When lifting his foot again, Logan Carter tried his best to place it on the joints of the wooden stairs, moving as slowly as possible.

This time was much better. Although there was still some noise, it was no longer so jarring. Logan Carter exhaled slowly: ‘Hopefully this monster is the type with bad hearing, otherwise I’m definitely done for.’

He continued upward.

There were twelve steps on the turning wooden staircase. To minimize noise, Logan Carter slowed his pace as much as possible. It took him over three minutes to climb those twelve steps. When he reached the second floor, Logan Carter glanced at the floor and sighed inwardly again: ‘Still wooden floorboards. Is this thing trying to get me killed?’

After thinking for a moment, Logan Carter took off the fur vest from his shoulder and placed it on the floor as a cushion, moving forward step by step, inching slowly toward the source of the strange noise.

After a while, he stopped again.

‘No, the sound is coming from Logan Carter’s parents’ room. The monster must be in there too. Opening the door to look would be suicide. But there’s a balcony in that bedroom. I can climb over from my own room’s window.’

With this in mind, Logan Carter changed direction and moved toward his own room.

It took a lot of effort to reach the door. He opened it, and as the hinge turned, it let out a ‘creak~’ that made Logan Carter’s teeth ache. He immediately turned to look at the door next to him, afraid the noise would attract the monster from Logan Carter’s parents’ room.

He waited for over a minute, but nothing unusual happened. It seemed this monster really did have poor hearing.

Logan Carter let out a sigh of relief and slowly moved into his own room.

The window in the room was actually open. Outside, the night sky held a bright full moon, and moonlight streamed in, illuminating the room. Logan Carter poked his head in for a careful look, and after making sure there was nothing unusual inside, he moved toward the window.

He climbed onto the window, stood on the sill, and, eyeing the wooden balcony less than a meter away, Logan Carter stepped over lightly.

This was only the second floor, and the balcony wasn’t high—less than three meters from the ground. The ground below was soft grass, so even if he jumped, he wouldn’t get hurt. That’s why Logan Carter wasn’t nervous at all.

He crept onto the balcony, then crawled another three meters across the wooden floor. Only then did Logan Carter slowly stand up, letting his head peek just above the window, looking inside through the expensive crystal glass.

Suddenly, a face with burst eye sockets and a deathly blue complexion appeared in Logan Carter’s view!

“Shit!”

Logan Carter jerked his head back in fright, nearly losing control and jumping off the balcony.

He immediately pulled his head back, pressed his back against the wall, and trembled uncontrollably. It took him more than two minutes to muster up enough courage again.

‘As terrifying as it is, this face looks familiar... That’s right, it’s Logan Carter’s father’s face. And it’s not moving at all—it must be a corpse.’

The corpse’s expression was terrifying, but after all, it was just a dead thing. As long as it wasn’t the monster, anything else was manageable.

Logan Carter took a gentle breath, turned his head again, and quietly looked through the window.

This time, mentally prepared, he wasn’t startled and looked more carefully than before. He saw that Logan Carter’s father’s corpse was twisted against the window, his face pressed tightly to the glass, so hard it was deformed, his eyes wide open with such force that the corners had split.

He was still wearing pajamas, with two bottomless puncture wounds on his neck. The exposed skin was all a bluish-white, and his cheeks and eye sockets were noticeably sunken, as if all the fluid in his body had been drained.

‘A pair of puncture wounds on the neck, about four centimeters apart, most of the blood gone, extreme terror before death—this is exactly what a person looks like after being drained by a vampire.’

Any last shred of hope in Logan Carter’s heart was almost completely gone.

------------

Chapter 3: Narrow Escape

Carter Manor, second floor wooden balcony.

Logan Carter forced himself to endure his fear. He stood up slightly, letting his gaze pass over the corpse of Sir Carter, and looked into the room.

Thanks to tonight’s bright moon, he could see everything in the room clearly. But if he had a choice, he’d rather have seen nothing at all.

There were two figures on the large bed in the room: one was Logan Carter’s mother, the other a blond man—more precisely, a man with golden curls.

Logan Carter’s mother was also only wearing pajamas. She was leaning back in the blond man’s arms, her hands waving meaninglessly in the air. Her legs twitched involuntarily, kicking the bedboard now and then with a ‘thud~thud~’ sound, while her throat let out ‘uh~uh~’ gasps.

The blond man was leaning against the headboard, holding Logan Carter’s mother in his arms, head lowered, mouth close to her neck, occasionally making very soft ‘gulp~gulp’ swallowing sounds.

The scene was like a wild beast biting a fawn’s neck—the beast drinking blood, the fawn struggling in vain.

“A vampire... Sun-bright golden curls, tall and slender body...” Logan Carter felt his calves start to go numb and weak, barely able to stand.

Although he couldn’t see the blond man’s face, from the details he could see, this vampire looked exactly like the high-level vampire Logan Carter had just killed in the game.