Chapter 147 | From Galgame Nobody to Eternal Sovereign

“Warm up two bowls of blood, and bring me a dish of high blood sugar.”

A young Claire sat at the bar, ordering his lunch for the day.

The price of blood was nine silver and fifteen copper coins, which was a bit expensive, but still acceptable for a high-tier vampire.

Claire had long since forgotten his time as a human.

He had spent most of his demonic life in the Demon Realm.

The Demon Realm was an incredibly magical place.

The sky there was always a lava-like dark red, and the air was filled with sulfur and an indescribable scent of spices. One breath, and his entire demonic life felt completely refreshed.

The geography of the Demon Realm was dominated by mountain ranges, abysses, and lava lakes.

When Claire was still a young vampire, he had once mistaken those bubbling pools of bright red liquid for actual lava and almost turned to run. That was until a passing fire demon uncle grabbed him with a chuckle and handed him a bamboo skewer.

“First time here, little vampire? Thousands of years ago, this actually was real lava. But later, the Demon God remodeled it. Now, what's flowing is entirely spicy hot pot broth.”

That uncle was the owner of a century-old shop, the Nine Circles of Hell Oden.

The shop was built directly over the lava lake, with some of the largest pots in the entire Demon Realm floating directly above the molten rock, simmered at a constant temperature by the earth's mana, never going out for twenty-four demon hours.

The pot's broth was divided into nine layers, with each descending layer doubling the spiciness. It was said that even archdemons didn't dare lightly try the bottommost layer. There had been customers who took a single bite and ascended to heaven on the spot, achieving enlightenment in a way.

Claire had ordered the third layer that day.

To this day, he still remembered that red-scaled demon beast leg rolling in the pot. The meat was firm, overflowing with mana, and a single bite sent a numbing sensation from the tip of his tongue all the way to his toes. Paired with a chilled blood plasma soda downed in one gulp, his entire vampire body was practically glowing.

“Does it taste good?” the owner asked with a smile.

“It does,” the young Claire nodded solemnly.

“Then bring your friends next time.”

“...I don't have friends.”

“Well, you can bring your enemies too, and we'll cook them instead.”

Most monsters in the Demon Realm were like this—pleasant to talk to and highly efficient.

The skeleton street vendors selling candied haws would sell skewers of demon beast eyeballs that burst with juice.

The one-eyed lich fortune-teller setting up a stall in the Abyssal Market was constantly telling fortunes because he had never been able to pay off his phylactery loan.

Those lava giants bathing in the spicy hot pot broth always exuded the aroma of food.

The beauty of the Demon Realm was that no one really cared about such things.

Demon beast meat was a daily staple, categorized by cut, grade, and mana concentration, with prices written on floating magic stone slates, fair to both young and old. Low-tier monsters were stewed, mid-tier monsters were grilled, and high-tier monsters were served as sashimi.

Claire's favorite dish was called "Nine-Fold Blood Scales," a gelatin boiled from hydra scales, paired with a spoonful of fresh virgin blood.

Show your fangs to respect higher-ranked demons, wag your tail to show friendliness to those of the same rank, and step directly on the heads of lower-ranked ones to show intimacy—a certain former Demon King had once enacted such a law.

But in reality, monsters had different physical structures. For example, vampires didn't have tails, nor were they very willing to step on other people's heads.

Later, that Demon King was run over and killed by the Hero because he accidentally tripped and fell into the human realm for stepping through a doorway with his left foot first.

The Demon Realm was just that kind of place.

It was overflowing with mana, the monsters spoke so pleasantly, and everyone was incredibly talented. He absolutely loved it there.

However, on that midnight when the moonlight was somewhat dim, Claire, feeling that tonight's blood sugar was not fresh and not to his taste—

Made a sudden, spontaneous decision.

Alone, on a whim.

He wanted to go to the human realm, find a fresh human with high blood pressure and high blood sugar, and take a few sips.

Of course, he would pay for it.

The connection between the two realms was very close; even if one just wanted to take a stroll, a summoning ritual could be completed between the two realms within a single day.

He arrived in the human realm through an exorcism ritual.

He paid nine silver and fifteen copper coins to a passerby to draw some blood, and was walking and drinking while holding a Mixue Blood City.

Then, the unexpected happened.

His connection with the Demon Realm vanished.

No matter how he invoked ancient secret arts or knocked on that invisible boundary gate, he received only a deathly silence. With no response and no retreat, Claire was trapped in the human realm just like that.

And not long after, the war of the Witches also broke out.

No one knew what they were fighting over, but many Witches began battling in the center of the Red Moon Empire, directly above the royal capital.

For a time, the sky grew dark and the earth went dim, blotting out the sun and moon.

Even the great Dao was ground into dust.

Witches? Just how many divisions did they have?

Claire had originally just wanted to go and ask those Witches if they knew the way back to the Demon Realm.

Three minutes later, having lost all the Blood Essence he had accumulated over hundreds of years, Claire had no choice but to head away from the imperial capital to seek refuge.

In his subsequent demonic life, he played the mysterious role of a "Vampire Duke." During his free travels, he met companions of various personalities and unique abilities, defeated powerful enemies alongside them, forged deep bonds, and joined the "Vampire Council" initiated by a high-tier vampire.

Some in the council were ancient vampires who had lost connection while passing through, while others had already been operating secretly in the human realm for ages.

They eventually gathered together and jointly established the Vampire Council.

Some vampires had grand ambitions, but Claire just wanted to return to the Demon Realm.

Thus, he only attended essential missions or traveled to places where he could gather Blood Essence.

Of course, this did not prevent his fame from spreading far and wide.

In the Vampire Council and at the Adventurer's Bell, the name Claire was practically synonymous with an insurmountable abyss.

“Speaking of the strongest Duke? It's probably Claire.”

A certain ancient Vampire Duke who had once witnessed Claire in action sighed in a secret chamber as he set down his wine glass.

The others at the table fell silent for a moment; none spoke up to refute it.

“It depends on the specific circumstances, but if anyone can unleash the purity of a Duke's blood to its absolute limit, it has to be Claire.”

Late one night, in the corridors of the Vampire Council, two Dukes were chatting.

Once one of them finished saying this, no one spoke another word.

Silence itself was the best footnote.

“The strongest Duke? It should be Claire, but if you factor in those slumbering vampires, it's a different story,” a certain Grand Duke of the vampires had once said.

“That night... he didn't even draw his rapier.”

An adventurer who had witnessed Claire's strength firsthand said hoarsely after getting drunk in a tavern, “He just stood there, and the space within a ten-mile radius had already become his sea of blood. My companion lost consciousness on the spot. My own blood—I could feel my own blood flowing toward him.”

He paused and spoke no further, realizing that the other patrons in the tavern had already quietly shifted toward the exit.

“Even a Grand Mage of the kingdom probably couldn't last three moves under Duke Claire's crimson rapier. That is a monster capable of turning a ten-mile radius of space into an inverted sea of blood, with a depth of mana almost comparable to a Witch.”

A certain high-tier adventurer who had briefly clashed with him said to his colleagues after the battle.

“As powerful as a Witch?”

“Almost...”

He paused, then added one final line:

“The only reason I walked away alive was because he felt killing me was a waste of time.”

Claire was simply too powerful.

For the Vampire Council, Claire was the sharpest hidden blade!

Only a task personally arranged by the Ancestor could prompt Lord Claire to take action.

...

Claire blankly opened his eyes.

There was only void around him—pure, boundless darkness.

Where was this?

Claire wiggled his fingers, only to find that he could not control his balance at all. He could only spin in slow motion in a highly ridiculous posture within the freezing vacuum.

The bone-chilling cold threatened to freeze his noble blood into dark ice crystals in an instant, followed immediately by the unobstructed, scorching light of a distant star shining directly onto his exposed skin.

Claire saw the Red Moon, saw the sun, and saw that distant, beautiful Red Moon Continent.

Ah, he had reached the outer heavens.

Moisture evaporated completely in an instant. In the vacuum and the alternating extremes of hot and cold, the Duke's physical body began to crack layer by layer, his skin peeling away.

Vampires had no need for breath, so he would not suffocate in the vacuum.

However, there was no way to escape the direct sunlight here either.

Every inch of his skin was losing blood, every bone was fracturing, and every cell was diligently fulfilling its final duty before dissolving into cosmic dust.

Claire stopped thinking.

He remembered.

What had happened before.

His subordinate had been killed, so he tracked down the culprit, wanting to eliminate that black-haired girl who kept eating cake.

A split second before his attack landed, that meddling vampire junior, who exuded a cheap and weak fluctuation of blood energy, seemed to use every ounce of her strength to shout: “Please spare him!”

Spare him?

Claire had hesitated for a moment.

For the sake of a clueless fellow vampire, he had held back about ten percent of his strength.

But since he couldn't discern the opponent's strength, that earth-shattering strike was still a full-power blow from a powerful vampire.

Who could block it?

Even if that white-haired vampire brat sensed the fatal momentum and used a hypocritical plea to buy her master one last breath, it was nothing more than an ant trying to stop a carriage.

However, Claire quickly realized that those words had actually been addressed to the black-haired girl.

That black-haired girl holding the cake pouted just as she ate the final strawberry.

The sparks on her fingertips vanished. She simply extended a finger and lifted it upward.

The mysterious upward-pointing girl.

And then, there was no then.

No violent collision, no magic clashing, no splattering of flesh and blood.

The moment that finger pointed, the gravity of the entire world reversed in an instant, and an impossibly violent, massive thrust enveloped him from all directions.

Before he could even prepare a scream, he turned into a crimson streak of light slicing across the sky, vertically piercing the atmosphere at many times the speed of sound, and was thrown firmly into outer space.

What on earth...

...was that magic?

A repulsive force capable of temporarily twisting the laws of heaven and earth—could it be the legendary Forbidden Spell: Gravity Reversal?

But wasn't Gravity Reversal an ultra-tier Forbidden Spell that required twelve high-tier mages chanting together for over an hour, draining the entire energy core of a mage tower just to barely activate?

Was it an innate magic, or a bloodline magic?

But in any case, even the most powerful mage he had ever seen could not do such a thing.

A casual flick of a finger and...

...a silent-cast Forbidden Spell?

Was this for real?!

...

On the ground, the alchemy carriage, half of Black Gallows, Sophie, Miaoyue, and the others were currently drifting slowly in a gravity-free environment, floating as if suspended in empty space.

Miaoyue wiped the cream from her fingertips with a handkerchief in mid-air, her delicate little face written all over with displeasure.

Puffing out her cheeks, she complained, “The Saintess is really looking for trouble. There is no such thing as 'showing mercy' in a god's dictionary!”

“Put us down first!” Sophie said helplessly.

“If I cancel the magic now, everyone will fall,” Miaoyue said.

“Where is your Feather Fall spell?”

“I forgot,” Miaoyue said proudly.

Sophie: “...”

“You protect the carriage, I'll go save the others,” Sophie sighed.

At the same time, she pulled ten mana threads from her hands, wrapping them around Nega and the others, and instructed Miaoyue, “Don't damage the carriage. There's still a lot of food inside.”

As a vampire who could fly, she planned to help buffer their fall in mid-air, landing them safely on the ground at a speed that wouldn't cause injury.

Sigh, to cause such massive collateral damage with just a single-target Forbidden Spell—Sophie really didn't know where a certain glutton's five hundred years of cultivation had gone.

“There's actually still food? Mission guaranteed!” Miaoyue wrapped the carriage in mana.

Boom.

The magic was deactivated, and gravity once again dominated the space.

The carriage wrapped in mana crashed onto the ground as expected, bouncing three meters high before slamming down heavily. After rolling twice, it was finally stabilized firmly by Miaoyue's magic circle.

The protective array on the alchemy carriage made an overburdened sound, but it still did not break apart.

Landing lightly on the ground, Miaoyue rested her chin in her hands, curiously watching Sophie quickly clean up the mess in mid-air.

Sophie fought against gravity with considerable difficulty.

The instant gravity returned, the ten mana threads snapped taut. Under the pull of powerful inertia, Nega and the others plummeted vertically like free-falling stones, accompanied by pig-slaughtering screams.

As the sole anchor point of these human kite strings, Sophie was suddenly dragged down by this sudden, immense weight in mid-air, nearly turning a somersault.

“Stupid gravity... Watch me... push it back!”

Her face paled as she gritted her teeth. The black, fleshy bat wings on her back tore through her clothes and spread out violently in the air.

Those bat wings, which were originally wide, elegant, and represented noble blood, were now flapping frantically.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Turbulent air currents tore across the wilderness. Sophie flapped her wings with all her might, her speed so fast they almost blurred into two black fan-shaped afterimages.

“Everyone... hold on tight!”

Sophie shouted. Her soft white hair had long been blown into a messy tangle by the wild wind, and she couldn't even bother to wipe away the few strands plastered to her face.

She frantically flapped her wings to gain upward lift, her legs kicking comically back and forth in the empty air as she struggled to maintain her balance. At the same time, she carefully released and tightened the mana threads through her fingers, using their elasticity to buffer the fall in stages.

Nega was swung around so much at the bottom of his thread that he grew dizzy and vomited wildly in mid-air, repeatedly colliding with Buck and Gru beside him.

“Lady Sophie! Help! We're going to die!”

“Shut up! Even if you die, I'll put you back together!”

Sophie panted heavily, her chest heaving violently. In her clumsy flapping, she stubbornly fought against the massive downward inertia, gradually grinding the falling speed down.

When they were less than three meters from the ground, Sophie took a deep breath, pressed her wings downward, and kicked up one final, violent updraft.

The threads retracted in an instant, cushioning the final gravity.

Thud, thud.

Nega and the others finally tumbled onto the hard ground one after another, rolling several times across the grass.

Though they were bruised, battered, and saw stars, thanks to Sophie's desperate efforts to buffer their fall, they only suffered minor scrapes, and their lives were kept perfectly intact.

Who would have thought that the highest damage of this adventure would be dealt by one of their own.

The half of the Black Gallows houses and various flesh creations that had been swept into the sky by Gravity Reversal now crashed back to the ground one after another with a series of loud clatters.

“Whew... Whew...”

Sophie collapsed onto the ground, rolling her eyes.

Miaoyue, squatting beside her, had a face full of innocence: “Are you hot? How about I use a Tsunami spell to cool you down?”

“Ugh... No need. I'm a cold-blooded creature, I just feel like burying myself on the spot.” Sophie closed her eyes, spreading her limbs into a peaceful star shape.

Super Galgame Intelligence.exe has stopped running.

“Oh~” Miaoyue copied her and lay down beside her, shoulder to shoulder. Following Sophie's gaze, she looked up at the sky and began to space out.

The Saintess is really interesting.

Putting aside the love-coaching parts, over the past three days, she had come to understand quite a bit about the personality of this Saintess of hers, who was also her disciple.

At this moment, Sophie clearly had a belly full of words she wanted to say.

Miaoyue could tell from those beautiful eyes that there was a quiet, unspoken helplessness that had been gently swallowed back down.

But that bit of helplessness would not rise to the surface.

She must have caused trouble. If it were her Teacher, he would have scolded her without hesitation.

But Sophie didn't.

No blame, no lecturing.

She just looked for solutions.

It was the same with the desserts.

Every time Miaoyue asked, “My Saintess, are there any desserts left?” Sophie would always say “No more” first.

But as long as Miaoyue mentioned it again, expressing how much she wanted to eat, another piece would always miraculously appear on the table.

And every single time, it happened to be a brand-new, untasted flavor.

She clearly said there were none.

Yet there always were.

The Saintess is probably the kind of person who keeps 'no' on her lips but hides 'yes' in her heart.

This feeling of being unconditionally supported was just like the sweet cream overflowing in one's mouth when biting into a cream puff.

Miaoyue thought.

Compared to her Teacher...

While it was true that she preferred her Teacher's attitude, she occasionally felt that the Saintess's approach gave her a greater sense of peace.

She hadn't seen Sophie lose her temper yet, and she wondered what it would look like.

Why was she actually looking forward to it?

Miaoyue turned on her side, reaching out a fair, tender finger to poke Sophie's pale, soft cheek.

It was soft and squishy.

Poking a small dent into it, which immediately bounced back.

Sophie's skin was soft, incredibly soft.

Sophie glared at her.

Miaoyue kept poking.

The Saintess doesn't get angry when her face is poked.

Without even raising her eyelids, Sophie let out a completely non-threatening mutter from her throat: “Already dead, do not disturb. Poke me again and I'll bite you.”

She had completely burned out.

Despite talking about biting, Sophie didn't even open her mouth. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, finding a more comfortable angle to lean against Miaoyue's shoulder.

But this warm, slacking-off time only lasted for a brief few seconds. Sophie's stopped-running intelligence suddenly resurrected on the spot, and she sat up abruptly like a dying person startled awake.

“Wait, that's not right! Where did you blast that vampire just now? Is he still alive?”

“Over there,” Miaoyue pointed to the sky.

“Where?”

“Over there.”

“Hurry up and find a way to fish him back. He's still useful; we need to question him for information,” Sophie said, unable to see anything "over there" after staring for a while.

“My Saintess is so troublesome!”

“I just remembered there are still several experimental new products in the carriage to reward Teacher—”

“Oh, then it's not troublesome at all.”

Miaoyue also sat up, then shaped her hand into a gun, pointing it at the empty sky.

Pew—

An invisible wave of repulsive force condensed in the void, turning into a thick, invisible beam of light. In an instant, it crossed thousands of miles, accurately slamming into Claire's waist in outer space.

Claire, who had just been rolling in despair in the universe, suddenly felt an overwhelming force strike his side. Before he could emit even half a syllable, he was sent flying diagonally at an even more terrifying speed, like a billiard ball struck heavily by a cue.

Miaoyue sat on the ground, her small hand continuously making little shooting motions.

Pew~ Pew~ Pew~ Pew~

Forbidden Spell: Universal Repulsion.

Another hit.

One space-distorting Forbidden Spell after another erupted silently in succession over the wilderness. With every finger pointed, the isolated and helpless Claire, far out in space, would have his trajectory ruthlessly corrected.

“Fine, fine, I'll go fetch him back. My Saintess just loves ordering people around.”

Miaoyue stood up, her body dissolving into moonlight.

...

Claire was like a billiard ball on a table, constantly being struck.

After more than a dozen brutal corrections of his trajectory by the repulsive force, Claire finally realized that he was rapidly approaching that massive red planet that was constantly expanding in his field of vision.

A red... moon?

This was the Red Moon? Was this what the Red Moon actually looked like?

As he drifted closer to this moon due to inertia, a terrifying mana, so dense it was almost physical, wafted over from it.

Filled with mana, his body began to repair itself.

The bodies of demons were naturally favored by the pure mana emitted by the Red Moon.

The Blood Moon... was actually like this?

As a high-tier vampire, the moment Claire touched this mana, he felt the blood throughout his entire body run wildly out of control. His consciousness began to blur at this moment, producing a drunken frenzy and trembling.