Shattered Lake Prison, Medical Staff Activity Hall.
All 25 medical staff members of the prison’s treatment group gathered here and sat around a large table.
They all wore crow masks and black robes, so no one could see each other’s expressions. But from the heavy and almost solidified atmosphere, it was clear that their moods were not calm.
“Leader.” Medical Staff [201] broke the silence, “Can’t you do anything about it?”
Although they didn’t know who the leader was, generally speaking, the leader of each Blood Moon Prison medical group was a Second Wing Golden Artificer who had exhausted their potential, while the medical staff who came to the prison for the Blood Embrace Ceremony were mostly First Wing Silver Sorcerers. Therefore, the leader was the strongest here.
“I can’t do anything.” The leader said bitterly, “Inside the ‘Black Coffin’ is a Three Wing Saint, both in terms of bloodline intensity and strength, far surpassing me. The ‘Blood Lock’ he activated is simply something I can’t contend with.”
One of the medical staff couldn’t help but laugh, “Who would have thought that we, the Blood Saints, would use the Blood Lock to bind lower races, only to have it used against us one day?”
The Miracle·Blood Lock was originally a binding miracle that only applied within the Blood Saint race.
At that time, the Blood Saint race was not the current ‘Institute System’, but a very inefficient and crude ‘Family System’. To expand their population, they relied on higher-level Blood Saints to find suitable candidates and then perform the uncertain ‘First Embrace’ to transform them into low-level Blood Descendants.
The Family System had major drawbacks. Not only did the bloodline concentration of each generation of Blood Descendants significantly decrease, but the ‘First Embrace Ceremony’ also required the consumption of a higher-level Blood Saint’s ‘True Blood’. More importantly, the recipient of the First Embrace needed to love the higher-level Blood Saint.
To become a Blood Saint, you needed to truly love a Blood Saint.
As one can imagine, the Blood Saints of that era were extremely rare and… united.
Even though the lifespan of the Blood Saints was long, as time went on, their numbers would only decrease and their strength would weaken. Not to mention this kind of ‘family bond based on love’, which often drove the Blood Saints crazy over the injury or death of a family member—they would be willing to go all out for a member, never giving up no matter the enemy.
Unlike the love for family members, the Blood Saints were cold and indifferent towards other races. Therefore, the way the Blood Saints interacted with the world was either to destroy all enemies and turn the entire region into a Blood Saint paradise, or for the enemies to destroy all Blood Saints and completely exterminate this monster race bound by love.
It wasn’t until the Blood Moon Supreme Ruler controlled the Blood Saint Moon Shadow and changed the way they survived, ordering both races to accept the ‘Institute System’ and ‘Church System’, that the two races developed and grew rapidly within a short thousand years.
Under the Institute System, the Blood Saints no longer needed to find suitable descendants themselves, because the most talented individuals of each race aspired to become members of the Institute and obtain eternal life.
The ‘First Embrace Ceremony’ that was banned was replaced by the ‘Blood Embrace Ceremony’, which turned these lucky individuals into potential Blood Descendants. In order to become true Blood Saints, they still needed to go to the prison for the ‘Blood Embrace Ceremony’ and draw nourishment from death. Therefore, the Blood Saints did not have to pay any price for reproduction—because the deceased had already paid it.
And the original Blood Lock was because the lower-level Blood Descendants had the ‘True Blood’ of the higher-level Blood Saints flowing within them. Therefore, as long as a higher-level Blood Saint activated the Blood Lock, they could sense the location of the Blood Descendant and even control their actions.
If a higher-level Blood Saint died, they could even be reborn within the Blood Descendant!
After being freed from the shackles of love, the Family System collapsed, and naturally there was no ‘First Embrace’. Therefore, the Blood Lock that originated from the First Embrace should have been thrown into the garbage heap of history and left to rot.
But after the Blood Moon Supreme Ruler’s improvement, the Blood Lock became the most important miracle of the Blood Saint race, because its binding range was not limited to the Blood Saint race, but extended to all people within the Blood Moon Kingdom!
Every baby who entered the foster home would be implanted with a miracle chip, and the miracle chip contained a drop of ‘True Blood’. As the baby grew into an adult, the True Blood would also merge into their blood, bone marrow, tissue fluid, and even germ cells, spreading throughout their body!
It can be said that any child who grew up in the Blood Moon Kingdom’s foster home was a potential Blood Descendant!
The modern Blood Lock miracle was a Three Wing miracle, so as long as a Three Wing Blood Saint activated the ‘Blood Lock’ miracle, they could control any Blood Moon citizen whose strength was lower than theirs, regardless of whether the other party was human, elf, orc, or Blood Saint Moon Shadow!
Although there was no evidence, many people within the Blood Saint race believed that if a legendary Blood Saint activated the Blood Lock, they could even control all the people in an entire city, even ordering them to die!
However, compared to the terrifying power they held in their hands, the Blood Saints were very low-key.
Although the outside world knew of the existence of the Blood Saints, they only knew that the Blood Saints were immortal and that if they wanted to become Blood Saints, they had to participate in the graduate entrance examination and join the Institute, and so on. There would be Blood Saints who became senators, but the Blood Saints would not hold any official positions. Most people only had two impressions of the Blood Saints: doctors and scholars.
As for using the Blood Lock to act recklessly, that kind of thing had not happened for thousands of years.
The Blood Lock was only applicable within prisons and war zones, and only criminals and adventurers would be restricted.
Even Bloodthirsty Hunters like Jielade were not allowed to use the Blood Lock to control prisoners during missions. Theoretically, the only people who could legally use the Blood Lock miracle were the ‘Saints’ lying in the ‘Black Coffin’, and living people could only indirectly activate the Blood Lock through the ‘Black Coffin’.
There were many reasons for prohibiting the Blood Saints from revealing their abilities—to prevent the Blood Saints from becoming arrogant, to prevent lower races from rebelling, to maintain social stability… But the fundamental reason was that the Blood Moon Supreme Ruler did not allow it.The social support system, the research institute system, the church system… These rules set by the Blood Moon Lord himself are absolutely not allowed to be violated, not even testing the boundaries.
If the ‘Blood Lock’ of the death row inmates is tangible, they can know what they are not allowed to do by testing; then the ‘Blood Lock’ of the Blood Saints is intangible, they won’t even generate the idea of testing!
That’s why the healers were so outraged – after all, even they didn’t know the exact location of the ‘Black Coffin’, how could outsiders control the ‘Saint’ in the ‘Black Coffin’?
“Necromancer!” someone gritted his teeth, “Only this is possible… Those despicable scum used necromancy to control the Saint… Can’t we use necromancy to compete for the control of the Saint?”
“We are forbidden to output Artificing, forbidden to attack, how can we launch necromancy?”
“Wait, I remember that entering the Black Coffin requires a key, how could outsiders possibly know the key? Is there a traitor?”
“Right, the people who know the key are the team leader, the prison warden, and the head of the hunting hall, could it be…”
Realizing that everyone was looking at him, the team leader became anxious: “The keys are sealed with miracles, I couldn’t possibly leak them out by any means!”
“But the prison warden is always not in the prison, and the head of the hall is far in the city area, how could the death row inmates get the key?” The other healers questioned without courtesy.
【201】 suddenly said: “Speaking of which, I heard that a few years ago, a killer known as the ‘Controller’ appeared in Camon City, causing multiple murders. Because the killing method seemed to involve the Blood Lock, my boss was invited by the hunting hall to conduct an internal review. Although it ended up in nothing, it can be confirmed that the key did not leak from the secret keeper.”
After the expulsion of 【176】, everyone vaguely guessed that the boss of 【201】 was probably that Mind Saint. Unlike the Memory Healer who might be deceived, the Mind Saint checks the soul itself. Even if the suspect makes himself crazy, the Mind Saint can still shatter his soul, and then find the information he wants from the fragments, just as simple as breaking and reassembling a Rubik’s cube.
In front of the Mind Saint, forgetting cannot keep secrets.
“If the senior sister says there is no leak, then there is really no leak.”
Everyone looked at the healer with the badge number 【222】, Shifrin, who calmly said: “So there is only one possibility left – the death row inmates have a way to find the real Black Coffin key. Such a big thing has happened, the key system is no longer safe, but that’s not our business. By the way, I have a bad news and a good news, which one do you want to hear?”
“What’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is that we are definitely going to lose face this time, and all thirty-six research institutes will know tomorrow that we, the blood descendants, were captured by a few death row inmates in the prison.”
“What’s the good news?”
“The good news is that we are wearing masks, no one knows who we are, everyone can lose face as much as they want, no one knows that the Blood Saints have been insulted.”
Everyone was speechless, they didn’t expect this lady to still have the leisure to joke. But she is a blood descendant of the four major research institutes, she has the arrogance to be, what may be an indelible stain that even affects their future for them, is just a trivial episode for the lady.
“Is there really no other way?” someone asked unwillingly.
“Bloodline resonance.” The team leader said: “The Saint in the Black Coffin should retain a bit of consciousness, if we can contact him through bloodline resonance, we can unlock our Blood Lock.”
“How to generate bloodline resonance?”
“I don’t know – strong emotions? Burning desires? Praying to the Blood Moon Lord? Although the success rate is extremely low, this is what we can do now.”
Everyone looked at each other, also feeling that this was the only way out of helplessness. So some people were cursing the death row inmates while drawing circles, some were lying on the ground trying to contact the Black Coffin through ground vibrations, and what almost made Shifrin laugh was that someone was hanging upside down like a bat from the chandelier – saying it was imitating the meditation posture of the ancient Blood Saints to increase the possibility of bloodline resonance.
Just then, the door of the rest room was pushed open heavily, and a prison guard poked his head out.
“Excuse me, everyone, 【222】, please come with me to the treatment room.”
“Asho Heath?” Shifrin was surprised: “What do you want me for?”
“There’s something you need to do.”
“Can’t it be done here?” 【201】 stood up and blocked Shifrin, “And if it’s work, I can do it.”
Asho shook his head firmly: “No, I only need 【222】. And there’s not even a bed here, it’s inconvenient to do it here.”
The healers: “Hmm?”
Oh no, the Blood Saints are going to be insulted!