Chapter 266: The Greedy Dragon Queen

A few minutes later, Victor opened his eyes and sighed.

He had spent that time analyzing the energy Gram emitted, trying to distinguish its mental influence from the draconic pressure surrounding the sword. It hadn’t been entirely useless. He could now tell when the weapon was trying to draw his attention and, more importantly, when the urge to approach it arose without him having decided to take a step.

The problem was that he was running out of time.

"I’d better go grab that thing."

Rowena, who remained beside him, looked toward the entrance to the hall before nodding.

"I agree. But I’m going to use what little energy I have left to temporarily enhance your senses."

Victor turned his head.

"You can do that?"

"I can. Just don’t expect it to last long." She approached and placed two fingers against his forehead. "I’ll strengthen your perception so you can recognize when the sword is interfering with your thoughts. If you keep letting your guard down, that thing will make you touch it before you even realize what you’re doing."

"Thank you."

"Thank me after you manage to get out of here in one piece."

Cold energy entered through Victor’s forehead and slowly spread through his head. His perception changed almost immediately. He could distinguish the flow of energy around Gram much more clearly, including the small fluctuations that appeared whenever the sword tried to draw his attention.

Rowena withdrew her hand.

"There. Now go."

Victor nodded and began walking.

The pressure increased with his first step.

On the second, he felt the air around him grow heavier, as though the sword itself were trying to prevent him from approaching. The red energy circulating through the blade slowly spread across the hall, filling the space between Victor and the weapon.

He kept walking.

An unpleasant sensation began spreading across his skin. Victor looked at his hand and saw small dark spots appearing on his fingers. The flesh lost its color, rotted, and began falling away in small pieces.

"Ugh, disgusting."

Before the first piece hit the floor, a new layer of skin had already formed.

Victor flexed his fingers and kept walking.

Things grew worse as he approached. Gram’s energy passed through his clothes and struck his body directly, causing the flesh on his arms and neck to decompose. Small pieces fell to the floor, but his regeneration worked almost as quickly, rebuilding muscle and skin before he lost any ability to move.

Rowena watched with an increasingly uncomfortable expression.

"That Divine Blood Body Refinement of yours is pretty fragile, huh?"

Victor laughed as part of the skin on his cheek dissolved and regenerated immediately afterward.

"You know that’s not really the case."

"I’m watching your face rot."

"And you’re also watching it go back to normal."

Rowena grimaced.

Victor looked at Gram, now only a few meters away.

"Besides, that thing is clearly more powerful than I am in every way. I don’t think it’s fair to use a sword like that as a benchmark for judging my body."

Rowena narrowed her eyes.

"Can’t you go five minutes without indirectly defending Rakshasa?"

Victor turned his head slightly.

"Jealous?"

Rowena opened her mouth.

She didn’t answer.

Victor waited a few seconds, but she merely looked away toward the sword, pretending she needed to analyze something very important.

He began to smile.

"Rowena?"

"Keep walking."

"I only asked."

"And I told you to keep walking."

Victor chuckled and turned his attention back to Gram.

The final stretch was the most unpleasant. The energy coming from the sword was so concentrated that Victor’s regeneration began working continuously, unable to keep his skin intact for more than a few moments. He felt his flesh dissolving and being rebuilt as he advanced, but he didn’t slow down.

Finally, he stopped in front of the weapon.

Up close, Gram seemed even larger. The red blade floated vertically, supported by an invisible force, and the dark structures near the guard resembled plates of armor shaped to protect something inside. The draconic runes Victor had noticed earlier were spread across almost the entire metal surface, moving slowly beneath it.

The hilt remained within reach.

Rowena stopped beside him.

"Be careful. I have a terrible feeling about this."

Victor studied the sword for a few seconds.

"I think I already know what the problem is."

"What do you mean?"

"There’s something in there telling me to disappear ever since I got close."

Rowena frowned.

Victor tilted his head slightly, trying to identify that presence more clearly.

"It isn’t just the magic trying to draw me in. There’s someone who wants to send me straight to the grave."

"Fafnir..."

"Probably."

Victor glanced at Rowena.

"Listen. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I touch this sword."

She immediately grew more attentive.

"If you notice I’m not responding, I want you to attack my mind with the strongest blow you can manage."

Rowena narrowed her eyes.

"You’re asking me to strike your consciousness directly?"

"I am."

"That could hurt quite a bit."

"Better than getting trapped inside this thing."

She studied his face for a few seconds before nodding.

"All right. But don’t blame me afterward."

"I won’t."

Victor looked back at Gram.

The sword continued floating before him, apparently motionless, although the energy around its blade had grown even more intense.

He raised his hand.

"Here goes."

His fingers closed around the hilt.

And everything disappeared.

...

Victor felt the ground vanish beneath his feet.

For an instant, there was no sword, no hall, and no sense of being inside Vlad’s Vault. His consciousness was pulled away from his body, passing through pressure so intense that he had to close his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was somewhere else.

The first thing he noticed was the heat.

The ground beneath his feet was made of black stone, uneven and covered in cracks that emitted a reddish light. The air smelled strongly of heated metal, ash, and sulfur, and every time Victor breathed, he felt the hot air enter his lungs.

He raised his head.

The sky was covered in dark clouds, illuminated by an enormous red moon that seemed far too close. Between the clouds, lightning crossed the horizon, revealing mountains that stretched as far as he could see.

Some had open summits, allowing rivers of lava to flow down their slopes.

Others were covered in ancient structures, with broken towers and walls so enormous that Victor had to look twice to comprehend their size.

But what truly caught his attention lay ahead.

Gold.

An absurd amount of gold.

Mountains of coins, crowns, jewelry, weapons, and artifacts spread across the valley, mixed with ruined columns, shattered statues, and the remains of ancient buildings. Treasures were piled on top of one another, forming structures larger than some palaces Victor had visited.

Among those mountains of wealth, enormous skeletons lay partially buried. Some belonged to creatures he didn’t recognize. Others had broad rib cages, elongated skulls, and the remains of wings that resembled those of dragons.

Victor looked around.

"...Holy fuck."

He walked to one of the nearest piles and picked up a coin.

The metal was hot.

One side bore the face of a man wearing a crown. The other displayed a symbol Victor didn’t recognize.

He tossed the coin back.

"This suits a Greedy Dragon Queen pretty well."

In the distance, a river of lava crossed the valley and disappeared beneath a mountain of gold. Near its bank stood a fortress built directly into the slope of a volcano. Its walls were made of black stone, and several thick chains stretched between its towers before disappearing into the mountain.

Victor sharpened his senses.

"Fafnir?"

No answer.

He began walking between the piles of treasure, examining his surroundings as he searched for a presence that might belong to the soul sealed inside Gram.

This place was completely different from the spaces where he had encountered Carmilla, Scarlet, and Rowena.

There was no white void surrounding a soul waiting to be found.

There was an entire world.

And judging by the amount of treasure scattered everywhere, Victor had the impression that Fafnir had made a point of keeping everything she considered hers in this place.

"Hey!" He raised his voice. "Anyone here?"

A deep sound rolled across the valley.

Victor stopped.

The ground began to tremble.

Some coins slid down the mountains of gold as a current of extremely hot air swept past his back.

He turned his head.

He didn’t have time to see what was happening.

An enormous column of fire struck his body.

His flesh disappeared almost immediately. His clothes were consumed, part of his bones disintegrated, and the impact hurled him several meters backward, sending him through a pile of coins before he struck a stone structure.

Victor tried to raise an arm.

He couldn’t.

The fire continued engulfing his body, destroying everything his regeneration tried to rebuild. For several seconds, he couldn’t even open his eyes.

Then the blast ended.

Victor remained motionless among the rubble.

His regeneration began restoring what had been destroyed. First the bones, then the muscles, and finally the skin. Within moments, his body was whole again, although the sensation of having been burned remained extremely unpleasant.

He slowly sat up.

"...You bitch."

Victor raised his head and looked in the direction the fire had come from.

The dragon was there.

She was enormous, larger than any creature Victor had encountered recently. Her body rested atop a mountain of treasure, and her four legs were so large that every movement sent hundreds of coins and objects sliding down the slopes.

Her scales were dark, with red highlights that grew more intense around her joints and chest. Large plates of natural armor protected her neck and shoulders, while several horns projected backward from her head.

Her wings were partially spread, covering much of the fortress behind her. The membrane between the bones looked as though it had been formed from a mixture of dark leather and heated metal.

The dragon slowly lowered her head.

Two red eyes fixed on Victor.

Even from that distance, he could feel the contempt coming from the creature.

Victor stood and brushed away a few coins that had become caught in the clothes reconstructed along with his body. Then he looked at the creature again.

A smile began to form on his face.

"Looks like I found my prize."

The dragon opened her mouth slightly, releasing a cloud of hot smoke between her teeth.

Victor studied the size of those fangs.

Then he looked at the absurd amount of fire still circulating between the creature’s scales.

His smile widened, taking on an almost demonic expression.

"So..." He ran a hand over his chin. "How do I perform a marriage ritual without getting killed...?"