Chapter 597: Jealousy is My Power (97)
Chapter 597: Jealousy is My Power (97)
The bat was pursuing the girl. The chase had been going on for minutes—or perhaps it had been hours.
Ian and the rest of the group had entered the Vampire’s Barrier quite some time ago. The bat—that is, the Bat Fiend, the Vampire’s younger sister and Seria’s mother—couldn't help but harbor a natural doubt.
Why?
Why can’t I catch that tiny girl? Her fragile limbs look like they would shatter if I just gripped them, and her snow-white neck seems ready to spray a sweet fountain the moment my fangs pierce it.
And yet, she couldn't reach her.
A Fiend’s physical capabilities were closer to those of a beast than a human. In exchange for contracting with the Evil God, they obtained transcendent bodies incomparable to what they had before.
They could recover from any wound and crush steel plates with their bare hands.
Thus, the fact that the woman still hadn't caught up to the Princess was bizarre. Based on leg power alone, she held an overwhelming advantage.
Naturally, the chase should have ended within minutes.
The reason this tedious game of tag was still ongoing was... well.
The Bat Fiend’s eyes narrowed. A certain premonition was scraping at her nerves like a violin bow.
“Kyaaaaaaaaah!”
A scream as innocent as ever.
But the anomaly occurred in the very next moment.
Bang!
With the sound of compressed air exploding, an azure-white sphere flew toward her at a fierce speed. A sharp sonic boom made the woman’s ears twitch.
It was merely a single shot from a novice mage.
She wouldn't have minded taking the hit, but the problem was the specific body part the bullet was aiming for.
The membrane of her wing.
The most fragile and thinnest part. No matter how much she could regenerate, an injury there would inevitably hinder her movement.
Of course, the option to dodge existed.
The senses of a woman possessing the power of a Bat Fiend were extremely acute. Not just her sight, but her hearing and animalistic instincts were keenly capturing the bullet’s trajectory.
Nevertheless, the woman couldn't simply leap away.
This was because the trajectory of the bullet, which had been flying in a straight line, suddenly curved.
It was as if it had anticipated exactly how she would move.
The monster had no choice but to stop for a split second and swat the Magic Bullet away with her claws.
Clang!
That was it.
The Magic Bullet collided with the Bat Fiend’s claws and vanished in a shower of sparks. Its power was truly pathetic, but the important thing was that the Princess had managed to pull even further away in that brief interval.
Only then did the monster let out a smirk.
“...Oho.”
So, she actually had enough skill to back up her big talk.
In truth, the gap between the woman and the Princess was vast. If she hadn't been severely injured to the point of her entire body being hacked to pieces by Ian, she would have torn the Princess apart long ago.
No matter how much interference there was, it wouldn't have mattered. Absolute might was supposed to overwhelm all minor variables.
In that sense, the Princess had made a quite clever choice.
She wasn't just moving her own body; she was dragging Seria along behind her. If she had at least left Seria behind, the woman could have sucked her blood to recover.
Furthermore, the scent of blood was constantly stimulating the woman’s instincts. Her chest heaved with every breath, and the blood-red light in her eyes shone with an eerie glow.
She wanted to eat.
The Dragon’s blood, her daughter’s blood.
Everything.
Impatience erases reason. And the woman felt she had every right to be impatient.
After all, she was the strong one.
Using one's head and devising schemes was the role of the weak. The strong had the right to choose simpler solutions.
“It’ll hurt a bit, but I suppose I’ll push myself...”
The root of all her problems was her inability to suck blood.
Therefore, even if she had to overexert herself, if she could just drink blood in the end, it would be her victory.
Having reached this conclusion, the woman’s wings fluttered and spread.
Once, twice.
Then, leaping as if pushing off the ground, a gale began to howl.
Riding the wind, the woman’s form shot forward like a bolt of light.
The Princess was running with all her might, but she was still a being bound to the earth. She was fundamentally different from a beast that could fly through the sky.
Of course, it wasn't entirely easy for the woman either. This was a dense forest, and there were countless obstacles blocking a winged creature that couldn't fly at a high altitude.
But that only required a moment’s effort.
Crack.
As the woman twisted her spine, her body began to rotate like an auger. Soon, the branches in every path her body passed through shattered with a gruesome sound.
It was high-speed movement that didn't even produce a proper sonic boom.
In the blink of an eye, the woman looked down upon a familiar sight. Seria being dragged along by azure-white threads, and even the strands of thread snapping and fluttering away every time she bounced off the ground.
It was proof that her target was close. The woman’s sharp gaze swept across the ground in an instant.
Finally, the girl with dark blue hair came into view. Without hesitation, the woman summoned the wind.
Blood-red spikes rained down like a downpour.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
“Ugh, nngh... A-Ah, it hurts...!”
The Princess couldn't properly resist the sudden, plunging strike. She tried to dodge with her nimble movements, but she couldn't avoid every single one of the dozens of spikes.
The sound of the girl’s knee slamming into the ground as a spike grazed her heel.
It was a one-sided exchange, enough to make one yawn.
The woman in the form of a bat finally stepped gracefully onto the ground. It was a soft landing that didn't even make a sound.
“You made a very foolish choice, young lady. It would have been better if you had stayed quietly hidden behind that man...”
Hic, ugh.
Every time the girl groaned and grimaced, the sweet scent of blood wafted through the air. The woman stared at the drops of blood seeping from the Princess’s heel with an ecstatic look in her eyes.
Yes, that was it.
‘Dragon’s Blood.’
The administrators of the earth who were favored by Arus, the progenitors of all mysteries. Long ago, Delphirem had sacrificed them to unleash terrible sins upon this world.
In other words, the Dragon was one of the sources of power for the Dark Cult as well.
Just look at Seria.
The Vampire blood in her body was only half, yet she had become so strong simply by consuming Dragon’s blood.
That was how much potential that blood held. What if she, a pureblood, were to drink that blood?
The woman’s eyes, clouded with instinct and desire, turned crimson. Seria was positioned closer to her, but the woman’s goal had long since become singular.
To drink that girl’s blood as soon as possible.
The arc of the woman’s smile deepened.
“Now then, you must pay the price for your wrong choice, mustn't you?”
Just as the woman’s body, unable to overcome its desire, lunged forward—
“...Did you say ‘young lady’?”
The sound of teeth grinding seemed to brush past her ears.
And then, the reversal.
In the blink of an eye, the woman’s vision flipped. It was an abnormal phenomenon that occurred without any warning whatsoever.
What on earth had happened?
Before she could even grasp the situation, hundreds of bolts of lightning struck down.
A roar and a flash.
A storm of light and heat scorched her body of flesh and blood. The woman wanted to scream, but her trembling muscles refused to obey.
It wasn't a fatal wound.
However, the current coursing through her veins was like a thousand needles. Blood-red welts spread beneath her thin, pale skin, and the woman had to writhe in a proportional amount of pain.
“Guh, wh-what...!”
It was then that a strange object caught the woman’s eye.
A single stone, emitting light in mid-air as it slowly crumbled into dust.
Her bloodshot eyes flew wide. Come to think of it, she remembered seeing that object.
That little wizard wearing the pointed hat.
It was an item she had handed to the Princess. She had wondered what it was, but to think it was a tool like this.
An enchanted object was of considerable value. Even if it was only for a single use, it would have required long years of training to engrave a spell of this magnitude.
She hadn't expected this. Well, she supposed her opponent would have had at least one trump card.
But it was far from enough.
She bit her lip, and the faint taste of blood awakened her mind. The monster’s eyes, as she slammed her trembling hand into the ground, were filled with spite.
“That brat... what a fun toy she had...!”
“If you were once a noble of the Empire, you should know.”
However, what greeted the woman as she swallowed her rage was an absurd remark from the Princess.
What kind of nonsense is this?
The woman paused, dumbfounded, as the girl stood before her with her hands on her hips. Her cold gaze made her look like a noble lecturing an inferior.
How arrogant.
The woman couldn't help but think so.