Chapter 210

They chose the heart of the Shadow Principality as the site where the curse would be lifted. That central area also served as the massive magical core responsible for the gravity inversion and curse suppression throughout the principality. Since it was the place where Grand Duke Tirund could exert the greatest amount of power, there was no better location to carry out such a dangerous ritual.

“Then we begin.”

The moment he stepped onto the exact center point, the Grand Duke declared the start of the ritual. He raised the Magic Circle Do-Jin had handed him and suspended it in midair.

“You have no intention of backing out?”

He had already asked the same question several times. When he saw his daughter shake her head while her friend stayed silent, the Grand Duke let out a quiet sigh. In the end, he pulled the trigger that activated the Magic Circle. As mana aligned with mana, a sharp clicking sound echoed through the space, and the Magic Circle came to life.

Do-Jin saw it clearly the instant the construct activated. A surge of mana burst outward, forming a ring that steadily expanded as it spread. At first glance, the shape looked almost like a halo, something deceptively serene, as though it might swallow the entire Shadow Principality. As it turned out, that was exactly what happened next.

[Trials descend upon the inverted world.]

The moment the message appeared, the nature of the mana inverted completely. The gold and blue hues that had blended together were overwritten until everything turned a deep, unmistakable crimson.

The cause was obvious. The curse flooding out of the Grand Duke, Karin, and every other vampire present surged outward all at once.

“Grand Duke!” Do-Jin shouted. However, his voice never reached him.

[Eternal Curse]

Grade: Fate

Objective: Destroy the manifested curse

Reward: ???

To sever a curse meant to bind vampires for eternity is an act steeped in danger. You must stop the rampage of a curse that has gained a will of its own.

The curse was not an external affliction. It was tangled into the vampires’ bodies and even their souls, an inseparable part of their existence. It was closer to a malignant growth than an illness. Just because something is harmful does not mean tearing it out will not kill the host in a catastrophic collapse.

The vampires, ripped free from something that had once been part of them, fell into a temporarily suspended state. The forcibly extracted curse gathered together, condensing and stabilizing until it took the shape of a massive blood-red entity.

The one saving grace was that the countermeasures Tirund had prepared worked exactly as intended. The mana frameworks he had refined over centuries to suppress the curse now clamped down on it directly.

“You who defied the natural order and turned yourselves into monsters. Now you would even reject the price you must bear. How revolting. How contemptible. I am not a curse. If you had accepted me... if you had accepted change...!”

As the curse scattered its fractured intent in every direction, the Grand Duke’s suppression structures seized it in place. The moment the curse realized it was being restrained by the very mana systems created to contain it, it began to thrash violently.

“KIIIIAAAAAA!”

Its shriek tore through the principality, the shock dropping Do-Jin’s entire party into a near-total shutdown.

“Ugh...!”

“This is insane. There is no way this makes sense,” Theresa forced out, clenching her teeth hard enough to draw blood.

She had expected the scale to be massive. Even so, this went beyond excessive. This was outright bullshit-tier difficulty. She wanted to scream out her frustration, but the pressure made that impossible. The impact of the shriek was so overwhelming that staying conscious already pushed her to the edge.

If I’m barely holding on as the tank, then the others must be... The thought cut off when Do-Jin entered her vision. What?

Do-Jin was moving. Slowly, painfully, almost crawling, but unmistakably advancing toward the Grand Duke. He could move only because of his absurd resistance to mana interference and mental pressure. He was hanging on by sheer will.

I expected this, but would it kill the system to be wrong once in a while?! Do-Jin thought, his focus wavering with every step.

If he slipped for even a second, he would black out on the spot. He kept moving anyway. His eyes stayed locked on the construct still hovering at the Grand Duke’s fingertips.

It hasn’t fully activated.

He didn’t know why. The construct might have been designed to activate in multiple stages. It might have stalled because the Grand Duke had entered suspended animation before it was fully completed. Either way, one thing was certain. The authority granted by the Light had not finished carrying out its function.

No matter how insane this difficulty looks, there’s always a path.

By the time Do-Jin dragged himself in front of the construct, he saw Karin standing opposite him, frozen in place like a statue.

I’ll end this fast.

Do-Jin reshaped his mana, aligning it precisely with the construct’s activation pattern, and forced it in. The sensation felt mechanical, exact, and final. The moment it locked into place, a new phenomenon unfolded. Something blade-shaped extended from the construct, formed from condensed mana and system authority, and severed something unseen.

[The faint remaining connection between the vampires and the curse has been completely erased.]

A second surge erupted from the construct, sharper and more violent than before, and split the curse’s form cleanly apart.

[The ‘eternity’ possessed by the curse has been stripped away. The collapse of the curse has begun.]

The construct’s authority did two things to the manifested curse. It imposed the concept of death onto it, and it forced the process of collapse to begin. At a glance, the messages made it seem as though everything had been resolved, but that was not the case at all. Just as the Light had warned, the construct’s role ended at separation. What followed was the backlash from a curse that had been fully torn free.

The moment the shriek faded and movement became possible again, the group barely had time to catch their breath.

“Haaah...!”

“I seriously thought I was going to die!”

“This is not the time to relax!”

The curse’s manifested form, which had been suspended in the air, was falling. The enormous mass of congealed blood slammed into the ground with a roaring crash and a sickening splash. The crash drowned out everything they shouted to one another.

[A suppressed curse, now ruled by desire, begins to rampage!]

The vampiric curse’s craving, restrained for countless ages, erupted all at once.

“I... I do not diiiieeeee—!”

Blood symbolized life. To crave another’s blood was to crave life itself, and at the core of that desire lay nothing more than raw survival instinct.

“Blood... I need blooooood!”

The curse, its hatred and hunger compressed over more than a thousand years, turned its gaze toward the Central Continent, a place heavily saturated with the scent of countless lives.

“Don’t tell me they expect us to stop that thing.”

“Haa... I am already exhausted.”

“There has to be a way. There should be... probably.”

Although Theresa, Soso, and Tanto all complained, their bodies were already shifting into combat readiness. The curse’s manifestation was so massive that calling it large felt inaccurate. Its scale demanded a different word altogether.

“Tanto is right,” Do-Jin said. “There has to be a mechanism. Once it starts moving, we will probably see it.”

As if responding to his words, the curse began reshaping the blood pooled beneath it. The viscous mass stretched and thickened, forming crude legs to support its movement.

[The curse’s manifestation has begun moving! If left unchecked, it will devour countless lives in an insatiable feast. Prevent its movement!]

The system’s directive was clear. Destroy the legs as they formed and stop the curse from advancing.

“It looks like this fight is structured around multiple phases.”

The battle did not open with an overwhelming barrage. At least for the moment, there was no immediate, direct threat pressing down on them. That calm, however, was undoubtedly what made the situation dangerous.

“We do not know how many phases there are,” Do-Jin continued, “but we have to stop that thing within a time limit.”

If the curse escaped the underside of the Floating Continent, which marked the boundary of the Shadow Principality, it would slip free of the inverted gravity field and plunge into the sea below. Once that happened, the situation would spiral completely out of control.

“So this turns into a DPS check,” Tanto said as he raised his weapon.

Do-Jin nodded in agreement. No one needed to give an order. The entire party moved at once, going straight for the nearest leg formed from congealed blood.

Compared to the sheer scale of the curse’s main body, the leg looked thin and short. That comparison, however, only held true relative to its owner. From a human perspective, it felt less like attacking a limb and more like trying to bring down a swaying building.

“Flame Cannon.”

Do-Jin chose the element he was most familiar with and activated one of its highest-output techniques. A massive explosion followed, blowing apart a huge volume of blood and vaporizing it on the spot.

Theresa and Tanto closed in immediately to join the assault. The image was absurd on the surface. It looked like two people charging a pillar inside a giant’s temple while wielding crude weapons.

The damage they dealt, however, told a very different story. Each time Tanto swung the axe and dagger in his hands, blood detonated outward with dull, explosive thuds. Even so, the curse did not simply endure the attacks in silence.

“You are too weak...! Stop getting in my waaaay!”

From the curse’s perspective, Do-Jin’s party barely qualified as a nuisance. They were not even worth calling prey. They were far too insignificant to satisfy the hunger churning endlessly within it. The curse lashed out, forming whips from liquid blood and flinging them down to swat away the irritants.

“I will block it!”

Theresa stepped forward without hesitation, cutting off the threat before it could reach the damage dealers.

She smashed aside incoming strikes with her shield and crushed others with heavy swings of her hammer. Each precise counter severed the blood whips midair and kept the party protected. Because of that, Do-Jin and Tanto were able to pour sustained damage into the first leg.

After several seconds of concentrated output, one of the curse’s many legs finally gave way. A massive volume of blood dropped straight down with a wet, tearing sound, like a grotesque waterfall collapsing in reverse.

“Why...! Why are you stopping meeee!”

The stretched, unraveling scream sounded like proof that whatever sense of self the curse had left was already dissolving.

[The curse’s manifestation begins launching more aggressive attacks!]

The horrific mass of blood that made up the curse reacted immediately. Where the destroyed leg had been, it reshaped itself, forming an arm meant purely for attack.

“Uh... what the hell, that thing is insane!” Theresa yelled.

The hand made of blood swept across the ground as it advanced. Aside from its shape, it was almost impossible to tell the difference between that attack and a tidal wave rushing straight toward them.