"I mean no harm, I just want to point out that we have a common enemy!" Du Guangyuan said, slumping back into his chair: "You can make use of me to deal with him."

Mei Simiao pulled Pei Yan back to his seat, looked at him and said grumpily, "Alright, continue with what happened after you met him."

Hearing this, Du Guangyuan looked up at the ceiling, shook his head, and sighed, "In fact, when I first met Vlad, I really admired him. He was a teacher skilled in guidance, patiently teaching me to use my powers, taking me abroad to tour all sorts of superpower experts, pouring his heart and soul into nurturing me, investing a lot of money, energy, and time. For a full three years, he trained me, and during those three years, I went from initially being cautious of him to opening my heart and truly respecting him from the bottom of my heart. But just when I considered him a guiding light in my life, he used harsh reality to tell me that there is no love without reason in this world, and that there is no such thing as a free lunch."

"That day was the first day after returning to Huaxia from our journey abroad. Completely oblivious to what was about to happen, I was enthusiastically inviting him to my home as a guest. My parents, my brothers and sisters, and all my family attended the banquet held to welcome me, but." At this point, Du Guangyuan lowered his head, looked at Pei Yan and said grimly, "But it was at this banquet that he killed all my direct blood relatives, all seventeen members of my family, my grandfather, parents, my two brothers, a sister, their spouses, and children—all dead!"

Hearing this, Mei Simiao and Pei Yan exchanged glances and turned to Du Guangyuan in confusion, "Why did he do that? Did you offend him?"

Du Guangyuan let out a cold laugh, "Offend? How could we dare! It was for a sacrifice!"

"A sacrifice!"

"Exactly, a sacrifice. The reason he sought me out was to use me as a test subject, and the final step of completing this test subject was to sacrifice my direct blood relatives!"

At this, Du Guangyuan appeared to be lost in a painful memory, his face contorting, his lips twitching incessantly, as if trying to sneer yet consumed by agony, evoking a chill in those who saw him. Seeing that he hadn't spoken for a while, Pei Yan continued to probe, "What kind of experiment did he want to conduct with you?"

"Bloodline fusion, he wanted to see if their family's bloodline could control an esper from a cornerstone dimension, and what changes would occur after the two were fused. Later, I learned that I was his seventh test subject. I don't know whether it was luck or misfortune, but I survived. Got a cigarette?"

Du Guangyuan lifted his hand to request, and as Pei Yan signaled the guard to give him a lit cigarette, he whispered to Mei Simiao's ear, "Bals!"

At the end of Du Guangyuan's story, the first name that popped into Pei Yan's mind was indeed this one. The bizarre fighting style and similar regenerative skills, along with Bals's words, suggested Du Guangyuan wasn't lying.

After Du Guangyuan finished the cigarette completely, he slowly began to speak again, "That feeling stays with me till this day. Watching my family die one by one in front of me, while I was powerless, and as my body also fell into a pool of blood, I was filled with anger and unwillingness, yet I could do nothing but watch my blood flow from my limbs, merging with my family's blood. As I began to lose too much blood, my body started to grow cold and tremble involuntarily, while all that time, Vlad just sat silently in the chair, watching me. I wanted to have the courage to curse him out! But I couldn't open my mouth, consciousness slowly slipping away, and I began to fear—fear death!"

"When I regained consciousness, I started to feel warmth spreading through my body. I opened my eyes with difficulty to see the blood my family and I had lost being completely absorbed by Vlad, and then numerous blood threads surged out from his body, slowly injecting into mine."

Du Guangyuan paused again, sighed heavily, "You'll never understand this feeling. You clearly know that the power entering your body doesn't belong to you. You can keenly feel your body, your will, gradually being shackled, controlled by another—the person who had slaughtered your family. Yet, you cannot resist the power, hungering for it, wanting to let it occupy every part of you!"

As he spoke, Du Guangyuan raised his left hand and took out the glass shard he had hidden in his sleeve. He gently sliced the skin of his right hand, allowing the blood to flow, then leaned in to inhale it greedily, as though it were some narcotic.

Faced with such an eerie scene, neither Mei Simiao nor Pei Yan stepped in to stop him. After Du Guangyuan had licked the blood clean, the expression of ecstasy on his face abruptly ceased, replaced by one of disgust as he looked at his wound, followed by a low, beast-like growl, "He succeeded. My body is now filled with his bloodline. I possess a power that ordinary espers can't match, but I've lost my freedom and my will! I hate him! Yet I can't hate him! As soon as the thought arises, my blood starts boiling as though it were being cooked! That feeling is worse than death! I must respect him! It's something etched into my blood! The shackles of blood, an absolute dominance of higher over lower, I'm like his dog, regardless of what he did to me! I must be loyal to him! Hatred and loyalty keep tearing me apart, can you understand this feeling! Do you understand!"

Watching Du Guangyuan suddenly descend into madness, it took two guards to forcefully restrain him back into his seat. At that moment, Pei Yan suddenly felt a bit of sympathy for him. If the same thing happened to him, he would go insane too.

"Du Guangyuan, calm down! You've endured for so many years, there's no need to grandstand for sympathy in front of us, tell us how you joined the God's Desire, what's the connection between Vlad and God's Desire? Who exactly is that woman?" Mei Simiao suddenly said coldly and sarcastically.

Upon hearing this, Du Guangyuan's emotions calmed instead, shaking off the guards pressing down on him, he slumped back into his chair with a bitter smile, "Indeed, I have endured it for so many years." Du Guangyuan raised an eyebrow, "God's Desire? It was after Vlad had complete control over me that he secretly had me join. When I entered the organization, I didn't reveal my ability to use Blood Race powers, only displayed my identity as an esper, as per Vlad's wishes. What relationship do they have? I'm not quite sure. Vlad returned to the magic dimension after that, and we rarely got in touch. I think they might be collaborators, but there are also gaps between them, otherwise, he wouldn't have embedded me in it as a pawn to relay messages secretly."