"What did Mary do?" Shiller asked.
Constantine revealed a slightly sinister cold smile, "At first, she captured vampires from the Dracula faction, mated with her subordinates, and gave birth to children. To her surprise, almost all the children were like that child, mastering either Shadow Magic or Blood Magic while also possessing the other type."
"However, mastering the other type of magic varied; some could only perform one or two spells, while some could use both types of magic nearly perfectly, and the difference lay in their bloodline."
Constantine gently tapped his plate with a fork and said, "Mary believed the problem might be with the vampires of the Shadow Sect since they get their licenses through their bloodline…"
"I had encountered Dracula before, and indeed as I've mentioned, the more ancient the vampire, the purer the bloodline; thereby, the more potent the magic they could wield. If Cain and Lilith are the first generation, his creation as the second generation by Cain, then currently, the most powerful Shadow Sect vampire Mary might have captured is the third generation. She set her sights on this, and indeed she succeeded."
"One of the third generation unfortunately fell into Mary's trap, was captured by her, and imprisoned. Initially, Mary wanted to find a suitable breeding partner for him, but after much consideration, no one seemed fit, so she decided to take on the task herself."
Shiller's movement of cutting his food paused slightly before he resumed as usual, "Does Mary believe her bloodline is the most noble?"
"Mary's faction doesn't pay much heed to bloodline, but Blood Magic is quite special; all their powers come from the blood, and undoubtedly, as the first generation Contractor, Mary's blood power is the most potent."
"Did she succeed?"
"Yes, she became pregnant and gave birth to a child with a third-generation Shadow Sect vampire, and the child, just as she envisioned, perfectly inherited both Shadow Magic and Blood Magic, becoming the strongest among the Blood Clan."
"But her ambitions probably didn't stop there, did they?"
"Certainly not." Constantine laughed, clearly reveling in the twist the story was about to take.
"Actually, vampires are quite special; although no longer human, they are transformed from humans. Their souls have almost the same properties as humans, meaning, vampires can also contract with demons."
Shiller's expression showed realization; he seemed to grasp what Mary was attempting to do, the metaphor of feathers very apt.
"Mary's child… well, let's call him the Prince, made a fatal mistake. He thought, possessing both types of magic, he could compete with the cunning demons, even negotiate with them, securing their magic licenses and then passing them on through bloodline inheritance."
"Who did he contract with?"
"The Skull Lord, also known as Duke Skeleton, a sovereign of a faction in Hell and the source of the Power of Undead, which differs from the Power of Death as it revives the dead."
"Essentially, vampires are walking corpses who have already died once, so this power suits them well, thus the Prince chose Duke Skeleton."
"Unfortunately for him, he succeeded; as a vampire, he contracted with Duke Skeleton and gained the license for Necromancy, and his younger sister, whom I call the Second Princess, likewise secured a contract with the Master of Hell Shadow Demon."
"Did they marry?"
"Yes, they gave birth to a child who, theoretically, should have licenses for Shadow Magic, Blood Magic, Necromancy, and Shadow Magic..."
Constantine's tone deepened, yet he couldn't mask the schadenfreude, "But unfortunately, it was not an heir, but a monster."
"A monster?"
"Precisely, a monster capable of wielding four potent magics, who killed its own biological parents on the day of its birth, severely wounded Queen Mary, and put her into a slumber for over 300 years, ultimately it was Dracula who sealed this monster."
"Not killed?"
"It couldn't be killed, just like I can't be killed."
Shiller understood Constantine's meaning about selling one's soul to multiple parties, though the newborn's soul probably wasn't as coveted as Constantine's, the so-called 'unable to be killed' might simply mean those wanting to kill her weren't strong enough.
"What's even more interesting is that, once recovered, Queen Mary didn't think she had done anything wrong; she believed her logic was correct, just that there might have been some issues in execution, so once she regained some of her power, she commenced a new plan."
Constantine, recollecting, said, "The second plan is relatively recent, and I won't lie, I was also involved. I just wanted to know if inheriting magic licenses through bloodline was feasible. If so, Little Zha and I..."
The glass bottle suddenly overturned, and Constantine hurriedly steadied it, consoling, "No no no, just kidding, I definitely don't want to leave any descendants to inherit my curse."
"In any case, Mary began researching why an offspring with four types of magic turned into a monster. It was at this time she approached me; back then I was young, and for a Divine Artifact she had, I agreed to help her with the research."
"Through my research, vampires that are born and those that are turned have an essential difference. The former allows their bloodline power to stack, meaning a child's bloodline power is the sum of its parents'."
"That's why Mary and the third generation could have two very powerful children. At that time, each child possessed double the bloodline power, and by the time it reached the children of the Great Prince and the Second Princess, they should have had four times the power."
"However, a vampire's physical body and soul cannot bear such immense power, which will cause mutation in the fetus within the womb, ultimately resulting in a birth not of a pureblood vampire but of a monster."
"That is to say, relying on bloodline inheritance for magic permits is viable, but the purity of a vampire's bloodline is limited; too pure will lead to mutations. According to my research, if the Great Prince had not married the Second Princess but instead married a Blood Clan member with a more diluted bloodline, their child might have been able to inherit four magic permits while maintaining normal sanity."
"After hearing my advice, Mary was tempted again. Before her severe injury and subsequent dormancy, she had instructed her subordinates to pair up and make contracts with demons, and after she woke up, she carefully selected a few pairs of parents for them to unite."
"However, some of these vampires were not Mary's direct descendants, but members of the Shadow Sect. Mary could not fully control them, and the children born from them soon rebelled, frustratingly powerful, causing Mary to lose many subordinates."
"Mary still wasn't satisfied; she wanted a descendant that she could perfectly control, so she decided to replicate the Great Prince's path, again seeking out the third generation, and bore a baby."
"To prevent a recurrence of the previous tragedy, she found another baby and gave him the Initial Embrace, bestowing him with half of Mary's bloodline, ensuring that when they combined in the future, Mary's bloodline would dominate, and the child born would be a Vampire King controlled by Mary."
Shiller calculated the timeline in his mind; Mary had just started this plan when Constantine was young, and if the baby was born around that time, he should now be in his twenties, at most just over thirty.
But this range was still not narrow enough; people appearing in comics were basically in their twenties or thirties, though if Mary had delayed too long, that child could possibly be just in his teens now.
Then he realized that the so-called King of Vampires now was not what Mary ultimately wanted; what Mary wanted was the next generation of the Vampire King, so the current King of Vampires is false, the real King of Vampires has not yet been born.
But what Constantine had mentioned couldn't directly explain the reason for the vampire's large-scale resurrection. Even if this fake Vampire King, the new Great Prince, harbored grand ambitions to conquer Earth, Mary, who had been in hiding all these years, could surely wait a little longer, couldn't she?
"Mary is dead," Constantine shook his head and said.
"How did she die?" Shiller asked.
"She was assassinated, but this is actually no secret. Currently, on Earth, only two beings could have killed Mary: one is Dracula, who has not appeared for nearly two hundred years, and the other is the new Great Prince."
"But isn't the Great Prince fully controlled by Mary?"
"Indeed he couldn't deal with Mary, but the monster that severely wounded Mary three hundred years ago is still alive. Previously, I investigated the seals and found that the creature had been released long ago, and it was likely this monster that killed Mary."
"Where is this monster now?"
"Doomsday Army base."
Shiller was not at all surprised by this answer; remember, Constantine had asked the Arkham Knight to investigate the vampire residence of the Doomsday Army. According to Constantine's plan, a rule you absolutely cannot trust, it would be odd if there wasn't a trap involved.
"A monster mastering four powerful spells capable of directly killing the Bloody Queen Mary is now at the Doomsday Army's base," Constantine said, "So you would rather delay here with me than go and inform your friends?"
"When did I say they were my friends?" Shiller smiled and said, "Another spirit of mine has entered Zan's body, and if everything goes as expected, he should be with Batman, locked up together. There's no safer place in the world than that."
"I thought you had a close relationship with that armored kid," Constantine probed, "You seemed to know him."
"You know him too, he's Jason Todd."
Constantine's eyes widened as he exclaimed, "Are you kidding me? He's Batman's foster son? Does Batman have all the hot boys in this world?!"
"Probably the entire cosmos, you should know we come from other universes, right?"
"Of course, I just don't know about your universe..."
"To be precise, it is our universes," Shiller said with a smile, "we each come from different universes."
Constantine's eyes flickered, and Shiller threw out the bait, "Because of a mysterious platform, we were gathered together to venture into the infinite Multiverse, participating in many games."
"There's such a platform?"
Shiller nodded, somewhat mockingly, "And you weren't invited, but the Batman and Dick of this universe were."