Miles inhaled deeply, as he stared out of the window.
With the rising of the Sun, the entirety of the outer city seemed to awaken as well.
The rancid and heavily polluted air felt purified by the morning sun, enough to make it actually breathable.
Common birds, ranging from the ordinary pigeon and sparrow to the more rare mutated Fae variants, such as the heartless Starling and the three-eyed Raven, flitted about in the air, singing their tunes and screeching their war cries.
The ordinary people hiding in their homes would poke their heads out of slowly opened windows, obviously dying for a breath of fresh morning air, before they lost their sanity after being locked inside for so long. Some of the braver ones even dared to step out into the street, but almost all of them returned to their homes shortly.
They were glad that they had survived another day without having to directly experience the horrors of the war and the orcs outside. Nobody wished to tempt fate.
Some were curious about the new arrivals into the neighboring house during the middle of the night. But none of them actually cared enough to do something about it.
Further away, beyond these domestic buildings, one could observe a massive wall of steel and metal about 200 m in height, glinting in the sunlight and circling around the outer city. A wondrous achievement of human ingenuity and engineering, this was Central City's first line of defense against external threats, particularly that of the Fae.
With his enhanced vision, if Miles wished to, he could easily observe the soldiers manning the wall and the various weapons equipped upon it.
Unfortunately, that was not where his focus lay. Miles's rapt attention was on the golden light painting the sky orange and red, and the rays of the sun directly before him, as his hand remained just a few centimeters away from contact.
With the window facing towards the north, and the sun tending to rise from the east, Miles could cautiously consider his actions, without being bathed in sunlight.
"Well? Are you going to do it or not? Wasting time won't change anything," an annoying voice from a certain butler rang out in his ear.
As much as he hated to admit it, the old butler had a point.
With a nervous exhale, Miles slowly and carefully dipped his left hand into the sunlight, completely prepared to pull it out if anything went wrong.
But nothing seemed to happen. His hand didn't spontaneously combust, nor did it feel weakened, or god forbid, start sparkling.
It was warm, definitely not as comfortable as the morning sunlight used to be, but nothing much else had changed.
Miles rotated his hand, looking for anything unusual, and thankfully found nothing of note. He was just starting to feel relieved...
When suddenly, his hand began to burn! It felt hot, scorching hot. No, scalding hot!
The hand began to tremble, beyond his conscious control, almost as if the blood inside his veins was literally boiling.
Miles instantly pulled his hand back, hurriedly checking for injuries or burned flesh. Strangely, he found neither of them. The skin was only a bit red like he had been sunburned or something.
Ding!
[Cursed {Third: Sol's Hatred} Celestian Sol demands a sacrifice from all Kindred that dare enter his domain.
As a newborn, the remnants of your humanity lessen the sacrifice.
Skill: Self-Control(?) Lvl. 2 further lessens the sacrifice.]
Ding!
[-0.1 BP (Negligible. Not considered) Celestian Sol accepts your sacrifice.
Total Blood Points remaining: 10/10 + 56/100.]
'Eh? It's not spontaneous combustion, weakening, or even sparkling, but some sort of strange blood tax? And it's lessened because of my being a Newborn and the strange Self-Control skill? And this Celestian Sol could he be the same Sol I know? The Roman god of the sun? It would make sense, but... holy hells, does that mean gods are real!?'
If Fae, creatures of myth and fiction could be real, there really wasn't a reason for this not to be the case.
Suddenly, Zhan Shen posed a question, dragging Miles out of his thoughts, "So?"
He heaved a conflicted sigh, "Both good and bad news, old Zhan. While I can obviously survive putting a hand into the sunlight, the time I can spend in direct sunlight is limited. It might be even worse when the entire body is involved.
I'll have to do some more tests and see what can be done to avoid this."
***
Miles walked through a small wooden hall, leading towards a doorway that opened into a rooftop, brightened by the rising sun. The hall he was in was wreathed in cool shadows, owing to the fact that it faced away from the sun.
The rooftop before him, in line with the almost identical concrete architecture of the outer city, was rather plain and dreary on the eyes.
Miles couldn't help but observe that, while the roofs of most buildings were home to bird nests, even rats and other vermin, this one was unusually free of either. At least at first glance.
What could be seen instead, were extremely faint splotches of red on the floor.
His eyes fell on the guns hidden behind the discrete corners of the roof and the doorway. It seemed the defense system was doing its job at least. Granted what it was defending against were non-sentient animals, but still.
Miles's gaze returned to the end of the doorway, and the rooftop basked in sunlight.
Now that he knew the sun wasn't fatal, at least not enough to kill him immediately, he could do some more tests.
Without further delay, Miles stepped forwards, directly onto the roof and into the sunlight
Once again it felt warm and hot, quite uncomfortable. But this time, there was no delay in the heat like last time.
In a single instant, the sunlight became scorching and boiling hot.
Miles could almost feel the blood beginning to boil within him, as his blood veins trembled and shuddered in terror. He had to grit his teeth in order to remain steadfast against the pain of almost being boiled alive.
Ding!
[Cursed {Third: Sol's Hatred} Celestian Sol demands a sacrifice from all Kindred for the duration they dare to be within his domain.
As a newborn, the remnants of your humanity lessen the sacrifice.
Skill: Self-Control(?) Lvl. 2 further lessens the sacrifice.]
Ding!
[-1 BP. Celestian Sol accepts your sacrifice.
Total Blood Points remaining: 10/10 + 55/100.]
Miles could feel the blood point leave him, vanishing into the air as it went off to be delivered to some ancient roman god. To make matters worse, another notification popped up.
[-1 BP. Celestian Sol accepts your sacrifice. ]
'Again!? It's going to keep taking blood every few seconds or something!?'
Shocked and worried, Miles jumped back into the safety of the doorway and its shade, immediately feeling his blood start to cool down and settle back into its normal flow.
Zhan Shen posed a question from the side, "I take that it didn't go well?"
Miles scowled, "No sh*t! It's worse than I expected! If I wish to walk out in the bare sunlight, I'd have to keep guzzling on tanks of blood!"
With a heavy sigh, he held out a hand, "Let's give that a try, old Zhan."
The old butler nodded, bringing out a long coat. It was a coat of sleek black leather, the kind that one wore to remain elegant yet mysterious, dangerous yet noble.
Ignoring Miles's pleas to allow him to don the coat alone, Zhan Shen forcibly helped him dress. The coat fit him pretty well, dropping down from his shoulders to his feet, covering almost the entirety of his body.
Next followed a pair of leather black gloves and a solid pair of black military boots, completing the outfit.
Finally, Miles reached towards the back of the coat and pulled down a hood over his head.
"Alright, let's try this one more time," he muttered, mostly to himself, and stepped out for the second time.
This time the scorching heat didn't affect him immediately. While it still felt quite uncomfortable, it was also quite limited, like when he had only put the hand outside the window.
Ding!
[Cursed {Third: Sol's Hatred} Celestian Sol demands a sacrifice from all Kindred for the duration they dare to be within his domain.
As a newborn, the remnants of your humanity lessen the sacrifice.
Celestian Sol grants mercy on the Kindred who respect and fear his might, further lessening the sacrifice.
Skill: Self-Control(?) Lvl. 2 lessens the sacrifice even further.]
Ding!
[-0.15 BP. (Negligible. Not considered) Celestian Sol accepts your sacrifice.
Total Blood Points remaining: 10/10 + 54/100.]
While Miles wasn't exactly happy with the wording, he was pleased to know it had worked. At least he could walk during the day like this. Dressing in all black might be a bit unusual, but it got the job done.
Besides, he had chosen black leather clothes for a reason. The color black would absorb the UV rays of the sunlight and keep it from reaching his own body, while the shiny leather surface could also do some reflecting.
White leather might have been a possible choice as well, but that would have made him look even more conspicuous. And Miles personally preferred black.
This entire matter was quite intriguing though.
'So it seems like I possess three factors, being Newborn, the Clothes, and the Self-control skill, lessening the blood points taken as Celestain Sol's sacrifice. So does that mean another Kindred who isn't newborn, and doesn't have the self-control skill, would lose much more blood? It should be so… but then, wouldn't they dry up in a few minutes? Damn!'
Miles couldn't help but bless the fortune that had led to him ending up with the strange skill of Self-Control.
Still, it wasn't much better for him either. Even he was in constant danger. If his clothes got ripped or damaged, he'd begin to lose blood points again.
He should look into getting some military-level damage-resistant clothes.
'Perhaps some tests on what it is that makes my blood boil and be sacrificed as blood points? Could it be related to UV rays or just natural sunlight?'
Before Miles could think any further, another notification rang out.
[-0.1 BP. (Negligible. Not considered.)]
Once again he felt a small amount of blood vanishing from him, an amount that didn't really matter much.
With a sudden bout of inspiration, Miles activated (Sanguine Aspectus I), causing his eyes to glow with red light, and shifted his gaze towards his body.
As he had expected, he could literally see some of the blood droplets absorbing the heat of the sunlight, beginning to tremble and shudder, slowly speeding up in preparation to leave his body, to evaporate.
He was confident it would've been far worse if he hadn't had the black clothes on.
'So the sacrifice of the blood isn't exactly that supernatural. It just evaporates, at an extremely unnatural rate. Could this be a reason explaining why being burned to ashes is one of the only ways to truly kill a Kindred?'
Either way, Miles was just about to deactivate the skill, when he noticed something strange.
Below him, on the floor of the rooftop, he could see multiple bead-shaped dots of red, each with a smaller white dot at its center. These strange dots were easily in the dozens, some even moving.
For a moment, Miles thought these were the remnants of blood left by the unfortunate birds and vermin that were destroyed by the defenses on the roof. But looking around, Miles could see much fainter marks, glowing red and upon the roof.
Which meant that the moving dots were something else entirely.
Perhaps they weren't even on the roof? Could they be below, inside the house!?
Miles hadn't thought it possible before, but could (Sanguine Aspectus) actually see through walls and other such obstructions, to identify blood?
Thoughtful, Miles spared a glance at old Zhan. To his Blood Vision, the old butler appeared as a human-shaped silhouette, with a diamond-shaped heart glowing with white light.
'Isn't that basically what I'm seeing down below? A red shape with a white dot in the middle? Could they be people? But so many!? And why are they so small?'
Staring at the floor once again, Miles attempted to identify any distinctive dots among the dozens.
Within a few moments, he found three. These dots were fairly circular and quite a bit larger than the others. Two of them were placed close together, while the third was slightly smaller and a bit towards the right.
After a moment's thought, Miles called out to his butler, "Old Zhan, what did you do with Jimmy and Luther?"
Zhan Shen seemed surprised by the sudden and irrelevant question, but his answer was instantaneous, "They're locked in one of the guest rooms on the first floor. The room has no exits besides a single reinforced door. I even handcuffed the two thieves together for good measure. Don't worry Master Miles, they won't be getting out any time soon."
Miles nodded. That made perfect sense. The two dots close together were quite possibly Jimmy and Luther, while the smaller dot was Irina down in the underground garage.
But then… what the hell was the rest of the dots? They were almost everywhere!
Wait. Now that he looked at it, the majority of these dots were placed in almost flawless straight lines.
It only took him a moment to realize what this was. Those lines perfectly coincided with the walls of the house.
Which meant whatever these red dots were, they were inside the walls!
'It couldn't be… How could I have failed to notice so many, with my enhanced senses? I did a rudimentary scan of the house, and only sensed one or two!'
Almost in answer, Miles heard a faint squeak, causing him to turn around instantly.
And there the culprit was in all its glory. A mangy rat almost as large as his fist, with dirty black and matted fur, next to a hole in the outer concrete of the doorway, small enough that one wouldn't notice it, but big enough for the rat.
Noticing his gaze, the rat quickly stood up on its hind legs with a curious look on its face.
Miles had been wrong. The defense system had been doing a piss-poor job in culling the vermin menace. Or perhaps, it had done its job at first, at least based on the faint blood splatters on the roof.
But, somehow these rats had escaped the detection of the defense systems, spread into the property from the vermin-ridden streets of the area, and had even established a colony inside the house.
Miles didn't need to think twice.
Ironblood Spike!