Chapter 274

[Time remaining until closure.]

[04:05:44]

[04:05:43]

[04:05:42]

...

A giant octagonal pillar was before the humans who escaped the blood collection site.

“I see it!”

“The exit!”

“Waaahh! We’re saved!”

The Wings of Evolution flashed. Seong-Hwi was the first to arrive at the pillar, appearing before the man with his arms crossed. He was Pseraslav, the Sun Wolf King, the wolf beastfolk with red-gold fur.

“Thank you for your support,” Seong-Hwi said.

“Here comes Sol’s action commander,” Pseraslav remarked.

“Why am I Sol’s action commander?”

“Ahaha! You just are!” Pseraslav laughed heartily.

As promised, he had ordered his subordinates to create an escape route from the central ancient castle to the dungeon exit, allowing Seong-Hwi and the evacuees to arrive safely.

“Where is Master Ranko?” Seong-Hwi asked.

“The tiger is moving the dungeon entrance. He should have arrived by now, on a field where we have the advantage.” Pseraslav smiled, growling as he looked up at the red sky. “The preparations are complete! Now, it is time to hunt the boss mosquito!”

“Haema Sanguis... must still be inside,” Seong-Hwi said as he shifted his gaze to where Pseraslav was looking, noticing the shining red crescent moon. “He will have to come out in four hours. Let us exit first so that we can be ready for him.”

As Seong-Hwi was about to walk away, Pseraslav stared at him with his golden eyes filled with Beast Force.

“Oi, Cheon Seong-Hwi. You haven’t forgotten, have you?” Chilling bloodlust and a beastly scent filled the atmosphere. “He is my prey. You and the others are responsible for the small fry so that they don’t interrupt my battle against Haema Sanguis. That is the only reason why I agreed to your strategy.”

Seong-Hwi remained expressionless, hesitating as he replied, “I know. However, I will intervene if you appear to be losing.”

“GAHAHAHAHAHA! Me? Lose? I am the sun that melts the night! I have never once lost my prey once I have set my sights on one!”

Seong-Hwi stared silently at the roaring Pseraslav, then approached the octagonal pillar.

“I sincerely hope that is the case,” he said as he turned around, an odd smile on his face.

***

The old dentures of a mummy shook and opened, and a giant octagonal pillar flew out of it. People swarmed out of the pillar with a blinding flash of light.

“We’re out! We’re alive!”

“We’re outside! Huuu! Oh, sweet fresh air!”

“W-where are we? Who are they?”

“Could they be... vampires?”

“No, there are also dwarves and elves.”

The humans who escaped Blood Castle were left wide-eyed at the colossal army surrounding them. The forces of Underground, who had been surrounding the dungeon entrance, were also dumbfounded by the sudden appearance of over ten thousand people.

“Who are these people?”

“Huh? Humans?”

“They’re slimmer than elves.”

The man who had created this confusion appeared. Seong-Hwi flew out of the octagonal pillar with his sixteen iridescent wings shining. The members of the Union and other humans who had come to Lunatic cheered at his appearance.

“Those wings! It’s SS!”

“Cheon Seong-Hwi is safe!”

“Yeeeaaahhh!”

“Our proud human World Ranker! The Second Son who has inherited Lee Kang-San’s will!”

There are more than I had expected, Seong-Hwi thought as he stared at the humans.

There were easily over a hundred thousand humans. He couldn’t know whether they were all strong enough to be in the fifth zone, but most of the Capital’s elite forces had come running to aid Seong-Hwi. Seong-Hwi could truly feel the weight of the crown over his head from how all these people had come with their lives on the line with just a word from him.

Three men from the Union approached Seong-Hwi once he landed on the ground. One was a well-built Asian man with four swords at his waist and six on his back. One was a well-groomed Italian man in a white suit and slicked-back brown hair. The last was a German man with black hair and blue eyes, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a giant Zweihander on his back.

“SS... Did you really kill Demens Rabies?” asked Gao Weiguang, the Ten Heavenly Swords, the leader of the neutral faction and Clan Seven Swords, in disbelief.

He had been dissatisfied that Seong-Hwi had appeared out of nowhere and took the number one seat in the human ranking, which had been Lee Kang-San’s for a long time. He couldn’t acknowledge anyone else taking the seat, so he had once strongly protested to Lee Bong-Seong. He recalled what Bong-Seong had said to him as he shook his head.

“Give him some time. He will prove himself soon.”

He was waiting to prove himself by becoming a World Ranker! Weiguang shouted inwardly.

Seong-Hwi stared at the doubtful Weiguang and replied, “Tend to the humans who have exited the dungeon, Gao Weiguang. They are precious witnesses. I have prepared the transports, so I leave their escort to Seven Swords.”

Naturally, it was an order. Weiguang nodded, feeling a fatalistic sense that he had no choice but to follow Seong-Hwi’s order.

It’s as if... I’m standing before Lee Kang-San!

Seong-Hwi acted as if his will had sufficiently gotten through to Weiguang and began to assess the situation.

“Nino Manfredi. Where are we?” he asked.

“W-we are in Vampyr Froest, located west of Lunatic,” Nino replied, feeling the same fatalistic sense as Weiguang.

“And what is the situation in Lunatic?”

“It’s absolute pandemonium. The Night of the Full Moon was cut short, Blood Castle is closing, and the aristocrats who should be giving them orders aren’t coming out of the dungeon.”

“Good. In that case, set up a defense line between here and Lunatic. There will be an immense battle here soon, so you should keep a fair distance.”

Gustav von Seyffer, who had been listening in silence, asked, “A defense line? No, we will also take part in this immense battle you speak of.”

“No,” Seong-Hwi firmly denied.

Gustav fixed his glasses, staring at Seong-Hwi as if demanding an explanation. Seong-Hwi spared them the sugarcoating words that the defense line was also important and gave them the cold, hard truth.

“You people aren’t strong enough,” Seong-Hwi said.

Weiguang, Nino, and Gustav remained silent. They were High Rankers, each highly confident in their skills. They naturally stared at Seong-Hwi in dissatisfaction, but Seong-Hwi had no intention of allowing them to participate.

They would be of no help whatsoever in a battle among unique caliber holders. I can’t allow humanity’s precious forces to be wasted here, he thought.

Recorders were holders of unique caliber and could write history in the Akashic Records. There was an immense gap between Recorders and those who were not. Their stats may be similar, but those with unique caliber could write history about their victory in the Akashic Records.

It was a fatalistic precognition that it would happen—practically a fixed future. To change a future written by the ink of causality, one needed to overwrite it using the same ink.

“He is right, human warriors. I commend your bravery, but do not be reckless,” said a dwarf with green eyes and dark grey hair and beard as stiff as steel cables as he approached.

“Lord Bafor,” Seong-Hwi greeted.

“Ahaha! You’ve kept your promise, Seong-Hwi! Congratulations on becoming a World Ranker,” Bafor said as he laughed heartily.

“Thank you very much,” Seong-Hwi replied with a smile.

“Elementum couldn’t make it. We would be fools if we didn’t learn from our past mistakes.”

“She must be acting as the guard dog.”

“Yes. Her mobility far surpasses mine. I have also dispatched warp gate users in the necessary areas, so she should be able to handle things.”

Seong-Hwi nodded. He had also written in the letter he had given to Etxeberria of the intelligence division that either Bafor of Elementum must remain to protect the Capital, Ferrum, Viridis, and the Spirit Land since the majority of their forces were here.

As I had thought, Together is necessary. Has there been no word from Grandis yet? It seemed like the ninth zone had been reclaimed, Seong-Hwi thought, thinking about the Akasha Messages regarding the world hidden quest, Reclaim the Nescius.

“I will also send our forces to the defense line. Irura is already headed there, so do not be remorseful, Gustav,” Bafor said as he turned to Gustav.

They were acquainted because the Union had chosen Gustav as its representative for the friendly exchange between Faber and the Union. Gustav had taught the dwarves the Paulo Formation in Ferrum and gotten to know Bafor.

“I... understand,” Gustav hesitantly replied as he nodded.

Weiguang and Nino couldn’t oppose either and returned to the army’s formation. Just then, Pseraslav fell from the sky as his red-gold fur fluttered. His landing made a thunderous sound, and he stared at Bafor with his shining golden eyes.

“Ohhh! If it isn’t the Steel King!” Pseraslav shouted.

“It has been a while, Sun Wolf King. How is Master Modak doing?” Bafor asked.

“Gehehe! He’s unfortunately doing great. Who knows when he’ll croak?”

Ranko, the Night Tiger, landed softly, unlike Pseraslav, and said, “Do you want me to tell Old Man Modak what you just said, wolf?”

“Well, well... even Ranko? I was informed in advance, but I’m still surprised. Is Barbaria finally beginning to take action?” Bafor asked, glancing at Ranko with shining green eyes.

Ranko’s vertical slit pupils narrowed, and he replied, “It wouldn’t be as flashy as Underground’s appearance, keh!”

“Do you have a justification to join this battle that you’ll report to the Sēmen?”

“That human said he will make one for us,” Ranko replied as he pointed at Seong-Hwi with his chin.

Seong-Hwi turned his head toward the octagonal pillar where hundreds of container trailers arrived. They were the express parties that made a living by taking people to Lunatic, and were helping the escaped humans on. The Speed Racer party that Seong-Hwi had met was one of them.

“Move with speed! Lightning! We’ll take the most out of every party here!” shouted Sanjay Dutt, the party’s leader, helping people on the container trailers as the chakrams at his waist jingled.

“You will have plenty of justification. What remains is whether we can kill Haema Sanguis,” Seong-Hwi said.

“We have four Recorders here. You killed one of Consanguineus’s Seven Purebloods, and two escaped, so... it appears we have the advantage,” Bafor remarked.

“Five.”

“Hm?”

“This is Master Gargantua, the Glutton, seventy-seventh in the world ranking.” Seong-Hwi introduced Bafor to the three-eyed overweight man who had been staring at them from the rear.

“Steel King Bafor... Sun Wolf King Pseraslav... Night Tiger Ranko... What an impressive lineup,” Gargantua said. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

How did he bring these powerful individuals together? he wondered as he stared at Seong-Hwi.

He had considered Seong-Hwi as merely a human confident in his strength. He had not expected him to be able to gather such amazing Recorders to one place.

“Hehehe! He showed up, as I had expected,” Pseraslav mumbled.

“Be quiet, wolf. He’ll find out we were the ones to leak the information,” Ranko mumbled back.

Bafor nodded with a smile. “Good. I would expect nothing less from you, Seong-Hwi. We have this battle in the bag.”

However, Seong-Hwi couldn’t be sure of their victory yet.

There might be another unexpected variable! he thought.

This situation might not have even come to be if he had not prevented Necrophilia’s involvement, thanks to Curiositas’s help. The infamy of Haema Sanguis in his past life was so colossal that he couldn’t be certain of anything.

“It doesn’t particularly matter.”

“Destroy the system!”

“Kekekek. I wanna see blood now!”

“Charge, and charge again!”

“You have begun your conquest at last, my friend!”

“It’s not a dragon hunt. How unfortunate.”

“In the end, we are all scapegoats.”

Seong-Hwi ignored the familiar voices echoing in his head and frantically thought about potential variables. Because of that, he failed to catch the foreign voice mixed between the clamorous voices of the figures he had borrowed destinies from.

“You had best be careful of that vampire. He has something quite entertaining.”

***

[Time remaining until closure.]

[00:03:05]

[00:03:04]

[00:03:03]

...

The one remaining individual in the empty Blood Castle stood before an octagonal pillar, his black cape fluttering in the wind.

“You’ve done it now. Because of you, I am in a highly unstable state... How should I make them pay for this?” mumbled Haema Sanguis, having taken over the body of Mulleus.

The cracks on his skin had mostly closed after absorbing a colossal amount of blood in Blood Castle, but he was still skin and bones.

“I need more blood, my descendant,” said Mulleus from inside Haema’s mind.

“I know. You will have more... soon.”

“Are you sure this is possible? I was unable to leave this place for my entire life. It will be no different for you now that you have taken over my body.”

Haema smiled, showing his fangs, and replied, “It is. Right now, I am somewhere in between a resident and a traveler.”

He grabbed something from his pocket. He held a teardrop-shaped red gem between his bony thumb and index finger.

“I just need to use this!” Haema shouted, his red eyes turning even redder.

[Bloodstream Stone

Description: A stone that holds the past, present, and future of the race Vampire.]

“That is... Ahhh! It remains!” Mulleus shouted, moved by the existence of the race stone.

Haema clenched the Bloodstream Stone and closed his eyes. The world was dyed black, and he was met with countless bright stars in the night sky.

[You arrived in the Aether Plane.]

[Haema Sanguis attempts to record in the Akashic Records.]

[Commencing the history of Unification.]

[Consuming the causality accumulated within Blood Moon.]

The blood-red moon, shining the brightest in the dark space, flashed, commencing the recording of unification in the Akashic Records. Haema planned to use this to unify the body of the resident, Lord Mulleus, and the blood of himself, the traveler.

[The Regulator detects an act of cheating.]

[This is not a normal recording.]

[A resident from Dungeon: Progenitor’s Sanctuary is detected.]

[The Readers review the probability.]

[Ineligible.]

...

[The Regulator declares an erase on Haema Sanguis.]

...

[The Eraser acts on the declaration.]

[Penalty: Delete]

I knew this would happen! Haema shouted inwardly.

Although a Recorder could write history using their unique caliber, some things were just impossible. Bringing a resident out from a dungeon into the Mirror World was within the realm of impossibility.

Haema groaned, sensing that the entire world’s will had manifested to erase him. At this rate, Haema would be deleted from all dimensions; it would be as if he had never existed.

“CHAAAAAHHH!” he screamed, outstretching his right arm.

The teardrop-shaped red gem floated in the air. The Bloodstream Stone shone brightly, thinning the line between possibility and impossibility.

[The causality stored in the Bloodstream Stone is released.]

[TIME, one of the pieces of the Master Plot, confirmed.]

[Editing the record about The First Vampire, Mulleus Rubens Sanguineus, in History of Vampires.]

[The Readers re-review the probability.]

[Eligible.]

[Canceling penalty.]

...

“GAAAAAHHH!” Haema screamed as he edited the new history using the thicker ink of causality he had squeezed out of the Bloodstream Stone.

[The story of Unification is written in the Akashic Records.]

[Haema Sanguis takes over the body of Mulleus Rubens Sanguineus. They are unified as one, becoming a completely new entity.]

...

[The Readers show interest in the story of Unification.]

[Assigning the story of Unification as one of the Main Plots.]

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Haema laughed crazily once he opened his eyes, having succeeded in the plan he had been preparing ever since becoming Lost to the Mirror World. “Just you wait, Curiositas! I will not allow the likes of your history to become the ending plot!”

Haema took a step toward the octagonal pillar and soon vanished from the dungeon.