I was born from blood. A red liquid created by inscribing magic into the blood of the villainess known as the Leader of the White Blood Religion. That was both my soul and my body. While humans sucked their thumbs in their warm mothers' wombs, I was trapped in a cold glass bottle, subjected to experiments for reasons unknown.
Beside me were countless siblings. Like me, they were trapped in glass bottles, crushed under magic, forced to drink human blood, burned in flames, or frozen in ice.
When siblings couldn't endure the experiments, they fell to the floor with their bottles. Each time I heard a bottle shatter, pain tore through my soul as if it were being cut apart. Hundreds of bottles—no, hundreds of siblings—disappeared each day, until only exactly one hundred bottles remained.
Fortunately, I survived countless experiments and managed to keep my bottle-home intact.
The humans stopped experimenting and left us imprisoned, neglected for a long time. It was a long and boring period. There was so much I didn't know, I wondered who I was, and questioned why I lived such a life. After an immeasurable amount of time passed, the door to our prison room opened again.
Humans in white robes dragged in other humans by their hair, humans who bled red blood just like my body.
"Let's begin."
The pale-faced man forced one of my siblings from the first bottle into the mouth of a one-armed human.
"Aaaaaaargh!"
The one-armed human let out a scream that shook the entire room, clawing at his own throat before collapsing. I felt his vitality slowly fade away. My sibling, too, seemed to have melted inside the human's body, vanishing without a trace.
"He's dead. Dispose of him."
As if he had expected this outcome, the pale-faced man waved his hand dismissively, and the humans in white robes threw the motionless one-armed man outside.
'He's dead.' Through those words, I came to understand what death meant.
"Next."
When the pale-faced man jerked his chin, my second sibling was forced into the body of a white-haired human. Just like the first, the white-haired human vomited blood, collapsed, and stopped breathing. Realizing the experiments had begun again, I trembled in my glass prison.
Now that I understood what death was, I didn't want to die.
The first sibling vanished, and the first human died. The second sibling vanished, and the second human died. This continued for ninety-nine experiments, until only I remained.
"Inject it."
The pale-faced man lowered his hand weakly, his eyes narrowed as if he had given up. I was carried in the hands of a white-robed man and forced into the body of the smallest human. As I passed through the warm throat, my body spread throughout the human's body against my will.
My blood-formed body absorbed all of the human's blood and devoured even their soul.
It wasn't my choice. The instinct I was born with consumed everything human. The small human's life flashed through my mind. Most memories were fragmentary, bubbling up and disappearing like foam, but I gained at least a slight understanding of what human life was like.
"All failures, it seems."
The pale-faced man sighed, apparently thinking I had died like my other siblings. What was this? I could feel the human words resonating through my physical body rather than my soul. It was an unfamiliar sensation I had never experienced before.
"Tsk, what am I supposed to tell her?"
As he clicked his tongue in frustration, I opened my eyes. Using the small human's memories, I naturally moved the arms and legs to raise the body. I had entered a human body and was controlling it.
"Huh...?"
The pale-faced man's eyes widened as he looked at me.
"W-what is this!"
His jaw trembled in disbelief.
"How...?"
"Has... has it succeeded?"
"To think this was actually possible..."
"Then who is that?"
Not just the pale-faced man, but all the white-robed humans in the room let out startled gasps as they looked at me.
"Who are you?"
The pale-faced man looked at me and asked who I was. Though I had only gained fragments of human memories, I understood he was asking for a name. This young human's name was Raywen, but that wasn't my name.
"Number four thousand four hundred and four..."
I told him the number of the glass bottle that had imprisoned me.
"Number four thousand four hundred and four? Kuhahahahaha!"
The pale-faced man checked the number on my glass bottle and burst into ear-splitting laughter.
"Bring her here! Right now!"
***
I stood face to face with a woman who had golden hair and blue eyes. My soul screamed violently that it needed to return to her. I knew instinctively that I had been born from this golden-haired woman. Using the words from human memories, she was undoubtedly what they would call a mother.
"Did it really succeed?"
Mother narrowed her eyes skeptically at the pale-faced man's words.
"Yes. It identified itself as number four thousand four hundred and four."
The pale-faced man shook the glass bottle I had been in.
"Who are you?"
Mother looked up at me with interested eyes.
"Mother."
I didn't resist the violent resonance of my soul as I spoke the word "mother."
"Have you lost your mind!"
The pale-faced man glared at me with furrowed brows. The moment his gaze fell upon me, my whole body trembled and I couldn't breathe.
"Leave it be."
When Mother waved her hand indicating it was fine, the pale-faced man bowed his head and stepped back.
"It's not wrong. This child was born from my blood after all."
She nodded as if to say it was fine to call her that.
"Ah..."
I was overjoyed. My existence, my being that had been withering away trapped in a glass bottle, had been acknowledged by Mother. This must be what they call being moved.
"My, my name..."
Just as I was about to ask Mother to give me a name, the human body stopped obeying my control and collapsed.
"Huh?"
I couldn't move a single finger or even breathe. Pain that felt like it was twisting my very soul filled my mind.
"Huk! Th-this!"
The pale-faced man's hands trembled as if he hadn't expected this sudden turn of events.
"..."
Mother said nothing, watching me die with cold eyes. I had to live! I'd finally been acknowledged, I couldn't die! I'd finally found Mother who saw me for who I was after living as a being that didn't even know itself. I absolutely couldn't die. A crackling sensation spread through me!
I forcibly escaped from the human body that tried to hold onto my soul, crawling back up the throat and out the way I had come in.
With a hiss, I flowed onto the glass-covered floor as red blood, just as I had been when I was born.
"So that body's resonance wasn't compatible."
Mother reached down herself to gather me up and place me in the only unbroken bottle, number four thousand four hundred and four.
"We'll find you a suitable body soon enough."
She smiled a crimson smile as she watched me swirling in the glass bottle.
"I shall give you the thirteenth name."
***
After that day, I entered different human bodies daily, possessing them and gaining their memories and knowledge. Whether for long or short periods, the human bodies couldn't handle me and shattered like my siblings' bottles. Each time brought pain so severe I wished for death, but I endured it thinking of Mother.
After what felt like an immeasurably long time, they dragged in a noble-looking man before me.
The man with red eyes like my soul appeared to have stronger willpower and determination than any human I had seen before.
"This is your last chance, Denier Zieghart."
Mother, who had obtained a new body of a black-haired, black-eyed woman, placed her finger on the forehead of the man called Denier.
"Answer my question. The Zieghart..."
"Kill me."
Denier Zieghart calmly shook his head as if truly asking to be killed.
"I am the Wise Martial Palace Master of Zieghart. Rather than harm my family, I would end my life here and now."
He raised his luminous eyes, showing no fear of death. Die? I was shocked. Every human brought here had clutched at our legs, begging for their lives. I had thought this was the rule of this world, so I never imagined someone like him could exist.
"I suppose there's no choice."
My mother smacked her lips briefly and picked up the glass bottle I was in.
"Enter this human's body, read his memories, and come out."
She put me into Denier's mouth, ordering me to learn everything about Zieghart, no matter how small. With a crackling sensation, I entered through his throat and immediately felt it. My soul and this man's body fit together perfectly, like interlocking gears.
I realized that Denier was the compatible body Mother had spoken of.
"Kuuugh!"
Denier resisted as if he would never surrender his body. His soul was larger and more solid than any human I had encountered, showing no weakness. But I was born from Mother to devour human souls and steal their bodies.
I chewed and swallowed each moment of Denier Zieghart's life, making his memories and power my own.
Aaaaah! Even as his soul was being cut apart and devoured piece by piece, Denier never gave up, fighting until the very end. I couldn't understand how he endured such excruciating pain. I had never encountered a human like him before. A deep resonance echoed through me.
Perhaps because our resonance matched, the human memories I could usually only read in fragments now felt as vivid as if I had lived them myself.
I could retain all his memories as if I had lived alongside Denier. The same was true for his body. Unlike other human bodies that had felt uncomfortable, I could feel every sensation down to the tiniest hair. I felt like I had become truly human. That's how I learnt I was born in the White Blood Religion.
The Zieghart of the Six Kings and the White Blood Religion of the Five Demons.
Thanks to the memories I gained from Denier, I learned where I was and who Denier was. Despite being born into the direct lineage of a prestigious sword family, Denier Zieghart had a kind and gentle nature. His goal was to build a good family and household before pursuing strength through the sword.
Glen, both head of house and father, had abandoned his humanity in his obsession with the sword, his older sister left on a long journey saying she hated the cold-hearted household, and his older brother followed their father's example by casting aside his own children.
His youngest sister left home to get married only to return as if being chased, and his only younger brother was a fool. A dysfunctional family. It was like a stereotypical broken household from stories, so I could understand why Denier dreamed of having a good family.
However, since Denier had always been less capable than his siblings, few people listened to his voice.
Instead, he was only disparaged as the incompetent one who ran from the succession battle. Still, Denier didn't give up. He carried out many missions alone, wanting to somehow save the crumbling Zieghart, until his bad luck led to his capture by Mother and being brought here.
Strangely, my chest ached. It seemed I had absorbed not just Denier Zieghart's memories, but his emotions as well.
It's different. Is this what a true human life is? I had lived thinking myself human because I was born from Mother, but after reading Denier's memories, I felt something was distorted. I seemed not human, but rather a monster.
"Mother. I..."
"You've taken it, as expected!"
Mother beamed at me as if she had believed in me all along.
"How much of Denier's memories did you read? Tell me!"
She nodded with expectant eyes.
"...Surprisingly, I obtained all of his memories."
Wanting to see Mother smile more and hear her praise, I set aside my doubts and told her I had obtained all of Denier's memories.
"Really?"
Mother grabbed my shoulders, exclaiming how amazing it was. I could feel my soul trembling with emotion.
"Then tell me everything!"
"Yes. First, the current state of Zieghart is..."
Having gained not just Denier's memories but his emotions as well, I knew that speaking these words would bring misfortune to this world. But to be of even slight help to Mother, I told her all the information I had learned.
Strangely, it never occurred to me to reveal the thoughts Denier had kept to himself.
"Well done! Very well done!"
Mother embraced me with both arms. That alone washed away any feelings of wrongdoing.
"Try to maintain that body for a while. If you can do that, we can make new plans."
Mother asked this of me and left the room. To fulfill her request, I burrowed deeper into Denier's body over a long period. I could feel my blood-formed body and soul merging with the blood flowing through Denier's body.
Now even I didn't know how to leave this body. Though I would probably die when Denier died, I had no regrets.
"Very good."
Mother smiled with satisfaction as she watched me maintain the body even after a month had passed.
"You can copy Denier's swordsmanship, speech patterns, and behavior too, right?"
"Yes."
Having absorbed all of Denier's memories and emotions, I could imitate his swordsmanship, speech, and behavior. I showed Mother what I had been practicing.
"Perfect."
Mother clapped her hands in delight as she watched me act as Denier.
"From now on, your name is Denier Zieghart. Live with that name until I call for you."
She nodded, saying that from now on my name was Denier.
"Yes!"
I was happy. Both receiving a name from Mother and seeing her joy made me happy. I just smiled, not knowing what the ominous feeling stirring beneath my soul was.
"And..."
At Mother's gesture, the 10th Apostle brought in a young girl who appeared not even ten years old.
The child bore a striking resemblance to the body Mother currently inhabited.
"This is the child I've marked as my next body. Since she's from a village we destroyed, you can say you found and rescued her yourself to explain why you haven't contacted anyone until now."
Mother nodded, telling me to take this child to Zieghart and adopt her as my ward.
"She was originally brought here with her mother, but I've altered her memories to make her think she survived alone in the village."
She smiled, saying that since it wasn't done through magic, even Glenn wouldn't notice.
"Did you say memory manipulation?"
"Yes. I've implanted memories of her surviving alone in the village we attacked, trying to get revenge until you rescued her. As long as you act convincingly as Denier, she'll be easy to handle."
Mother said it would be easy as she handed over the child named Martha. That was my first meeting with Martha.