Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Chapter 645: Manipulations

Merida’s nose flared but she turned to Caius.

"Do you know that by performing a Full submersion, which she should not have been able to do by the way, she ruined your life? She ripped you out of your reality and merged with one that isn’t your own. Doomed you to live and die by the rules of that world... rules she thought up arbitrary and most often made no real sense!"

"Arbitrary?" Samantha repeated with a little mirthless laugh, "I always thought things through."

"No, you didn’t. And you still don’t. As proven by what you have done with his life," Merida said to Samantha with a thumb gesture at Caius.

"I didn’t force him. I gave him a choice. He chose to help me," Samantha said.

"That’s true," Caius said, "I did agree to help."

Merida let out a breath.

"And you left nothing behind that will make you regret that decision? Family, aspirations?" She asked with a raised brow.

Caius pursed his lips and said nothing.

Merida puffed out a breath through her nose, seemingly satisfied that she had stumped him.

"Turning your back on an entire life, an entire reality is never quite so easy. Once the drive for adventure and the lust to indulge in fictional characters inevitably wear off..."

"If they are fictional characters, so am I," Caius said with a shrug, "I just happen to be aware of truths that surpass the realm of their— our world. Our reality.

Do I regret leaving my life behind in my old world? Yes. But not in a way that makes me want to return.

The truth is, no one in that world cared about me. And no one I cared about. I drifted aimlessly. The regret I feel is that I don’t feel regret. The regret I feel is that if Samantha hadn’t chosen to reply to that little rant I made..."

"Little?" Samantha laughed.

Caius smiled and continued.

"If she hadn’t, I’d have continued to drift, aimless. Trying to figure out what could possibly be next?

Novels were my life. I let myself into the worlds crafted by the authors, hoping to escape my reality. It just so happened that escaping my reality was actually possible.

So when Samantha offered me the chance, of course I took it. When she told me what it would cost and how it would end any possibility of returning, I was doubly excited. I regret that I was so ready, but I was still.

In this world, in the world Samantha has crafted, I have felt all that eluded me in my past reality. I’m grateful for that."

"You hear that," Samantha said proudly, taking a stance that made her tits jiggle. "He’s grateful."

"Of course, he is. I’ve seen what he’s been up to," Merida said with another sneer.

"Hmm," said Jared the horny Editor still shrouded in darkness.

"Fortunately, what you have enjoyed in that world has no bearing on this hearing.

You have interrupted the story structure and acquired an ability that was never once used in the original canon. The way this will change canon is unprecedented.

If the story structure is this much in flux, the entire story might as well be pruned from the Archive."

"Just go ahead," Samantha said with an annoyed wave of her hand.

Caius turned to her.

"What?" He asked, "Shouldn’t you be asking her not to do that?"

Samantha folded her arms beneath her breasts.

"Merida is stubborn. She’s the one who insisted that Caius should die and when I tried to offer alternatives, she moved to threats.

She wants me to grovel and beg."

"And you won’t?" Caius asked.

"I won’t. Because while it will stoke her ego, probably even get her off, she’ll still prune my story. She likes to exert her power wherever she can."

Merida smirked.

"That’s quite the assessment of me. But I’m glad you understand there’s no changing my mind. The hopelessness in your eyes is so sweet—"

"It was you," Caius said then.

Merida’s face turned to him.

"What?"

"You set Brogan Kraxia on me. You specifically, I mean."

"Do you have a point?" Merida asked.

"Samantha said that was your first meddling and that you now had your eyes on me," Caius said in a musing tone and then his eyes went a bit wider as though he was having an epiphany,

"How could I not have seen it? The attack on Athenodora, that was you as well.

She shouldn’t be dying at this point of the story but you did something..."

"She used an idea I came up with at some point but discarded. An idea for an even more aggressive faction of Vampire hunters besides the Von Helsings," Samantha said with a sigh, "I didn’t really include them in the story since I felt the Von Helsings were more than enough for a story not actually focused on hunting vampires."

"But it was still in the story somewhere..." Caius said.

"Yeah, a single line that I forgot to remove;

’Ferocious hunters who could not be deterred. Wielding the magic of Hell itself.’

Any reader who read the sentence would think it referred to the Von Helsings..."

"Can’t blame us. Hell— Helsings," Caius said with a little smile.

"Yeah, it’s why I let the line remain," Samantha said with a shrug.

"And with that one line, and knowing what you actually meant, the Editors— Merida could amend the plot and have them actually exist and go after Athenodora," Caius said, his eyes now back on Merida.

"Still waiting for that point," Merida said with an exasperated sigh.

"You did that knowing Samantha never wrote a fix for the methods of that Hunting Faction. So nothing Athenodora or anyone else tried would cure her. Not permanently anyway. And then, you manipulated the story even further so that the clues to the Blood of Strigoi appeared earlier and to Athenodora no less.

You manipulated everything including the idea that her blood, my blood, could help her live long enough even if she couldn’t be cured. Manipulated her to believe only the Blood of Strigoi could truly cure her.

You must have gotten the idea because of that one time I mentioned the Blood to Anton Orlock. It supported your suspicions that I knew more about the story than I should have but also let you know that I likely had my eye on the Blood."

Merida was smiling but her jaw was tense. Caius noticed and continued.

"You of course knew of the rush for the Blood in the original canon. You knew or hoped that I would worry about that rush. Worry that Aurelius might learn of the Blood and start his hunt for it. The one person beside me who could get to the Blood. After all, the entire arc was written so he’d succeed.

Thanks to what you did to Athenodora, I was away from the Capital and couldn’t turn Aurelius away from the hunt for the Blood if he ever did set his mind on it. My only option would be to go after the Blood. With Athenodora with me and Philip tagging along."

"That’s a lot of manipulation," Samantha said in the tone of someone who was disbelieving.

Caius kept his eyes on Merida as he said,

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"And every step of the way, you were oh so predictable," Merida said with a wide smile.

"But why go through all that trouble?" Caius asked.

"Excuse me?" Merida said and she looked slightly stumped.

Caius smiled and shrugged.

"You had me already. The fact that I knew of the Blood without ever coming into contact with the clues wasn’t enough for you to be sure I knew more than I should?

Oh silly me, how could that have been enough when the fact that I mentioned the Blood way ahead of schedule didn’t do it?

Still, what about when we arrived at Viktor’s pocket Dimension? The first trial was pretty damning;

The way I could tell the other two about the trial seemingly without ever once visiting the dimension before. The way I knew of the second and probably only real way to pass the trial by appeasing the dead. That should have been enough.

If not, then what about the second trial? And the Third?"

"What are you getting at?" Merida asked.

"I’m saying you had ample opportunity to step in and stop me. Hell, you didn’t even have to study me all that much. I haven’t been subtle about changing the canon. It’s hard to be subtle when things going the way they should will lead to sure death."

"We choose when to act at our own discretion. Besides, we needed to know how exactly you were doing it. Was Samantha feeding you information or had she done something far more... drastic?" Merida asked.

"The Caius she wrote would never do what I have done. Even if Samantha told him what would happen to him, he wouldn’t change a thing. Because to change it would be to become a true Vampire. And he’d never. He was stubborn that way.

And it wouldn’t have taken so long for you to realize this.

Be honest," Caius said.

"Honest about what?" Merida asked.

"Honest that you waited so long to act because you liked what you saw."