Unholy Blood Volumes 2, 3 and 4 Review

In Volume 1, we left Hayan swearing revenge against the vampires involved in Father Michael’s death—the man who raised her and protected her secret as a pureblood vampire. But now Hayan is ready to finish the war that the Angels of Death have started, and nothing will stop her. Not even the new police detective, Euntae, who started snooping around her.

The first Angel of Death to get rid of on Hayan’s list is Luci, a vampire whose strength has no equal… well, unless his opponent is a pureblood. In fact, Luci took the throne thanks to his unwavering thirst for strength, and the vampires surrounding him see him as a powerhouse. Although Hayan has tried to live as a regular human for as long as she remembers, she needs to become comfortable with her vampiric strength and skills, which she used to use only when necessary. However, this war means that she needs to speed up and widen her comfort zone much more quickly.

Especially as the fight against Sahan, another Angel of Death, brings to the surface more vampiric skills that Hayan has always had but wasn’t aware of due to her memory loss when she was a child. Fight after fight, Hayan’s memories start coming back, even if not in their entirety, and those memories are the key to find out who is the being the vampires call God and what their plan is for the humans. Hopefully, she’ll get her answers soon as the remaining Angels of Death are done waiting to be killed and are going on the offensive against Hayan and Detective Euntae. Angel of Death Ash is the first to make a move against Hayan’s human life, but this setback doesn’t make Hayan go into hiding; she’ll rise once again stronger. No Angel of Death can put Hayan down either physically or mentally, and not even the secret hidden by Detective Euntae whom she has started to trust will break her—she has a goal and won’t let anyone or anything interfere.

These volumes are full of action and fighting scenes. While Volume 1 is an introduction to the series’ world and to the protagonists, these volumes see Hayan and her sort of comrade, Detective Euntae, fight vampires and Angels of Death to protect humanity. Hayan is the only pureblood the readers are aware of and although purebloods are described as the most powerful vampires and the only ones without a time sentence—transformed vampires can live for five years—she doesn’t act as though she’s superior compared to the others. At the same time she is not shy about her strength, which she doesn’t hesitate to use to protect the people she loves and as many humans she can. Her skills are still not on par with what a vampire of her status should have, but she’s getting there. Her childhood memories are slowly returning and with those her powers as well. Readers and Hayan are still in the dark about her past but it won’t be much longer until the truth is shown.

Detective Euntae has decided to collaborate with Hayan in taking down the Angels of Death because he wants to revert the world back to a time without vampires. He seems like an upstanding citizen worried about the welfare of the people, but in reality, he’s hiding a secret that might destroy his partnership with Hayan. Although he’s using her, he’s not apologetic about it as he also has his own goal, and Hayan is just a tool to reach it faster, especially as he doesn’t have much time left. His secret came as a surprise to me; I was expecting some sort of tragic past that made him hate vampires but not what the consequences of his actions would be.

Unholy Blood is mainly action and thriller, as the protagonists have a race against time to stop the Angels’ and God’s plans because although they don’t know what those plans are, they certainly know they are going to be nefarious for the humans. However, throughout these volumes, I also get the hint of a romance subplot between Hayan and Euntae; what they are going through is making them closer as they can rely only on each other. They are there for each other and are overcoming the secrets that they have kept buried. Moreover, Hayan is meddlesome, so Euntae cannot escape his past once Hayan decides to get involved, thus bringing them even closer.

What I mostly appreciated in this series is how the author, Lina Lim, makes the protagonists three-dimensional. Hayan is not the usual heroine where everything comes easily to her. She knows her strengths, but she also knows her weaknesses and works to overcome them. Her traumas affect her decisions and her future path but instead of refusing to acknowledge them, she uses them as a stepping stone to become even stronger so that she won’t lose another person dear to her. Euntae is flawed as well, and readers find that out through his flashback about the past. His goal to protect people and the only family he has left made him blind to what his sister really needed, and he starts to see it only when Hayan can’t help it but get involved in the siblings’ relationship.

Unholy Blood originally started as a web comic serialised on Webtoon before being picked up by Ize Press for a release in print format. The series is now complete with 8 volumes.