"Gulp, gulp..."
The first time drinking living human blood brought a somewhat peculiar sensation.
This peculiarity wasn't because his blood had any special qualities, but rather the feeling of human skin touching lips, and the softness when teeth sank in felt somewhat like scratching glass with fingernails - slightly rough.
The missionary whose neck Norton had bitten tried to twist and struggle, but Norton's arms wrapped around his limbs and body like steel hoops, leaving him completely immobilized.
The missionary whom the Church had trained for over twenty years became like a helpless chick in Norton's hands. Within seconds, as blood drained away, he lost the ability to move, then quickly lost all vitality.
From beginning to end, he didn't make a single sound.
Yet this struggling motion from the missionary proved that being bitten by a vampire wasn't like how some modern movies portrayed it - where victims would sink into the most wonderful environment to embrace death.
Nor did Norton sense any memory fragments. This was different from the vampire progenitor in "Underworld" he'd seen in his previous life, who could gain memories through drinking blood. Could it be that even such a simple ability was beyond Norton's reach?
That seemed rather pathetic!
When Norton could no longer suck out any blood, he finally released the pure-white-robed missionary from his embrace.The blood at the corner of his mouth didn't require licking with his tongue - his skin could autonomously absorb the blood, reducing necessary cleaning.
Quite miraculous. Even now, Norton didn't understand the principle behind this, or what ability it represented.
The taste of blood was rather delightful to him. Werewolf blood had a stimulating sweetness, while the missionary's blood was more like aged red wine, carrying an ancient, preserved quality.
However, the taste of flesh remained unappealing, still like chewing wax.
Logically, if dead people's blood could be absorbed, then dead people's flesh should also be edible. After all, Jonah was sealed away and couldn't interfere anymore.
But it didn't have any flavor as Norton had imagined.
The blood entering his stomach didn't bring any sudden sense of power enhancement, nor the burning sensation he'd experienced when consuming the two Holy Knights. This left Norton somewhat disappointed.
It seemed that Church personnel touched by God's radiance weren't different from ordinary creatures in terms of blood quality. In fact, because they were touched by God's holiness, the blood tasted even worse, with a somewhat dated feeling.
It was essentially expired food.
Except for when he had experimented with not eating and experienced blood deficiency, Norton had never lacked for food. He had consumed plenty of blood from both animals and werewolves.
He had long since discovered that his growth progress didn't depend on the quantity of blood consumed, but rather on the passage of time.
It resembled traditional vampires - not growing rapidly by consuming large amounts of blood, but instead growing stronger with age.
Perhaps only when Little Norton became Old Norton could he stand proudly at the Church's entrance and shout: 'Who~~ else~~ is there?'
Currently, only one type of blood could accelerate his evolution - that of the Holy Knights.
"How did the Church create these things?" Norton found this utterly perplexing.
A fucking Church actually managed to create something that could accelerate vampire evolution? Wasn't this supplying the enemy?
Or were these Holy Knights created using the flesh and blood of old vampires raised by the Church?
Norton couldn't figure it out, so he stopped pondering. Instead, he lifted the now-limp missionary's corpse and, still maintaining his vertical wall-walking posture, quickly returned to his clock tower.
Fortunately, the heavy rain had just stopped, leaving excessive water accumulation on the ground. The continuing cold wind made people's heads ache, which kept most people indoors. Otherwise, finding an opportunity to attack this missionary would have required considerable time.
Using his keen senses, Norton carefully avoided all lines of sight and pedestrians, dragging the missionary's corpse into the clock tower where he resided.
In his previous life, zombies would infect people after drinking their blood, and certain vampire-themed works had similar settings. So for safety, and also to check if he possessed this ability, Norton didn't immediately discard the missionary's corpse outside the city walls.
Although it was highly unlikely he had this ability, it was better to be cautious.
Of course, even if he wanted to discard it, now wasn't the appropriate time. He could drag the corpse back to the nearby clock tower using deserted alleys, but he couldn't possibly haul this corpse outside the city walls to discard it in broad daylight.
"Thud!"
Norton threw the corpse onto the attic floor, the resulting noise causing the bat family in the attic to emit chirping sounds.
"I'm back!" Norton waved his hand, and the bats hanging upside down from the attic ceiling chirped twice in welcome.
The members of his big family kept increasing. There were already ten bats now, and they had even engaged in close-relative breeding, with several currently pregnant and about to give birth.
They reproduced far too quickly - even Norton felt somewhat alarmed!
Every newborn would hang from Norton's chest to show affection. If they kept reproducing like this, how many bats would end up hanging from him?
"Sigh, I'm practically becoming the patriarch!" Norton sighed deeply as he sat on the attic floor, looking up at the bat family hanging from the ceiling, memories flashing through his mind.
It had been over eight years since his first meeting with his first bat, "Coal Ball," not counting the lifespan it had already lived before meeting Norton.
Vampire bats lived at most around a dozen years, yet Coal Ball showed no signs of aging.
Perhaps because they were nocturnal and never exposed to sunlight, their lifespan had effectively increased, similar to the Church members who covered their bodies.
But no matter how much it increased, it could never match the immortal Norton's lifespan.
So, was there any possibility of extending its lifespan further?
If Norton could gain enhancement by consuming Holy Knights, then surely letting bats nibble on Norton would cause mutations too, right?
Otherwise, there was no reason why those monsters and werewolves in the wilderness would chase after him like dogs chasing shit.
"That makes sense!" Norton felt his reasoning was quite sound.
But he couldn't experiment on other people or wild animals. Based on the reactions of werewolves after attacking him, consuming his flesh didn't allow Norton to control them.
If he experimented with missionaries or other animals and succeeded, these test subjects would undoubtedly cause trouble for Norton immediately, even viewing him as advanced evolution material.
Although Norton believed he could defeat them even in such scenarios, he didn't want to take this risk.
Because mutation was uncontrollable - nobody knew what kind of thing might be created.
After much consideration, Norton felt he could only risk using the bats.