The Lexler Tower was established in the mid-20th century, situated in the heart of Frankfurt City. Standing over 370 meters tall with more than 90 floors, it was one of the most conspicuous landmarks in the city.
Kaiser Zmicz sat by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the skyscraper, overlooking the dazzling city nightscape below, a devilish smile emerging on his handsome face with its defined brows and starry eyes.
He was an overbearing CEO, a billionaire, a noble and promising viscount of the Blood Clan.
This world was full of hidden creatures lurking behind the veil, beings that stemmed from an ancient past unrecorded by history—mysterious, malevolent, and little known to the public.
Especially in the Mortal Realm, where technology thrived and the mystical receded, even the most powerful of these creatures could not withstand guns, cannons, missiles, or even nuclear weapons. They were forced to hide away, dormant in shadowy corners.
Except for the Blood Clan.
Centuries ago, the Blood Clan, like other supernatural beings, suffered persecution from The Church.
Demon hunters, armed with Holy Water and iron swords, firing silver Crossbow Arrows, searched the eerie ancient castles scattered across Europe.
They stabbed wooden stakes into the hearts of the so-called "noble" members of the Blood Clan, dragged them out of their coffins like dead dogs, and left them exposed to sunlight until they turned to ash.
During the hardest times, nine out of ten Blood Clan elders perished, and the bloodlines of the thirteen clans were nearly extinct. Even sacred relics of the Blood Clan, such as the Rotten Bracelet and the Wand, were seized by the demon hunters and hidden in secret cellars.
Just as the surviving Blood Clan members fell into despair and were attempting a suicidal counterattack against The Church, a genius persuaded the clan, proposing a new strategy to contend with The Church.
That was... to become capitalists.
Under the guidance of this genius, the Blood Clan began to migrate en masse, leaving their forest castles to head to Spain and Portugal—two nations among the first to emerge from feudal fragmentation.
The early stage of capitalism was mercantilism, and the most fundamental, primal need of mercantilism was for gold and silver.
The intense demand for gold and silver prompted Spain and Portugal to become the first kingdoms to explore across the ocean. At this time, the Blood Clan, posing as seafaring sailors, made geographical discoveries. In doing so, they branched out into the world, preserving part of their bloodline that was on the brink of extinction.
Thanks to the gold and silver brought back by the Blood Clan captains, the human rulers of Spain and Portugal turned a blind eye, allowing them to survive.
Subsequently, the genius keenly sensed that mercantilism's sole pursuit of gold and silver could not amass wealth and turned his attention to other countries with more advanced commercialization.
For example, the Netherlands.
The Netherlands initially consisted of a region of merchant cities, where the power of feudal remnants was not strong.
Under the command of the genius, the Blood Clan hidden in the forests began to kidnap and raise some human children.
These human children were not to receive the Embrace but rather, while remaining human, were to learn from the Blood Clan elders, absorbing the Blood Clan's heritage.
Under the personal tutelage of the genius, they became outstanding scholars and merchants, creating early credit systems and financial infrastructures in the Netherlands, improving money-changing establishments into banks.
Afterward, the genius directed the bankers to leverage the national credit of the Netherlands to attract idle funds from all over Europe. They accumulated vast fortunes, built countless ships, and at one point, the Netherlands became the center of global shipping and financial trade.
By this stage, the Blood Clan were no longer the impoverished "kneeling race" cowering in their gloomy castles. Amassing wealth through shipping and finance, they provided protection money to the rulers of European feudal kingdoms and even paid a substantial sum to The Church, pleading for forgiveness.
Seeing the tangible gold and silver, the demon hunters of The Church temporarily suspended their pursuit of the remaining Blood Clan.
Then, the genius keenly realized that although the Netherlands had become the coachman of the seas, it held no special advantage against the continental European countries already blessed with large tracts of land and resources.
Capitalism itself is a massive flood, sweeping away feudal remnants from the dried-up channels. However, this flood cannot be stopped or controlled, only guided.
Therefore, this Blood Clan visionary turned his attention to Great Britain and France. Both countries had a strong desire for gold and silver, and their approach was to encourage handicraft industries beyond agriculture.
Because of their relatively limited land area, the handicraft industries of these countries tended to cluster. The continuous expansion of overseas markets improved product acceptance, further increasing the demand for production.
The Blood Clan genius astutely noticed that capital, in its quest to carve out living space, would naturally seek the security of social, economic, and political systems. Therefore, he sought out talented individuals among the British and French youth, manipulating them to initiate Europe's earliest bourgeois revolutions. This, in turn, helped Great Britain and France become maritime and terrestrial powers.
By this stage, the Blood Clan no longer needed to worry about survival—their disciples and protégés were everywhere in the courts, and the overseas colonies of various European nations also required the Blood Clan for operational coordination.
But the Blood Clan genius was not satisfied. He believed that with the development of capital, capital itself would begin to seek new technologies and new forms of production organization.
Just as he had predicted, capital spurred technological growth, triggering the Industrial Revolution, with Great Britain leaping to become a global hegemon.
Capitalism spread like a plague. The thirst for wealth replaced traditional beliefs, and the divine right of kings was pulled down from its sacred pedestal. Even the radiance of The Church was obscured by the smoke and dust brought by the steam engine.
The Blood Clan became owners of wealth. They loaned money to various kingdoms and used financial manipulation to amass fortunes, becoming even wealthier than The Church.
But the birth of capital also spawned a monster known as the "Red Ghost." It roamed through Europe, wandering in regions where capital flourished, and even the Blood Clan could not eradicate it—the Red Ghost was the death knell of capitalism from its very inception.
A demon hunter of comparable talent sensed the tide of the times. He betrayed The Church and went to the banks of the Volga River in Tsarist Russia. There, in this vast nation suffering the most intense oppression and filled with "ashen livestock," he spread his ideology.
Ideas cannot be extinguished. As long as class systems, exploitation, and oppression exist, the Red Ghost will surely endure.
The Blood Clan could not tolerate the existence of something that could threaten their free financial nations.
Thus, they enlisted all the forces of Old Europe in an attempt to quash it.
They failed.
Only thought can combat thought. This slightly stooping demon hunter and his followers swept away all vestiges of Old Tsarist Russia.
Through the legacy of demon hunters, they established a committee named "Cheka," composed of demon hunter squads, to resist assassinations from the Blood Clan elite.
Without the support of money and their organizational structure, the Blood Clan was merely a group of bat humanoid monsters with some meager strength. They were helpless against the Red Ghost rising in the distant Far East.
If it could not be strangled in the cradle, then it must be annihilated outright.
The Blood Clan caused chaos in Europe, sowing the seeds of conflict and inciting an unprecedented world war, attempting to drown the Red Ghost in a deluge of steel.
They failed once again. Not only did they fail to completely obliterate their adversary, but they also allowed the Red Ghost to thrive in the war of steel and fire, igniting kindling across the world.
Just when all Blood Clan members thought their fate was sealed, that Blood Clan genius re-emerged. He proposed manipulating media and freedom of speech, using "thoughts" and "slogans" to sow seeds of disarray in regions that refused to accept the rules of the financial game.
Only thought can counter thought.
The Blood Clan genius, through media tools, sought to propagate the ideology of freedom in the northern demon hunter's realm.
For example, replacing things the enemy valued with counterfeits and making them believe these falsifications.
Erasing the social essence of their literature and art; alienating their artists from the people, making them unwilling to describe and understand events occurring among the common people; causing their literature, theater, and cinema to express and glorify the most despicable human emotions.
Violence, betrayal, all manner of immorality; encouraging reckless behavior and corruption.
Praising lack of principles, bureaucracy, and procrastination as virtues.
Deifying the pursuit of money as truth; scoffing at honesty, integrity, and perseverance.
Making the people within the Red Ghost's territory, who were originally united, instinctively fall into mutual suspicion, animosity, and hatred.
All these things were to be nurtured in ways both clever and imperceptible, so they would blossom into vivid flowers.
Only a few could guess or even understand what was happening. However, the media tools controlled by the Blood Clan genius ensured these individuals were rendered powerless. They became laughingstocks of the public, as methods were found to slander them and declare them the scum of society.
The Blood Clan genius succeeded. The Red Ghost imploded, vanishing like smoke into thin air—and what grew from those ruins was merely a fruit that, from the moment of conception, had been poisoned by the ideology of the Blood Clan.
This is the history of the Blood Clan's development, from a group of bat-like monsters living in dense forest castles to the rulers standing at the pinnacle of the world today.
Kaiser Zmicz sat snugly in his armchair, a wine glass in hand, his eyes filled with the brilliance of the city lights.
The surname of that Blood Clan genius was Zmicz.
His great-grandfather was that genius who saved the Blood Clan and enabled them to rule the world.
"One day, I will make the world bow at my feet," Kaiser Zmicz murmured, downing the scarlet contents of his glass in one gulp.