Chapter 271

A red cloud was rapidly flying toward the dungeon exit. It looked mystical from afar, but up close, one would see that the cloud was made up of blood bubbles. On it were two women: Scite Amor with black hair, and Erzsebet Melos with white hair. Scite was restrained by chains made of blood bubbles joined together.

“Let... go of me, Erzsebet! Now!” Scite shouted.

“Stay still, Scite. Don’t even think about raising your star. We can’t let him know our location,” Erzsebet replied.

“Why are you doing this?! Answer... me!”

Kyeeehh!

Blood sloshed in Scite’s eyes, and a bat that looked as if it were made of rubies suddenly flew toward them. The bat was Alcithoe, a beautiful and powerful beast that only she among the Amor bloodline could use.

“Do you think I can’t break out of this if I wanted to? If you don’t explain this instant, I’ll—”

“Haema summoned you to his palace, didn’t he?” Erzsebet interjected as she repeatedly checked behind her.

“Yeah! And you ambushed me as I was heading there!” Scite shouted.

“I’m sure he summoned Grawamen and Semita there, too.”

“I know that! He called every marquisdoms—”

“I’m certain they’re dead by now.”

Scite’s eyes widened. “What are you... talking about?”

“Haema killed them. He plans to sacrifice us Seven Purebloods to resurrect Lord Mulleus.”

“What?” Scite said dumbfoundedly, her thought process halting momentarily.

Haema killed our brothers? He’s going to sacrifice us to resurrect Lord Mulleus? she thought.

“That’s bullshit!” Scite shouted.

Alcithoe reacted to her emotions and opened its mouth.

[Activating Unique Skill: Sonitus.]

A red ultrasonic wave that one couldn’t hear burst the blood bubbles restraining Scite.

“Are you trying to place me under your illusion? Hmph! Your Blood Force is a bad matchup against mine! Illusions don’t work against Alcithoe!”

Kyeeehh!

Scite laughed triumphantly as she was about to fly away by turning into a bat.

However, Erzsebet mumbled, “I’m sorry, Scite. I’ll explain everything later.”

“What do you—Kurgh!”

Someone strongly punched Scite in the solar plexus before she could turn into a bat, making her lose consciousness. Blood bubbles caught her and gently laid her on the blood bubble cloud.

Erzsebet looked at Scite and said, “That’s my little sister you just punched.”

“Keh, what? I thought I had your silent approval,” a voice said from out of nowhere. Then, Ranko, the Night Tiger, appeared. “That aside, little sister, huh? Heh, I didn’t think the infamous Illusion Duchess was so kind.”

“Where is the Sun Wolf King, Night Tiger?” Erzsebet asked, ignoring Ranko’s remark.

Ranko’s whiskers twitched as he snorted. “The wolf is preparing for battle. He needs to kill Haema Sanguis, after all!”

“Is that so? Well... give it your best shot.”

The blood bubble cloud Scite and Erzsebet were on quickly flew toward the dungeon exit.

“What’s with that attitude?” Ranko mumbled as he stared at Erzsebet’s back, getting a bad feeling because she had not reacted to his taunts in the slightest.

Erzsebet smiled faintly as she sensed Ranko’s eyes on her and thought, Killing Haema Sanguis, who probably has taken over Lord Mulleus’s body by now? I wonder about that... You wouldn’t dare say anything like that if you knew even a portion of his legend.

She had promised to cooperate, but had no obligation to warn them. Besides, they wouldn’t listen even if she did. One thing she knew for sure was that things wouldn’t go according to their plan.

Now that it’s come to this, show me the true power of the strongest and most infamous vampire in the history of vampires, Haema, Erzsebet thought.

***

Hundreds of thousands of fully armed blood soldiers marched throughout Blood Castle, killing anything they saw.

“Kurgh!”

“What the hell... are these?!”

“These are blood soldiers, born from the Sanguis bloodline’s Blood Govern!”

“This many could have been made only by... Lord Haema Sanguis! Why?!”

Vampires whom the blood soldiers attacked as they were heading to the dungeon exit shouted Haema’s name as they died. The blood of the killed vampires was instantly extracted, becoming new blood soldiers and killing their former comrades beside them. The number of blood soldiers was rising exponentially.

Just then, a giant orange explosion sounded from the Palace of Violence, forming a mushroom cloud large enough to cover Blood Castle’s sky.

***

“Bweh...Bwehehehehe!” laughed Berto Motus, a hippie-like man with wavy white hair and flashy clothes in the ruins that had been the Palace of Violence. “What a... sorry state... Both me... and you... Bwehehehe!”

He stared at the man before him through sunglasses that no longer had lenses on them.

“I need... more blood!” the man mumbled with a dry voice.

He was so skinny and dry that one could mistake him for a mummy. Although the mummy-like man was hideous, Berto couldn’t laugh when he looked into his shining ruby-like eyes that exuded the aura of an absolute being. Berto knew instinctively that the man would never lose and would always write history about his victory.

“Bwehehehehe! Lord Mulleus’s body... You’ve truly lost your mind, Brother Haema!”

“Berto... You will never understand, because you have not seen that demon with your own eyes,” Haema said as he extended his bony hand toward Berto. “Become one with me, and let us write the history of the vampires’ victory together!”

Berto groaned intensely, unable to resist the absolute absorptive force from Haema’s hand.

[Activating Star Power: Exploding Bloodbath.]

[Canceling Star Power: Exploding Bloodbath.]

[Canceling Star Power: Exploding Bloodbath.]

[Canceling Star Power: Exploding Bloodbath.]

...

Berto continued to try to activate his star power to escape from Haema’s absorptive force, but continued to be canceled because Haema’s Blood Rule gave him absolute control over all blood. Berto was ultimately pulled into Haema’s bony hand, which grabbed him by his neck. His fingers looked as if they would break just from a tiny amount of force, but Berto was powerless to resist.

“BROTHER HAEMA—!”

“This is not a farewell. It is a new beginning, my brother.”

[Activating Race Skill: Blood Drain.]

Haema used Blood Drain to suck all of Berto’s blood.

“GUUURRRGGGHHH!” Berto groaned in pain, eventually turning to dust.

Haema closed his eyes and relished the blood he had just absorbed as he took deep breaths. His blood vessels wriggled like worms. Although still dry, his cracked skin began to regain some of its original complexion.

“Mmmm!”

[An enormous amount of causality accumulates within Blood Moon.]

[Enhancing the magnitude of Blood Moon.]

[2 → 1.9]

...

[Heightening caliber.]

...

Haema opened his ruby eyes, their color having become even more vivid.

“A magnitude of 1.9! At long last!” he shouted.

The magnitude that had been stagnant for decades had finally enhanced. The whole number had turned from two to one. In other words, Blood Moon had become an alpha star.

Just like stats that became more difficult to raise as their rank rose from F to S, a star’s magnitude also became more difficult to enhance as the number decreased. The brighter the star was, the more impactful the history was required to accumulate the necessary causality.

However, Haema Sanguis had collected enormous amounts of causality by devouring Demens, Grawamen, Semita, and Berto. He was certain that he was now strong enough to defeat Pangu, the Eighth Fiend, and even attempt to challenge Lapsus, the Seventh Fiend.

“I have obtained Rabies’s mad blood, Dirae’s dark blood, Sigillum’s occult blood, and Motus’s exploding blood!”

Including Sanguis’s unity blood, he had collected five of the seven purebloods. All that remained was Amor’s beast blood and Melos’s illusory blood.

“Scite! Erzsebet! Ahhh, my beloved sisters!” Haema shouted as he turned his head toward the dungeon exit.

***

[Time remaining until closure.]

[09:20:33]

[09:20:32]

[09:20:31]

...

“Hurry up!” Wang Chen shouted.

“There’s not much time left!” Sang-Sik said as he ran toward the nearest blood tank.

Just then, the humans restrained to the poles around the blood tanks shouted simultaneously.

“D-don’t!”

“Stop!”

“What’s wrong?” Sang-Sik asked.

“If anyone who’s not a vampire or a Canis touches us...”

“Every blood tank here will simultaneously explode!”

“We’ll all be blown to smithereens!”

“Growl! What the hell?” Tigrinus mumbled dumbfoundedly.

“It must be a safeguard. Since they mentioned explosion, it must be the Motus bloodline’s doing,” Gerard mumbled.

As the humans mentioned, the blood tanks were rigged to explode if anyone who did not possess vampire genes were to touch them.

“It looks like only you and I can do this,” Gerard said as he looked at Wang Chen.

They both met the conditions since they were Daywalkers.

Wang Chen nodded as he turned to Tigrinus and Sang-Sik, saying, “In that case, Tigrinus, deal with any bloodfiends coming from the rear. Ma Sang-Sik, keep watch over that corridor.”

“Grrr! Why should I take orders from this guy?” Tigrinus grumbled as he walked toward the destroyed steel door.

“I understand,” Sang-Sik said as he opened the Zippo Lighter of Memories and ran to the corridor on the opposite side.

“What about me?” Hector asked, staggering as he approached Wang Chen.

Wang Chen smirked as he replied, “The half-dead man should just stay down and witness my skills.”

He closed his eyes and meditated, examining the inside of his body. Red blood cells and purple blood cells were circulating through his vessels.

“Hup!” Wang Chen grunted, stimulating the purple blood cells with mana.

The purple blood cells heated intensely, racing through the vessels dozens of times faster than normal. His vessels bulged, and purple vapor exuded from his body.

“GAAAAAHHH!” Wang Chen screamed as he opened his eyes filled with red madness.

He began moving at lightning speed, leaving afterimages in his path as he rapidly broke the restraints of the humans tied to the poles.

“He used the blood of the Rabies bloodline,” Gerard said, nodding as he looked at Wang Chen.

He could tell what Wang Chen did because he had also become a Daywalker and was now able to use a portion of the Melos bloodline’s powers.

Gerard summoned his D Weapon, Steel Piano Wire, and mumbled, “Things are going a little too smoothly.”

Most of the guards had escaped after Seong-Hwi commenced the dungeon closure. Thanks to that, they were able to carry out the perfect burglary and were about to rescue all the humans in front of them.

But what is this uneasiness I feel in my heart? Gerard wondered.

“We should release them and get out of here as soon as possible,” he mumbled.

[Activating Unique Skill: Artisan's Tuning - Manuscript Paper.]

The Steel Piano Wire smoothly unraveled and flew toward the blood tanks.

***

Sang-Sik raced through a dark corridor, repeatedly opening and closing his Zippo lighter lid.

“The smell of blood is... getting thicker,” he mumbled.

He was certain the blood belonged to humans. His blood boiled with rage as he recalled the tens of thousands of humans whose blood was being extracted. Consanguineus had used the reclusiveness of their dungeon to their advantage to treat the other races like livestock.

“Fucking vampires! We must make sure the Sēmen punishes them for this! We would’ve had no say in the matter before, but now, we have Underground!”

Sang-Sik had experienced more than enough of the Mirror World’s inequality during his time of over a year here. There was a massive gap between the superior, intermediate, and inferior races.

His experience on Earth and his potential had thankfully been acknowledged, allowing him to enter the Union as soon as his education in Edu was complete. Not only that, but he was appointed to the spec force, the most elite of the elites, eliminating his worries about the survival tax.

However, those who weren’t as fortunate as he was had to collect enough Karma and Coins to survive each day. Otherwise, they became escapers and eventually Chaos.

I was lucky, Sang-Sik thought.

Because he received many privileges that others couldn’t easily receive, he was obligated to help as many people as he could, just as he had done on Earth while receiving a public servant’s salary.

“It’s no different. I went against criminals on Earth, and in the Mirror World, I go against the other races.”

A voice that had kept him going until now echoed inside his head as always.

“Wow! You’re so amazing, Sang-Sik!”

Sang-Sik slowed down and came to a complete stop.

“What... is this?” he said to himself as he looked down at what had made him stop.

It was a giant bottomless hole, roughly several kilometers wide in diameter. A stone slab that should have been roughly two meters was broken in half in front of the hole.

“This is quite suspicious,” Sang-Sik said, feeling a sense of uneasiness as he lit the Zippo Light of Memories and activated a skill.

[Activating Unique Skill: Crime Scene.]

The flame recreated what had happened on the scene, which gradually stiffened Sang-Sik’s expression.