To His Hell and Back-Chapter 130: Sacrifices Are Necessary?

Cassius dragged Morpheus down to the lowest level of the winding staircase, descending into the darkness below in a blur of movement. He had slammed Morpheus to the ground, his silver blade drawn and pressed cold against Morpheus’s throat. Despite that as he fell, she could see the smile over Morpheus’s lips which sent her into a shiver.

Silence ensued immediately after the two body fell forward in front of her, filling the basement with nothing but a grim sound of nothingness.

In a second that felt like hour, it was as though the world had fallen into a dead quietness. She could hear no footsteps, no sound of struggle, nothing at all which is all the more weird as they had fallen into the basement to fight each other to death.

She stood frozen at the top of the stairs, the silence thickening by second which made her chest to tighten with dread.

She waited. One second, then two before she rushed downstairs, despite the dread surrounding what’s down there.

Just as she moved closer to the bottom of the basement, the hallway was brought to life. The candles lining the stone walls flared one by one. On both her right and left side, all the candles had flickered and lit up not by touch, but as if rather some unseen force that felt like magic.

The flames bloomed in perfect rhythm, flickering one by one until it had reached where Cassius stood. The golden light glowed above him as he looked in front where Morpheus was standing, his silver hair falling off from his shoulders as some had been cut by Cassius’s blade.

Arabella’s breaths came out relieved when she saw that Cassius wasn’t wounded but it was short lived as Cassius seemed to have frowned then, touching his chest where it seems something had pricked him.

Morpheus, on the other hand, was smiling wide as he pulled out a tube with a thin needle attached to its bottom. Inside that tube was an odd color of purple liquid. One which seemed like a beautiful mixture but she could sense something grim radiating from it, like... a deadly poison.

"You moved too quickly," Morpheus sighed as he looked at his tube, "Do you wonder what this is?"

Cassius didn’t utter a word, his expression was unreadable as he touched his chest where that little thing had pricked him.

Morpheus took his expression as a realization that death was incoming and perhaps the little crown prince had finally felt the fear of death dawning over him.

"It’s a syringe," said Morpheus, introducing his item kindly like a teacher giving his pupils a lesson. "You see a syringe is something that humans have just made. A breakthrough to what they call medicines. They are used to inject into a human’s bloodstream but also vampires. Though your kinds indeed heal quickly from such a small prick your skin isn’t exactly tough enough to break this needle, allowing for a moment for your body to be injected by something. Something, yeas, something like a potion that could perhaps turn you into one of my creation."

"By creations you mean Remnants," Cassius spell out, narrowing his eyes as he turned to look at the purple liquid inside the syringe. "How many human lives have you sacrificed for it?"

"Oh I did forgot about how vampires could smell the emotions inside a human blood," hummed morpheus as he crossed his arms and twirled the syringe around his finger, looking at ease despite going against Cassius. "Just a few not too many."

"I can smell hundred different human blood inside that small tube, and that number isn’t too much for you?" Cassius pointed while Morpheus who was asked seemed to be furrowing his eyebrows out of annoyance that one of his pupil had asked such a foolish question that didn’t deserve to be responded.

"One or a hundred doesn’t matter. Their deaths are simply a necessity for the betterment of their own futures and most of them had agreed to this amount of sacrifices to completely rid your kind for good from Versailles forever. As you know it takes a life to save another life and that is how war is, a mere life or two sacrificed is much better than allowing vampires to take hold of our life forever," Morpheus uttered his ideology which Cassius took in with a scoff underneath his breath.

Meanwhile Arabella who had stood in the staircase so she wouldn’t be a burden to the fight heard the entire conversation and shuddered.

What was Morpheus saying?

That a hundred lives killed for one potion is necessary?

What was scarier? His tone that sounded so righteous or the fact that he seemed to believe that vampires’ actions were worse than all his ill doings?

"Uh huh," Cassius nodded, "You mean to say that under the rule of vampires you people would suffer."

"Isn’t that what had been happening in Versailles ever since you filthy creature took over this land? You have turned it into worse than a bloody nightmare, you caused death to many innocent humans—"

"—Including you," Cassius cut off which made Morpheus to frown. Clearly the man has always been respected thus why he despise having someone else not bowing down before him. Cassius could tell this at a glance as Morpheus and his own father has the ironically bad habit of tilting their chin upward when they talk to others, believing they are "righteous" than others.

At least he has always been aware of a monster he was, unlike Morpheus who seemed to be thinking he is the God of humans who would save them by sacrificing the said people he promised to protect.

"And are you saying you are not entirely blameless, little crown prince?" Morpheus chuckled and whenever he mentioned "little crown prince" his tone turned into a sweet mockery as if teaching a child their bad behavior. Morpheus pointed his finger toward Arabella and he let out a small laugh, "Isn’t she a victim of your own doing as well? You call her a birdie, ah a pet, and could you say it loudly with your heart that she isn’t innocent and she does deserve being a human pet slave to all those vampires in the castle? I do know a lot about what happens to those humans who you have turned into slaves in the castle. Most of them had came out dead, don’t they?"

Arabella furrowed her brows. To the average listener, Morpheus’ words might not sound entirely wrong and that was precisely the problem. There was a twisted logic in his argument, a partial truth that made his beliefs dangerously persuasive. Yes, he was "right" in some ways, but his actions were no different from the very creatures he condemned. Killing humans made him no better than the vampires he claimed to despise. But not everyone could see through his lies.

If someone unstable or desperate enough had heard him, they might have believed him, embraced his twisted reasoning despite the horrors. And what about the humans who had lost their loved ones to vampires? Those who carried deep hatred and grief, how easily might they fall for such rhetoric, just to feel justified in their pain?

If they had listened to what Morpheus had said now, they would believe his words in a heartbeat, worse they would even start to worship his action and perhaps even help him in killing more humans for that wretched potion.

She suddenly had a terrible premonition that this has already took place considering what had took place in Gordos Town.