Karhin’s body, transformed into mist, rose into the sky.

He looked at the mass of metal falling from far away.

A powerful vampire that had survived for ages.

Though it had lost much of its strength.

The senses it had built up over those long years had not disappeared.

‘Indeed.’

That lump of metal looked ordinary on the outside.

But inside it...

he could feel vast malice that had accumulated over ages.

‘That thing...’

The moment Karhin sensed that malice, he realized one fact.

What was contained inside it was probably—

violence distilled by humans to kill humans.

A crystallization of malice created to bring about the tragedy of kin slaughtering kin.

And that.

‘It resembles us too.’

Was, in a way, a little like them as well.

Like vampires.

‘In that case.’

Having realized that, Karhin thought with a broad smile spreading across his face.

‘Then let us find out which is superior when two similar things collide!’

The blood coursing through Karhin’s body began racing through him more fiercely than usual.

-So you say that thing is the finest product of the technology those insects created!

He had been born in the Holy Empire that worshiped the sun.

From the moment he was born, he had received its blessing, and had learned faith before words.

Under the great sun, all things were equal.

Karhin had been taught that one must always be humble and modest.

-And you say it burns hotter even than that sun!

But now.

He himself had extinguished the light of the sun he had raised.

-How laughable!

What stood here now was not the human who had once been a holy knight.

One of the four great bloodlines handed down from the Progenitor.

The second-in-command of the Neferat Bloodline.

Lord of Nibela, the Mist Forest, a domain known as the widest and most dangerous among all the territories of the bloodlines. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

A great noble who had looked down on all others beneath the head of his house.

Karhin Nibela di Neferat.

At some point.

What little remained of his human self vanished completely.

And now, transformed into blood mist thick with the scent of blood, he cried out in a tone overflowing with arrogance.

-Witness it with your own eyes!

Before him.

Despite the awakened throwing up an interception net with everything they had, the gigantic missile had broken through and slammed into the ground.

Kwaaaaaang...

The vampires had thrown themselves into the line of fire and blocked the interception.

As a result, the missile reached its destination, triggered its nuclear reaction, and unleashed a colossal explosion.

-This is the true essence of Neferat, handed down from the great Progenitor!

A vast mass of plasma, burning hotter than the sun, swelled outward.

At the very moment the most overwhelming violence humanity could create was about to be unleashed there—

-The miracle of Kirchhoff, which swallowed even the sun!!!

A huge, crimson blood mist wrapped itself around the plasma.

KWAAAAAANG!!!

The roar of the explosion born from the plasma spread in all directions across heaven and earth.

And yet.

-Saaaaaah...

Not even a handful of heat or shock broke through that mist and escaped.

***

“What the hell was that just now?”

“...Did it fail to detonate?”

The awakened stared blankly at the place where the missile had hit.

They had all assumed that with the nuclear blast, everyone on the island would be wiped out.

But contrary to those expectations.

A nuclear weapon had fallen right into the middle of the city, and yet there was no damage at all.

“If it was a dud...”

“The explosion still happened.”

In fact.

A fairly massive circular crater had formed in the center of the city.

Everyone had seen the red plasma with their own eyes.

But then, suddenly—

‘Something like weird red mist showed up.’

A huge red mist had appeared and wrapped itself around the plasma.

After that.

No shock, no trace of heat, not even the radiation that supposedly penetrated most matter in the world leaked out of that mist.

And.

‘...Good God.’

When I saw that, I had no choice but to be stunned.

The others might not have understood it.

But I did.

I knew exactly what that bastard had done.

And I knew just how absurd an achievement it was...

Then, a little while later.

Thud.

‘...’

While I stood there staring in shock at the scene, I saw a figure falling downward from the place below where the explosion and the vast mist had appeared.

Pahk!

Unlike the others, blood of the vampire bloodlines ran through me, so my vision worked fine even in the dark.

I was the only one who spotted it.

I hurled myself forward and ran straight there.

At [N O V E L I G H T] the center of the huge crater created by that explosion, what I found was—

-...So, you came.

“Yeah.”

Karhin.

His entire body was burning savagely, and he was dying a miserable death.

The only difference was, where before he had looked like some sacred statue,

now...

“Now you finally look like a monster.”

-Haha. How rude.

Eyes bloodshot red, fangs jutting out, limbs grotesquely swollen, back bent over—

he was the very image of a vampire as if drawn in a picture.

I could tell why.

‘That power he showed just now.’

A power capable of blocking even the greatest violence humanity had ever created.

It was a sight that barely seemed sufficient to call a miracle.

And that was probably—

-Did you see it? This... is the achievement of Neferat, the greatest bloodline...

The kind of power this bastard could only display by leaning completely toward the vampire side of himself.

A while back.

Karhin had spoken while recalling his past.

‘He said something about how when his house head attained enlightenment, that realization and joy spread through the bloodline.’

Back then, I hadn’t understood it.

But now I did.

‘That wasn’t a metaphor.’

The miracle his house head had realized.

A miracle capable of blocking even the sun.

That realization had truly been passed down to every member of the Neferat Bloodline.

-That my lord’s enlightenment was so profound and so great, this imperfect self can do no more than reproduce it to this extent.

But unfortunately.

It had been a miracle used by someone called a Grand Duke.

-Had it been the miracle as wrought by my lord in person... there would not have been even the smallest wound.

He might once have been a much more powerful vampire.

But after spending so long beneath that sun, and even producing a sun himself, his power as a vampire had been greatly weakened.

Apparently he had not been able to reproduce that miracle of his house head perfectly.

-Cough.

Because of that.

‘He’s dying.’

It seemed he had not been able to suppress all the damage completely either.

Even with the overwhelming vitality of a vampire, he was unmistakably, steadily dying.

“...”

I looked down at him for a moment.

Then turned my head and looked beyond the island.

‘The bombardment that had been pouring down... stopped.’

There were probably two reasons.

One was—

‘They were probably just as shocked as we were that the second nuke, which they were sure would go off, didn’t.’

Even I couldn’t help being stunned.

The side that launched that attack had to be thrown into confusion too.

And.

The second reason was—

‘The sun is gone.’

There was no longer any need to keep striking us in such an inefficient way.

There was something on this island capable of blocking even the nukes they fired.

At that point, further bombardment was meaningless.

So rather than continue shelling with forces that weren’t even their main strength, they would probably use the opening created by the vanished sun to gather troops and prepare a full-scale invasion.

-My task ends here. The rest... I leave to you.

At that, I frowned and said,

“When I said I’d get people out, that was on the assumption your sun would still be there. That sun was shining all the way to the edge of the mainland, so I figured crossing the river would at least be safe.”

-And so?

“And now the sun’s gone, and you’re still telling me to evacuate people in this situation? Isn’t that a little much?”

-Khhk. Yes, it will by no means be easy. But... didn’t you say it yourself?

Something I said.

I had a pretty good idea what he meant.

“Forget possible or impossible. It has to be done... that one?”

-Exactly.

“Damn it.”

Well, I was the one who said it.

Hard to take it back now.

I scratched my head and got to my feet.

“You’re right. It has to be done, so I’m going to do it.”

-They too will be preparing troops for an invasion by now. You must move quickly.

I grinned, looked at him, and opened my mouth.

“But the thing is—”

-...

But then.

Just as I was about to say more to him—

right at that moment.

“Is someone there!?”

“...”

From behind me, I sensed the presence of many people.

***

“Is someone there!”

The nuclear blast that everyone had naturally assumed would wipe them out.

A great many people had witnessed it suddenly disappear.

And on top of that.

For some reason, the bombardment that had kept pouring down had stopped as well.

“Over there, I think I can see a human figure!”

“There’s someone there?”

The survivors whose injuries were lighter had gathered together and come here to confirm what exactly had happened.

And.

The man leading them—

Wei saw the face of the man standing at the center of the crater, widened his eyes, and shouted,

“...Wait. So that’s who it was—you!?”

“Wei...”

And no wonder.

The man at the center of that explosion was none other than the survivor who had joined them not long ago, the powerhouse who had tracked down those nobles with uncanny precision and killed them.

Shin Youngjun.

“So you were alive! Thank God!”

The moment Wei saw me, he stepped forward with a delighted smile.

“Damn it, I can’t make heads or tails of this. First the sun suddenly vanished, then that nuclear explosion started and just stopped all at once... and even the bombardment that kept raining down suddenly ended.”

“Ah, wait...”

As if I had something to say, I reached out with one hand, gesturing as though to stop them.

“But if you’re here... then don’t tell me!”

But.

A thought suddenly occurred to Wei, and he failed to notice the gesture.

“The one who stopped that explosion... was that you!?”

The explosion had vanished far too unnaturally.

Among everyone they knew, there was no one capable of such a miracle.

If there was one person, only one, it would be the one whose limits they still had never seen.

Me.

“If you know what happened, then—”

Thinking that, the people approaching Shin Youngjun raised their torches.

Whoosh.

Countless torches illuminated the center of the crater.

That light shone on my face...

And at the same time.

“Please shar—”

The being lying behind me, hidden from their view until then—

“...A vampire!!!”

The ugly form of a vampire was lit up in full.

***

As the torchlight filled the crater, Wei had no choice but to widen his eyes in shock.

“A vampire!!!”

Sinister red eyes glowing in the darkness.

Long nails jutting out as though ready to attack them at any moment.

And that gaze, whatever it was thinking, clearly nothing good.

Chaaang!

The instant Wei saw that, he drew his weapon without the slightest hesitation.

“...Before that missile hit the ground, the sun that had been protecting us vanished first.”

And then.

Wei walked forward and muttered,

“The vampires riding those missiles, blocking our interception.”

“Wait...”

“So that vampire bastard survived!”

It had not been enough that they had driven them from their homeland and mercilessly slaughtered their families.

Now they had even brutally destroyed the sanctuary they had barely managed to build.

“You bastards...”

Kkdeuk.

“Because of you, we...”

Grinding his teeth, Wei raised the weapon in his hand.

And a moment later.

KWAAANG!!!

The weapon containing all his power swung toward that ugly monster.