Kyran was furious at Calidora.

At such a critical moment, she kept being stubborn even though her and her baby’s lives were on the line.

In the face of a tenth-rank realm power, she should’ve understood immediately that her only option was to abandon the castle for good—and run to safety. Her pride doesn’t allow her to flee, but at least she’d do it for her child.

But she didn’t.

She was hell-bent on staying in the bed chamber, believing that Rex would protect her no matter what.

Even when Rex was in another realm, she still believed he would somehow come to her rescue.

Moron.

Kyran had been certain the baby was draining too much blood from her, impairing her ability to think clearly. Anyone else would’ve agreed without hesitation. But now, staring up at the figure before him, a quiet, unwelcome thought crept in.

Perhaps he was the idiot one.

Rex stood at the gaping hole in the wall with his back squared, spreading the feeling of safety.

"How in the world is this possible...?" Kyran sucked in a cold breath.

He was certain Rex was in another realm, and the fact that the pack needed to fight back the forces from the Blood Moon alone made that absolutely clear. Seeing Rex here right now was akin to seeing a Ghost; something that shouldn’t be present.

"I told you," Calidora sat down on the edge of the bed, smirking at Kyran. "He’s going to protect me."

Kyran turned toward her and then shook his head.

He stood up with great struggle—and went around Rex, wanting to see with his own eyes whether this person was really Rex. Realization dawned upon him when he finally got a good look at Rex, "It’s... It is only his body..."

Rex wasn’t present.

This person, who had deflected the last-ditch attack from the Blood Moon, saving both Kyran and Calidora in one impossible act, was nothing more than an empty shell. No consciousness in it. No soul inhabited its frame.

And yet it had moved.

It had chosen to protect Calidora through its sheer instinct alone.

"Do you have any idea how deep his scar goes?" Calidora gripped the wooden bedpost, finding balance against the dizziness. "Losing the people he loved carved something into him. Something even his body remembers more clearly than his mind. Perhaps clearer than anything else. Consciousness or not, when the need arises, his body moves to protect. It always will.

"Even if by some miracle he doesn’t want to, he couldn’t stop his body from reacting."

Just then, Calidora’s vampiric eyes as she turned to the side.

She stared at the puddle of blood a few meters away from the bed, "You can’t hurt me."

"Hmm?" Kyran frowned, not knowing who Calidora was talking to.

At the same time, the wind shifted.

Kyran’s eyes widened as he watched the puddle of blood turning into a beast, a werewolf with elongated limbs. It struck with precision, reaching its lethal claws towards Calidora’s stomach, intending to carve out her womb and crush the baby inside of her.

But Rex’s body moved even faster.

It caught the wrist of the beast with an iron grip.

"Do you not hear what I said?" Calidora stood up weakly. She floated using blood energy—and draped her arms over Rex’s shoulders, hugging his neck gently while staring at the stunned beast. "It does not matter what you do. As long as he’s around, even if there’s only his body," She leaned her head towards Rex’s cheek, chuckling. "You can’t get to me."

Grr...!

Enraged, the Godling poured more strength into its frame and heaved.

It attempted to push with brute strength.

Rex immediately crushed its wrist with a lethal squeeze—rendering one of its hands incapable of doing damage. The Godling lashed out with its other arm, coating it with dark blood before swiping it wildly, but Rex blocked the blow mid-arc and seized it by the throat.

Seeing this only made Calidora laugh louder.

Even the bat wings on her waist fluttered; the child inside her was also amused by this situation.

"I, too, wanted to kill him like you in the past. But I learned quickly that it’s simply futile," Calidora’s fingers threaded gently through Rex’s black hair, raising her shoulder enough to only expose her eyes to the Godling. "Instead of becoming one of his enemies, I decided to be on his side, which always wins." A pause, her lips curled up. "I suppose you’re not as smart as me."

"Against weak mortals, he won. Against strong mortals, he won. Against Demigods—he won. But not this time," the Godling whispered through a choked throat, eyeballs turning into beads of blood. "By the time you people realized the mistake you’ve made for going against us, it would already be over.

"An endless force of the Lunirich Gods will drown you and this realm in blood."

"Ah... the Lunirich Gods, I knew them." Calidora traced her sharp fingernail across Rex’s cheek—the sharpness couldn’t even pierce his skin. "For divine beings, they are quite the failure, aren’t they? How many times had they attacked him and failed? If I were them, I would be embarrassed."

The Godling’s energy flared.

He wanted to tear Calidora to pieces for daring to ridicule the Lunirich Gods like this.

But Rex shut it down almost instantly.

Brutally, he let go of the Godling’s neck and kicked his legs before his feet touched the ground with a perfect roundhouse kick, breaking the knees. And without mercy, he stabbed his black-steel claws into the Godling’s neck, pinning him to the wall.

"Instead of threatening me," Calidora looked at the Godling condescendingly. Like she was looking at nothing more than a bug that could be crushed easily. "You should focus on surviving. I know him. And I know if he was pushed hard enough, he would do something insane.

"I believe he’d be the one hunting you by now."

Calidora pulled her arms away and approached the Godling.

"The baby wants his blood," She said as she squatted down, boring her eyes into the Godling’s.

Realizing that she got within reach, the Godling’s tail lashed out. As humiliating as this situation was, being forced to listen to a brat cursing the Lunirich Gods, he would have no problem as long as he could achieve what he came here to do.

As long as he killed the unborn child.

But that was simply impossible, a monstrous task that was beyond his reach.

Rex’s heel slammed down, pinning the trail that tried to reach for Calidora’s belly to the stone—with a crack that echoed across the chamber. He withdrew the claws from the throat, allowing blood to gush out like a fountain to the Godling’s chest.

He then caught the Godling’s limbs and pulled in opposite directions.

Joints separated with a wet, grinding shriek. Muscles tore. Bone splintered. It was a brutal pull that gave the Godling no chance to retaliate. Rex did this as if he were stripping a viper of its weapons. Now, only the fangs remained—a last pathetic weapon.

However, even that didn’t stay for long.

Rex clamped the lower jaw with one hand and wrenched it, tearing it away with a savage pull.

He left the Godling sagged—a broken thing without bite or claw.

Calidora smiled sweetly and dug in, sinking her fangs into the Godling’s neck and gulping down the rich blood. Above all, the Godling is a creature from the God Realm, and his blood was nutrient unlike any other for a Vampire.

On the side, Kyran watched this situation unfold in utter shock.

Just seeing Rex’s empty body moving alone was already surprising enough, but the surprise didn’t end there as Calidora seemed to be able to tell the body what to do. Not to mention, the Godling before him right now... he recognized it.

It was the one who had been fighting with Adhara and Devo.

Seems like the Godling was attempting to catch them off guard. It had merged with the last-ditch attack, biding its time within the crimson fury, and slipped into the chamber when the impact happened. Even now, with the Blood Moon completely erased from the sky and dawn beginning to come back naturally, the Godling still lingered in the Mortal Realm.

Kyran could safely assume that the Godling had cut its connection with the Blood Moon to stay behind.

No return for him anymore.

He sacrificed his divinity to stay behind and make a statement that Rex would never forget. That going against the Lunirich Gods would mean death to everything and everyone that he knows. And frankly, such dedication was commendable.

Unfortunately for him, Calidora’s eyes are sensitive to anything about blood.

She could see the Godling hiding inside the blood, so the ambush failed.

Other than that, Kyran was also surprised by Rex’s strength.

He was surprised how strong his body was, as despite losing his divinity, the Godling’s strength was still around the same level, and yet Rex defeated the Godling like he was nothing. It would not be a stretch to say that Rex’s body alone is already at the tenth-rank realm.

And that realization was horrifying even for Kyran.

After all, Kyran saw how the Godling fought Adhara and Devo together and retained the upper hand.

Such a feat placed him above the Fifthborn’s level of strength, but he was still nothing to Rex.

It took no more than a minute for Calidora to drain the Godling dry. Its body shriveled inward, collapsing into a husk of withered flesh—and brittle bone. She retracted her fangs with a very soft, wet sound and exhaled, slow and deeply satisfied.

Her eyes fluttered shut as she savored the stolen energy coursing through her, rich and dark and divine.

On her waist, the bat wings sizzled with red energy as they fluttered excitedly.

Slowly, Kyran watched as a faint white hue began to mix with the red energy.

And then the white settled on the edge of the sizzling blood energy.

"Pristine Blood Energy..." Calidora smirked as the energy she harvested from the Godling pushed her body to develop the ability to transform blood energy to pristine blood energy. It effectively put her on the same level as the elders.

She looked down and rubbed her belly gently, "Are you happy? It’s a gift from your father..."

Kyran shook his head and lay on the floor weakly.

His King Mark dimmed, and slowly, his body began to regenerate again.

Before his body could finish knitting itself back together, he was already on his feet, moving toward the breach in the wall. The castle, ever sentient, was already repairing itself—stone flowing back into place like a wound closing in reverse.

One of its many innate abilities.

Stepping through the newly formed hole, he stood and looked down from the tower.

His eyes swept across the entire city, observing the aftermath.

A flood of blood lay waste to most parts of the city, and there are some houses and buildings that were destroyed by it. But the casualties are minimal. Other than trauma for the younger ones, the invasion of the Blood Moon was successfully warded off.

Rex helped at the very end, but it was they who had resisted from start to finish.

Some people approached the castle, and others followed. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Among them, Ryze was being supported by a few soldiers, also looking up at Kyran.

All of them were waiting.

Waiting for Kyran to deliver them the good or bad news.

Kyran lifted his hand—dripping with blood and sizzling with the remnants of his kingly energy.

He held it there for a moment, a banner of defiance against the fading night. Then he clenched it into an iron fist. His eyes blazed with a lethal glint of victory; the streak of dawn spilled onto Kyran’s face as he threw his head back and roared.

His roar was loud and powerful, a declaration to the sky and the world that the night had been broken.

That the empire lives, and the hand of Gods was warded off.