Cultivation knows no time, and neither do vampires.
This was the second time in twenty years since crossing over that Norton found himself leaving his homeland behind.
Norton carried his wooden coffin through the forest, deliberately choosing remote paths and high elevations.
According to his reasoning, he should either hide his sleeping place underwater or conceal it on cliff faces.
Physical attacks couldn't truly harm him, so even falling injuries would heal in the blink of an eye.
Without rivers or seas available, he believed hiding on steep cliffs would be safest.
When church members came searching, he could simply leap off the cliff to escape.
Though he might be smashed beyond human recognition, it remained a reliable evasion method.
However, the strange bird he encountered and the terrifying creature that killed it kept him sufficiently wary of this world's wilderness.
If land monsters grew so enormous, he couldn't imagine how horrifying aquatic creatures in lakes and rivers might be.While he didn't need to breathe, humanity's innate fear of deep water made Norton reluctant to establish his home in lakes or rivers.
On land, his enhanced vision, hearing, and smell could aid in both combat and escape—far superior to the obscured visibility, muffled sounds, and absent scents underwater.
Even as a vampire, humanoid creatures' natural domain remained the land, not water.
Thus Norton decided cliff dwellings suited him best. He could carve a cave into the cliff face—if flightless enemies approached, he'd jump; if flying monsters came, he'd retreat into his cave.
Two perfect solutions, practically foolproof!
The dense forest stretched endlessly, and Norton had no idea of his exact location.
Wild grasses and lakes teemed with beasts, but whether wolves, tigers, leopards, bears, or boars, they all seemed to sense something about him, scattering upon sight without any aggressive intent.
Yet Norton remained vigilant, for this world contained not just ordinary predators but various monsters.
Though a vampire, a newborn vampire amounted to nothing—his strength couldn't even match a bull's!
This precisely defined his current struggle for survival in the margins.
Moving toward more remote areas brought unimaginable dangers, while staying near cities meant facing the church.
After traveling through mountain forests for several days and nights, he finally climbed to the peak of a high mountain featuring cliffs.
Under a moonlit sky sparse with stars, darkness enveloped everything, though faint starlight on the mountaintop allowed vague outlines of the surroundings.
For Norton, light made no difference—he was darkness's favored child.
"Squeak squeak squeak..." Bat cries echoed at high altitude as the already fed bat returned to Norton's body, its hook-like claws gripping the withered skin folds on his back before hanging upside down from him.
"Thud!" Norton placed his wooden coffin on the ground, the heavy lid meeting earth with a dull sound.
Norton straightened up and turned full circle.
He stood at the highest peak, the mountain half sheer cliffs, half gentle slopes.
The cliffs stood steep though not exceptionally high, perhaps only one or two hundred meters.
Looking forward revealed dark, downward-sloping dense forests; looking back showed endless starry skies and darker mountain slopes in the distance.
This was already the highest mountain in the area.
From this elevation, he deduced they must be in plain territory.
"Playing Chopin for you..."
Leaning against the coffin lid while gazing at the star-filled sky, Norton felt wonderfully content, even humming a tune.
However, his shriveled vocal cords produced raspy sounds less human and more like some terrifying creature's roar.
"From here I can actually see the distant city! This should keep me from getting lost."
Norton's gaze followed the cliff direction—from this height, the view stretched endlessly, and tonight's cloudless sky let him clearly see distant pinpoints of light outlining urban shapes.
If not for his currently horrifying appearance, living here might actually feel transcendent and immortal.
----
Norton settled on the mountaintop.
This became his most satisfactory residence in recent times.
Beautiful scenery, refreshing cool breezes—when he loosely cupped his hand in the air as gentle winds passed through, it felt like holding soft snow.
Even his Flights of Fancy could ride these breezes, experimenting with different launch modes.
Yet living in a coffin here felt rather crude.
Even digging a cave into the cliff face to embed the coffin lacked dignity, somewhat resembling certain ethnic burial customs.
Norton's inherent Chinese heritage reemerged within a day.
Grand construction ambitions grew increasingly intense in his mind.
Finally, after spending three days grinding stone into a stone axe, Norton began his construction project!
Felling trees, cutting planks—as days and nights alternated, a house's framework slowly took shape on the mountaintop.
For the first time in twenty years, Norton experienced the joy of freedom on that mountain. Forget smartphones—even this physical labor of building brought him incredible happiness.
Twenty years of confined church life had become his lifelong nightmare.
And now, the church continued becoming nightmares for even more people.
Holy Lord City.
The weekly Mass ceremony commenced again, fresh flowers scattered across filthy streets to emphasize God's purity.
Newly promoted missionaries followed at the procession's end, conducting the same Mass rituals Norton once performed.
But today's Mass was interrupted midway.
"Swish, swish, swish..."
Unusually uniform footsteps somehow overwhelmed the congregation's chanting during Mass.
The sound of steel-armored church knights marching in synchronized steps seemed to approach Holy Lord City's main avenue, making Father Andrew, who led the Mass, stop his chanting. His hooded head lifted slightly toward the main avenue's end.
Golden knight formations flickered in and out of view through the city's flower rain.
Heavy footsteps grew clearer, so perfectly synchronized they seemed almost mechanical.
Golden armor gleamed under sunlight, radiating holy power.
As the sounds drew nearer, this five-hundred-strong golden knight contingent finally appeared before everyone.
"Swish, swish, swish..." Not just their footsteps, but even their armor friction sounded perfectly synchronized.
Their mechanical movements resembled modern AI-controlled robots—every leg lift, every step placement, not just identical in direction but exact in distance.
When their footsteps halted at Holy Lord City's main avenue center, steam-like exhaust sounds erupted simultaneously.
"Pfft!"
The breath force actually made people's ears ring.
Terrifying enough to suffocate.
Holy Lord City citizens witnessing this spectacle for the first time panicked, each immediately lowering heads in full prostration to show respect and submission.
Father Andrew, responsible for the Mass, suspended all actions before kneeling devoutly and excitedly on the spot, retrieving the cross from his chest and clasping it between palms while praying devotedly to God's mighty name.
Bishop Rosen, having received news inside Holy Lord Cathedral, hurried out toward the Holy Inquisition Tribunal now stationed on Holy Lord City's main avenue.
The Holy Inquisition Tribunal—the church's only force not belonging to the church itself, but serving as God's personal servants!
Even His Holiness the Pope merely possessed twenty-four-hour usage rights of the Holy Inquisition Tribunal!
The Holy Inquisition Tribunal's history traced back to the church's very founding. Since the church's establishment, the Tribunal had existed alongside it.
At its inception, the Holy Inquisition Tribunal operated outside church jurisdiction—from formation, it served as God's own force, judging world impurities!
But after millennia passed and countless papal generations' efforts, the Holy Inquisition Tribunal had essentially become the pope's private army.
After the Holy Knights species emerged, the Holy Inquisition Tribunal became the Papal States' greatest power and His Holiness's most impressive display.
Indeed, these five hundred Holy Inquisition Tribunal knights were all Holy Knights.