Chapter 451: Trial That Defies Fate - 14
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 451: Trial That Defies Fate - 14
The blood-red water slowly settled. The historical Elder, Countess Erzsebet, whose raw power was said to rival the Progenitor’s, approached us at a leisurely pace. Faced with an Elder, I spoke with a look of dismay.
“Madam Erzsebet. Since fate has brought us together, why don’t we just exchange greetings and part with a smile?”
“That is not possible. The Progenitor seems to hold you in truly special regard.”
Snap. Erzsebet folded her fan, cloaking herself in an overwhelming aura of blood energy. It was a colossal power that could crush an ordinary human with the flick of a finger, yet she wielded it as if it were weightless.
Even with such power, she must have felt it wasn't enough to face Tyr, for she was targeting me instead. Good grief, this is sending a chill down my spine.
“However, I am told that you, her consort, do not regard the Progenitor as special at all. Huhu. To seduce the Progenitor for power… you truly are a consort whose beauty could topple a nation. Still, the Progenitor must harbor some lingering affection. You will make an excellent shield against her attacks.”
So she plans to take me hostage.
Well, I’m an open-minded person, so I don’t have much of an issue with being a hostage. If it helps a powerless person survive, then so be it.
But this case is a little different. Tyr ended up in this situation because of my intervention, because she found a wish. And now I’m supposed to become a hostage and make her miss her chance to fulfill that wish?
Not a chance. If I did that, I could never again claim to grant people’s wishes. I immediately retorted.
“Not special? Who told you that? Do you have any idea how much I’ve given Tyr, and how much I’ve received?”
“Enough with the deception, King of Humans. Do not think we are ignorant. The Progenitor may know nothing, but we are not so naive.”
“And what do you know about me? Does spouting things you’ve overheard make you special?”
They act like they’re mind readers. I’m the only one who gets to act like he knows everything.
“To hear you talk, one might think there’s no difference in value between humans. The Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka, who returned from death through her power alone, created the existence known as vampires, killed tens of thousands of humans and took their blood, and even founded a nation leading her kind. Does the beautiful, pure Tyr, who held such a powerful wish, seem less important than you?”
To the King of Humans, they would be the same. But I am only half a King of Humans. In other words, I’m a little different from the Beast King, a conceptual being.
I can only read the thoughts of the humans around me. Other Beast Kings encompass their entire species and embody that concept, but I am ordinary and weak, capable of representing only a few people nearby. The limits of my ability create a set of priorities for me that are unbecoming of a King of Humans.
Which means I can’t help but feel more affection for those who are close to me.
“King of Humans or not, I won’t be your hostage. I might consider it if I were siding with Tyr, but I have no desire to help an old, ugly woman who’s just jealous of her.”
“…Jealous? I, of the Progenitor?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? Surely you won’t deny it? Your deeds are recorded in detail in the history books.”
Hilde was glaring at me, her eyes screaming, Please, just shut up. But well, it didn’t look like the other side was planning on letting us go anyway.
And I was curious. What would pop out if I poked a vampire who supposedly had no emotions?
“Even when you were human, you used to kill people and drink their blood from a goblet, didn’t you? Because vampires drink blood, and you wanted to be like them. And as if that wasn’t enough, you went so far as to fill a bathtub with blood to bathe in it. Because you were envious of her smooth, flawless skin.”
“…That is mere conjecture.”
“Even conjecture becomes a field of study when historians do it for hundreds of years. An old fossil like you is so predictable you’ve already been completely dissected.”
Erzsebet threateningly opened her fan, covering the corner of her mouth. It was a sign she was desperately suppressing her emotions right before they exploded. It looked like she was about to burst.
So I decided to light the fuse.
“You were jealous of Tyr, weren’t you? You wanted to be like the Progenitor—beautiful, powerful, fear incarnate. You orchestrated the betrayal and tried to take Tyr’s blood because it was a chance to take her place once she was gone, right? Really, your dark intentions are so transparent. Immortality, a lust for power… you’re a character completely stuck in a mold.”
“Huhuhu. Do you think I would be swayed by such a crude provocation?”
“I already have Tyr, so what could I possibly get from an old hag like you? Dandruff?”
My silver tongue achieved its immediate goal. Erzsebet followed my intentions perfectly.
“I will kill you.”
They say vampires have no emotions, but I wonder. In the first place, emotion is just an excuse attached to the desire to do something. The reason vampires were known to be emotionless was that the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka dominated their blood and suppressed them. If Tyr still possessed her power, Erzsebet wouldn’t have even reacted no matter what I said to her. Insulting Erzsebet wouldn’t have bothered Tyr in the least.
But now?
“I was going to bring you to the Progenitor alive, but I have changed my mind. You will die here, and I shall present your head to her. Even if you are not living, it should be enough to trouble the Progenitor’s heart.”
Erzsebet had intended to capture me from the start. Whether to do it dead or alive was just a matter of preference. Each had its pros and cons.
And with my last remark, Erzsebet changed her ‘preference.’ To the killing kind.
If this isn’t an emotional choice, what is?
The blood-red water spread. It coiled around the ground, the walls, and every object like vines. The sight of the writhing blood spreading out was chilling, like new blood vessels sprouting into existence.
She forcibly channels her blood energy to dominate her surroundings. The incarnation of ambition, Erzsebet, uses her blood energy to exert control, a reflection of her own nature. The red-stained bricks, the pale streetlights, the tables and chairs—they all began to walk toward us.
A one-woman army. Wielding a power said to be rivaled only by the sun, Erzsebet extended her fan.
“Try to run, King of Humans. Run from this world of blood vines.”
And the city tilted toward me.
I’m not kidding. Not only every piece of furniture in the market street, but the very walls of the buildings began to press down on me. A pure torrent of power, devoid of any human skill, surged forth. I turned to flee, but in that instant, a wall folded in on itself, blocking my escape route.
Races with Arcane abilities like vampires are difficult to deal with. Psychological warfare? That only works when you’re on relatively even footing. And immortal vampires are playing with a completely different set of stakes. No matter how many points I score, to them, it’s just pocket change.
The fortunate thing was that this wasn’t a one-on-one fight.
“Goddammit! This useless Father! I should have just thrown you on my back and run from the start!”
Hilde grabbed my hand and simultaneously kicked the wall with her Qi-infused foot. Explosive Discharge Domain, a Qi Art with the property of explosion, sent bricks flying from the inside. Hilde and I threw ourselves through the momentary opening.
People running, people screaming, people tilting their heads in confusion. The street was still teeming with countless people. Getting through that crowd would be difficult, even with my mind-reading.
“Should we hide in the crowd?”
“Erzsebet will kill them all and use their blood! We need to go where there are as few people as possible!”
Hilde and I pushed off a wall and spun around. As we dashed around a corner, something grazed my heel as if trying to bite it. I glanced back and saw a torrent of crimson blood rushing toward us like a flash flood.
[This is the land of vampires. Even the King of Humans is no different from livestock here.]
With Erzsebet’s cold voice, streams of blood shot along both walls. Erzsebet herself might not be faster than us, but her power certainly was. Moreover, her medium of control was blood. If it were anything else, we might have been able to block or cut it, but there was no effective way to counter blood seeping through the cracks between bricks.
“Holy Sword, drawn.”
My story, of course.
My opponent is a vampire. In that case, the action ‘I’ must take is…
Hilde pulled a light from between her breasts. The flashing light looked less like a sword and more like a bolt of lightning. The formless, shimmering Holy Sword gradually compressed as Hilde pictured an image in her mind.
‘I’ am a paladin. The sword of God that cuts down wicked light. Divine punishment upon the cursed vampires.
The form forged from her faith was a massive greatsword. Hilde raised the enormous Holy Sword above her head and swung it wide. Whoosh! A huge slash cut through the air, cleaving the wall where the blood flowed.
The wall was unharmed. The stream of blood flowing along it, however, was not. Seared by the light, the blood energy turned black, leaving a stain. The flow of blood was stopped, unable to advance further.
[…A paladin?]
“Steadfast faith cuts down only evil. It is time for you to be scorched by the light, vampire.”
Hilde’s demeanor changed. Standing firm with the greatsword raised, she truly looked like a knight chosen by God.
The fact that she was wearing a nurse’s uniform made it feel a bit strange, but still.
[To bring a paladin to this land… No, for a paladin to have hidden their faith in this land?]
It seemed even a thousand-year-old vampire was surprised by Hilde, who could become a paladin only when she wanted to. Momentarily sizing up her opponent in this unexpected situation, Erzsebet soon resumed her attack.
[It only means there is one more thing to kill. I shall teach you that in this land, both faith and paladins are nothing more than livestock.]
The torrent of blood changed direction. Instead of following us, it began to swirl around us, swallowing everything in its path. Her plan was to crush us with sheer force and weight.
Facing the encroaching blood energy, Hilde made her light shine even brighter and shouted.
“For a wicked vampire to speak of faith. I will burn you to ashes with light! O Sky God, watch over ‘me’ from the heights above!”
Still, the time I spent with the crusaders was worth it. Hah, not that it makes the situation any better, though.
It was a good thing God didn’t exist. If he did, he’d be no different from a senile old man who falls for pretty words and hands out rewards left and right.
Soon, the swirling vortex of blood, filled with all sorts of objects, came flying at us. Bricks, chairs, furniture, and plates, of course, but also daggers and blades from who-knows-where flew stealthily toward Hilde and me. Hilde fought back against the storm with an even greater light. Every time the light seared the blood, a dark red trail cracked and fell away.
However, while she could block the blood energy, she couldn’t nullify all the physical force contained within it. Hilde had to take a few flying bricks with her body, and though she wasn’t injured thanks to her Qi Art, the impact gradually pushed her back. Each time, the space we had to move grew smaller. Hilde, who had been holding her ground, gripped her sword tightly and offered one last prayer.
“O Sky God… this is it, right? Ah, screw it! I quit! Father, this is the most I can squeeze out of God! Don’t you have anything else?!”
“Just a moment. I’m modifying it.”
“Modifying what?”
“The breed.”
Druidism is tricky to handle, which is why I’ve barely used it. But now, the conditions have been met.
The ground to stand on. Blood to drink. And instead of faint sunlight, the mana within the blood energy will suffice.
In a certain land to the south, there is a plant that grows by eating beasts. It snatches them with leaves shaped like teeth, then extends its roots into them to suck out their bodily fluids. It branches out from a grass that drank blood long before vampires existed.
A lush vine learned to grow not on its own, but by leaning on other plants. It covers their surface, steals their sunlight, and uses it as nourishment to grow. It branches out from the vine.
From the Great Druid Nevida’s Tree of Genesis, two fruits from different branches. I will graft them together.
Two cards lay overlapping. The Ten of Spades and the Nine of Spades. With my fingertip, I pushed the Nine of Spades forward.
At the same time, crimson vines, saturated with blood, shot up from the ground.