Hoo… Hoo… Hoo…
The icy wind of Eternal Night City toyed with the few tattered curtains left in the dilapidated room. They fluttered helplessly amid the howling gusts, producing soft rustling sounds.
Wind poured through the shattered window glass, swirling inside the empty room and kicking up thick layers of dust along with a stale, rotting odor.
On the white bed, Cassia maintained her unchanging posture, staring at the dark silhouette outside. In one corner of the room, Shiluo curled up and opened her eyes.
After a period of recovery, she could finally move again. What puzzled her, however, was… two days had already passed, yet that child still hadn’t come?
Could something have happened to her?
Regardless, she couldn’t keep relying on such a young child to help her find the syringe and the Container.
She had to set out herself.
Shiluo struggled to her feet from the corner and glanced at Cassia sitting there.
Then she let out a cold laugh.
“Heh… Still waiting for that child? Maybe she’s already completely given up on you…”
Her tone grew colder, filled with undisguised mockery as she continued.
“After all, she heard everything you said… That child has to serve the Queen while also supplying blood to you…”
“Saying such shameless things… As expected of a disgusting vampire. You actually have the nerve to call her nothing more than a convenient tool?”
“Of course you’re angry. That skinny, pitiful child is already exhausting all her strength just to survive in this freezing city. She probably has no idea what hope is, or what it feels like to be cared for. Every day she likely lives in fear, in pain, enduring torment.”
“She’s simply… using the only method she knows to cling to something that might make her feel a little less cold.”
“And this woman right in front of her, who possesses power countless times greater than hers and was once the queen ruling over everything… is too stingy to even give her a bit of false warmth.”
“Isn’t this exactly what a white-eyed wolf does?”
Having vented the emotions in her heart, she stepped forward, ready to leave and search for the syringe herself. She assumed Cassia would ignore her as usual and remain frozen in that same posture.
But the moment Shiluo’s hand touched the doorknob, a low, cold voice rang out.
“You understand nothing, human.”
“You’re merely standing from your own perspective, using your shallow and shortsighted human viewpoint to speculate about and judge an existence you cannot possibly comprehend.”
The night wind howled, and her voice seemed steeped in the same chill, carrying an extra layer of coldness.
“She doesn’t need warmth… She is nothing more than a doll. A doll that anyone can manipulate and use at will. As long as one possesses her gears and holds her key, they can easily operate this exquisite body.”
Cassia’s voice grew hurried, as if she were not explaining to Shiluo but confirming something to herself.
“She won’t feel despair… because despair requires hope as a prerequisite, and a doll has no hope. She won’t feel pain, because pain is the warning signal of a living being, while a tool only wears down.
She won’t care either, because caring is a burden only souls bear, and she… has no soul.
She is a doll! A doll without soul, without life, without emotions! I am merely using her! You! Human… you are also using her.
You keep saying you want to bring those Blood Livestock back to the human world, but you know better than anyone what returning there would mean for them, yet you never speak of it. Because you know… you are only using her, using this convenient tool. So what difference is there between us?”
Her chest rose and fell. For the first time, genuine panic and loss of control appeared on her pale, exquisite face.
After the words fell, an eerie silence spread amid the howling wind. Only then did she seem to realize how out of character her outburst had been.
After a long pause, Cassia’s voice became low and steady once more, so indifferent it carried almost no emotion.
“You simply… encountered her by accident.
“The Sylvie you’ve seen—the one who shows you a numb expression, obeys some of your simple commands, and even… brings back the so-called ‘instrument’ for you—is not her true self.”
Cassia’s blood-red eyes remained fixed on the scene outside the window, but her gaze seemed to pierce through the darkness, falling upon a much more distant time.
“Klal… that usurper, that mongrel obsessed with control and twisting everything. She isn’t satisfied with merely seizing the throne and power. What she enjoys more is taking originally vibrant beings… and reshaping them into collectibles that perfectly suit her tastes.”
The wind rushed into the room, blowing her long silver hair backward and revealing her pale, fragile neck and tightly pressed lips.
“That child may have had a different appearance before she was captured by Klal, but all of that has long been erased, cleansed, and overwritten.
Her original consciousness was crushed into powder, leaving only a blank canvas—a sheet of white paper for her to paint on freely. Using pain, fear, repeated training, rewards and punishments, until…”
Cassia slightly turned her head. Her peripheral vision swept over Shiluo’s stiff back by the door. Her eyes were cold and penetrating, carrying a cruel detachment.
“So what you pity is nothing more than a carefully sculpted warm shell. The suffering you rage against and the figure you place your hopes on is merely a tool whose commands Klal can rewrite at any time. All the reactions you are familiar with will disappear, and she will once again become a pure, cold white sheet, waiting for someone else to paint her with whatever colors they please.
This is the truth, human. From beginning to end, what you have interacted with is only a doll without a past, without a self, and without any true reality.”
Shiluo stood with her back to her, shoulders trembling slightly.
A doll?
What a ridiculous notion…
How could a doll without life or a soul willingly sacrifice herself to lead those Blood Livestock children out of this city?
She still remembered the light that had sparkled in Sylvie’s eyes when she spoke those words—so genuine, so bright, and so… heartbreaking.
It was just like… her own little sister.
“You don’t believe it… do you.”
Cassia seemed to have seen through Shiluo’s thoughts. She let out a cold snort and continued.
“Then try it… Try giving her an order. Tell her ‘I command you.’
See how she reacts. See whether the light you recognize is still in her eyes.”
Shiluo felt a surge of nausea.
This wasn’t merely moral revulsion—it was a desecration of those eyes that had once lit up like her little sister’s, eyes that had both broken and moved her heart.
How disgusting… Cassia Fironiya.
With that, she opened the door and walked out.