Chapter 124: A Disgrace to the Blood Saint Clan

At the Healer Operation Area of Shattered Lake Prison.

All twenty-five members of the treatment unit were gathered around a long table. They each wore a black robe and a crow-shaped mask that concealed their face entirely. None of them could see the expressions of the others, yet the atmosphere alone betrayed the turmoil within their minds. The air was so oppressive it seemed on the verge of solidifying.

At last, Healer No.201 broke the silence. "Team leader, is there truly nothing you can do?"

No one knew the leader's true identity. By long-standing convention, however, the head of a Blood Moon prison medical unit was always a Two-Winged Gold Sorcerer who had already reached the limits of their potential. By contrast, the healers assigned to perform the Blood Embrace Ritual were typically One-Winged Silver Sorcerers. In that sense, the leader was the strongest among them.

The leader's reply carried a note of bitterness. "There is nothing I can do. Inside the Black Coffin lies a Three-Winged Sacred Realm sorcerer. His bloodline and overall strength far surpass mine. The Blood Lock he activated is something I simply cannot resist."

A healer let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Who would have thought that Blood Lock, a technique we Blood Saint Clan created to restrain lesser races, would one day be turned against us?"

Indeed, Blood Lock had originally been a binding Miracle used exclusively within the Blood Saint Clan.

In those early days, the clan had not yet adopted the modern Institute System. Instead, it operated under a crude and inefficient Family System. To expand their numbers, high-ranking Blood Saints had to personally search for suitable candidates and perform the First Embrace—a ritual with an uncertain success rate that transformed the target into a low-ranking bloodkin.

The flaws of the Family System were severe. Each generation of bloodkin suffered a steady dilution of bloodline purity. The First Embrace also consumed high-level Blood Saints' True Blood, and most importantly, the recipient of the ritual had to love the Blood Saint genuinely.

It was easy to imagine how rare and extraordinarily united the Blood Saint Clan must have been in that era. Even with their long lifespans, their numbers dwindled over time, and their collective strength slowly waned. Yet bonds forged through love made them fanatically protective of one another. The injury or death of a single family member could drive the entire clan into madness. They would mobilize everything they had and pursue their enemy to the bitter end.

That love, however, turned outward as cold indifference. Toward other races, the Blood Saints showed no mercy and no attachment. Their relationship with the world took only two forms. Either they annihilated all opposition, turning entire regions into their paradise and everyone else's hell, or their enemies eradicated them completely, wiping this love-bound monstrous race from existence.

Everything changed when the Blood Moon Lord seized control of the Blood Saints and the Moonshadows. He abolished their old ways of survival and ordered both clans to adopt the Institute System and the Church System. In just a thousand years, the two races had grown and prospered into their present state.

Under the Institute System, Blood Saints no longer needed to seek heirs personally. The most gifted individuals of every race competed for admission, drawn by the promise of immortality.

The Blood Exchange Ritual replaced the First Embrace. Candidates were transformed only into provisional bloodkin. To become true Blood Saints, they still had to undergo the Blood Embrace Ritual, performed within prisons, where they drew nourishment from death itself. The clan paid no price for reproduction, because the dead had already paid it for them.

Originally, Blood Lock existed because low-ranking bloodkin carried the true blood of high-ranking Blood Saints. By activating it, a Blood Saint could sense a bloodkin's location and even control their actions. If the Blood Saint died, they could even reincarnate within the bloodkin's body.

Once freed from the shackles of love, the Family System collapsed entirely, and the First Embrace vanished with it. Blood Lock, born from that ritual, should have been discarded along with the past. But instead, refined by the Blood Moon Lord, it evolved into one of the Blood Saint Clan's most important Miracles.

Its binding range expanded beyond the clan itself, encompassing the entirety of the Blood Moon Kingdom.

Every infant placed in a nursery had a Miracle Chip implanted into their body, each containing a drop of True Blood. As the child grew, that blood seeped into their bloodstream, bone marrow, bodily fluids, and even their reproductive cells, spreading throughout their entire being.

In effect, every child raised in a Blood Moon Kingdom nursery became a provisional bloodkin.

The modern Blood Lock was a Three-Winged Miracle. As long as a Three-Winged Blood Saint activated it, they could control any citizen weaker than themselves—human, elf, beastman, or even a Blood Saint and a Moonshadow.

There was no proof, but many within the clan believed that if a legendary Blood Saint were to activate Blood Lock, they could seize control of an entire city at once, perhaps even command its inhabitants to die.

Despite wielding such terrifying authority, the Blood Saint Clan remained remarkably low-profile.

The outside world knew of their existence. The people knew they were immortal, and that anyone could join them by passing the Institute's examinations. Some Blood Saints served as councilors, but none held executive power. To most people, the clan was defined by only two roles: doctors and scholars.

As for abusing Blood Lock, such a thing had not occurred for centuries.

Its legal use was strictly confined to prisons and war zones. Only criminals and adventurers could be subjected to it. Even Bloodrage Hunters like Gerard were forbidden from using Blood Lock on prisoners during missions.

In theory, only the Saints sealed within the Black Coffins were legally allowed to wield Blood Lock directly. Only living users could activate it, and then only through the Saints inside those coffins, who would channel its power.

There were many reasons the Blood Saint Clan was forbidden from revealing its authority. Concealment curbed arrogance within the clan, prevented lesser races from nurturing rebellious thoughts, and helped preserve social stability. Yet all of those reasons were secondary. At its core, the prohibition existed for a far simpler cause. The Blood Moon Lord did not permit it.

The social foster system, the research institute system, the church system, every one of these frameworks had been personally established by the Blood Moon Lord. None of them allowed disobedience. Not even experimentation was tolerated.

If the Blood Locks placed on death row inmates were tangible restraints, then at least those prisoners could test their limits and learn what they were forbidden to do. The Blood Saint Clan's Blood Locks, however, were invisible. They suppressed even the impulse to question them.

That was why the healers felt such shock and fury. Even they did not know the precise location of the Black Coffin. How, then, could outsiders control the Saint sealed within it?

One healer spoke through clenched teeth. "Necromancers. That's the only explanation. Those despicable lowlifes must have used necromancy to manipulate the Saint. Can't we do the same and take control back?"

Another healer snapped back, "We're forbidden from outputting mana or launching attacks. How exactly are we supposed to cast necromancy under those restrictions?"

A third healer frowned. "Wait, I remember that entering the Black Coffin requires a key. How could outsiders possibly know it? Could there be a traitor among us?"

"Exactly. Only the team leader, the warden, and the Director of the Heresy Court know the key. Could it be—"

All eyes turned to the team leader. He stiffened immediately. "The keys are sealed with Miracles. I have no way to leak them by any means."

The other healers said bluntly. "But the warden rarely stays in the prison, and the Director is stationed in the city. If it wasn't you, how else could the inmates have obtained the key?"

Healer No.201 spoke up, "Now that I think about it, a few years ago, there was a killer in Caimon City known as the Controller. His murders showed traces consistent with Blood Lock techniques. The Heresy Court invited my boss to conduct an internal investigation. The case ended without results, but one thing was confirmed. The key never leaked from the custodians."

After the incident involving No.176, most of them had already suspected that No.201's boss was a Saint specializing in the Mind Class. Unlike memory specialists, who deal only with extracted memories, Mind Class Saints examine the soul itself. Even deliberate self-destruction of the mind offered no protection. A Mind Class Saint could shatter the soul, sift through its fragments, and extract the truth as easily as breaking apart a puzzle cube and reassembling it.

Before a Mind Class Saint, forgetting was meaningless.

"If even Senior says there was no leak, then there truly was none."

All eyes shifted to the healer with badge No.222, Syflin. She spoke calmly. "Then only one possibility remains. The death row inmates have a way to identify the true Black Coffin key. Given the scale of this incident, the key system itself is no longer secure. Still, that has nothing to do with us."

She paused, then added lightly, "I do have one piece of bad news and one piece of good news. Which would you like to hear first?"

"The bad news," a healer answered grimly.

"We've been utterly humiliated," Syflin said. "By tomorrow, all thirty-six research institutes will know that a handful of death row inmates captured nobles of the Blood Saint Clan."

A tense silence followed. "And the good news?"

"The good news is that we're wearing masks. No one knows who we are. Everyone can lose face freely, and no one will know exactly which Blood Saints were disgraced."

The room fell quiet. No one had expected the young woman to find room for humor. As a Blood Saint from one of the Four Great Research Institutes, she could afford that composure. For the others, this incident might become an indelible stain, one that could even damage their future. For her, it was little more than an unpleasant anecdote.

"There is one," the team leader said. "Bloodline resonance. The Saint inside the Black Coffin should still retain a trace of consciousness. If we can establish resonance with him, we may be able to remove our Blood Locks."

"How do we trigger it?"

He admitted, "I don't know. Intense emotion? Burning desire? Prayer to the Blood Moon Lord? The success rate is extremely low, but it's the only option left."

They exchanged glances and accepted it as a last resort. Some drew circles on the floor, cursing the death row inmates, while others lay flat against the ground, attempting to sense the Black Coffin through faint vibrations. Syflin nearly laughed when she saw someone hanging upside down from a chandelier like a bat, insisting it replicated an ancient Blood Saint meditation posture that improved Bloodline Resonance.

At that moment, the lounge door burst open. A prison guard leaned inside.

"Sorry to interrupt. No.222, please come with me to the treatment room."

Syflin looked up in surprise. "Ashe Heath? Why are you looking for me?"

"There's something I need you to do."

No.201 immediately stood and placed himself in front of her. "Can't it be handled here? If it's work, I can take care of it instead."

Ashe shook his head. "No. I want No.222 specifically. And there isn't even a bed here. It wouldn't be convenient."

The healers exchanged uneasy looks.

This is bad. The Blood Saint Clan is about to be disgraced.