The Vampire Lord's True Form
Harkia took a deep breath and reached out into empty air. His hand slipped inside as if there were a hole in space itself. What he pulled out was a staff topped with a purple gem. No matter how you looked at it, the thing seemed purely decorative. What on earth was he planning to do with that?
My question was answered almost immediately. The moment Harkia gave the staff a single shake, five magic circles bloomed into existence. The walls, which had been reduced to utter chaos, began to shift and reshape themselves. The debris scattered across the room clumped together, forming new shapes. In less than ten seconds, the chamber I had personally trashed transformed into a temple centered around a statue of some nameless goddess.
This is actually pretty entertaining to watch. It really did feel like something straight out of a fairy tale.
When Harkia raised the staff to swing it again, I charged straight at him. Even though he clearly saw my rush coming, he remained unshaken and completed his spell. So he had prepared something to block my fist, had he? How utterly foolish. After everything I had already done to him, did he truly believe he could stop me?
In that case, I would correct that naive delusion by smashing apart both him and whatever he had prepared.
My thrust fist was like a wild bison that knew no restraint. The accelerated punch shattered everything in its path and surged forward without pause. Harkia managed to conjure one more barrier in that brief window to minimize the impact, but he couldn’t deflect it all.
The goddess’s barrier crumbled like fragile glass.
“How did you pierce the goddess’s protection?!”
“So that was supposed to be divine intervention just now?”
Hah. If that was truly the power of this world’s gods, then they were nothing special at all.
Harkia unleashed spells without pause. He started with elemental attacks like fire and water, then moved on to curses that drained my strength and assaults meant to rattle my mind. His casting was incredibly clean. While the power itself was mediocre, the speed alone was impressive enough to make a lizard seem slow by comparison. It seemed the title of Great Mage wasn’t entirely empty boasting. Unfortunately for him, it still fell far short of posing any real threat to me.
I gave Harkia no breathing room. I stuck to him relentlessly, shattering every spell he cast from the front. I could have ended this whenever I wanted, but I deliberately held back. I wanted to carve absolute despair into his very soul.
This was nothing more than a one-act play. Harkia was the pitiful actor forced onto the stage, and I was the playwright directing the entire performance.
Since we were still only in the prologue, there was no reason to rush.
Once again, my fist sent Harkia flying. He slammed into the far wall with a heavy crash. The accumulated damage must have been severe, because every time he coughed, blood leaked from his mouth. As he staggered to his feet and tried to regain his composure, I approached him at a leisurely pace. That was when Harkia let out a laugh.
What was this? Had he finally gone mad? Why was he smiling while cornered like this? It would be troublesome if he broke too early. I hadn’t even given him a proper threat yet.
Fortunately, Harkia hadn’t lost his mind. He gripped the gem embedded in his staff and crushed it with his own hand. In an instant, the magical power that had been stored inside his body surged violently.
“I didn’t expect you to release all the mana you’d been hoarding until now.”
It was fine to act relaxed, but saying something like that with a black eye and blood dripping from your mouth wasn’t the least bit cool. If you were going to do it, you should have done it at the start of the fight.
“So? Did anything actually change?”
“Of course it did. Now then… I invite you into my world.”
Black smoke poured from Harkia’s hand and in the blink of an eye filled the entire room with absolute darkness. So this was the trick he’d been saving? How disappointing.
I twisted my face away from the blade that suddenly thrust out from the smoke. It wasn’t just one weapon. Countless soldiers sprouted from within the darkness, swinging their arms at me. But there was no precision to their attacks. All they had was meaningless numbers.
“I cannot.”
“I simply lost one of my five senses. That’s all.”
I could hear the weapons slicing through the air. The metallic clang and the wind they cut through reached me through touch. I could even sense the flow of mana that Harkia was manipulating from afar. That was more than enough.
Even without eyes, I could tell exactly who was where, how they were moving, and what was being thrown at me.
I had expected something truly impressive since he seemed so confident, but this was all he had prepared? How disappointing.
I stomped the ground, sending a shockwave of wind pressure that swept the smoke away. Dozens of skeletal soldiers caught in the aftermath collapsed to the floor. All that remained was Harkia, staring at me from a distance.
“Is that truly all you have?”
If this was the secret technique you were so proud of, then it’s about time we ended this prologue.
The moment I closed in and threw my fist, Harkia mirrored the exact same punch. Our fists collided, sending shockwaves rippling outward.
“Oh? So you can imitate martial techniques?”
“The magic you use is unusual, but it’s still just magic! Did you really think a Great Mage who has lived for over a thousand years couldn’t copy it?!”
So he had observed the principles behind the mana I sent out and imitated it. It was an interesting method, but there were several critical misunderstandings.
First, what I used was not magic, but martial arts. The fact that I channeled mana did not change that truth. Second, while he might think he had successfully copied my fist, the reality was far different.
The arm of Harkia that had met my fist exploded.
“He tried to follow the stork and ended up tearing his own legs apart.”
The level of martial understanding I had built over my lifetime was not something that could be lightly imitated. If there existed a being who could perfectly comprehend it in a single glance, that being would have to be the one who created the very principles of the world itself. Someone who didn’t even understand the tiniest speck of martial arts could never hope to copy me.
The price for clumsily imitating martial arts was heavy. The proof was that the vampire’s arm, which should have regenerated instantly, showed no sign of recovery.
Inside Harkia’s body, his mana was rampaging wildly. The massive power that had lost its center was no different from a venomous insect devouring its host from within. There was no need for me to lift a finger. If left alone, Harkia would destroy himself with his own power.
To think my toy would press the self-destruct button with his own hand.
Harkia’s face twisted with fear, as if he had foreseen his own death. Or rather, he was pretending to look terrified. He was acting so that I wouldn’t suspect his death. I couldn’t say for certain since I didn’t know much about his magic, but perhaps he had more talent for acting than for spellcasting.
If someone who knew nothing about the situation saw this, they might actually believe this pathetic ending.
“Enri. So where exactly is this fellow’s true body hiding?”
“You know, you have a habit of pausing for a moment whenever you tell a lie.”
“That was a lie I just made up.”
But your reaction just now has already exposed that you were lying. I simply smiled without saying anything else, and Enri let out a deep sigh.
“Someone capable of stealing another person’s body would never put themselves in danger like that.”
After being toyed with by that Blood Cult Leader so many times, there was no way I would fall for the same trick again. The moment I realized how similar Harkia was to Hyeolgyoju, I had already predicted this.
“It’s too much of a hassle to go back. Just tell me.”
So I had to retrace the entire path I had just climbed? How annoying. Even if Enri guided me, I would still be the one who had to walk it all over again. Rather than wasting time on pointless effort, perhaps it was better to use a simpler, more brutish method.
I slammed my foot into the ground. Just like before, cracks began spreading across the floor. Harkia, who had been slumped over groaning in pain, lifted his head at the sudden vibration.
“You bastard. What exactly are you doing?”
He looked completely bewildered, as if he couldn’t comprehend my actions at all.
“Just wait. I’ll come find you soon.”
“What are you—”
“You’ll understand shortly.”
The floor shattered, and the fall began. I had no intention of slowing my descent. Using the momentum of the fall, I smashed through the next floor, then the one after that. As I continued downward, I eventually sensed an enormous mass of mana curled up in the distance.
There it was. So that was where you were hiding.
What a foolish creature. If it had been Hyeolgyoju, he would have prepared multiple hiding places. And even those would have been nothing more than decoys to conceal his real location. Compared to him, Harkia, you really are pathetically honest.
After destroying the final floor leading to the basement, I arrived in the chamber where Harkia’s true body was located. There stood a single old man covered in wrinkles.
So this was your true nature?
“Now then. Let us move on to the second act of this play.”
I would not allow you to run. Having become the lead actor on this stage, you can no longer leave this drama. There is only one way for you to survive: become the protagonist of this play and turn it into your own comedy. If you cannot do that, then only a tragic death awaits you.
So struggle with everything you have.
The true battle with the Vampire Lord’s main body now commences.
Enri gave up on giving advice as she watched Ara smash through the floors. She had planned to guide her to the room containing Harkia’s true body, but Ara was creating her own path as if she didn’t need any advice at all. What was even more astonishing was that, despite breaking through the floors, she was heading with perfect accuracy toward the exact location of Harkia’s main body.
Ara, who had been smashing her way down through the building, now stood in the deepest underground level of the castle, face to face with Harkia’s true body.
That was correct. To face Harkia’s true body, you first had to meet Bella and complete all the preparations for the fight. You needed to visit specific locations to dispel certain magics, obtain special artifacts, gather allies capable of standing against him, and so on. Only after running around for several hours could you even earn the right to challenge his main body.
Therefore, by all common sense, Ara should not have been able to defeat Harkia right now.
But… if it was Ara, wouldn’t she just beat him anyway?
For some reason, Enri could not imagine a single scenario in which Ara lost.