Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
237 – Where the Damned Worship

“Miss Momo did an excellent job reconstructing your body from your memory,” Vlad observed, his gaze scrutinizing Aroche with an air of clinical detachment. “I see your mind has accepted it as your own without hesitation. She’s improved considerably.”

“Is that so, Sir?” Aroche responded flatly. No matter how much time passed, he simply couldn’t adjust to the strange assortment of beings Morgan Le Fay had gathered around Burn.

“Just call me Gran Gran Vlad,” the vampire smiled, acting as if that was a perfectly reasonable request.

As they spoke, their gazes occasionally drifted toward the garden, where Nemo flitted about, her movements light and carefree as she chased butterflies through the sun-dappled grass.

“Hmm, I see the vampires won’t be particularly drawn to you. Your body is pure mana now—you barely register as human anymore. You’d be perfect for my children’s hunger control training.”

“Hunger… control training…” Aroche let out a mirthless chuckle. Because, of course.

“If you’re interested, you could always join our church,” Vlad continued, entirely unbothered. “I still hold the position of Cardinal to the Original Saint.” He paused, red eyes gleaming with something unreadable.

“And since your body is formed from her soul energy, you’re technically eligible to be her Cardinal too.”

That certainly didn’t sound like an invitation. More like a cult recruitment pitch. How reassuring.

Aroche eyed him warily. “And why exactly are you offering this, Master Vlad?”

“No particular reason,” Vlad replied smoothly. “Just giving you an option.”

An option, he said. As if Aroche hadn’t already lost the right to dictate what he was. As if he hadn’t been forcibly torn from death, preserved in foulness, then pieced together from memory and magic, left to make sense of his existence in a body that wasn’t truly his.

Resurrection? Hardly. What had been done to him was nothing short of necromancy. By every principle, he was an undead—an echo stitched from corruption, reanimated with holy energy and the essence of a saint’s soul.

The Aroche Leodegrance that the world had known was gone.

Even if he were to reclaim his title as Duke of Leodegrance, he would no longer be the man who had once borne that name. His soul had been tainted beyond return, his body no longer something that could be called human. The life that had once been his was no longer accessible to him.

He couldn’t even sire offspring as easily—though, even if he could, would he dare bring a child into existence from something as unnatural as himself? Not to mention how his soul was still there, trapped in those years spent submerged in the abyss, suspended in corruption’s vile belly.

Perhaps, in his own strange way, Vlad was simply offering him a place to belong.

Or maybe he just wanted another lost soul to join his ranks.

“I’ll tell you an old story,” Vlad suddenly announced, his deep, measured voice carrying the kind of weight that made one expect a long-winded bedtime tale.

“Do you know why our Mythical Communities hold Miss Momo in such absolute regard?”

Aroche arched a brow. “I only recently learned that Morgan Le Fay chose to reveal herself as the Original Saint to the Mythical Communities but kept it hidden from the humans. Why is that, Master Vlad?”

“Well,” Vlad exhaled. “First, because we don’t weigh her down with unnecessary burdens. Politics, conflicts, worldly affairs…” He gestured vaguely before adding with mild amusement, “...the wars we wage against each other. And the like.”

His gaze drifted toward Nemo, who remained blissfully utterly absorbed in her little sensory game, laughter bubbling up whenever a butterfly slipped through her fingers, only for her to twirl and dart after another.

The golden afternoon light caught in her hair, giving her an almost ethereal glow—an image so starkly innocent, so removed from the weighty conversation at hand, that it felt like a scene from an entirely different world.

“And second,” Vlad continued, “because she introduced us to God.”

Aroche blinked. That was certainly not what he had been expecting. A vampire church. This ancient vampire ran a church. And not just any church—one that recognized the Original Saint. That such a thing even existed was unfathomable, a miracle in itself.

“She stood with us against centuries of racial discrimination, united us under one peaceful community—something even the Apostle himself failed to accomplish. Though, to be fair,” Vlad mused, “he was working under a bit of a time constraint.”

He then let out a low chuckle, tinged with irony. “And, well, that Romeuf fellow never quite believed that creatures of the night could accept God in the first place.”

Of course. Because nothing screamed divine intervention like a congregation of vampires worshipping under the guidance of an immortal soul.

Vampires couldn’t set foot in holy places, not unless they had a particular fondness for third-degree burns. The mere presence of sacred symbols seared them as though they were basking in the midday sun.

Werewolves, for all their ferocity, were bound by the whims of celestial bodies, transforming only in the absence of the sun. Ghouls, zombies, slimes, skeletons—the lot of them—were little more than kindling when faced with holy energy.

So how, exactly, did creatures whose very nature rejected divinity become worshippers?

“Miss Momo… no, Her Holiness had a theory,” Vlad explained, the weight of centuries behind his words. “A theory that turned out to be a fact—one I’ve been teaching my children for hundreds of years.” He leaned back, a quiet amusement flickering in his gaze. “That we vampires were not born heretics.”

Vampires needed blood to live. And human blood to live even longer. Their hunger was instinctual, a predator’s craving honed over generations. They were stronger, more beautiful, impossibly gifted—eyes that pierced through hearts, bodies that endured beyond lifetimes.

They weren’t forsaken. They were born gods.

“When my daughter was born, I placed a silver cross on her forehead.” Vlad’s lips curved slightly, though his voice remained steady. “She didn’t burn. The sun didn’t scorch her either. My daughter… isn’t a heretic.”

Purity, as it turned out, made all the difference.

“Our weaknesses—every single one of them—were cultivated,” Vlad said, his voice laced with something between resignation and irony. “The blood we drank, the lives we took for our own pleasure rather than in the name of something greater… those were the reasons.”

And yet, even as they reveled in their darkness, they lived beneath the moon, never realizing it was a mercy.

“Miss Momo used to say, ‘You do know moonlight is just reflected sunlight, yes?’” Vlad chuckled, as if recalling an old joke. “By that logic, it should burn us just the same.”

But it didn’t.

“God, in His infinite irony, allowed the moon to absorb the holy energy gathered by the gravity of the sun, only reflecting pure light back to earth. Heh. He still wanted light to reach us—just in a way we could withstand it.”

So what if vampires had an innate thirst for blood? Humans too had an innate thirst for the weak. So what if they had to suppress their hunger? They were stronger, lived longer, shone brighter than any mortal.

Blessings and curses—they walked hand in hand. Dragons had their greed, elves their arrogance, beastkin their primal instincts, dwarves their stubborn defiance. And yet, each was granted an extraordinary gift in return. Strength. Wisdom. Talent. Legacy.

The weight of their curses was merely the price of their blessings.

Ask the werewolves, and they’d speak of their destined mates—their one true love, found without fail. Ask the centaurs, and they’d tell you of the endless winds at their backs as they raced across boundless plains.

Merfolk would sing of the ocean’s depths, of voices so enchanting they could enthrall the heavens themselves. Even unicorns, ever elusive, would laugh and offer a wish, should you be bold enough to ask.

Every race had its burdens. And its miracles.

“He is the One Who made the sun a radiant source and the moon a reflected light,” Vlad quoted, his voice calm, reverent. “The sun might be Romeuf. But Miss Momo is our moon.”

A creature that had every reason to abandon them instead chose to stand by them. When not even the Apostle himself dared trust the worst of the worst—the cold-blooded manipulators, the predators with an unfortunate penchant for drinking their neighbors—she became their advocate.

And today, not even elves and dwarves, in all their ancient wisdom, could match the depth of their worship.

“Years of her unwavering dedication to us—that is why we hold her in absolute regard.” Vlad’s voice softened, something almost fond beneath the solemnity. “She placed her trust in us and revealed her truth only to us.”

Then, with the ease of someone discussing the inevitability of the tides, Vlad added, “Don’t worry. No matter where you go, you’ll die one day. You already have, so you will again, this time for good. And as long as you die, you’re one of us.”

“You belong.”

…Unlike her.

Because she was still the most unbelong in the world loved by death.