouched down, and began unclasping the gold chain from the vampire’s waist.
Then his eyes caught something even better hanging around the vampire’s neck.
If I’m already taking one thing, what’s the difference if I take two?
Up ahead, Edith led the group toward the door. When she turned back to count everyone, she noticed one person was missing.
Since she had promised to save them all, she couldn’t just leave someone behind.
Her strong sense of responsibility made the decision for her.
“You go first,” she told the guards. “Take everyone and get them out of here. I’ll go back for the one who’s missing.”
With that, she turned around and retraced her steps through the dim corridor.
Following her memory, she soon found the missing man—who wasn’t lost at all, but crouched down rifling through the vampires’ belongings, his shallow pockets nearly bursting with stolen trinkets.
Seeing this scene, Edith’s anger flared instantly.
“What are you doing? Do you have a death wish? Hurry and come with me!” Although she despised the man’s greed, she still wanted to get him out alive.
“Just wait a bit! There’s still one more I haven’t checked. If I can grab a few more gold chains, I’ll be rich…”
Edith couldn’t persuade him, nor could she drag him away. But she knew—people blinded by greed never met a good end.
Meanwhile, the vampires in the front hall discovered that their “food” had escaped. When they chased toward the back, they saw Edith and the man. It took almost no effort for them to capture the two.