Realization

Vlad remembered everything that happened that night clearly.

The sight of his home being destroyed, the cries of his loved ones as they were killed, and the feeling of cold metal piercing his body.

Everything was so clear, as though it would have happened just one second ago.

He had tried not to remember these memories after waking up and use the rationality and coldheartedness of his previous life to suppress the burning rage and hatred inside him and force himself to not do anything rash.

But after seeing the man in front of the tavern, that burning hatred burst out completely.

Vlad felt his vision becoming red as his senses became sharper and his blood boiled violently.

[Vampire Instincts] had been activated without him noticing, getting his body ready to tear apart the enemy in front of him.

But several characters appeared in his mind at that moment, cooling his hatred.

[??? – Human – Level 31]

These words were like a bucket of cold water that woke Vlad up.

Perhaps feeling the killing intent directed towards him, the man looked in Vlad's direction, only to frown when he did not see anything.

"Is anything wrong?" The woman he was talking to asked curiously.

The man frowned briefly before shaking his head and hugging the woman's waist.

"Nothing. Come on, let's have a bit of fun."

The woman blushed and rolled her eyes at him, however, she did not refuse and followed him to the second floor of the tavern.

Before leaving, the man glanced at the street again, but when he did not see anything wrong, he stopped caring about it.

However, he was unaware that Vlad was observing everything from a nearby roof.

Vlad's eyes had turned ice-cold. He was gripping his sword with an expression filled with killing intent, as though he could not wait to jump and put the sword through the man's heart.

But in the end, the fact that the man was much stronger than him stopped him.

"Level 31. Does it mean, the fourth realm?"

According to Vlad's guess, every ten levels represented a new cultivation realm. Until level 10, it was the first realm, up to level 20 the second, level thirty the third, and after level thirty the fourth realm.

It meant that the man was three realms stronger than him.

Vlad was not overconfident to think that the current him could defeat someone that strong.

Plus, after looking around, he saw more people with higher levels than his in the tavern.

If he made a commotion here, the result would not be good.

No matter how much he wanted to kill that man, he must not be rash.

"In fact, this is an opportunity. I was worried that I did not have any clues to follow. Anyway, now that I found him, I got a new lead..."

After using these words to calm himself down, Vlad took a deep breath.

He then furrowed his brows with a pensive expression.

"Now that I think about it, my behavior tonight was very rash."

Vlad had tried to act calm and rational, but it seemed that without him noticing, his rage and hatred had made him impulsive.

The best example of that is the fact that he did not care about anything and tortured a man in a place where anyone could have heard him.

What if a powerful powerhouse heard the screams and came to rescue the man? Vlad would have been doomed.

And after that, he provoked the city guards that came after someone heard the screams of the man.

Finally, he planned to act personally to gather information in a tavern, without considering the consequences of it.

What if someone finds him familiar and discovers his true identity?

The man with the tattoo for example. This time, Vlad was lucky and recognized him first, but if the man would have seen his face, there was a high chance that he would have been recognized.

After all, the man had seen his face a few days ago. Even if Vlad's appearance was slightly different after becoming a vampire, there was still a chance that someone familiar with him could recognize him.

"… It looks like I am not as calm as I thought." Vlad smiled wryly and looked up at the sky.

The sky was cloudy, so he could not see the moon or the stars, but that was good. He preferred this cloudy weather.

After all, the night when his family was killed had a beautiful starry sky.

"Fuck." Vlad bit his lips until they bled. He gripped his chest with his right hand, trying to stop the terrible pain he was feeling.

"I will kill them. I swear… I swear."

Drop after drop of water fell down one after another.

However, no rain fell that night.