Chapter 250

The last vampire did not resist much. After an execution close to slaughter, when Enrique and Lucia swallowed its blood, its last resistance would end.

Of course, vampires are generally undead beings that live forever. They belong to a very tricky category to kill in ordinary ways.

A stake is driven through the heart, and the body is burned and cast into a river. This is the traditional method of dealing with vampires, and even then, there are often cases of them coming back to life. One cannot be sure about their characteristic of melting under the sun, as there are high-ranking vampires like Enrique who can roam freely under sunlight.

Moreover, Ivan's preferred method is 'constant killing.' Essentially, a vampire's bodily recovery is proportional to the total amount of blood it has consumed so far. They are a type of monster that recovers by consuming the souls of the beings they have drained.

In other words, until they can no longer recover. In other words, they will die if they are cut down until the blood they have stored is entirely depleted. If their body becomes weak enough that they cannot recover, severing the neck would prevent them from resurrecting again.

However, if there is a more efficient and powerful method...

"Your bloodline is good compared to your abilities, huh?"

It is the consumption of kin. It means swallowing the blood and souls that the opponent has built up. It is a characteristic that has created the current Enrique.

A vampire that has been consumed by its kin cannot resurrect again. Therefore, vampire battles become true conquests. It is a process of fully subjugating the opponent's soul and life.

"Is that good news?"

"No, it's very bad news."

Enrique licked the blood off his lips as he spoke.

"The fact that I could provide this much True Blood to those just created... means that whatever it may be, the 'master' of these things has swallowed Olegha."

Among Olegha's followers are many very old vampires. To use these rabble while carrying out the most daring operation since the war, raiding a human city with only vampires, what could that signify?

It means that Olegha and all of his followers have been killed. It also means that the vampire who has devoured Olegha recklessly produced kin to expand their power.

Moreover, let's infer one more thing...

"It means they were pressed for time and came in a hurry."

The fact that they bestowed this level of bloodline on those without proper capabilities means they have passed the maximum strength they could give to all their available followers.

To put it another way, it means a lord placed in a situation where they can only organize a unit with conscripts, threw in all their wealth to equip them with full-body armor and magical spears, and pushed them to the battlefield.

They have a desired goal and are even pressed for time. If they were a powerful vampire capable of killing Olegha, there would be no reason for that. Time has always been on the side of the immortals.

Enrique gazed at the night sky, lost in thought.

"Why? If they were trying to manipulate me, there would have been better methods. Isn't there time pressure? Either for me or them, we won't fade within time."

"Enrique."

"Yeah?"

"After Frechenkaya was attacked, did you perhaps send a request for support to any other territories?"

"No matter how much the Capital Defense Army was halved, they are not that incompetent. Of course, a request for troops was sent. Right on the first day."

Recalling once again, the military of this country is not incompetent. From the beginning, the incompetent would not have survived under Elizaveta's regime.

The Capital Defense Army dispatched a messenger the moment they judged they could not maintain city functions. This means they tried on the first day. A remarkably swift response, one might say.

In this era, requests for troops come back as a financial burden. If they were to ask for assistance from local lords in an already impoverished financial situation, Elizaveta's regime would have to forfeit much of its authority and many interests.

Knowing this, local lords have no reason to hesitate to intervene. They were already overly centralized compared to the width of the territory. If they could diminish the authority of the royal family during this opportunity, then why not?

"What about Tylesse and Drovian?"

"They probably sent word there too, but do they have any available troops left in Tylesse? Drovian..."

"It's not far."

The 'Great Powers' formed by Tylesse-Krasilov-Drovian maintain good relations even considering the United Kingdom as a whole.

Since the coup d'état, Tylesse has entrusted half of its defense power to Krasilov, while Drovian hasn't even thought about such things.

To be precise, this means Einar. If they were invaded by a demon, especially if they sent out a request for support, Einar would have attempted to dispatch without thinking twice. Because in this city are Enrique and Patricia.

Now, there are few comrades from the Hero Party remaining in this world. That man is not clever enough to restrain himself before comrades and family.

Moreover, in this city, does he not have his own bloodline? Although he tries to raise his daughter relatively strongly, even that has its limits.

"If Einar dispatched Huscal, it could reach in three days."

And considering the time this city was shrouded in darkness, no matter how much the routes were wrecked due to Rasputitsa, the fact that no one responded up until this point...

"It was not that they were pressed for time, but that they were coordinating time."

"...Oh dear."

At Ivan's words, Enrique clenched his teeth.

At the point when Frechenkaya was most vulnerable, that is, when the 2nd Legion, the Royal Guards, the Counterintelligence Command, and the majority of the Capital Defense Army were planning overseas expeditions.

The fact that they precisely targeted this moment, when even dwarves had to focus on the Southern Expedition—.

"It means they were preparing for war. It means they had deployed a thorough intelligence network that could consistently monitor the internal situation of Frechenkaya."

"There's no Demon King, yet the Seven Dragon Lords band together?"

"Circumstantially, Olegha was reported to have died suddenly, wasn't he?"

"...That's true."

"Someone must have killed the Seven Dragon Lords to prove their power. In a form that others must recognize as the Demon King."

Only one person could do that in this era.

"Maximilian..."

"Hmm."

Ivan sighed while looking at Enrique.

Indeed, thinking back, that was the case. The name of Enrique's quest was [Prelude to Great Collapse].

Quests like [Theological War] or [Winter of Ages] possess an independent narrative in and of themselves. That's what I've understood so far.

If that's the case, I should have realized when I organized the quests that Eugene had evaluated. Ivan could only acknowledge that he had been complacent.

He had been too rushed concerning the events happening in the south. With just a little bit of thought, it would have been an identifiable cliché.

[Linked Quest].

Deploying an intelligence network capable of eavesdropping on the internal situations of Frechenkaya in real-time, and the reason for trying to eliminate Enrique, the most significant obstacle for the vampire agents, is obvious.

If they want to rise up on the scale of the Great War, what country is the first to be neutralized? If they can bring down Krasilov and Drovian, the United Kingdom will face the war having lost most of its means of resistance.

It is a flanking operation.

While paralyzing Frechenkaya, launching an offensive from another direction.

There is no need to ponder the direction of the offensive. From Maximilian's perspective, there are only two high-value targets: Enrique and Einar.

Considering the situation, that's how it appears. After Kalion fragmented and Tylesse experienced internal strife, if the southern kingdom's civil war has just been concluded...

Aside from Drovian, there remain no other countries so powerful that they must be struck first.

Ivan stared blankly at Ecdysis, who was growing paler as she listened to the conversation.

"Calm down, everyone."

That Einar wouldn't be the type to die easily.

That a place like Drovian would not collapse at once.

That if it were the Hero Party, they should see hope even in despair.

There was no time to make such persuasion.

"First, we need to address what needs to be done immediately."

Ivan spoke, looking beyond the broken window of the mausoleum. A dark green light was rising in the night sky, where no star was visible.

It must be the final visitor. By circumstances, a being that has devoured Olegha, yet for reasons unknown has not regained its divinity. A half-hearted candidate for the Seven Dragon Lords.

All worries and concerns can wait until after they kill it.

*

Yust laughed as he looked down at the wriggling bugs emerging beneath the mausoleum. A storm of mana tore through his whole body, almost numbing his head.

He had lost numerous kin. While he hadn't expected much from those useless beings, it was a painful loss to think that their blood would have gone to Enrique.

Until yesterday, that would have been the case. But now they are all worthless. A true power, a power that transcended the inherent limits of being a vampire, was boiling up throughout his entire being.

Abiditas was a god of necromancy, and Olegha was a god of vampires. If he were to inherit the powers of both, what should he call that existence?

Now, Yust could assert it. A god of death. An embodiment of the very concept of death itself. Although he has not yet seized divinity, it is only a matter of time.

In this city, there still remain more than two hundred thousand lives. If he devours all of these and uses their corpses to amass an army, and devours dozens of millions more lives...

In this era, where the gods of humans can no longer prove their divine power with that hateful sun, how could mere mortals hope to stop him?

"Rise—!!"

Yust lifted his hand and shouted. From the inner sanctuary to the far-off undercity's sewers, every corpse resting in the underground of each sector raised its head at his command.

"Rise—!!!"

No complicated incantations or powers were necessary. This one phrase was enough. The time for the dead has come, and the screams of the living echo in his ears...

Ah, how great this power is.

From the very start, death has been prevalent in this city. Even in his long life, the sheer number of corpses lying beneath this city was extraordinary.

Such levels of death were rare even in the most intense battlefields of the Great War. The capital of these barbaric people was this lowly.

As if they committed massive slaughters every generation.

"Kneel! The final king of all you worthless bugs is here—."

At that moment, something flew in like an arrow.

Yust stopped mid-sentence and reached out to catch what was coming.

"An axe...?"

An axe, infused with formidable power, buzzed and cried out beneath his grasp. Turning his gaze in the direction it had flown from, he saw a solitary spider staring straight at him.

[Kill—!! Kill him—!!]

Simultaneously, the remains of Abiditas on top of his head screamed. Ignoring it with effort, he turned his body towards the creature.

Below, he saw it jabbing needles into its own forearm.

"Who would have thought I'd end up killing the same creature three times?"

Its voice resonated low.

"Enough already. Come down, Abiditas."

[Kill him—!!!]