The King of Vampires (Isekai)

The world had changed, but the blood never forgets.

It had been almost a century since the ashes of the Second World War settled into the soil of Europe, yet the echoes of those horrors still whispered through the veins of the living. The descendants walked among skyscrapers, hid behind business empires, political movements, elite universities, and global corporations — unaware of the deep web of fate connecting them to a single, ancient figure.

Arthur.

The man who once stalked plague-ridden streets during the Black Death, who watched entire civilizations rise and fall, who had carried helpless orphans like Selena and Daniel from the ruins of their infected homes… now stood at the apex of power in a world blind to its own history.

From his skyscraper in Manhattan — a structure of glass, steel, and shadows towering above the glowing city — Arthur gazed at the data scrolling across holographic screens. Stocks, global conflicts, corporate acquisitions, and names… names connected by an invisible thread to the past.

Selena approached, her eyes carrying centuries of wisdom and the beauty of immortality untouched by time.

"They're everywhere now," she said, tapping on a digital map that displayed thousands of red dots scattered across continents. "Descendants of the bloodlines you saved… some don't even know the truth of their origins. But they feel it. A bond. A loyalty etched into their DNA."

Arthur's golden eyes narrowed, ancient and calculating. "And those who remember?"

"Waiting," Selena replied. "Hidden. Watching. Some have kept the oath through generations, from Warsaw to Wall Street."

Daniel entered, broad-shouldered and imposing, a living testament to Arthur's legacy. His voice carried the weight of centuries. "There's a threat, Father. New forces are rising. They target the bloodlines. They want to break what we've built."

Arthur's smile was razor-sharp, the faintest glimmer of his true, monstrous nature. "They'll try. They always try."

Outside, the city pulsed with life — unaware that in the shadows, empires older than any nation-state plotted, protected, and occasionally destroyed. The world believed in technology, politics, stock markets… but Arthur knew the truth. Power was older than silicon chips and democratic elections. Power was blood, history, and the invisible bonds forged through suffering and survival.

Selena gestured toward a file. "This one's different. His great-grandparents escaped the camps because of us. His family line was preserved under our protection. He now controls significant AI infrastructure… and he's unaware of his role."

Arthur leaned in, studying the man's face on the screen. Young. Brilliant. Unaware of the ancient currents pulling at his destiny.

"We awaken him," Arthur declared. "He joins us — or vanishes. There is no space for hesitation. The new world is more dangerous than ever, and our enemies evolve."

Daniel's fists clenched. "And those enemies? Some are within. I feel it. The descendants… not all remain pure in their loyalty."

Arthur's expression darkened. His voice, a whisper of storms and forgotten wars. "Their hearts are bound to mine. The Vow ensures it. The moment treachery blooms in their minds… they turn to ash."

Selena's smile was cold, proud. "None can betray you. None can defy the blood."

Arthur stepped toward the vast window, Manhattan sprawling beneath him, the towers glittering like false stars. "Let the world worship its fleeting kings and crumbling democracies. We… are eternity."

In hidden enclaves across continents — secret societies, elite families, tech tycoons, politicians, philanthropists — the descendants thrived, unaware of their deeper purpose. Some whispered myths of an immortal protector, a savior lurking beyond time. Others dismissed the old tales as fantasy.

But Arthur was no myth.

He was the architect of survival, the warden of bloodlines, the shadow behind every global shift. And as new threats emerged — corrupt corporations, extremist factions, AI entities spiraling beyond human control — he would, once more, guide his descendants through the storm.

His voice echoed in the room, heavy with prophecy. "The future belongs to those bound by history. And history is mine."

The night deepened. The game resumed.

And the blood… never forgets.

Time… For me, time is not a straight line. It is a winding river, full of curves, deaths, rebirths and forgetting. Humans call it past, present and future. I call it a veil – because time, like a veil of fine fabric, hides the truth from ignorant eyes, but never erases what lies behind.

I have seen kingdoms rise in stone and gold and crumble into dust and bones. I have seen men and women wage war, love, betray, pray, and forget… They always forget. But we – those marked by suffering, those saved from extinction – we do not forget.

The first to understand this was Daniel, the boy I met amid the stench of death of the Black Death. His eyes – the eyes of someone who had seen his mother dead, the flesh rotting away from his family, the world falling apart – carried a glow that would never fade.

Selena, her sister, as fragile as she was beautiful, held her small, dirty straw doll, even as her mother's feverish body lay lifeless on the rotting floorboards. They survived when no one else did. Some would call it a miracle. I call it a choice.

That's where it all began.

They both carried my surname, my invisible shield, and the sacred curse I call the veil. A bond that does not break in death, that spans generations like a pact engraved on flesh and soul.

Throughout the centuries, I slept—sometimes for years, sometimes for decades. When ancestral weariness overcame me, I disappeared into crypts, forgotten caves, tombs that men thought were empty. While I dreamed, the descendants of the first ones I saved maintained order. Not kings, not exposed rulers, but shadows that walked among the people, influencing, protecting, eliminating when necessary.

In the 13th century, Daniel's descendants founded secret brotherhoods in the Iberian Peninsula. While the fires of the Inquisition burned, they hid women, children, and wise men called witches—people persecuted for knowing too much, or simply for defying fear.

I remember the village in Navarre, where they woke my sleep with desperate prayers. The flames consumed innocents. When I opened my eyes, the night seemed stitched together with screams. I did not hesitate. Those who led the persecution turned to dust before the sun rose. And those who were saved? They swore the veil. They swore that each generation would keep the pact.

Centuries passed.

Wars. Epidemics. The world changed its face so many times that even the gods would be confused. And yet, my eyes always saw the same faces. Not the same bodies—bodies die, get sick, grow old. But the eyes? Ah… The eyes of the descendants carry the same glow of fear, of pain, of loyalty forged in despair.

During the French Revolution, while heads fell into baskets under the blade of the guillotine, many of my protégés disappeared into the crowd, using the chaos as a curtain. They hid artifacts, documents, knowledge. They knew that, even when the world cried out for freedom, equality, fraternity, chaos took advantage of the naive.

And me? I slept in Paris, under a forgotten cathedral. I dreamed of the screams, the rolling heads, the whispered oaths on stormy nights. And when I woke up, those who had sworn loyalty to me were there. Some old, others newborn. The blood continues. The veil remains.

In the 19th century, I saw the industrial world rise. Machines spewing smoke, cities swollen with hungry workers, the streets infested with misery, prostitution and violence. That was when I had to disappear again.

My sleep this time lasted 45 years.

I woke up as the smell of gunpowder and blood from World War I filled the air of Europe. Selena found me first. Her eyes—even after centuries—still held the sadness of the plague, but now they held wisdom, cruelty when necessary, and a pride that only the immortals know.

"They need you," she said, watching me emerge from the shadows of a mausoleum in Belgium as the ground shook with German bombardment.

Daniel was there too. His body strong as a wall, his eyes hardened by centuries of vigilance. "The lineage continues," he said. "But times have changed. War is different now."

And it was.

The trenches, the gas, the mud… Millions died. And yet, the descendants survived. Some fled, others enlisted, many acted as ghosts on the battlefield—protecting, sabotaging, saving. The veil, invisible, held the legacy.

Then came the final nightmare. World War II.

The concentration camps, the crematoria, the experiments. Nazism was proof that human evil reinvents itself—and also proof that my line of saved ones, those protected by the veil, would never disappear.

I and mine operated in the shadows alongside human heroes—Schindler, Wallenberg, so many others. We used the chaos to hide lives, destroy enemies, forge new pacts. Thousands were saved. And each one who survived… carried the invisible bond of eternal promise.

ancestral.

Today, in the 21st century, I walk among glass and steel buildings, watching the world drown in technology, arrogance and ignorance. But in the alleys, in the companies, in the parliaments, the eyes of the descendants find me. The veil still envelops them. The pact still pulses.

And those who forget… or dare to betray… turn to ashes before they even speak.

Time goes on. I watch. And the veil of the ages remains.