I reach out with my left arm, trying to find a gap with my fingertips.
A faint gap, just deep enough for a finger to fit, appears between the solid rocks. I stuff my fingers from my index to ring finger into the crevice and pull with all my might.
As I lift my upper body, I kick off strongly against the wall with my toes. My body flips around. Before the inertia can die down, I push away with my left hand, throwing myself into the void.
More akin to a perilous acrobatic feat than rock climbing.
How long has it been since I began scaling this cliff toward where the first life, Yustelein, resides? An hour? Half a day? A day?
My fingertips are numb, losing all sensation. My toes are stiff, curling as if they were frozen.
If I slow down just a bit, my body will feel easier, but I can’t afford to take my time and climb gracefully.
Even though I’m higher than the clouds, I still can’t sense any signs of life nearby. Looking up, I can’t see the end, and I’m unsure how much further I need to climb. If Luminous starts moving before I can make any progress, I’ll be late.
The sun rises, sets, and rises again.
I desperately crawled upward, as if the scenery would repeat forever.
My hands are stained a deep red, as if coated in dried blood, and my shoes have long since fallen apart, leaving me barefoot. Just as I began to worry that my regenerative abilities might not keep up even without fighting, change came without warning.
[Leave.]
I flinch, as if a voice is directly hitting my head, and my hands slip awkwardly. My concentration and balance disrupted, my body starts to succumb to gravity.
I make a quick decision. I immediately shoot a thread of blood magic into the wall.
Barely avoiding a fall, I look around warily to see if anything has changed, deciding to move slightly slower than before.
And then.
[Leave. This is not a place for earthly beings.]
The voice is clearer and longer than before. It’s odd, as if it flows directly into my brain.
Depending on how I hear it, it could sound masculine or feminine; I can’t tell if it’s a child or an adult. I even doubt whether it’s truly spoken in a language I understand.
The message remains vividly in my memory, but I can’t recall much about the messenger—it feels bizarre. Guessing who’s behind this is all too easy.
“I greet you, the progenitor of the first life, the great Dragon Lord.”
As my heart starts to pound wildly while hanging from the cliff with my fingertips, I speak as politely as I can.
The other side could erase me from existence in the blink of an eye if they wanted. If there’s even the slightest chance of communication, I can bow down as much as needed.
“I humbly request to meet the great one, disregarding my rudeness.”
It felt like I was talking to the wall, but I was sure the other side was listening.
Sure enough, a sudden blizzard began to rage. I hurriedly pressed my body against the cliff to avoid the savage cold wind.
“Oh.”
Who would have thought I’d see a blizzard above the clouds?
I didn’t feel any signs of magic being used. Yet, suddenly, a white layer began to pile on my head while sharp winds cut at my skin, tearing wounds that caused blood to scatter.
Before I had any time to act, my vision turned a blinding white.
It’s cold. So cold.
The sensation feels like ice water injected into my veins. The chill seeps deep into my bones, sending instincts ringing alarm bells.
Even my previously racing heart now feels unnaturally slow, and my limbs lose strength.
Is this what vampires feel like under the sun? It’s clear that this isn’t just about temperature. My well-trained body isn’t weak enough to buckle to ordinary cold. If these phenomena are deliberate, there’s no need to mention whose intent it reflects.
“I will take this as a test of my qualifications.”
Again, there was no response, but I decided to stop waiting.
I laboriously stretch out my arms, now much heavier than before.
Upward. Higher. If I accidentally let go or misstep, I’ll die. No matter that I’m the progenitor of vampires, falling from this height would burst me open before my wounds could even regenerate.
As I claw my way up, the temperature drops sharply, and the wind intensifies.
Soon enough, icicle-like daggers threaten to stab my face, barely missing as I glance upward.
This is a warning. An unspoken warning that tells me not to come any closer.
But what terrifies me more than the Elder Dragon’s warning, telling a mere earthling like me not to intrude upon divine lands, is the fear that I might helplessly have to accept the end of my loved ones.
“I will never give up. Absolutely.”
I am a weak being. A frail existence that cannot live without someone else’s help.
I’ve wanted to deny this fact all this time. I wanted to believe that this life would be different. That’s why I’ve clung fiercely to my strength and repeatedly indulged in an obsession like binge-eating, hoping to find the strength to stand alone.
But now I acknowledge it. I still cannot survive alone.
Miraculously, I’ve been reborn in the body of the progenitor of vampires, capable of draining the power of others through blood. But I’ve only been fooling myself into thinking this is my own strength.
Ultimately, my essence hasn’t changed at all. Without someone else to lend me their power, I cannot continue living.
And this fact likely doesn’t apply only to me. Everyone, to varying degrees, lives under the influence of others.
It took far too long for me to accept that borrowing someone else’s strength is not something to be ashamed of, while being obsessed with standing alone made me turn away from this truth.
But now I accept it. I am not an omnipotent and perfect being capable of accomplishing anything alone.
I have things I want to protect. My pride, my honor, the peaceful and comfortable life I’ve long desired, and even my life itself—all these are people I want to protect, even if it costs everything.
To do that, I will gladly borrow someone’s power. Even if the opponent is a transcendent being showing signs of rejection, I will never back down.
With the images of my loved ones in my mind, I kept my hands and feet moving.
My frozen hands and feet felt dull, like I’d wrapped them in the shell of a crustacean. I failed to dodge the falling shards of ice, causing blood to stream from one of my eyes. Every movement sent cold stabs of pain rattling through my body, yet I didn’t stop.
It felt like I was submerged in ice water, with a burning sensation at my wrists, fingertips, and heels. My entire body was screaming in agony, and my lungs—no longer needing to breathe—had become a storage organ for the cold, chilling my heart.
I had no sense of time passing.
Until now, I couldn’t know the exact time, but I could roughly tell several days had passed by observing the sun rising and setting. Now, however, the blizzard had robbed me of even the slightest sense of time.
My instincts constantly commanded me.
Stop. Let go. If you quietly climb down from here, you’ll save your life.
But I didn’t stop. Success or failure might not be in my control, but seizing the opportunity is something only I can do.
No matter how weak I am, the determination that there’s something I must achieve is entirely mine, so I crawled up the wall despite the thought of death.
Then at some moment, I felt a strange sensation as if passing through an invisible barrier with my outstretched hand, and the world transformed.
“… Finally.”
The blizzard vanished as if it had never existed, and my surroundings brightened.
There was an end. The edge of the cliff that felt as if it would eternally repeat was suddenly close enough to reach with a single more stretch.
I stretched my trembling right arm with all my might and hooked it. Unlike before, when I barely managed to grasp with blood-soaked fingertips, now a sense of stability transmitted clearly. I gathered my last strength and pulled my heavy body up. As my upper body surpassed the hand gripping the ground, I threw myself joyfully onto solid ground.
[How pitiful.]
A voice I hadn’t heard in ages echoed in my head.
But unlike the last time, this time I could somehow tell where the voice was coming from.
I hurriedly turned my head to look, and there it was.
A creature as colossal as a mountain, its scales were gleaming black. A pair of wings that could block out the sky if fully spread. And a pair of horns symbolizing the Dragon Lord—it was the oldest living being in this world.
At that moment, I needed no explanation. I instantly understood the disparity of existence between us.
A shiver ran through my entire body. Fear and awe. Despite the overwhelming presence right before me, I felt no indication of any activity. As if it was asserting that it was part of the very fabric of destiny itself, it was perfectly melded into the world.
“I greet you, Yustelein, the progenitor of the first life and the great Dragon Lord.”
At last, I felt the true meaning of confronting the transcendent being that had slain the first vampire in myth.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
