The era of darkness. When peace and quietness disappeared, the temptation of power, and wealth created violence, drowning the whole world into a puddle of blood. Where faith never existed. The only bloodshed could prove your loyalty. Corpses of innocence piled upon each other, spreading through everywhere the battlefield between the bloodthirsty lords. Their thirst for power was infinite. Therefore, those with the desire sought for the hidden influential part of the world that was only found in the fairy tales. At the result, blood was not spilled by blades only. Thousands of lives were ended by the unstoppable strength of the blood- monsters, or as known as vampires.

The vampire was a race living during the night with sunlight was their greatest weakness. Co-existing with the human, vampires had a figure of a normal human but with a pair of sharp fangs that could be extracted for disguise. Furthermore, they could be distinguished from other humans by their deep crimson eyes. Comparing their strength and speed, the vampire was completely overwhelming over those warriors with several training years of sword art.

The history of vampires had begun since the start of humankind without any severe conflict between them. Vampire required blood to survive, however, it was not necessary to be human blood. Animal blood was always their main meal. Although, a few unfortunate people accidentally trespassed their territory would become the special dinner for a lucky vampire clan somewhere. Being subtle about their own existence, vampire always tried to avoid meddling in any wars or conflicts in the human world. Ironically, they were forced to be involved in this fight, where they received nothing but great damage to their population.

Lord Han Yunkyu - the infamous brutal and bloodthirsty Eastern lord - with the help of a mysterious Western priest, he was able to discover the vampire’s world and their weaknesses. From there, he ordered his army to search and capture many vampires to serve for him, forming an invincible army under his control. In just a short amount of time, two-thirds of the whole land was conquered by his army. Yunkyu’s secrets of vampire manipulation were the top desire of other lords. But the priest who owned those secrets sworn his loyalty to Yunkyu only. Having such a powerful and unstoppable army made the possibilities to steal those secrets become zero.

The vampires in Yunkyu’s army were mostly kids and teenagers. Those youngsters were an easier target to capture than adult vampires. They were innocent and easy to influence after a whip but their strength was still overpowered from a normal human. However, they did not possess the immorality when they had not reached the age of an adult to become a fully grown vampire. As a result, Yunkyu always had to search for more vampire children to replace those who died in the battles.

Since the number of kidnapped vampires increased accordingly to the endless ambition of Yunkyu, the elders in Vampire Council had a closed meeting and organized a campaign to rescue the captured vampires in Yunkyu’s army. Even so, they refused to participate in the meaningless war of humankind. Under the agreement of the majority, a reconnaissance squad was formed from the most mighty pure-blooded vampires in all clans. Taking advantage of the weak night watch in the grand castle of the great cruel lord, the vampire squad encountered no difficulties to sneak in and rescue many young vampires locked in the dark dungeon. To avoid being discovered, the rescue occurred once a month. And each time, the squad tried to save as many as possible before the guards found them. The rescued children were later sent to a special medical camp inside the Vampire Council headquarter, where they would live for a period of time to recover from their trauma before they were sent back to their respective families.

The campaign went smoothly for a few first months. Lord Yunkyu realized the sudden drop in a number of his special army, he furiously ordered his arm to hunt down any vampire they found on their path, regardless of ages or genders. Learning from the past, the vampire elders created a forcefield protecting their territory, preventing the human to invade their peace. Whoever stepped into the forcefield would become delusional, forgetting about their surrounding and why they came in the beginning. Because of that, Yunkyu angrily watched his vampire army shrinking days by days. After that, he decided to increase the number of night guards, locking the children into deeper dungeon under meters of ground. In order to become the dominator of the world, he needed the power of vampires. He needed these kids and he would do anything to achieve his goals.

Yunkyu’s insanity was giving difficulties the vampire’s rescue team to do their task. On this mission, they took a long time to restrained the guards and reached the newly built dungeon inside the castle. Because of the weapon made of silver, which could kill an immortal creature like vampires, the night guards were harder to be taken down. The leader of the rescue team, as known as the head of the most mighty vampire clan, Jung Yonghyun led the whole team toward the cells. Having hundreds of years of surviving in this cruel world, he never backed down from any challenges, even when facing the deadly weapons. When they were about to open the cells, the alert horn echoed loudly along with the hasty footsteps from the reinforcement.

“Quick. Take all the kids out of here. We are running out of time.” Jonghyun said calmly. He urged his comrades to take the captures kids out of the castle by the Apparate spell, while himself guarding the dungeon entrance.

During that time, he accidentally found a wooden door at the end of the dungeon. Different from all the other cells where the bars and doors were made of silver to prevent the kids from escaping, this cell was completely made of wood, even the bars of the small window on the door was made of rusty iron. It looked like a normal cell for human What made him confused was the reason why there was such a cell in a dungeon that was filled with vampires. Curiously, Yonghyun let one of his comrades to replace his position and quickly approached the cell. Glancing inside, the cell was covered in darkness. With the help of the dim light from the torch in the corner of the cell and the superhuman vision of a vampire, Yonghyun could see a little figure of a girl sitting under the torch. The messy black hair hid the kid’s face. The skin was covered with mud and dried blood. The kid looked more blowzed than any kids that he had been rescued so far. Even her smell was different. Not the smell of his congener but it was surprisingly familiar to him. He frowned slightly. How can Yunkyu be this cruel to turn a child into vampire’s dinner?

Suddenly, his comrade warned him about the incoming guards, Yonghyun was about to turn away until a glimpse of the crimson color caught his attention. Hearing the noise outside, the girl in the cell raised her head, making her first contact with the compose leader. When eyes met each other, Yonghyun understood everything. Without any hesitation, he kicked down the door and approached the shaking little torso. Tenderly caressing the girl’s messy hair, he comforted the little girl, ignoring the warning from his comrade when the footsteps were getting really close.

“No need to be fear of me. You’re safe. I’m here to save you. Please, trust me.”

Gently and lovingly, Yonghyun smiled to the girl. Responding immediately, the torso stopped shaking. The small hand hesitated a little before taking the extending hand of the leader. He carefully embraced the kid and gestured his comrade to apparate together before the guards found them.

After that, they reappeared few kilometers away from the magnificent castle, where the rest of the rescue team was waiting along with the scared children. They patiently waited for their leader even though they would risk their own lives if they stayed any longer. When their patience was running short, their respected leader arrived with the last rescued child. However, before they could cheer for the successful task, all of them were taken back by the smell of the little presence in Yonghyun’s protective arms. One of them could not control his shock, raising his voice toward his leader.

“Yonghyun-nim, what are you doing? Why do you bring a human child along with you?”

The little kid was scared by the wrathful voice, snuggling closer to the muscle torso of Yonghyun. He softly caressed the girl’s back, calmly facing his confusing comrades.

“This child is special. You all will hear my explanation after we return to the camp safely. For now, we must go.”

The girl slowly raised her head, peeking at the creepy men. Catching the sight, the rescue team shivered after they saw the eyes of the child lingering under the messy black hair. No more complains, they hastily guided the children back to their territory.

“Finally, I have found you, Eunbi-ah.” Whispering quietly, Yonghyun tightened his embrace and followed the group ahead of him through the cold night.