Hearing Raphael's words, Kate hit the verge of crying...
Not from those words he said, but from seeing her beloved son being alright, not hurt, and safe in the embrace of her hands.
Seeing her crumbling frame of mind, Raphael made his move of pulling Kate closer, embracing her tightly while tears spurt out from her amber-like brown eyes.
Placing one of his hands on her back while caressing her hair with the other one, he unconsciously started to feel the mixed emotions occupying her broken soul.
Out of nowhere, a halo of almost transparent black barrier started forming around the two individuals while they were enjoying each other's company.
From the halo, Raphael's powers which erupt in the form of corrupted black veins with white spots as if they are roots of a tree begin to envelop the entire bedroom, crawling on the walls, ceiling, and floor.
The entire house started being rebuilt forcefully as if Raphael accessed the creative mode of one well-known game from Earth.
Without a warning, partial memories of Kate's past suddenly started hitting Raphael's mind in the middle of the rebuilding process of their house.
Things like Michael's first birthday they celebrated together, hers and Michael's afternoons in a nearby park, or just lazy days when they watched random series together brought mixed feelings to Raphael's heart.
It is painful for him to see Kate slowly being drowned in the lie that her son is still present while knowing that the opposite is true.
'She went through so much... I can't tell her the truth...' he thinks
'Why? ' Vega suddenly asks.
'She will not handle it...' Raphael replies and closes his eyes as a wave of black-and-white, corrupted energy explodes from his chest and passes through the entire house, rebuilding it into a gothic-style structure while painting his entire bedroom and the remaining rooms and floors in full black color.
When the layer of color is done, white roses and frames begin to form on the walls and their edges, giving them a beautiful touch of unknown art.
Taking a deep breath after the rebuilding process, Raphael opens his eyes only to feel Kate's body resting on his shoulder.
'Heh, she fell asleep~' Raphael smiles gently as he starts levitating while still holding Kate tightly.
'Her body went through an existential shock which consumed all of her brain power. She needs rest...'
'Yeah, I know...' Raphael nods while leaving his bedroom.
While levitating through a corridor of his new house, he looks at pictures hanging on the walls.
Pictures in frames on which are Kate's and Michael's memories captured.
Some of them Raphael remembers, some not, but he is not jealous, nor sad.
He takes it as an opportunity to gain his own.
'Maybe... having a normal family is much better than being an Angel...' he points out with his inner voice as he passes them, covering each picture in corrupted darkness.
When the picture is covered fully, it starts acquiring a new frame as well as a new glass cover, and when the process is done, a more beautiful picture of their memories with a golden frame is revealed for everyone to see.
This is happening all over the corridor until he reaches Kate's bedroom.
Opening the door with the power of his mind, the sight of a large bed with the structure from medieval times you can only see in those old castles is presented to him, as well as the entire furniture from the same period.
With a gentle and satisfied smile, Raphael enters Kate's bedroom and places his new mother on the fluffy bed.
Covering her in white sheets, he notices his mother's neck having two dots as if something bit her in the past.
Feeling uncomfortable and with doubt, he starts checking her wrists, finding a few hidden-like dots similar to her neck.
'User, those are...' Vega is about to say something when Raphael interrupts him.
'Yes, they are...' he replies while turning away from the bed.
Walking around with glowing anger in his eyes, Raphael starts painting demonic sigils and runes into the air as if he is painting them upon a solid surface.
'Vega, tell me everything you know about the Vampires of this planet...' Raphael orders while he ends the last rune.
'I don't know everything but I have some basics.' Vega replies as Raphael leaves the room.
Turning around for the last time while closing the door of Kate's room, his right (blood-red-lizard-like) eye can be seen in the darkness between the slightly opened door and the doorway.
"That will be enough~" he replies and shuts the door slowly, covering them in an unknown black-and-white corruption.
The corruption forms a sigil of his demonic nature upon the outside side of the door as he leaves the door handle and walks away.
...
Returning to his bedroom, Raphael closes the door and raises his hand at the same height as his face.
Moving his hand to the side, the carpet on the shining black floor repeats the movement of his hand, falling to the corner of the gothic-like bedroom.
With a clap of his hands, a few candles begin to appear around the room on places like his table, closet, or bedstand.
At the same time, he walks and stands up in the middle of the room.
Crouching down, he closes his eyes and extends his hand toward the floor releasing his darkness that engraves two demonic circles on it with the rune of the house of Gremory in the middle.
Around the rune, countless lines begin to be formed, and when it ends, it reveals two pentagrams.
The bigger one is inverted, containing Raphael's Demonic energy while also containing another one in its heart (middle).
The pentagram in the middle is considered good and contains Raphael's Archangel energy while enveloping the rune of his house.
The larger, demonic one is enveloped by those two circles.
Between those two circles, five signs in different languages opposing the five tips of the inverted pentagram start to be engraved into the floor, each representing an element of nature.
Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Soul, those five words are now written into the demon magic circle and are blasted with the power of Raphael's corrupted nature.
As those signs stop being craved, other ones begin to form in the inner circle, between the five points of the inverted pentagram, representing his name in different Demonic and Angelic languages.
Two are in Demonic language, two in Angelic and the highest one is a combination of those two languages.
Suddenly, as Raphael stands in the middle, a powerful blast of his black-and-white corrupted powers explodes into the ceiling when the last touch is done as if the circle is empowering him and recognizes his foreign origin.
Opening his eyes which now have the color of his powers, Raphael speaks up.
"So, Vega, tell me more about those Vampires~..."
As Raphael asks the question, the black gemstone of his silver ring starts to acquire black lines as if he were decorating his own ring.
At first, silence is all he receives but after a few seconds, Vega finally starts to explain.
"So as you probably already know, Vampires are blood-drinking creatures that were once human."
"Yeah, go on..." Raphael says while nodding his head as Vega continues.
"But here, most of the Vampire lore from Earth is crap. Something like a cross or other symbols of the Nenktese God won't repel them, the sunlight won't kill them and neither will a stake to the heart."
"So nothing I know from Earth about slaying them will help me here? That's what you want to say? " Raphael asks.
"Basically? Yes..." Vega says, adding: "Everything about repeling, hurting, and killing them is useless here. But the bloodlust... that part is true..."
"Obviously..." Raphael adds.
"Anyway, they live forever but they need human blood to survive and sustain their existence...
Because they were once people, you won't know the individual is a vampire until it's too late."
"Anything else? " Raphael asks.
"The interesting thing though is that they need their prey to be alive unless their bodies are super resistant..."
"Why? " Raphael asks as a blue hologram of a creature and a human standing next to each other appears in front of him.
The holograms are the same height as Raphael while being slightly transparent.
As he starts to examine them, Vega continues explaining.
"If a Vampire of Nenktese drinks the blood of a dead human, the blood becomes toxic to them, throwing the Vampire into a paralyze-like state. The length of the state depends on how much the Vampire drank..."
"Hmm, one of their weaknesses is hidden right in their food, interesting~" Raphael smiles, watching the paralyzed state of the hologram Vampire in front of him as Vega continues.
"But, if a Vampire transforms and never has the blood of a living human again, his body somehow develops resistance against the toxin in the "dead" blood, forming a "vegetarian-like" Vampire.
This type will most likely come from an individual who doesn't want to hurt anyone living..."
Raphael nods as he looks closer at the Vampire with some thoughts. 'Just like on Earth, even here are individuals who forcefully became monsters while their souls remained uncorrupted and pure, huh.' he thinks while placing one of his fingers on his chin.
'Those individuals will most likely enter heaven even when they are monsters. It was not their will to become that, and if they remain pure to the end, they will enter paradise with humans.'
Raphael's train of thought is broken when Vega starts to speak again.
"Almost every Vampire has super strength, speed, agility, and senses working hand-in-hand with their overboosted regeneration."
"Yeah, they all have..." Raphael rolls his eyes but doesn't stop listening to the voice of his robotic companion.
"What differentiates them from the Vampires of Earth is that these ones are organized in nests with around 8 to 10 Vampires residing in each. With mates for eternity, some nests might be smaller while some Vampires prefer to live solitary lives..."
"Probably our well-known vegetarians..." Raphael adds.
"Yeah, or those who are too old for new generations..." Vega adds as well as Raphael continues.
"I'm guessing the younger members are like bees, hunting and bringing food to the nests while the older ones are "ruling leaders" or are taking care of other business... am I right? "
The ring on Raphael's finger releases a buzzing sound of confirmation.
"Yes, just like in bee's hives..."
Raphael nods and asks: "So when I now know the entire structure, how can I kill them? "
"As I said, no religious objects will work, the sunlight will form only a kind of "bad sunburn" on their skin, and the stake will do nothing.
The best way is to decapitate them or poison them with the "dead" blood..."
"Alright~, anything else I should know before I hunt them? " Raphael asks as he leaves the magic circle.
Immediately, the pilar of power disappears as if nothing happened while Vega speaks.
"Not much, probably only that they are all psychically connected to their Progenitor, the one from whom all of them originate..."
"Uhuh, thanks Vega..." replies Raphael when his senses suddenly feel a disruption in the space.
Releasing a slight wave from his body into all directions, the wave flows like a wave of radar as he feels two unknown individuals approaching his house's windows.
One leads to Kate's room while the second one leads to his bedroom.
'So we have guests, huh~' He thinks with a wide smile while he spins, turning into a shadow-like creature and disappearing into a pitch-black corner.
As he spun, the magic circle upon the ground got covered by his carpet which flew out from the corner while all of the candles lost their flames.
When the last flame died, the entire room fell into an eternal darkness with only one single source of light.
The light of one of the Nenktese moons, that is coming into the bedroom through the roof window above Raphael's bed.
A window on which a pale slender hand with sharp claws appears out of nowhere while trying to open it from outside.
...
... ... ... ... ...
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