Grandson of the Holy Emperor is a Necromancer

Chapter 63

The Third Imperial Prince Ruppel stood before a doorway.

He gritted his teeth, but even while doing that, he was also tearing his hair out as well.

After freeing the Seventh Imperial Prince, he hurriedly returned to his private residence located in the eastern section of the palace, out of fear of being reprimanded for his actions.

However, the news waiting for him as soon as he arrived at the residence was regarding the events that took place in the capital, Laurensis, as well as the corridors of the imperial palace itself.

He still didn’t know anything in detail. But one thing was for certain – the imperial palace had turned into an ocean of blood.

‘I…I merely sprung Allen out of the prison, that’s all!’

Could it be… that bastard Allen started a revolt? But if this was true, then news of it should’ve gotten to Ruppel sooner.

No, there was a higher chance of a different event happening.

From what he heard, the rumours spoke of a ‘Vampire hunting’ instead. If so, it should be unrelated to what he had done.

He swallowed back the dry saliva in his mouth before cautiously opening the door before him. It led to a luxurious suite. There was a middle-aged woman lying on the sick bed located inside the room, her expression seemingly lost in a daze.

“Mother.”

She was the second wife of the Holy Emperor’s son, and her name was Rose. She turned her emaciated face to the side and stared at Ruppel. “…Oh! My baby! Hurry and come to your mother!”

“I-I’m back, mother.”

Ruppel walked over to her then pulled out a chair next to the bed, settling down on it.

“Welcome back, your highness.”

He reflexively turned his head towards the direction of the voice. He saw a maidservant in her late twenties, a charming woman with black hair and black eyes, standing by the corner.

She was smiling at him, but the light in her eyes seemed to be a little peculiar.

Ruppel stared back at her as if he’d been entranced, but then someone began gently stroking his cheek to bring his attention back.

“My baby…”

Ruppel shifted his gaze back, only to be greeted by Rose’s cold and dispassionate eyes glaring right back at him.

“I’ve heard about what happened in the capital,” Rose said.

“…”

“Is it true that you freed the Seventh Imperial Prince? And by extension, you’re also responsible for the commotion inside the imperial palace, are you not?”

Wasn’t his mother lying on this sick bed? How could she have known about these things better than him?

“B-but… Mother, that was…”

Rose abruptly reached out and grabbed a flower vase resting on top of a shelf, then she ruthlessly smashed it against Ruppel’s head.

“And I’ve warned you to keep your head down! I’ve repeatedly warned you not to get on the wrong side of his majesty! You…! You! You’re ruining everything!”

Ruppel moaned in pain while holding his head. He then stared at his own mother.

Rose, his mother… she suddenly began tilting her head in confusion. Her distorted expression lasted only for a brief moment, as if what happened just now was all a lie. Her face reverted back to that of a caring mother as she looked back at Ruppel. “Ah… Ahhh! My baby, I’m so sorry! Your mother deeply loves you. My dear son, Ruppel. My… my first child!”

Rose pushed herself off from the bed and embraced Ruppel.

Meanwhile, his lips clamped shut tightly from what she said just now.

Her mouth might have uttered out ‘first child, Ruppel’, yet he was the second child she gave birth to, not the first.

Rose always had her first child in mind. Ruppel, being her second child, was more like a ‘nameless existence’ to her.

“You must become the next Holy Emperor. That’s your sole purpose of being born. You understand that, don’t you my baby?” Rose smiled with her eyes. It was a truly gentle and warm smile. “Only then will his highness, the Crown Imperial Prince, will favour me. Not that lowborn of a b*tch Yulisia, but me.”

To her, her son taking the throne of the Holy Emperor was merely a pathway to ‘success’, a tool of sorts to ingratiate herself to the currently-missing Crown Imperial Prince.

Ruppel clenched his teeth.

Rage went on to distort his expression, but he did his best to stop it from being visible on his face.

He forced a smile on his lips and responded, “Of course, mother. I shall definitely become the next Holy Emperor.”

**

After the Vampire hunt got underway, about half of the names on the list were captured or killed on the very same day.

“Now look! Look at these disgusting monsters!”

The Vampires were currently tied down on the capital’s plaza.

“These are the heretics who sold their souls to the abominable Vampires in the vain hopes of maintaining their youths!”

These individuals that chose to become Vampires after being captivated by the physical strength and allure of eternal life, finally had their facade of humanity stripped away from them. With their human skins all ripped off, their ugly and contorted faces underneath were bared for all to see.

“The judgements of the gods shall descend upon them!”

Partitions were placed up.

An Inquisitor raised his sickle up high before chopping a Vampire’s head off.

The silhouettes were cast on the partition as moving shadows, and this was how the citizens witnessed the beheading.

And then, the corpse began burning in blue flames. It soon turned into ashes, which in turn, also served as proof for all the citizens to see.

However, this show wasn’t meant for their eyes. No, it was to make an example to explicitly warn the Vampires that were still hidden out there.

“We’re the devout followers that possess the eyes of the gods! No Vampire shall infiltrate our Theocratic Empire anymore. Under the grace of our Goddess Gaia, we shall find all those living a false life and punish them accordingly,” the Heresy Inquisitor spread his arms wide open and loudly declared to the masses. “There will be no more places for a Vampire to hide in our land!”

Perhaps to echo his cries, the surviving Vampires currently imprisoned somewhere below the imperial palace desperately screamed.

They were the ideal subjects for human experimentation.

The members of the Crimson Cross fed and injected all sorts of drugs into these captured vermin and studied the ensuing reactions.

One of the ‘researchers’ commented loudly. “To think that we’d come across a chance to collect so many Vampires in one go like this. Thanks to this event, we should soon be able to advance our medical, magical, and alchemic knowledge by a great margin.”josei

Indeed, to the researchers of the Order of the Crimson Cross, these Vampires were seen as valuable lab rats and ‘material’ for magic research. As these creatures were monsters who could indefinitely regenerate themselves, there wasn’t a better test subject than them.

The events that took place in the Theocratic Empire’s capital soon spread out to the rest of the continent.