There are laws that preserve civilization.
And there are laws that exist solely because the cost of breaking them is too great for the world to bear.
The prohibition against turning a human into a vampire belonged to the latter.
It was absolute.
No council possessed the authority to overturn it.
No noble bloodline stood above it.
No act of heroism could justify violating it.
The punishment had never changed throughout history.
Final Death.
Not imprisonment.
Not exile.
Not redemption.
Complete and irreversible destruction.
The newly created vampire would die.
The vampire responsible would die alongside them.
No names.
No exceptions.
Only judgment.
For centuries, the law remained untouched.
Until Angelica.
Angelica had not been born into Isla Isabela's strange balance of races.
She was never meant to become part of its ecosystem.
Like countless ordinary people, she once belonged to the human world alone.
She understood neither vampires nor Devils.
She knew nothing of the Seakh.
Nothing of the wars fought before human history.
Nothing of the invisible powers shaping civilization from the shadows.
She should have remained ordinary.
History had different intentions.
The one who altered her fate was a hunter.
Not merely a skilled fighter.
A legend.
Among the Half-Vampire Hunting Guild, his name carried weight that few others could rival. Years of service, impossible missions, and victories over creatures most people believed unstoppable had earned him a reputation bordering on myth.
He understood the law better than anyone.
Which is precisely why he knew what would happen if he ignored it.
Yet there came a moment when obedience demanded one sacrifice...
And compassion demanded another.
He chose compassion.
The process itself violated every principle the world had established.
A Half-Vampire cannot transform a human directly.
Their blood lacks what is necessary.
Only a true vampire possesses that ability.
Therefore, the hunter committed the first crime knowingly.
He drank blood until his own nature changed.
He abandoned his Half-Vampire existence and became a true vampire once again.
Only then could he perform the second crime.
He gave his blood to Angelica.
The transformation succeeded.
For a brief time...
She became a true vampire.
But the hunter had no intention of leaving her that way.
He crossed another forbidden boundary.
Through methods known only to a handful of beings, he transformed Angelica once again.
This time...
Into a Half-Vampire.
A race she had never been born to become.
One impossible act required two impossible transformations.
Each step carried the weight of execution.
The world responded exactly as the law demanded.
The Guild could not ignore what had happened.
Neither could the vampire authorities.
The hunter had violated the oldest commandment protecting the balance between species.
His achievements no longer mattered.
His loyalty no longer mattered.
His countless years of service meant nothing before the law.
He was condemned.
Those who carried out the sentence did not celebrate.
Many respected him.
Some admired him.
Several owed him their lives.
None of that changed the outcome.
He received Final Death.
The man who had saved Angelica's life paid for it with his own.
Angelica remained.
Not because she was innocent.
But because someone intervened.
His name was Nikolai.
Unlike the others, Nikolai saw something in Angelica the moment they met.
Whether it was fascination...
Curiosity...
Or something far more dangerous...
No one could say with certainty.
What became obvious, however, was that he had fallen in love almost immediately.
His feelings were genuine.
Angelica's were not.
To her, Nikolai represented survival.
Protection.
Political influence.
Nothing more.
She accepted his affection because it served a purpose.
The relationship that followed was never built upon mutual love.
It was an exchange.
One gave emotion.
The other gave necessity.
Such arrangements rarely survive.
Theirs ended as quickly as it began.
Yet emotions do not always disappear with relationships.
Nikolai's attachment lingered long after they separated.
Some called it devotion.
Others called it obsession.
Perhaps it had become both.
Whenever Angelica violated regulations...
Whenever her actions deserved the punishment of Final Death...
Nikolai intervened.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Officially, justice remained impartial.
Unofficially, Angelica repeatedly escaped the fate that claimed so many others.
Her sentences became lighter.
Warnings replaced executions.
Discipline replaced annihilation.
Not because the law had changed.
But because someone standing above it could not bear to lose her.
Whether this was mercy...
Or corruption...
Depends entirely upon who is telling the story.
History rarely distinguishes between the two.