Chapter 1 Vivian's lineage was so full of wonders that you could talk about it for three days and three nights without end – just the history of this bizarre vampire working and freeloading in churches everywhere would take more than three days to tell. And Hespera also inherited many wonderful abilities from Vivian, though with some mutations in the process.

Vivian couldn't turn descendants into true vampires like normal ones; those she turned were just ordinary "people," stronger, longer-lived, and healthier than average, but definitely not vampires. Hespera, being a self-cultivated bat spirit, only possessed a portion of Vivian's power. This freed her from that limitation. Not only could she turn true descendants, but she could also forcibly turn other adult vampires into her servants with her high-level bloodline. From the vampire perspective, this was a kind of "progress," but as the price for this progress, the Vivian's blood power inherited by Hespera was incomplete: she, her descendants, and her servants had much lower resistance to holy water, holy silver, and other exorcism items than Vivian.

But it was still higher than any other supernatural being, and to the latter, it was ridiculously high: they could wield holy silver weapons for hours on end until their limbs were burned by the divine power to a certain extent before stopping, while ordinary vampires or werewolves would suffer critical hits with every strike from a holy silver weapon.

The Hespera family turned the Athens Sanctuary upside down with their complete supernatural talents and half-baked exorcism talents (or divine resistance talents?). In terms of combat power alone, they weren't strong enough to overwhelm others, since the holy equipment they could obtain in this place was quite limited. The little bit they smuggled in from outside through secret channels was only enough to arm half their forces, and they could only resist the power of holy weapons for a few hours each day. But the key was that the other supernatural beings in the Sanctuary had never seen anything like this! Two vampires were locked in a fierce struggle when suddenly one pulled out a cross from his bosom and smeared it on the other's face, shouting, "Jesus grant me strength!" Which vampire with a normal worldview could stand that? The vampire families that were overthrown at the beginning basically died from slow reaction times...

Of course, another reason for Hespera's great momentum was the lingering influence of Vivian helping from the sidelines: the supernatural beings had all heard rumors that the "Countess of the Crimson Moon" was a special vampire who could completely resist holy weapons, but her inability to turn descendants meant that this enviable power couldn't be inherited. Now, Hespera, sent by Vivian, had created a group of bizarre vampires who could spray holy water on people's faces. They all believed that Vivian had broken through the limitations and that they were fighting the direct descendants of the Countess, and they lost three points of courage before even fighting. Hespera's blitzkrieg thus advanced triumphantly.

Later, by the time others had recovered from this worldview-shattering sudden attack, no one in the city except the Lucas family and the Besemos family could deal with this group of desperate outlaws led by a brat. And the Hespera family was also very smart: at the last moment, they unexpectedly made peace with the Lucas family and expressed peaceful intentions to the other supernatural families in the Sanctuary. They claimed that this was just a revenge action by the exiled against their old employers and had nothing to do with other races. And those members under Hespera who had been expelled by the Lucas family took this opportunity to publicly state that they would not pursue grudges against their old employers, and the matter ended there.

From the beginning of the surprise attack, Hespera had not encroached on any of the Lucas family's power. She had already considered the aftermath. She compressed all her actions within three days to prevent the Lucas family from reacting and causing unavoidable conflicts – with conflicts, it would be difficult to negotiate peace later. After everything had temporarily settled down, she stood up and announced that she wanted to establish a new family that would coexist peacefully with others. The then-patriarch of the Lucas family analyzed the situation and found that if he were to fight these newborn crazy vampires, even if he won, he would lose two-thirds of his population. At that time, the city would directly fall into the hands of Besemos. It would be better to accept and support Hespera's new family. Anyway, they had not suffered any losses in the incident, and the demise of other small families had indirectly consolidated the Lucas family's position. Although their dominance in the vampire forces had become a division of territory with Hespera, but... circumstances forced them, and there was no other way.

The Hespera family was thus established after a storm.

After that, how many superb skills or conspiracies this scaled-down version of Vivian used to develop her power, and how she went from being half-dependent on the Lucas family to becoming a completely independent local power, need not be detailed. Anyway, people understood one thing: brats are fierce and must be guarded against, otherwise, you will be unable to defend against them sooner or later.

By the way, they understood another thing: cannon fodder mostly die from slow reactions.

Hespera and the Lucas family had been allies for many years, but the alliance between supernatural beings was basically just that. That is, they would fight together after encountering demon hunters, and there was not much personal interaction in normal times. So, when the leaders of the two sides met at this time, there was not much hypocritical small talk. Hespera mentioned her history of making a fortune in the past to slightly annoy the new patriarch in front of her, and then nodded contentedly: "Please forgive me for the poor hospitality. Lord Vivian just arrived yesterday, and we held a welcome party. There are more people lying in the reception room than here – those who are prone to fighting after getting drunk have been locked up in there to sober up."

At this time, Vivian, who had finished washing and dressing up, finally arrived late. She greeted Hao Ren, who was watching the excitement at the staircase, and walked downstairs with the others. The new patriarch of the Lucas family saw Vivian, whom he had not seen for a century or two, at a glance, and immediately stood up to greet her: "Countess Vivian, long time no see. I am very happy to see that you are still healthy. Jean Lucas, the new patriarch of the family, has come to..."

"Can you not use this tone of speaking to an old lady?" Vivian was indeed not used to the other party's rigid and formulaic tone. She frowned and replied before even sitting down, and then began to mutter, "I haven't been here for a century or two... but there's been no change at all. Still lifeless, not thinking about progress, just knowing how to fuss over trivial matters in this place."

Hao Ren clicked his tongue secretly: it was okay if Vivian didn't speak, but once she spoke, she really had the air of teaching a younger generation. She was obviously doing it on purpose – this girl usually didn't speak like this at all.

But the person across the table obviously liked this. He nodded very seriously, "Your Excellency's instructions are very reasonable."

Vivian cleared her throat and was about to mention the matter about the ruins, but the glamorous female vampire sitting next to Jean (i.e., the new patriarch of the Lucas family) suddenly looked at Vivian's clothes in surprise and said, "Senior, I designed this dress..."

Hao Ren was stunned and turned to look at Vivian: the latter was wearing the new clothes that Hao Ren had bought her last month, the black robe that was said to be specially designed with vampires as the theme. This was Vivian's best clothes, and she had specially changed into it for her trip. Hespera glared at the glamorous woman, "Andrea, don't use this opportunity to build a relationship with Lord Vivian!"

"I'm telling the truth," the beautiful woman called Andrea also looked incredible, but her voice was very certain, "This dress is still a limited edition. If it's the real thing, you can look inside the cuff. There's my name there, written in Latin – that's my autograph..."

Vivian opened her clothes and took a look, muttering to herself, "What a coincidence... but the writing is really ugly."

Andrea was very embarrassed: "...silk fabric is not easy to write on."

Hao Ren suddenly remembered when Hespera introduced to him yesterday the situation of the supernatural beings in the Sanctuary supporting human forces outside. It was said that the Lucas family did have two clothing factories in the economic lifeline of the human world – but obviously Hespera's statement was not very accurate, they were taking the high-end route.

This female vampire named Andrea also works as a fashion designer in her spare time...

Hao Ren immediately felt that the atmosphere on the scene had become much more harmonious. Although Hespera seemed to be gnashing her teeth about this, the upcoming negotiations seemed to be much easier.

"Andrea, we can talk about the clothes later when we have time," Jean Lucas looked at his subordinate very seriously, and turned to look at Vivian, "I wonder what important business brings you to Athens so suddenly?"

Vivian cut to the chase: "I want to go to that newly discovered ruins, the one next to the Parthenon."

(Annual votes, annual votes... I just want to be the first in the category...)