KWAANG!
The grand duke’s attack struck Ariella head-on.
An attack carrying overwhelming force.
Every single blow was no different from a fatal wound to Ariella.
‘I’m still stronger.’
But.
It was different from before.
‘Compared to before...’
A little, just a very little.
An incredibly minute difference, but.
The grand duke noticed.
‘...The damage has decreased!’
The blood it had been forced to give up control over of its own accord,
so it could hand it over to that man.
It might have been possible to delay surrendering control of it.
But once it had already been sent out to be given to that man,
it could no longer exercise control over that blood again.
Because of that.
The factor deciding victory or defeat in this battle had been narrowed down to one thing.
‘Whether I can destroy that toy first and pull the elder sister out from inside it.’
The grand duke’s power was not even comparable to Ariella’s.
If it ended the battle quickly, it might be able to cut off her life.
But.
‘Or whether I, having had too much of my power stolen away, am the one who gets beaten back.’
If that victory was delayed by even a little,
then the grand duke, after losing so much blood, might be defeated instead.
The flow of power was one-sided.
It was practically a rule that was endlessly unfavorable to the grand duke.
‘But.’
Even so, the grand duke observed its own inner state.
‘My chances are high.’
The blood flowing through its body.
The amount of it was beyond imagination.
The land where they had once lived.
Every living thing that had existed on that land.
Their blood had flowed into the grand duke’s veins over the course of a long war.
So yes, the amount of power leaving it was great,
but compared to the total amount of blood it possessed,
it was absurdly small.
‘If this battle continues as it is.’
The grand duke who had specialized in power more than anyone.
Valarak’s judgment.
The grand duke who possessed beastlike senses.
Harosh’s keen perception.
The grand duke that had been swallowed by fear, yet had been wiser than anyone.
Kirchhoff’s wisdom.
‘By the slightest margin.’
As the blood of the three grand dukes circulated through the grand duke’s brain,
it arrived at one conclusion.
‘I win!’
KWAANG!
A fist full of certainty
violently smashed into Ariella’s shadow.
In truth.
That calculation was not wrong.
If Ariella did nothing but flee and try to drink only the grand duke’s blood, variables might arise,
but if she did that, this city would fall to the grand duke,
so Ariella too had no choice but to stay engaged with it and hold it in place.
She was in a position where she had to brawl against a grand duke far stronger than herself.
If this structure continued,
then no matter how much of the grand duke’s blood she consumed,
the one to break first would be Ariella.
“...What is this.”
But.
The grand duke did not know one thing.
“Why!”
Just as it had calculated,
if the power contained in the grand duke’s blood had been passed on to Ariella exactly as it was,
then the one who would win with a probability close to one hundred percent would have been the grand duke.
“Why!”
Yes.
That was only...
“Why won’t you fall!”
...if that power had been transmitted ‘exactly as it was.’
***
Psshk!
‘...It hurts.’
Every time the grand duke’s attack landed on Ariella,
another wound was added to her body.
That in itself was rather unfamiliar to her.
A vampire’s regenerative power was beyond imagination.
Ordinary injuries healed in an instant, and it was normal to have not even a single lingering scratch.
And yet the reason her wounds kept accumulating
was that the injuries inflicted by the grand duke were so lethal
that even that powerful regenerative ability could not keep up.
‘But...’
But.
From some point onward—
‘It’s bearable.’
Her body, where wounds had continued piling up because her regenerative ability could not keep pace—
that body began to change.
Sliiide...
The countless wounds carved into her body
began to heal one by one.
As a result of continually devouring the grand duke’s blood.
...The regenerative ability of a powerful great noble
had caught up to the accumulation of her wounds.
“Why...!”
It was true that the overwhelming gap between them
was narrowing.
The problem was that the speed at which that gap was closing
was also vastly exceeding the grand duke’s calculations.
‘Why, you ask?’
And.
Thinking of the reason, Ariella let out a faint smile inwardly.
It was only natural.
Because when she thought of the reason,
she felt happy for no particular reason, and her mood lifted.
A smile could not help but form on its own.
It was only obvious, really.
Because—
[Course Meal Prepared with the Full Sincerity of a Hero-Class War Chef]
[Course Name - Life]
—when you ate something delicious,
feeling better was only natural.
‘Ahh...!’
The blood of her own kind offered her a special taste.
She did not know why they had been designed to find the blood of their own kind more delicious,
but among their own kind, the one who stood at the summit—
the grand duke’s blood possessed the supreme taste of all.
‘It was because of this that I even had to submit to a mere human.’
But.
That was not the only reason for the pleasure she felt.
The grand duke’s blood would already have offered an extraordinary taste.
And on top of that, what had been added was—
‘Cooking!’
He was a chef who could produce the finest result even from ordinary ingredients.
And now the finest ingredient imaginable had been placed in his hands.
‘It is unbearably delicious...!’
The power gained from consuming that dish as well
was overwhelmingly greater than anything that could even be compared to merely consuming raw blood.
‘At this rate...’
The speed at which Ariella was growing stronger through the grand duke’s blood was far too fast.
‘The side that wins will be...’
And the moment both nobles realized that fact,
the two heads of house thought at the same time:
‘...There’s no way to know!’
If this battle continued as it was,
there was no telling at all which side would win.
‘I cannot be certain of victory.’
The grand duke, of course.
...And Ariella as well.
***
‘As you promised, the taste of the dish was truly supreme.’
The gap was gradually narrowing,
but Ariella’s victory was still far from certain.
Far off in the distance,
she looked at the man in military uniform,
his body hunched over as he suppressed the changes taking place within him.
‘The plan you devised was certainly perfect.’
The plan that had placed her here to fight.
It was not that the calculation had been wrong.
The plan itself had definitely been perfect.
If there was a problem,
‘...It was simply that a variable arose.’
That man’s plan had been perfect.
But under the original plan,
one more variable should have been added to the current situation.
If they had intended to fight a battle like this from the start,
then there would have been no reason to continue the fight here in Qingdao after the battle in the capital.
They could have simply forced the grand duke into an oath right there in the capital.
And yet.
There had been a reason they had no choice but to do something this complicated.
Her gaze turned toward that reason.
“...”
Somewhere over there.
A man who, after having all the blood drained from his body,
was probably staring blankly at the battlefield.
‘One of the planned preparations failed.’
The reason was simple.
‘Because of me.’
Originally, Ariella’s rank was never meant to fall.
In that battle in the capital, she had been supposed to stall the grand duke.
But.
Unexpectedly, the grand duke had stripped away her rank far too easily.
To continue the operation, they had somehow needed to restore that rank.
And to do that—
‘I would have had to awaken Bella inside me.’
Shin Youngjun had entered Ariella.
Inside her, he found and awakened the former grand duke who had been hiding there.
And then.
So that she could entrust Ariella with the seat of the new head of house,
‘...that power had to be awakened earlier than planned.’
A power too much for even Shin Youngjun as he was now to bear.
No, not just him.
Even Ariella, or that grand duke fighting her—
if any of them contained that power, they would explode to death in an instant...
that overwhelming power had needed to be awakened.
If it had not been a power that “made the impossible possible,”
then imprisoning it inside the body in the first place would have been impossible.
Without limit, and thus infinite.
Containing such power inside the body was, originally, an “impossible” thing.
According to the original plan, that power was supposed to be opened a little later, only after every preparation he had planned was in place.
But because that power had been opened sooner than expected, one of the planned ingredients had not been secured.
A man who, so long as he had information on the enemy and sufficient ingredients, could create a dish of certain victory through those ingredients.
Even the operation he had devised this time, if completed properly, was a recipe capable of hunting even a grand duke.
But—
‘No matter how extraordinary a chef may be.’
—if one of the key ingredients were missing, then a flaw would inevitably appear in the taste as well.
There was no choice but for a huge hole to open in the plan.
‘I cannot be certain whether we can win or not.’
That was what had created the uncertainty of the present.
A battle where victory and defeat could not be measured.
Even if what waited at its end was her defeat, there would be nothing strange about that at all.
If she were defeated here, then not only she, but also the friend inside her, whom she had finally succeeded in reuniting with after so long, would be devoured by that grand duke.
‘And yet what is strange is...’
She might have felt fear at that fact.
But unexpectedly—
‘...I’m not afraid.’
She realized that she felt no fear whatsoever.
KWAANG, KWANG!
Blows continued to pass back and forth.
As fists and shadows struck each other and blood flew between them, her mind remained endlessly calm.
It was not because she thought dying would be fine.
Nor because she was certain she would win.
It was because of one thing.
‘...That man trusted me and left this to me.’
She had thought all this time that everyone had abandoned her.
But he had made her realize that she had not, in fact, been abandoned.
And the friend she had believed she would never see again for the rest of her life—
he had made it possible for her to meet that friend once more.
Even that soul of hers, so terribly defiled, had passed through his [preparation], leaving only purity behind.
‘Then I...’
Things she had only ever believed to be impossible had happened one after another.
So.
‘If someone like that is trusting me.’
Even if she had no certainty about victory or defeat, she had no hesitation about the battle either.
‘I need only trust the one who trusts me, and fight.’
If there was anything there at all, then it was only one thing.
Faith.
***
KWAANG!
A shadow shot forward straight and true, without a trace of hesitation.
While Ariella fought with that trust, utterly without wavering—
‘...This is absurd.’
—there was another being whose eyes trembled as it watched that straight and true shadow.
‘This is absurd.’
Neither side knew who the victor would be.
If this battle continued as it was, the possibility of victory was half and half.
‘This is absurd, this is absurd, this is absurd...!!!’
But.
A clear difference existed between them.
‘Can I win?’
Certainty and distrust.
‘If I lose here...?’
Faith and anxiety.
‘I devoured my elder brother.’
The most foolish of the Progenitor’s children.
Its first act of devouring its own kind had been little more than instinct.
But even it, after devouring its elder brother, had come to possess something called wisdom.
...And that wisdom had also taught it how horrifying what it had done truly was.
‘I devoured my elder sister.’
Even after realizing that fact, it had continued on the path of sin.
It had already devoured siblings who had shared blood with it.
There had been only one choice left to it.
There was nothing for it except to see this path through to its end.
A path with a high chance of failure.
But if even a one percent chance remained, it had always pursued that possibility without giving up, challenging forward again and again.
‘If I fail here?’
...But.
That had only been possible because there had still been at least a one percent chance remaining, and because, no matter how close something came to failure, that did not mean it was failure.
‘If after committing such an act... I still fail?’
If it was defeated here, then the sinful road it had walked would end in the worst possible result: failure.
Kwaaang...
...The grand duke was a powerful being.
Ever since being reborn after receiving the Progenitor’s blood, there had been nothing besides the sun that could threaten it.
Even the siblings who had received that same blood respected it, and there had been nothing it needed to fear.
“Grand Duke...”
But now.
A small change had begun to take place within that Valarak.
Ariella realized it.
For a moment, her eyes widened in surprise.
Then, with a faint smile, she said,
“Your movements...”
“...”
“have grown dull.”
“...!”
It was true that as the grand duke’s blood flowed out, the gap in power between them was narrowing.
But.
That was not what Ariella had noticed.
‘Right now...’
Something more important than that.
Something even the grand duke itself had not properly realized yet.
‘Have I... feared that toy?’
Within the grand duke’s heart, ‘fear’ had begun to take root.
