Chapter 78
Chapter 78
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Brocoslak Clan (5)
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“...As expected of a Clan Lord.”
Heinz glanced at the severed arm in Mullo’s hand before shifting his gaze back to the vampire’s face.
It seemed that by channeling all the barrier’s power into himself, Mullo had pushed his strength, speed, sensory perception, and stealth beyond their limits.
He must have come up with this method after seeing how ineffective his blood magic was against Heinz.
‘It looks like a technique that puts a heavy burden on the body, though.’
But with a True Blood vampire’s vitality, he could endure the aftermath for quite a while.
This was extremely troublesome.
‘Did I move too hastily? ...No, this was still the best timing. The Lord was just stronger than I expected.’
No matter how well he disguised himself, the anomalies among his blood kin would eventually be exposed.
He had brought in Frigia to delay that as much as possible, but it was only a stopgap measure.
‘I thought ambushing him before he sensed anything, when he least expected it, would be the most efficient approach...’
Thanks to that, he had reached Mullo without any interference.
The only problem was that Mullo’s baseline power—something Frigia’s explanations as a martial artist couldn’t fully convey—far exceeded expectations.
“Hoo— Hoo— I’ll end you as quickly as possible.”
Whoosh—
The severed arm in Mullo’s hand, as he panted heavily, became engulfed in crimson flames.
He casually flung it to the ground.
Before the burning arm even hit the floor.
Screech—
The sound of air being sliced rang out.
But perhaps because Heinz hadn’t taken his eyes off him for even a moment, he reacted the instant Mullo vanished.
Using Acceleration, he barely dodged the five claw-like nails raking toward him from the front.
Then, seizing on the opening captured by his honed senses, he thrust his left hand forward without hesitation...
Clang!
But it couldn’t pierce the vampire’s sturdy body, only sparking uselessly.
‘Tough. Is this how Heinz’s previous opponents felt?’
Ignoring Heinz’s attack, Mullo swung his right hand again, ripping through space itself.
Though magic was his specialty, Mullo was a vampire who had lived for centuries.
His movements weren’t ordinary, even if not on Frigia or Obor’s level.
The moment Heinz tried to dodge again, his motion suddenly halted.
‘Ugh? What?!’
Crimson thorny vines coiled around his legs from the ground.
Heinz snapped them with his strength in an instant, but by then, Mullo’s hand was already closing in.
“Hup!”
He slammed his left hand, dense with blood magic power, into Mullo’s wrist, twisting its trajectory.
Before he could even tend to his bloodied left arm, Mullo’s sharply extended left hand stabbed toward his heart.
In this desperate moment where his stance was broken and evasion impossible...
Heinz twisted his body to protect his heart as much as possible, thrusting out his right hand as a last resort to take the blow instead.
Splatter—!
His right arm was torn away by the ripping claws.
Now, his right arm was gripped in Mullo’s left hand.
“Hoo— Hoo— Huh...? What’s this?”
Mullo froze for a moment, panting roughly as he stared at the severed arm in his hand with a bewildered expression.
It was déjà vu.
“You... your arm?”
His face twisted grotesquely, blood streaming from his eyes and nose, as he compared the arm in his hand to the one still burning on the ground.
Both were unmistakably right arms.
And it didn’t end there.
“Oh? This one?”
Heinz boldly extended his right hand toward him, wiggling his fingers.
His smooth, regenerated arm, courtesy of Super Regeneration, on full display.
Mullo alternated between the old arm in his hand and the new one, his mouth flapping wordlessly.
Of course, a True Blood could regenerate lost limbs, but not at that speed.
How could a severed part regrow like that? He wasn’t a slime.
“What bloodline did you inherit to have such abilities? A branch of Brocoslak? Ridiculous...!”
Grinding his teeth, Mullo brought his nose to the cross-section of Heinz’s severed arm and sniffed.
Though altered, the base was unmistakably Brocoslak blood.
Frigia’s earlier words hadn’t been nonsense after all.
“...Something’s off.”
Yet an immense sense of alienation emanated from that blood.
The foundation felt familiar, but that was it.
Everything else was some incomprehensible ‘something’ to him.
‘Could a branch bloodline mutate this much? Even devouring members of other clans wouldn’t cause this...’
It was different from the root up.
A contradiction, an incomprehensible phenomenon.
In this frustrating standoff, he glared at Heinz and licked the blood dripping from the severed arm.
For Purebloods and above, tasting a small amount of blood to analyze the opponent was commonplace.
For a True Blood like him, it was trivial.
...Or it should have been.
That became the problem.
“Guh—?! Spit! Kgh... Guwoogh—!”
Splat—! Splurt—!
Mullo spat it out immediately and vomited a basin’s worth of blood.
“W-What is this...?”
The small amount he ingested rapidly spread through his bloodstream, affecting it.
That alone wouldn’t have mattered... but the problem was the immense grudges condensed in that blood.
[My vow...]
[Blood pact...]
[Power...]
[......]
Because of it, he had to expel all the blood influenced by Heinz’s.
‘Dozens? Hundreds? How can he carry such virulent blood and remain fine?’
This blood was no different from deadly poison to vampires.
He had never even imagined blood like this could exist.
Though only an instant, it was enough to shake his explosively enhanced abilities from the barrier’s power.
‘Oh no...!’
When his disrupted senses recovered, he realized his mistake.
Stab—!
“Kuhak!”
“Looks like holing up in your room dulled your instincts? You sure spaced out during a fight.”
Of course, by their standards.
His lapse in focus lasted barely three seconds.
But for their level, that was ample time for a dozen life-or-death exchanges.
Enough for Heinz to stealthily close in and plunge his hand-blade into Mullo’s unguarded heart.
“Lord—! Get out of the way, Frigia!”
“You’ll have to dance with me for a bit.”
Frigia, having already subdued all the other vampires, intercepted the rushing Obor.
Keeping up with an assassin-type’s speed had been unthinkable before, but the Purified Blood Essence’s buffs made it possible now.
“Grrr— You bastard!”
Swish—!
Heinz unhesitatingly retreated from Mullo’s wildly swinging claws, now that his heart was destroyed.
He had pierced his defenses during that momentary weakness, but now that Mullo had recovered, close combat would gain nothing.
As Heinz pulled back, the hole in Mullo’s chest rapidly closed with transcendent regenerative power.
But it wasn’t without gains.
“Kgh— Cough! Hoo— Hoo—”
Blood streamed from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Mullo’s ragged breathing signaled his time was running out.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Shrk—
“Guh! Y-You...!”
His two severed right arms melted into bloody water, transforming into twin crimson chains that bound Mullo’s body.
Thanks to Heinz’s tenacious life force infused within, even the arm that had burned for so long was only superficially damaged.
‘Phew... This ends it.’
Heinz let out a light sigh as he looked down.
Mullo, drained of all power and with the barrier broken, could only pant weakly, devoid of resistance.
Boom—!
At that moment, the fierce clash between Frigia and Obor on one side concluded.
The victor was, naturally, Frigia.
Not only did the Purified Blood Essence give her a spec advantage, but as a warrior against an assassin, she held the matchup edge.
Drag—
She approached Heinz, gripping the collapsed boy’s nape.
“Looks like you’re finished. I just wrapped up too.”
Frigia smiled proudly at Heinz, clearly delighted with her newly felt power.
“Oh! And I didn’t kill the other vampires—just subdued them. Without the barrier, it wasn’t too hard.”
She probably hesitated to kill fellow kin, but they would need manpower for what came next. More labor was always better.
Heinz nodded to her and looked back at the restrained Mullo.
He wondered if injecting the Purified Blood Essence now was safe.
Frigia had been clearly inferior in both blood magic power and martial prowess...
But Mullo was no pushover.
His blood magic reserves might even exceed hers.
“Hmm, then let’s give it a try.”
After pondering, Heinz decided. He yanked the chains, pulling Mullo upright.
Then he brought his mouth to the vampire’s neck.
“You... what are you...?”
“Inheriting the Lord position.”
Stab—
Sharp fangs sank into Mullo’s nape.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Deep underground, in a buried stone chamber.
A figure lay in the sealed darkness, untouched by air.
Twitch!
A small change occurred in the corpse-like form.
Starting from faintly twitching fingertips, his tightly shut lips trembled and slowly parted.
“...Ah...”
A hoarse, cracked voice echoed through the chamber.
“Ahh...”
The voice cleared after a few throat-clearing sounds.
Then, in the pitch-black void, a pair of red lights flickered to life.
“What is it?”
The being muttered softly.
Something felt off, but he couldn’t pinpoint it.
Sleep pressed heavily, clouding his thoughts.
“Ah, so sleepy...”
He had awakened far earlier than planned, unable to fully escape hibernation.
His barely open eyes grew heavy again.
“...I’ll sleep a bit more and wake up.”
The red glows faded shut, and the chamber sank back into silent darkness. ◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Several days had passed since Harris set out with the elves along the ‘Path of the Forest.’
As they trained and studied on the move, Rapori, leading the group, turned back with a smile.
“We’re almost there. Just a little further.”
Yet the surroundings hadn’t changed.
The same dreamlike forest path stretched on endlessly.
“Wow! Really? So we’ll meet the World Tree soon?”
Cecily, who had been diligently training out of rivalry with Harris, asked with sparkling eyes.
Coming from the Ion Continent, she had never seen the World Tree, so the prospect filled her with awe.
‘And that means Cecily will soon become a High Elf.’
Reaching the World Tree was the final condition for a qualified candidate.
“Of course. The World Tree will welcome you warmly, Miss Cecily.”
Rapori, knowing this, smiled warmly at her.
At last, their long journey bore fruit.
Thereafter, the group walked the path for hours, buzzing with excitement.
And finally.
The trail gradually opened into a normal forest...
“Waaah~!”
Amid Cecily’s exclamation, Harris blankly looked up.
A colossal tree defied perspective before him.
“Unless it’s extremely urgent, going straight to the World Tree via the Path of the Forest isn’t ideal. Especially since this is your journey to become a High Elf, Miss Cecily.”
The path to the World Tree was a pilgrimage.
Approaching the mighty tree with reverence and composure was part of the process.
‘It’s so huge I have to crane my neck, and we’re still far away...’
Awe welled up unbidden.
Though it would take more time to reach, that paled against the emotion now.
At last, Harris had set foot in the Elven Kingdom of the Enamel Continent.