In this story, the monster is not what he seems.
"After grandfather died, I was left in solitude amongst his large collection. After having been continuously avoided and hated by the villagers as a vampire, one day, I finally realized that I too, was a possession of my grandfather. Everything here, all of it , was from my grandfather. What was mine? Nothing. I just wanted a proof of my existence..."
— Arystar Krory III
Coverage: Chapters 027-040; Episodes 019-024
Short Summary
Shortly after recovering from his wounds of the fight against Road, Allen is informed about the death of one of the General Exorcists. Fearing that the Earl may target the remaining living Generals in order to find the Heart of the Innocence, the main piece of Innocence of which the rest of shards depend on, Allen is send to find his mentor, the General Cross Marian, and bring him safely to the Order. However, while taking the train that would send him to Cross's location, Allen is kidnapped by an old man and finds himself in a small village. There, the villagers tell Allen that they identified him as an Exorcist and plead him to save them from an unusual tormentor: the baron of a castle next to the village, Arystar Krory III, a bloodthirsty vampire that has been terrorizing the villagers for a while and drinking their blood to death. Having to deal with an unfamiliar enemy and with his eye unusable from his fight with Road, Allen soon will delve into the mystery regarding Krory and his lover Eliade.Main Summary
The Vampire Of the Old Castle Arc has the following tropes:
- Accidental Hero: As it turns out, Krory was actually saving the villagers from the Akuma infiltrated among them, as his Innocence made him detect and target them. However, given how horrifying the Innocence-driven Krory can be and the gruesome way he killed the Akuma, the villagers naturally end up quite scared of him.
- Actually Not a Vampire: The main twist of the arc involves Allen and Lavi realizing that Arystar Krory is not really a vampire like it was believed at first. He's in truth an Exorcist with a parasitic Innocence in the form of deadly, sharp fangs that makes him crave for Akuma blood. As it turns out, all the villagers he killed were in truth Akuma infiltrated among the population of the village.
- Adaptational Context Change: As the arc in the anime series happens before General Yeegar's death, there are some differences of how it begins respecting the manga. In the manga, the arc properly begins with Allen being kidnapped by Georg (the mayor of the village near Krory's castle) so he can kill Krory when he was about to take the train that would take him and his assigned group to Cross's location, with Lavi joining shortly after when Lenalee and Bookman send him to find Allen after he goes missing. In the anime, as there is less urgency because the emergency of the Generals hasn't happened yet, Allen is instead directly sent alone to the village by Komui to find Cross (who has been sighted there after he went MIA), and Lavi and Bookman (who in the manga never goes to the village and remains with Lenalee in the train station) arrive a bit later to aid Allen (with the intention of investigating the Destructor of Time Hevlaska predicted). Likewise, since Allen recovered the usage of his cursed eye in the anime sooner during the previous filler episodes (where in the manga it doesn't heals properly until confronting Eliade in Krory's castle), the anime rectifies this by having Eliade (in her Akuma form) injure his eye again with her bubbles during an Akuma attack in an inn of the village.
- Adaptation Expansion: The anime adds a welcome party for Krory when he joins the Black Order as an Exorcist as the epilogue of the arc. It involves many of Komui's shenanigans with his Komurins and serves to end the arc in a more heartwarming way after Krory lost Eliade.
- Adapted Out: Downplayed with Lenalee in the anime. While she doesn't plays a big role in the arc, in the manga she travels with Allen, Lavi and Bookman to the train station where they will travel to find Cross and has a small moment where she reconciles with Allen after their clash in the Rewinding Town when Allen screamed at her for not letting him save the self-destructing Akuma and she slapped him in return. As the anime already adapted that scene in the Millennium Swordsman filler two episodes before the start of the Vampire Of the Old Castle arc, Lenalee remains in the headquarters of the Order and plays no role at all in the arc except for briefly checking a book with information about the carnivorous plants of Krory's grandfather. She does however gets to have some action in the final episode of the arc where she once again gets to stop the rampage of the Komurins during Krory's welcome party.
- Ascended Extra: Downplayed with Bookman in the anime. After his introduction in the manga, he doesn't do much in the arc and remains with Lenalee in the train station while Allen and Lavi are the ones who get into action. In the anime, he travels with Lavi to the village to investigate Allen and helps him fend off an Akuma assault against his life, but as per canon, he stays away from the main plot of the arc in Krory's castle and stays in the village helping the innkeeper of the inn where Allen resided to recover after he was injured by falling rubble during the fight against the Akuma.
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: The arc initially presents Krory as the main antagonist, with his attacks on the townspeople near his castle being what makes Georg take Allen with the goal to destroy him. However, after a few encounters with Krory, Eliade is outed as an Akuma thanks to the evolution of Allen's curse, also revealing that Krory is not really a monster, but rather a human with an Innocence giving him vampiric powers. With this, Eliade takes stage as the Arc Villain and proceeds to fight Krory when he discovers the truth.
- Bittersweet Ending: Krory is forced to kill Eliade (the person who he loved the most) and keeps being hated by the villagers despite the efforts of Allen and Lavi to clear the misunderstanding that he was a vampire. However, with his decission to become an Exorcist, Krory not only will make Eliade's death meaningful, but finally gets the chance to free himself from the ghost of his grandfather that was tying him to the castle and made him lonely, gaining loyal friends in the process.
- The Dreaded: Krory is this for the population near his castle, who fear and despise him for his reclusive nature and his brutal attacks on them to feed on their blood. As it turns out later in the arc, Krory actually never attacked human beings, instead only targeting the Akuma hidden in the village, but by the time he's revealed as innocent the villagers have such a bad image of him that they refuse to forgive him.
- Man-Eating Plant: Krory's late grandfather had several specimen of gigantic, carnivorous plants known as Roseannes, who attack people on sight and are only pacified if the targets tell them nice things (also becoming more aggressive if they are insulted), with Krory now taking care of them. In a flashback, is revealed Cross got one from Krory's grandfather, which also had Krory's Innocence inside it.
- Monster/Slayer Romance: The arc deals with the romance of Krory (a human with an Innocence unaware of his status as an Exorcist) and Eliade (an Akuma who was tasked by the Earl to watch over Krory and ended up falling in love with him), with Eliade manipulating Krory in order for him to remain with her forever in the castle of his grandfather isolated from the world. However, when Allen’s cursed eye evolves and gives the power to see the souls of the Akuma to everyone in the castle, Krory discovers her true nature and is forced to destroy Eliade after he realizes he always wanted to kill her due to his Innocence teeth wanting the taste of Akuma’s blood.
- Next Tier Power-Up: The curse Mana gave to Allen grows stronger after he sees an illusion of Mana (appearing as a ghostly skull) when he's confronted by Eliade, which makes his cursed eye to recover and upgrade into a more powerful version where he can now detect Akuma meters away from his position. The effect of the evolution of the eye is so strong it allows Allen to out Eliade as an Akuma by making Krory and Lavi see the souls of the Akuma for a certain period of time.
- Plot-Triggering Death: In the manga, the (offscreen) death of General Yeegar is what puts the plot of the arc in motion when Allen is tasked with finding Cross and bring him back to the Order before the forces of the Earl get him.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: The climatic fight of the arc pits lovers Krory and Eliade against each other. They love the other genuinely, but Krory is an Exorcist that enjoys destroying Akuma and drinking their blood while Eliade is an Akuma programmed to kill people and get rid of Exorcists. In an unusual case, Eliade at first was willing to let Krory live forever with her, secluded in the castle of his grandfather, but after Allen's renewed cursed eye reveals Eliade's identity as an Akuma, Krory realizes of this and they're forced to fight. After an intense fight in which Krory nearly dies, he manages to destroy Eliade, ending heartbroken as a result. Allen however manages to convince him to become an Exorcist and live to honor Eliade and make her death meaningful.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Even after Krory is proven to have been unknowingly saving the village from the Akuma hidden on it, the villagers not only refuse to believe the story and still label Krory as a monster, but also blame Allen and Lavi (who solved the problem like they promised) of being his accomplices for not having killed him.
