In the dead of night, after successfully rescuing Lamia, Su Mo and his party returned to the City of Blazing Flames. The venue of the Fire Dragon's Birth Festival was still brightly lit.
"As long as we find the missing element in the vampire form, we can obtain the correct evolutionary form for humanity... Leticia, come with me! I feel I don't know enough about you. Let's go, let me have a closer look at your Divinity!"
After getting new information from Su Mo, Canary had been in a state of excitement. For her, who was determined to subjugate all Demon Lords and overcome all of humanity's Last Embryos, the dawn of victory had never felt so close.
All she needed to do was find out the missing element in the vampire form and fill in that gap, and she would get the final answer she had dreamed of. Was there anything simpler in the world?
"W-wait! Canary, I know you're in a hurry, but don't be. Shouldn't entertaining Lord Su Mo be the priority?"
Leticia, however, did not want to leave just yet. She looked back at Su Mo, her gaze clearly reluctant. She had finally gotten to see him, and he had even helped save her sister. This was the time for her to express her gratitude. Even if Canary's reason was valid, she still wanted to prioritize staying with Su Mo.
Previously, if Leticia had shown such enthusiasm, Canary would have been overjoyed. But now...
"Relax, relax! With Lamia-chan here, she'll definitely serve Lord Su Mo well. We don't need to worry about that!" Canary said, pushing Leticia's back. "Besides, I gave you a chance before, and you didn't take it. You're always half a beat too slow. It's better to let Lamia-chan handle it. At least she's more sensible than you!"
"Half a beat too slow? Sensible? What have you been talking about since just now?" Leticia was completely baffled. "I don't understand a single word."
"Not understanding means you're not at that level yet; you haven't been enlightened. But if you're willing to learn with an open mind, I can give you some remedial lessons. Let's go, let's go..."
Under Leticia's longing gaze, Canary pushed the reluctant vampire girl away. The maid Kāla also followed behind Leticia. After bidding Su Mo farewell, she made eye contact with Lamia.
"Don't worry, I'll do my best!" Lamia said, full of energy.
Seeing her spirited and expectant demeanor, without any sense of grievance, the maid who knew her princess well was finally at ease and left with a silent bow.
After they left, only Su Mo and Lamia remained in the room. The vampire princess, who looked even younger than Leticia in her loli state, thoughtfully ran back and forth, refilling Su Mo's tea. Then, she sat across from him, her hands cupping her face, and watched him with a serious, reverent, and curious gaze.
"Is there something you want to ask?" Seeing the words "I'm very curious" written all over Lamia's face, Su Mo asked casually.
"Mhm!" Seeing that Su Mo was in a good mood, Lamia didn't get caught up in formalities and spoke in a lighthearted tone. "I don't know if this counts as confidential, but I dare to guess that you didn't reveal all your conclusions just now, Master?"
"I only stated the conclusions I could be certain of," Su Mo nodded, admitting it. "How did you figure that out?"
"I just felt that when you presented your final conclusion, Master, you weren't as curious as Big Sister Canary," Lamia said honestly. "I think that if it's not because you're not interested in this matter, then it can only be because you've already made your own judgment and just haven't said it out loud."
"Your area of expertise is completely different from Leticia's." Su Mo nodded, acknowledging Lamia's judgment. Unlike Leticia, Lamia's ability to read people was maxed out. Of course, the main reason was that Su Mo had never hidden his attitude.
"Hehe, it's mainly because my sister is too strong! In Little Garden, strength comes first. I'm not good at fighting, so I can only support her!" Lamia said happily. It was clear that she truly admired her older sister.
"In Little Garden, intelligence is no less important than martial prowess. But let's not talk about that for now. Your doubts haven't been completely dispelled, have they?" Su Mo said, glancing at Lamia. "Ask whatever you want to ask. No need to hold back. I don't have so many rules for my own people. Of course, I will only answer the parts I want to answer."
"Ehehe, thank you, Master!" Lamia's eyes lit up immediately. "What I want to know is, does the so-called correct evolutionary form for humanity really exist? What kind of element are we lacking that makes our vampire evolutionary path a failure, forcing us to bear the accompanying curses and slander?"
The golden-haired loli's cheeks puffed out, clearly still indignant. The intelligent and elegant girl from before was now showing a temper befitting her appearance.
Although she knew from Su Mo's theory that the poets' baseless slander was not purely out of malice but a side effect of the vampire evolutionary path's failure—because it couldn't continue human history, it had to be negated in various ways—as a party involved, and the one who had borne the main brunt of the curses, she couldn't just let go of her suffering so easily.
She really wanted to know what evolutionary path could be so superior to that of the vampires that human history would reject them so strongly.
Hearing this, Su Mo said, "To answer your first question, the correct evolutionary form must exist. Otherwise, human history would not have directly rejected the vampire path."
If there were no correct answer, then the vampire evolutionary path would become one of many options, and would only have a chance to be chosen through Little Garden's future competitive mechanism.
But from the current situation, since the vampire path was judged to be the wrong one, it meant that the standard answer must have already been born. What needed to be done now was to find this standard answer and the path to achieve it.
"As for your second question, I'm not yet completely certain of the way to the correct form."
"Do you mean you already know what the correct form is?" She never would have thought that while Canary was still searching for answers, Su Mo already knew the reference answer and was just working on the process.
"There's about a ninety percent chance," Su Mo nodded slightly. Seeing Lamia's continued curiosity, he gave her a small hint. "The correct answer is actually very simple... If even the wrong reference answer, the vampire clan, could be summoned by the world of Little Garden from the future to the present to give hints and warnings to human history, then what about the correct answer?"
"If Little Garden's human history protection mechanism is not flawed, shouldn't it have displayed the correct answer openly for all to see, long before showing the collection of wrong answers?"
Su Mo's words were extremely simple, but Lamia couldn't fully comprehend them at once and fell into deep thought.
According to Su Mo, before the wrong example of the vampire form appeared, the world of Little Garden had already summoned the correct standard answer, but no one had realized it?
But how was that possible? The humans and god-groups of Little Garden weren't blind or stupid. How could they have been staring at the standard answer all this time and not discovered it?
It couldn't be that they thought the standard answer was too absurd and so no one realized its importance, right?
If what Su Mo said was true, it meant that a certain race existed in Little Garden:
1. This race must be perfect and powerful enough to surpass the vampire form and become the primary choice for human history.
2. This race must have a sufficiently mysterious origin of Divinity, to the point that no existence in Little Garden knew that humans could evolve into it.
3. This race must have been in its ultimate form from birth, which is why it could overcome the eschatology of both the Earth civilization era and the interstellar civilization era, becoming a nearly immortal race.
In summary, this race was powerful, had a mysterious Divinity, was of a high-order form, was born before the vampire clan, did not belong to the existing evolutionary tree, and on the surface, had no connection to the human race...
"...Does such a race really exi—wait!" As she subconsciously ruled out numerous options, thinking that the answer Su Mo proposed simply didn't exist, Lamia's peripheral vision caught the community's flag. The fire dragon's flag, representing the founder of this community, and also the ancestor of its leader.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hit Lamia, and she realized an answer she hadn't even considered.
In Little Garden, there really did seem to be a race that met all these conditions. This race was summoned in a very ancient era, existing almost at the same time as the gods.
But to this day, even though no one understood the origin of this race's Divinity or its "genesis" mechanism, no one had ever connected its existence to humanity. Instead, they considered it the species most distant from human history.
For this very reason, this race had never been considered a state that humans could evolve into.
After realizing this answer, Lamia took a deep breath and thought of the creator of the vampire clan. "That's right! If this race's Divinity is really unrelated to humans, then why could she create us, a future form of humanity?"
A species unrelated to human history creating a future form of humanity—it just didn't seem right. But if Su Mo's conclusion was taken into account, then everything made sense.
"Have you figured it out?" Su Mo asked at the right moment.
"Mhm!" Her breathing trembled slightly. Lamia, having learned the truth, tried her best to suppress her excitement and nodded vigorously. Then she looked up at Su Mo and stated the answer she had found.
"Pure-blooded... dragons!"