To aid the grand duke.
Praising that name as the master of their souls,
the bloodkin that had been rushing toward the city at tremendous speed—
Paaak....
“The hell...”
their bodies,
in accordance with their master’s command, turned into mere handfuls of blood.
It was not only the monsters that had been swarming in around here.
Far away.
Across this entire continent.
Red liquid flew through the sky, surging toward the grand duke.
And then.
“What have you... done?!”
Everyone who saw it opened their eyes wide in horror.
The awakened of this land had received Karhin’s guidance.
They had learned a great many things from Karhin, a vampire himself.
Among them was what became of those whose blood had been sucked dry.
One who was completely drained had their soul entirely reduced to food for the vampire.
But there were a few exceptions.
The bloodkin vampires created in order to make subordinates of their own.
Most of their souls might be turned into blood and devoured,
but a faint remnant of soul still remained in those bodies.
That was why not all vampires were emotionless dolls.
Even if they had been reborn to obey their master, it did not mean every trace of the soul had vanished.
‘They said bloodkin were a house.’
And yet.
‘And they said a house was a family.’
The grand duke—
beings that had sprung from its own blood.
Though they looked like toys that could be manipulated far too easily, each one possessed its own soul.
The children of its house.
Gulp.
It was swallowing them.
“...Grand duke.”
Watching that sight,
Ariella parted her lips blankly.
“Have you... gone mad with fear?”
“Shut up.”
Ariella could not help but be horrified.
The grand duke was already monstrously strong.
And.
Just as Ariella found it difficult to increase her power through the blood of the weak,
the grand duke was the same.
No matter how much blood of ordinary servants it drank,
its strength would not increase explosively.
At best, it would only be able to hold out a little longer in this contest of power against Ariella.
Even if it did such a thing,
it still would not guarantee victory.
If anything, it might even have been more helpful for each of those bloodkin to keep fighting as separate monsters.
Ariella’s own servants too were individually absurdly weak compared to the grand duke,
but even merely forcing it to react to their movements and gestures could create a major difference.
“What could that pitiful objective possibly be worth...”
But.
The reason Ariella was horrified was not merely because what the grand duke had done was foolish.
“The ones who followed you...!”
To be devoured by the master they had followed, called useless things.
That betrayal.
That emotion they must have felt when abandoned by the one they had trusted.
Ariella understood it better than anyone.
“Die—!”
Ariella, blazing with fury, lunged in.
What it had just done had probably lowered her chances of victory even further.
But there was no hesitation in her actions.
On the other hand—
“Did I not tell you to disappear!”
the grand duke,
still with eyes full of fear, shoved her away.
Its total amount of power had increased.
Judging by the way Ariella was being pushed back, it was clear its odds of victory had gone up as well.
But even so—
‘...I could still lose.’
The grand duke was trembling with fear.
That fear had paralyzed its reason as well.
And wrapped in that fear, the grand duke still made the best choice available to it.
Srrrk....
“...!”
At a massive movement she felt from somewhere,
Ariella’s gaze lifted toward the sky.
And she could only open her eyes wide in shock.
‘The clouds.’
The red clouds that had covered the sky.
Those clouds were splitting apart, shrinking.
Hwaaaaaaaaaak!!!
No longer remaining in the sky,
those clouds all descended to the ground and rushed toward the grand duke.
‘Then that means...’
Even in the midst of her fury,
Ariella turned her head and looked far off.
As the clouds that had hidden the sky disappeared...
‘Twilight.’
the sun that had been hidden behind them revealed itself.
***
When the battle in that capital had first begun, the sun had been high overhead.
But as time passed in battle, the sun had been setting.
Even so.
‘That light is still sunlight.’
Pang!
Clicking her tongue,
Ariella had no choice but to move her body as quickly as possible to avoid that light.
Kwa-gwa-gwaang...!
No matter how furious she was,
she could not fight the grand duke beneath the sun.
Her shadow hastily dug into the ground and burrowed below.
And even while avoiding the light,
Ariella looked up at the sky.
Srrrk....
There, she could still see the grand duke standing.
She could also see the clouds that had floated in the sky—
the blood mist wrapping around its body.
‘That old man...’
As all the blood mist that had blanketed the continent wrapped around the grand duke’s body,
the shape was no longer like the cloak it had worn before.
‘Neferat’s...’
The hide of an old man.
Because the grand duke’s body had swollen so greatly,
it now looked as though it had draped itself in the grotesquely stretched hide of an old man.
And.
Only after seeing that sight did Ariella realize it.
The grand duke had grown so afraid of fighting her that it had given up on winning head-on.
It had chosen another method instead.
And that method was this.
“...Stop it!!!”
The awakened in the city had only a moment to marvel at the disappearance of the blood clouds in the sky and the arrival of twilight,
before, flustered, they seized their weapons.
The grand duke was heading for the center of the city.
To stop it.
Kwaang...!
Many awakened gave chase with all their strength,
but they could not stop the grand duke’s advance.
Feeling the situation from beneath the sun, Ariella thought,
‘If only it were not for that loathsome... natural enemy.’
She had succeeded in breaking in when the occupation of the city was already nearly complete.
If someone like her was now unable to take part in the battle,
it was obvious how the rest of that occupation war would turn out.
‘There was no way for me to predict this.’
To devour all of its servants and expose the sun directly.
To begin with, exposing the sun to drive her back
was a method that could only be used when every other bloodkin was already dead, or when it no longer mattered whether they died.
From Ariella’s point of view, it was a horrifying thing beyond imagining.
‘Leaving me aside.’
Which was why
she could not help but find it strange.
‘You did not foresee this either...?’
Because it did not seem likely that even that man, wherever he was,
had failed to anticipate this situation.
“Hah, hahaha.”
And.
Whether Ariella found it strange or not,
the grand duke shoved aside the awakened on the ground and headed for the center of the city.
“I should have done this from the start.”
The blood from its body was still flowing toward Ariella,
but it was still more than enough to drive back the awakened in the city.
“The problem was that I wasted my elder brother in order to protect mere bloodkin!”
That was especially true now, with its entire body wrapped in Kirchhoff’s remains.
And at last—
“Finally!”
Kuuung.
Its body
planted itself in the very center of the city.
At that moment,
the grand duke felt a certain current.
‘That is...’
It had never sensed it in the past,
but now it could tell because of the power swirling inside its body.
The power that was trying to burst its heart open let it understand.
‘The power of [Occupation War].’
The power that had belonged to this land.
Until just a short while ago, the owner of that power had been the humans resisting it.
But now it could feel that owner changing.
Paaak!
The old man’s remains wrapped around the grand duke’s body
turned into red mist and flew toward the direction that power was flowing.
And soon.
“It is time to resume our transaction.”
A figure came flying in, caught in that mist.
The one whom the power of this land had acknowledged as its master.
“Jinlei!”
That man, withered and dying,
was dragged before the grand duke, bound in red mist.
***
“It is time to resume our transaction!”
The grand duke had no choice but to admit it.
It was not confident it could defeat that Ariella in a fight.
Continuing that battle against her was simply too terrifying.
But.
Its objective from the start had never been to bring down that mere toy.
Its goal was to occupy this city and replenish the power it lacked.
“Now!”
And.
That power now flowed into the human who had agreed to make a transaction with it.
Jinlei.
Now.
So long as he fulfilled that transaction,
the grand duke would move on to the next stage.
And once that happened,
it would butcher the system that had mocked it,
and every living being in this land that system protected.
And after that...
“...I have.”
While it was indulging in fantasies about what would come next,
a voice broke through those fantasies.
“...one question.”
“...What?”
The dying man.
Jinlei opened his mouth with a dry, withering voice.
***
At a moment when he should have fulfilled the contract at once
and passed immediately into the next stage—
“About... the bloodkin.”
the very party to that contract,
Jinlei brought up something else.
“What is it you are trying to say?”
But.
That contract contained a clause that prevented either side from forcing the other.
The grand duke had no choice but to hear the question out.
“...The ones I met did not feel like mere dolls of the grand duke... but like beings each carrying their own life.”
At those words,
the grand duke, irritated though it was, nodded.
“That is so.”
“Among them... there was even one who helped me.”
“So what of it?”
“...After drinking the blood of a [Marquis] and realizing the true nature of this race, I thought I would abandon whatever attachment I still had to the bloodkin. Even if some among them had treated me well... they were still a garbage race all the same. But....”
With wavering eyes, he continued.
“You personally... devoured every last one of them.”
“...So that is what this is about.”
“I was taught... that bloodkin were something like family.”
At that,
the grand duke replied as though the whole thing were absurd.
“Yes, I devoured them with my own hands. I personally devoured those creatures who were no different from my children and made them my power.”
“...”
“Why? Seeing it with your own eyes, did it strike you as something utterly vile?”
And.
The reason it wore such an expression was simple.
“Was this... not what you wanted?”
From the beginning.
What Jinlei had demanded had not only included the extinction of humanity,
but the extinction of the bloodkin as well.
“At the end of that contract, my own annihilation is included too.”
“...”
“I have merely fulfilled my promise to you faithfully.”
If not now, then someday.
The grand duke would have dealt with all the bloodkin in order to fulfill that promise.
“Do I seem vile to you? And yet, how laughable.”
The grand duke looked down at Jinlei as it spoke.
“Was there ever a time when you did not feel that way?”
“...”
“You knew perfectly well that neither I nor the bloodkin I led were righteous beings. That is precisely why you added the condition that all of them be exterminated.”
That was true.
Jinlei had borrowed the power of the vampires while knowing they were evil beings.
The reason was simple.
“Because inferior creatures were garbage, just as I was.”
Urgency and anger gathered on his face.
“And now, what is it that you are hesitating over?”
“...”
“Borrow the power of garbage to clean up garbage. Is that not a most efficient idea? You have come right to the brink of seeing that will fulfilled. What in the world are you hesitating for...!”
At those words,
Jinlei lowered his head deeply, as though he had nothing to say in response.
“I certainly did think that.”
“Then...”
“But.”
And then,
shaking his head as if frustrated even with himself, he said,
“Right now, I am terribly confused.”
“There is no reason to be confused about something like this—”
“So answer me.”
At that,
the grand duke was about to offer some kind of answer.
But then—
“Am I wrong?”
And in that instant, it realized one fact.
‘He is not looking at me.’
The question Jinlei had given was not directed at the grand duke.
At that realization,
the grand duke turned its gaze, puzzled.
And then—
‘...!’
it could only open its eyes wide in shock.
Because.
The place Jinlei was looking.
The place to which he had addressed that question.
“Not entirely...”
There stood one man—
no.
“...would I say that you are.”
There stood one vampire.
