Marcus took the initiative to seek out Chen Mo and became his new subordinate. He asked Chen Mo to help him find his twin brother, William, the progenitor of werewolves and the source of the werewolf plague. He also hoped that Chen Mo would provide them with protection and a space to live.
For many years, Marcus and his brother William, despite having immortal bodies and great strength, were always seen as outcasts by humans, who wanted to eliminate them.
Marcus himself had to hide securely during the day and only dared to come out at night, always avoiding human sight for fear of being discovered.
He had lived this cautious life for many, many years.
In Marcus's view, werewolves and vampires should be the true rulers of the Earth. They were powerful and immortal, making them the most perfect beings in the world, and they should be the ones to rule it.
Now, he saw an opportunity to rule the world through Chen Mo. With the immense power Chen Mo controlled, if it were all turned into vampires, the entire world would eventually be under their rule.
At that time, as the progenitor of vampires, Marcus would stand at the pinnacle of the world, no longer needing to hide and live cautiously. All humans would become their slaves, and vampires would become the true rulers of the world.
Marcus did not wait until Chen Mo was old and dying to tempt him with immortality, as he did in the movie, because Chen Mo's strength was too great. Not only did he possess astonishing power, but the knight order he commanded was far stronger than Victor's decades later in the movie.
Marcus feared that if he didn't appear soon, his brother William might be killed by Chen Mo or his knight order.
He also needed Chen Mo to help control the ever-increasing werewolf population, or these beasts would destroy the world.
Having witnessed Chen Mo's thunderbolts incinerating werewolves, Marcus was initially shocked and thought Chen Mo was a god.
But after the initial shock, he calmed down and analyzed everything that had happened, leading to doubts.
If Chen Mo were truly a god, he could have wiped out all the werewolves in one strike, without needing to kill them one by one, almost causing casualties among the knights. From this, Marcus concluded that Chen Mo was not a god but an "outlier" with extraordinary powers like himself.
In some ways, they were more alike than ordinary humans.
Whether for his brother William's safety or his own ambitions, Marcus ultimately sought out Chen Mo and successfully joined his ranks.
Marcus guessed that Chen Mo might have learned his name from his father, as the only person in the world who knew his name was the one who gave him and William their special bloodline and immortality.
Marcus didn't know that although Chen Mo had never met his father, he had been searching for him! The world's first immortal, Alexander Corvinus!
Alexander Corvinus, a 5th-century Hungarian warlord, survived a plague that swept through Europe, destroying his domain, leaving him as the sole survivor.
It turned out he was a natural anomaly, possessing "perfect blood"! His "perfect blood" could integrate any gene to enhance itself. Initially recessive, his "perfect blood" was awakened by the plague virus, allowing him to survive and evolve, becoming the first immortal in history.
His three children inherited his special constitution. Marcus and William were bitten by a bat and a wolf, respectively, and after integrating the bat virus and rabies virus, they each evolved into the progenitors of vampires and werewolves.
Vampires and werewolves are both immortal beings, but they each have fatal weaknesses: vampires fear sunlight, while werewolves fear silver.
Additionally, his two sons became extremely bloodthirsty. Marcus had to rely on drinking blood to sustain his life, while William lost his sanity completely, becoming a beast and turning into a bloodthirsty monster.
After discovering that his two sons had become outcasts, their father, Alexander Corvinus, couldn't bring himself to kill them. In the end, he had to drive them away while he continued to watch over them from the shadows.
Alexander Corvinus always believed that the world belonged to humans, not something his sons should conquer. So, he secretly helped clean up their messes, keeping everything within controllable limits.
In the world of "Underworld," the most valuable thing for Chen Mo was the "perfect blood" of this immortal progenitor.
Although vampires and werewolves could grant immortality and greatly enhance strength, their drawbacks were too obvious, and the physical changes were unacceptable to Chen Mo. He didn't want to become a monster. The pure "perfect blood" didn't have these issues, which was what Chen Mo truly needed.
Chen Mo had been searching for him but had found nothing. One reason was that Chen Mo's caravans had limited reach and incomplete intelligence collection. Additionally, Alexander Corvinus, who had been hiding in the shadows and cleaning up after his sons for hundreds of years, was not easy to find.
But Chen Mo knew that once he found his two sons, he would be close to finding him. This was the main reason Chen Mo kept Marcus.
However, Marcus was not entirely useless besides leading to Corvinus.
Although Chen Mo didn't need it himself, his knights could all be turned into vampires. This would greatly enhance the strength of the entire knight order, making it easier to deal with werewolves, secular forces, and even Alexander Corvinus hiding in the shadows.
As for the fatal weakness of vampires fearing sunlight, Chen Mo naturally had a solution.
After using Marcus to turn hundreds of knights into vampires, Marcus prepared to bite him, but Chen Mo unexpectedly refused.
This caught Marcus off guard. His original plan was to use the temptation of strength and immortality to turn Chen Mo and his knights into vampires. Then he would tell a carefully prepared lie to make Chen Mo wary and prevent him from killing him.
But now, Chen Mo had no intention of becoming a vampire, completely disrupting Marcus's plan. He was at a loss. If he revealed the lie now, would Chen Mo give up on the transformation altogether? After weighing his options, Marcus decided to go ahead with his prepared story.
He believed that Chen Mo couldn't resist the temptation of immortality. Now, while he was young and wary, he refused to become a vampire. But as he felt the passage of time and life, he would eventually beg Marcus to turn him into a vampire. Who wouldn't want eternal life?
When Marcus told Chen Mo that if the progenitors of vampires and werewolves died, their descendants would also die, Chen Mo just nodded calmly without much reaction, leaving Marcus unsure of his thoughts.
However, Marcus believed that Chen Mo would still be influenced by this lie and wouldn't dare to act against him easily. After all, even if he didn't need Marcus for immortality, he wouldn't easily give up his knights. So, Marcus felt safe.
In the movie, Marcus's lie indeed deceived Victor. To protect himself, his subordinates, and the werewolf slaves, Victor was always wary of Marcus.
Even though Victor controlled most of the vampire warriors and could easily kill the solitary Marcus, he still made Marcus an elder, sharing the rule of the entire vampire clan with him.
Marcus's ultimate goal was always to make the immortals the rulers of the Earth, with himself as the eternal lord and god of the immortals!
Although he didn't manage to rule the world, Marcus did achieve his plan by turning Victor's faction, which was in a dominant position, into vampires, transforming enemies into allies in their quest to rule the Earth.
Chen Mo, of course, was not fooled by this lie, but he wouldn't act against Marcus for now. He still needed Marcus to find William and draw out Alexander Corvinus.
The knight order now had over six hundred members, and turning each one into a vampire would take considerable time. While Marcus was turning them one by one, Chen Mo also began to address the issue of vampires' fear of sunlight.
Chen Mo had already planned for this.
After Andrew was the first to be turned into a vampire, Chen Mo conducted experiments on him. As Chen Mo had guessed, after becoming a vampire, Andrew gained a special ability similar to bat echolocation.
After a period of deliberate training, Andrew easily mastered this ability. He could perceive his surroundings using only his hearing, without needing to see, and it was even more precise and comprehensive than vision.
With this confirmation, the biggest problem was solved. Under Chen Mo's orders, the secret workshop operated at full efficiency. Accompanied by the constant sound of hammering echoing over the castle, one exquisite and luxurious new armor after another was produced.
Wearing the newly designed full-body armor, which covered even the eyes, the vampire knights could fight outside even during the day. As long as the armor wasn't torn, the vampire knights inside wouldn't be harmed by sunlight.
Thus, a powerful vampire knight order, unafraid of sunlight, was born!