My goal had been to escape from that procession somehow.

But that was my problem, and mine alone.

Once Ariella had decided to remain among those nobles, I couldn’t let her get dragged into my problem too.

If I caused trouble and escaped, Ariella would bear the full responsibility for it.

That was why I’d arranged things to make it look as much as possible like none of this was my doing.

‘Same goes for now.’

The warrior in golden armor chasing after us.

He wielded a power that was practically the natural enemy of vampires.

And those bastards obviously didn’t seem to have any favorable feelings toward vampires to begin with.

If Ariella got captured by people like that, it went without saying she wouldn’t have a pleasant time.

‘Wait.’

So—

sorry, but

‘you’re going to have to play with me for a bit.’

Pak!

I kicked off from the black beast that had been running beneath me, and carrying that momentum into the air, hurled myself at the golden-armored warrior pursuing us.

“Jinleiiii!!!”

“Jinleiiii!!!”

And then—

the warrior swung a fist at me.

Apparently he wanted to get rid of the likes of me quickly and go back to chasing Jinlei.

‘With a person right in front of you.’

But—

‘you’re calling some other bastard’s name.’

I lightly twisted my body, then let that fist graze me instead of taking it head-on.

Pinggrrrrrrrrrr!!!

After leaping off the beast, my body already had speed behind it, and when his attack brushed me, my body began spinning rapidly in midair.

But I chose not to resist the spin.

Instead, I went along with it and thrust out my knife just as I was.

[Martial Art - Form]

The martial art carved into my body assisted my movement.

The hand holding the kitchen knife made minute adjustments, without interfering with the rotation of my body...

Kwaaaakwak!

so that the path of the blade could still turn toward the enemy.

It drew a trajectory that was almost perfect.

Pushuk-!

“...!?”

The kitchen knife swung several times in rapid rotation.

Because of that, cracks spread across the golden armor that had looked flawless, and fountains of blood burst out from between those cracks.

Tak!

Only then did I land with my feet on the ground, and immediately leveled my weapon as I looked at the warrior.

“...!”

The warrior who had been chasing Jinlei with ferocious momentum stopped advancing and backed away in visible shock.

‘A lot of blood splashed, but... it’s not a fatal wound.’

To begin with, I’d controlled my strength so I wouldn’t inflict a fatal injury.

Even so, the reason he was this shaken was—

“...How is a noble...?”

Shock that his attack hadn’t worked.

And that made sense.

The reason I’d been able to let that warrior’s fist graze me in the first place was—

‘because it wasn’t all that strong.’

Because the punch he’d thrown to intercept me hadn’t carried that much force.

As if that much had been enough.

No, going beyond that—

almost as if he’d deliberately held back so it wouldn’t be too strong.

I could guess why.

‘That faint light flowing from his body.’

It wasn’t just divine power.

There was also that same stinging sensation I only felt when exposed to the sun.

He must have had absolute confidence in that power—power that would be fatal to vampires even with just a glancing touch.

“...Jinlei.”

Even while confused, he turned his head to look at Ariella and Jinlei getting farther away.

With his speed, if he started running again right now, he might be able to catch them quickly.

Srrk.

“...Hm.”

I stepped into his path.

At that, the huge warrior stared blankly down at me, then—

“Hmph!!!”

instead of raising his fist, he lifted his hammer, and with a bark of exertion, put his whole strength into it.

Unlike before, when he’d only swung an arm roughly at me, I could feel dense mana rippling from his body.

A proper battle °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° stance.

He didn’t say anything, but it was easy enough to tell what he was thinking.

‘Get rid of me as fast as possible, then grab them?’

Considering his target was Jinlei, it was a pretty rational judgment.

The problem was—

‘Who said I’d let you?’

The assumption—

that he could dispose of me as fast as possible—

was, from my point of view, pretty irritating.

Kwaang!

The hammer swung with tremendous speed.

I leaned my body backward and avoided it.

I did avoid it, but even the pressure from the air alone made my hair whip around and my skin sting.

‘That strength is ridiculous.’

I’d been thinking it ever since I saw how fast he could run, but beyond the fact that he handled divine power and sunlight, this bastard’s raw physical strength was grotesque.

As far as pure humans went, I only knew one person capable of that kind of strength.

Which meant this warrior might be on a level similar to that one person.

‘Of course...’

Kwak!

‘that doesn’t make it much of a problem.’

After bending backward to avoid the hammer, I reached out and grabbed the handle of the hammer as it passed over my face.

“!!!”

Hanging from the handle of a giant hammer that looked twice my height, I swung my knife at that handle.

Cutting through the thick shaft of a massive hammer with a kitchen knife.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been absurd.

[Chef’s Eye]

[Insight into How to Dress Atum’s Great Hammer]

Slash—

But for me, the way to process that giant hammer easily was clearly visible.

Kwa-gwang...!

The upper half of the hammer, split clean in two, flew off somewhere and slammed into the ground from the momentum of the swing.

At the same time, still gripping the handle I’d been hanging from, I pulled myself in and kicked upward.

Kwak!

“Ghk...!”

His balance had already been thrown off by missing that huge attack.

My kick exploded into his face.

A direct hit to the jaw—an attack that would hardly be surprising if it killed an ordinary human outright.

His body reeled heavily.

But—

“Hup!!!”

letting out a massive shout, despite the blood now running from beneath his helmet, he discarded the hammer shaft still in his grip and threw a punch at me.

‘This really is impressive.’

Enough grit to make me genuinely admire him.

But...

“Looks like that hit wasn’t nothing after all.”

“...!”

Unfortunately for him, unlike that last hammer strike, the speed of his punch had slowed down quite a bit.

Swish.

I tilted my head slightly and avoided the attack, then reached out and grabbed that arm.

And then—

Kwak!

with the handle of the kitchen knife in my other hand, I smashed his elbow.

At that, his arm twisted into an unnatural shape.

“Grrk...!”

He groaned in tremendous pain.

Even so—

Whoong!

as if giving up wasn’t even an option, this time he swung the opposite leg at me.

Pushuk-!

I quickly recovered the knife and placed its blade along the path of the kick.

The sharp edge slipped through a gap in the armor’s joints and cut into his knee.

The wound itself was shallow.

But—

[Soul-Melting Poison - Nepenthes]

at the tip of that blade was a trace amount of poison flowing out from my own hand.

Kuung....

As one leg collapsed as if it had lost all sensation, that enormous body lost its balance and pitched forward.

“...!!!”

With that overwhelmingly powerful appearance, the warrior who had butchered the Grand Duke’s and Jinlei’s thralls alike and dominated the battlefield—

it took only about a minute for him to drop to his knees on the ground.

...And then, at that exact moment—

“General Kaio!”

the attackers who had been blocked by Jinlei’s forces came into view, weapons in hand.

***

‘...Good God.’

Wei, one of the members of the death squad, couldn’t keep himself from staring in shock at the scene before his eyes.

The death squad’s mission was to move through the interior of these vampire territories, which were overflowing with danger.

He had known it was an utterly brutal mission, one where their lives were always under threat.

But...

this time in particular, too many things had been strange.

‘Traces that seemed to be openly luring us in...’

The signs had been so blatant that there had even been some argument over whether it was really right to follow them.

Traces that made no effort to hide themselves.

And on top of that—

‘And then the vampires we found after following those traces were absurdly strong.’

Even though they were equipped specifically to fight those vampires, the vampires they’d encountered where the trail led were unbelievably strong.

So strong that they’d been forced to use one of their trump cards, something they normally should have conserved as much as possible.

Still, up to that point, it could have been summarized as the enemy laying some sort of trap for them, and them managing to break through that trap by using their trump card.

The real problem was—

‘General Jinlei...’

that the great criminal who had sold humanity out to those vampires had been right there.

And—

‘And what in the world is that noble?’

that noble standing before their eyes right now.

Gulp.

Wei swallowed involuntarily as he thought:

‘General Kaio...’

General Kaio.

A great commander in the war against vampires, with enough achievements to rank among the very best of all survivors.

A living legend among the survivors, a figure said never to have been defeated by any enemy, no matter how strong, so long as the opponent was a vampire.

There was something slightly frightening about how silent and stoic he always was.

But even that fear was overshadowed by the overwhelming strength he displayed when hunting vampires.

According to those in the upper ranks, he was strong enough that even against the great nobles ranked directly below the Grand Duke, he would have a real chance of winning.

And yet—

‘he lost.’

Letting out a painful groan, he was down on one knee on the ground.

‘It hasn’t even been three minutes since I watched him charge out perfectly fine. In that short span of time, he ended up like this...’

Wei turned his head and looked at the figure standing in front of General Kaio.

‘One of those two nobles from earlier...?’

In the darkness, it was hard to make out much.

But through the light leaking from General Kaio’s armor, he could at least see the outline of that figure.

Splendid, old-fashioned clothes that looked like something a noble from the Middle Ages might wear.

And in one hand, a dagger held carelessly.

“......”

And then, though the shadows hid the expression, that face staring blankly at them.

General Kaio held an overwhelming advantage against vampires.

If even he had been defeated so miserably in such a short time, then the one who had brought him down... had to be a vampire powerful enough to overcome even that natural disadvantage.

Only one possibility came to mind.

‘One of the great nobles... only heard of in rumors.’

One of those beings so few even among the vampires themselves.

The moment he became certain that was what this thing had to be, Wei felt goosebumps spread across his entire body.

If even General Kaio had been defeated like that, then this was clearly a powerful enemy they wouldn’t even be able to touch before being crushed.

And yet, strangely—

“How dare you!”

what took hold of Wei’s body first at that moment wasn’t the fear burrowing into his mind...

but rage boiling up from the depths of his soul.

“Let General Kaio go, vampire!”

The result of piling up over many long years—

that very rage, which now ruled his whole body,

“All units, prepare for battle!!!”

was moving him against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, pushing even fear aside.

When he turned his head slightly, he saw that it wasn’t just him. The other members of the death squad as well were forcing down their fear and moving their bodies.

‘The odds of winning are extremely low.’

Even so, allied morale was high.

If the chance of victory after giving up was zero, then however small it might be, the odds of those who hadn’t given up were infinitely greater than zero.

‘Hoo!’

Wei drew his weapon and sprinkled holy water from the clergy of the Order over it.

And just as they were preparing for a desperate last stand—

“Let him go, is it...”

while looking at them,

“Well, from the look of it, this one seems pretty important.”

“...What?”

“If I let this one go, just as you’re asking, what can you do for me in return?”

that great noble—

without showing any sign of wanting to fight at all—

said exactly that.

“Ha!”

At those words, Wei let out a hollow laugh and replied,

“Fine. If you let the general go, we’ll spare your life, at least.”

Those vampire nobles were, for the most part, twisted bastards.

They thoroughly trampled on human dignity and mocked human lives to their faces.

This had to be the same thing.

Words spoken not because it intended to negotiate in good faith, but because it wanted to mock them.

Thinking that, Wei tossed out a rough answer and was about to give his comrades the signal to attack, but—

“...Spare my life, at least?”

At that exact moment—

the very great noble they had thought was holding their lives in its hand—

“That’s all I’d get in exchange for letting go of someone this important.”

“...Not bad!”

said that—

and dropped to its knees on the ground.