Gray cracks spread from Dracula's chest across his entire body, with sickly green light seeping out from every fissure.
Valentine's Desolate Curse was consuming his body from the inside.
That newly reshaped, perfect "divine physique," which had gathered the blood source essence of nine ancestors, was disintegrating at a speed visible to the naked eye. A whole patch of skin on his left shoulder flipped up, revealing the grayed muscle fibers beneath. Two ribs came loose at their joints, poking out from a rift in his chest, their surfaces covered in a layer of gray powder.
Dracula let out a beast-like roar.
It wasn't anger. It was fear.
Three thousand years of endurance, plotting, and discarding all dignity to be a lapdog for the White Tower Society for this moment—it was about to be snatched away less than a step from the finish line.
His sickly green eyes swept frantically across the chamber.
Bell lay in the rubble, the wound on his arm still bleeding. Leon knelt on the ground, the remnants of ice mana trembling at his fingertips. Lilian leaned against the rock wall, dagger still in hand, her breathing heavy.
None of them were worth his attention.
His gaze bypassed them, piercing through the depth of the chamber to the furthest point.
Tia's Mithril barbed claws were still embedded in Cecilia's shoulders. The two maintained that absurd posture—one pinning, the other pinned. Cecilia hung from Tia's claws, her feet off the ground, the blood from her shoulders already having trickled down to her waist.
The World Tree Heart.
Absolute Recovery.
That was the only thing that could keep him alive.
Dracula's legs suddenly exerted force. The grayed muscles shattered by thirty percent the moment they exploded, with shredded meat falling from his thighs, but the residual sickly green mana forcibly held his disintegrating body together for zero point five seconds.
It was enough.
His body turned into a streak of sickly green light.
Everyone in the chamber only had time to hear a thunderous boom.
Tia's etheric conduction lines lit up across her entire frame at the same moment. Her Mithril perception circuit locked onto the direction of the attack within zero point zero three seconds, and reaction commands were already transmitted to her limbs.
But the speed wasn't enough.
The blood source essence of nine ancestors plus the total energy of Moon Phase City's ley line array—when this force crushed forward, Tia's Mithril body was hit head-on.
The barbed claws were forcibly ripped out of Cecilia's shoulders. The Mithril barbed structure took out two chunks of flesh attached to fascia as they detached; green light flared, and the flesh closed up.
Tia's body flew back.
She smashed through the first layer of stone wall. Rubble and dust exploded into a wave of grayish-white.
The second layer. Her Mithril body sheared off a load-bearing pillar of the stone wall during the penetration, causing the ceiling above to crack open with a half-meter-wide fissure.
The third layer. Tia's back embedded into the bedrock at the end of the corridor. The Mithril shell did not deform. The etheric conduction lines were still lit. But she was stuck fifty meters away.
Three ruined stone walls stood between her and the chamber.
Dracula grabbed Cecilia by the neck in one swift motion.
His fingers tightened, and he hoisted her up.
Cecilia's feet left the ground once more. The wounds torn by Tia's barbs on her shoulders had just closed, only for five finger indentations to appear on her neck. She didn't struggle. She didn't even frown.
She tilted her head to look at Dracula, the curve hanging at the corner of her mouth never changing from beginning to end.
At that moment, a violent change occurred in Dracula's abdomen.
The face disguised as Leila—the golden threads had already snapped, the gray curse had eroded the facial contours, and the features were blurred into a mass of flesh. But driven by Dracula's will, that face suddenly tore open along the midline.
The skin rolled back to the sides. The muscle layers peeled away. The ribs were pushed open from the inside.
A mouth filled with fangs flipped out from deep within the abdominal cavity. The upper and lower rows of canines interlocked, each one the length of an adult's thumb. The inner wall of the mouth was covered in a layer of sickly green mucous membrane, writhing and contracting.
It was alive.
That wasn't a mouth. It was an organ. An organ specifically modified for devouring, created by three thousand years of obsession and the technology of the White Tower Society.
It opened wide.
Cecilia's entire body was stuffed inside. Starting from the feet. The legs. The waist. The chest. Finally, the head.
The swallowing process took no more than two seconds.
The fangs closed. The abdominal cavity shut. The ribs locked back into place. The torn face disappeared, replaced by a smooth, sickly green abdominal wall.
...
“Cecilia!!”
Bell's voice tore.
A roar burst from the deepest part of his throat, carrying bloody foam. His right arm was still bleeding, the wound having been ground open at the edges by the rubble. The pain in his spine was briefly rendered ineffective by the shock of that roar.
He charged out.
He had no weapon. The Soul Vibration Cannon was in a pile of rubble three meters away. He didn't go to pick it up.
His legs were running. His knee hit a protruding stone tile, causing him to stumble, but he didn't fall. He kept running.
There was nothing left in his mind.
Not the logic chain, not the deductions, not the memories of everything Cecilia had done over the years.
There was only one image.
A fourteen-year-old Cecilia sitting on the windowsill of the Lucas family home, swinging her legs, a strawberry in her mouth. Sunlight fell on her profile, and her hair wasn't that long yet.
His sister.
Yes, when a person dies, everyone only remembers her good points.
She had been swallowed by that monster.
Then, a sickly green light exploded from within Dracula.
Bell's feet were nailed to the spot.
That light was different from before. It was no longer a decaying, nauseating sickly green. It was a vibrant, rich emerald green with the fresh scent of plants. The power of the World Tree Heart.
Absolute Healing had activated within Dracula.
The gray cracks—the Desolate Curse Valentine had traded her life for—receded inch by inch in the emerald green light. The fissures closed. The grayed muscles regained their color. The shattered ribs reset, and the gray powder on the bone surfaces was completely swallowed by the green light.
Three seconds.
Dracula's body was completely restored.
Not just restored. A layer of faint golden halo shimmered on his skin, seeping out from his pores and enveloping his entire body.
He slowly rose into the air.
His feet left the ground. Thirty centimeters. Fifty centimeters. One meter. Two meters. Until he stopped beneath the broken hole in the chamber's ceiling, with the branches of the withered World Tree above Moon Phase City extending over his head.
His arms spread wide.
Emerald green light flooded into his sickly green irises. The two types of green overlapped, refracting a disturbing, alien color.
Tears slid from the corners of his eyes.
It wasn't sadness. It was ecstasy.
Three thousand years.
“Look.”
His voice fell from above, filling the entire chamber.
“This glorious body.”
He clenched his right fist. The skin texture on his knuckles was clearly visible, without a single scar.
“The power of infinite recovery.”
He opened his right hand. A ball of emerald green light condensed in his palm, expanding to the size of a basketball, the energy density within making the surrounding air hum. Then he crushed it. The light scattered, hitting the stone walls, causing dozens of green moss flowers to bloom on the stone surfaces.
“Endless mana.”
His gaze swept downward—Leon, Lilian, Bell, and Tia stuck in the bedrock in the distance, and Valentine, who already showed no signs of life on the ground.
“And the absolute amplification—of the Blood Dance Tattoo.”
On the skin of his left arm, dark red patterns crawled up from his wrist, spreading along his forearm, upper arm, and collarbone, all the way to his left cheek. At the end of the patterns were three interlocking roses.
The Blood Dance Tattoo. The mark of certification from the inheritance stone pillar for a king.
Dracula lowered his head.
“I am—the only true god of the Blood Race.”
He pressed his right hand downward.
A second ball of energy began to condense in his palm.
This time, there was no emerald green light. It was a murky, churning dark sphere carrying destructive pulses. The blood source characteristics of nine ancestors crushed, merged, and fissioned within the sphere.
The sphere's diameter expanded from the size of a fist. One meter. Two meters. Three meters.
The remaining stone walls of the chamber crumbled inch by inch under the sphere's radiation. Debris was sucked into the sphere's outer orbit, spinning around it.
“The great revival of the Blood Race—”
His gaze fell on Bell.
“—begins with crushing your bones.”
Bell stood his ground. The blood from his right arm was still dripping. The pain in his spine returned after the adrenaline ebbed, boring its way up from his tailbone.
His knees were shaking.
It wasn't because of the pressure. It was because he could do nothing anymore.
Valentine was dead. The Ancestors were petrified. Tia was knocked away. The Soul Vibration Cannon was out of reach. Leon and Lilian were in even worse shape than he was.
And the diameter of that destructive energy had already expanded to four meters.
Is this the end?
...
The anomaly occurred at the fifth meter.
An arm pierced through from inside Dracula's chest.
Slender. Fair. With dried blood scabs still on the fingernails.
That hand was clutching a heart.
A sickly green one. Still beating.
The destructive sphere in Dracula's palm collapsed at the same moment. Dark energy fragments exploded in all directions, blasting dozens of craters into the stone walls.
His smile froze.
It didn't disappear. It was stuck at that curve. The corners of his mouth were still turned up, and the tear stains on his eyes hadn't dried yet. But all the ecstasy was frozen into a specimen the moment that hand pierced out.
He looked down.
The hole in his chest.
An arm had pierced through from front to back, its fingertips clutching his heart, and a thin silver chain was worn on the wrist. He had seen that chain before. In the corridor of the White Tower Society's third laboratory, that black-haired girl always wore it.
A soft laugh came from within his body.
“Honestly.”
Cecilia's voice vibrated out from his abdominal cavity. Every syllable carried a resonance, echoing in the hollow of his chest.
“I have to be eaten by you every time. This slimy, wet feeling is really unpleasant.”
Every time.
Bell's charging footsteps were nailed to the spot.
Cold sweat seeped out from both sides of his spine at once, soaking the fabric of his shirt. The burning fury and sorrow of the previous second were doused by a bucket of ice water from above, leaving not even a trace behind.
Every time.
She said "every time."
Something in his brain was spinning at high speed, all the gears clicking together within zero point three seconds.
Cecilia had lived through this "restart" loop countless times. She knew better than anyone what would happen today. She knew Dracula would be pushed to a dead end. She knew he would come to steal the World Tree Heart. She knew that mouth on his abdomen would open.
She knew she would be swallowed.
From the very beginning—being pinned there by Tia, making way, provoking him, not struggling—it was all a script.
She was waiting.
Waiting for Dracula to personally send her inside.
Into that perfect vessel that had gathered the blood source essence of nine ancestors, the total energy of Moon Phase City's ley line array, the healing power of the World Tree, and the certification of the Blood Dance Tattoo.
And then from the inside—
Eat him.
Dracula's "divine physique" began to deform. The hole in his chest expanded outward with that arm as the center, the skin at the edges rolling back and the muscle layers twitching violently. The emerald green healing light and pure five-element mana engaged in a tug-of-war within him.
The World Tree was repairing. Cecilia was tearing. The speed of repair and the speed of tearing were locked on the same line, lasting for two seconds.
Then the tearing won.
Five-element mana exploded from within Dracula simultaneously. Fire, water, wind, earth, and lightning—five completely different destructive forces tore the emerald green healing light to shreds. His body began to swell. His skin bulged to the limit and then split. What poured out of the cracks was no longer sickly green light, but a multi-colored storm of elements.
Dracula's mouth finally broke free from that frozen smile.
A scream.
It wasn't a roar. It was a true scream, pitched extremely high, having nothing to do with the old king of three thousand years ago—it was purely a survival reflex from a biological organism being crushed from the inside.
His left hand pressed against the hole in his chest, trying to push that arm back in. His fingers touched Cecilia's wrist, and the silver chain slid between his fingers.
He couldn't push it.
His right hand reached out into the void. His fingers spread wide, and residual sickly green mana gathered at his fingertips, attempting to condense one last attack.
The light ball exploded halfway through its formation. The mana circuit had been cut off by Cecilia from the inside.
His body continued to swell.
The last bit of clarity in Dracula surfaced. Not much. A sliver. A sliver crushed to its thinnest by three thousand years of fear and obsession.
But it was enough.
He looked up.
He wasn't looking at anyone in the chamber. He was looking at the sky beyond the broken hole in the ceiling. There was no moon over Moon Phase City. There were only the branches of the withered World Tree and the sickly green light seeping from the rift.
His lips moved.
“I'm sorry.”
A pause.
“Leila.”
His body exploded.
A rain of blood splashed in all directions from the center of the chamber. Shreds of meat hit the stone walls, the ground, and Bell's face. Warm, sickly green liquid with residual embers dripped down his jaw.
In the center of the blood rain.
Cecilia stood in mid-air.
Spotless.
A shield of five-element mana dissipated from around her. The dark red Blood Dance Tattoo climbed up from her left wrist along her arm, crossed her collarbone, and settled on her left cheek. At the end of the patterns were three interlocking roses.
The certification mark of the inheritance stone pillar.
Her blonde hair fluttered gently in the aftermath of the elemental storm. There wasn't a drop of blood on her clothes. Her skin was intact. Even that thin silver chain on her wrist wasn't broken.
The blood source essence of nine ancestors. The absolute healing of the World Tree Heart. Three thousand years of ley line array energy. It was all within her.
She looked down at Bell.
She tilted her head slightly.
“Stupid brother.”
She giggled.
“You could rack your brain and never guess it, right?”
Bell stood in the rain of blood. Pieces of Dracula's flesh were stuck to his face. The wound on his right arm was still seeping blood. He looked up, his neck tilted to the extreme angle.
He didn't answer.
Cecilia slowly descended from the air. When her toes touched the rubble-strewn floor of the chamber, the sickly green moss flowers on the stone tiles bloomed frantically beneath her feet and then withered the next second, cycling over and over.
She took two steps forward. Three meters from Bell.
“That guy who changed life and death and distorted reality—”
She raised her right hand, her index finger held vertically in front of her lips in a "shush" gesture.
“—is named Salomos. Title: 'The Denier.'”
A pause.
The corners of her mouth pulled back to the sides, revealing a row of neat white teeth.
“And it has always been obediently residing within your dear—”
Her index finger moved from her lips and pointed toward the direction outside the stone door of the chamber, beyond Moon Phase City, toward the person who had already left the palace that morning.
“—Ed's body.”
Saying this, Cecilia patted her own stomach.
Rate on N.U.
