Chapter 213

After losing all their cores and splitting into nine separate bodies, the curse’s manifestations displayed an even stronger instinct to survive. Each fragment screamed the same desperate thought in slightly different voices, insisting that it couldn’t die, that it didn’t want to die, and that it had to live no matter what.

As if trying to flee from the threat bearing down on them, the scattered curses began pulling themselves in different directions. That was when massive chains erupted from the ground. Shadow Chains burst upward, intercepting their escape. The nine curse fragments were skewered and bound by chains forged from shadow, writhing violently as they were dragged back into place.

Even as they were divided, each fragment was still the size of a fortress, and watching such colossal masses get impaled and restrained made the scene feel less like a battle and more like something torn straight from myth.

“Now rest,” the Grand Duke said quietly. “This time, without pain.”

He was preparing to finish them off when the impossible happened. The curse fragments, which should have been completely immobilized, began gnawing at the Shadow Chains themselves. They bore down on the Shadow Chains with their entire bodies, producing a sickening crunch as they chewed through shadow and absorbed it into themselves.

The Grand Duke’s brow twitched. His shadows were not mere darkness or a simple elemental attribute. They were the accumulated weight of more than a thousand years spent as the king of blood and night, the sum of his deeds and sins given form. And yet, the curses were tearing through them as if it were nothing.

Of course, he thought. They are my sins.

The Grand Duke began preparing another spell. “I will be the one to grant you rest.”

Darkness spilled out from his body. With the activation of Shadow Domain, that overflowing darkness sank into the land and spread outward, forming both a barrier and a territory. The rising black fortress wasn’t a construct so much as the Grand Duke’s inner world made manifest.

When he extended his right hand, countless shadow blades erupted from the ground in that direction and swept across the battlefield. Everything caught in their path was shredded as the blades tore through earth and flesh alike, and the sound of destruction echoed as blood sprayed hundreds of meters into the air.

The curses’ stubborn resistance clashed violently with the Grand Duke’s resolve, and the battle itself became something that sent shivers through anyone who witnessed it. Darkness and blood surged from the ground, while the sky filled with a chaotic storm of multicolored elemental light.

“I will not die.”

“We have to live.”

The curses devoured the Grand Duke’s spells to grow stronger, then used their own bodies as raw material to forge chains of blood and shadow, lashing back in retaliation.

“You were the one who told me to live!” a fragment of the curse howled its accusation at the Grand Duke, screaming as though it had been betrayed by the very being now striking it down.

For a brief moment, guilt crossed the Grand Duke’s face. As the exchange continued, the truth became impossible to ignore.

I didn’t create it, he realized. That thing is me.

In the moment when his daughter had stood on the brink of death, the man he had been then was standing right there before him.

Watching the curse regenerate by absorbing exactly as much of his power as he inflicted on it, the Grand Duke finally reached a conclusion. No matter who else might be able to stop it, he himself could not. He couldn’t erase his original sin with his own hands. The only way was to let go of himself.

It has been... more than enough time.

The Grand Duke made his decision. How great a miracle can I buy if I offer myself as the price?

He began destroying his own Magic Circuits one by one. Each shattered circuit released power, and that power was gathered and layered into a formation. The structure of the spell engraved into the formation was simple and absolute. It was a transaction. Power, accumulated karma, life, mana, and anything else the Grand Duke was capable of paying were offered in sequence.

Even as this happened, the curse’s manifestations continued to hurl resentment at him. The Grand Duke listened to every word without turning away.

I told you to live, and now I am telling you to disappear.

Even so, this was something that had to be done. He had to return the future that had been stolen from Karin and those he had turned into monsters to keep her alive.

The completed formation of Eternal Rest swept down from the sky, washing over the land and swallowing everything in its path. Even sound itself had been consumed by the sealing ritual.

As the Grand Duke clenched his fist, the vast formation collapsed inward, shrinking down to a single point. Despite being a seal forged through a transaction with the world itself, faint remnants of intent still leaked outward. Given time, the curse would eventually break free and try to escape. Which meant more still had to be paid. The Grand Duke turned his gaze in the direction where he could feel Karin’s presence.

Without a word, he activated his final spell. A magic that transformed himself into the wedge that would pin the seal in place. The wedge plunged down toward the black point of condensed darkness.

***

It didn’t take long for Do-Jin to realize that the clash between the curse and the Grand Duke was going badly. A battle that should have ended swiftly was dragging on, and the curse was absorbing the Grand Duke’s power while the two remained locked in a razor-thin struggle.

Because of that, Do-Jin desperately searched for something he could do, but found nothing. When the Grand Duke began forging magic with his own existence, he stared toward the battlefield in disbelief.

No way.

The mana that had once shone like a sun, the overwhelming presence that defined the Grand Duke, was steadily fading away. Do-Jin understood exactly what that meant.

“Grand Duke!”

The board had already been set. The user’s role ended with destroying the nine cores. Beyond that point, there was no room for intervention. It was as if the conclusion had been decided in advance. To change a future this much, this was the price that had to be paid.

After all that hell, this is the ending we get?

Do-Jin hated it. He knew that stories didn’t always end happily. That was exactly why he wanted this one to.

“Stop!”

Do-Jin ran. He knew there was probably nothing he could do, but he ran anyway because doing nothing was unacceptable. The moment he left the safe zone, monsters made of darkness and blood surged toward him. He smashed through the corpse-like entities that rose from the ground, destroying anything in his way as he pushed forward.

When the Grand Duke’s magic finally activated, the creatures lunging at Do-Jin let out breathless cries and vanished, erased as though they had never existed. After that, the resonance faded into a low, lingering hum. The Grand Duke turned himself into the wedge of the seal and completely closed the imperfect knot.

Even though the conclusion had been reached, Do-Jin didn’t slow down, because Tirund was still there.

“Ah.”

That was all the Grand Duke said when he noticed Do-Jin approaching. Through the eye the Grand Duke had given him, Do-Jin could see it clearly. The Duke’s presence was wavering, dissolving in real time as it merged with the seal.

Do-Jin spoke with the weight of everything swelling in his chest, “This didn’t have to be the only way. If you had bought us enough time, I’m sure we could have found another solution.”

As he said it, Do-Jin cursed himself for mistaking the arrival of a grand mage for guaranteed victory.

Tirund slowly shook his head. “This was the best option. It was something only I could bring to an end.”

He might have been right. The system message had said the curse’s ‘eternity’ had been stripped away, but that didn’t necessarily mean just anyone could destroy it. This method might really have been the only way to finish the fight.

“But if you do this,” Do-Jin said quietly, “what happens to Karin?”

Understanding something in his head didn’t mean his heart could accept it. Tirund didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his gaze toward the sky.

Karin was there. Having suffered the least from the curse under her father’s protection, she was also the first to awaken from suspended animation. She flew down with a pale face and landed hard, nearly collapsing the moment she touched the ground.

“Father!”

“I am fine.”

At those words, Karin cried without tears, her voice breaking. “How is this fine? Nothing about this is fine!”

She didn’t know exactly what had happened, but she knew one thing with terrifying clarity. Her father was about to disappear.

Tirund wanted to comfort her. He wanted to take her trembling shoulders in his hands and tell her there was nothing to fear, but there was no time.

“I do not regret what I did to save you.”

Karin froze, struggling to catch her breath.

“Even if I stood before that moment again and again, I would make the same choice every time.” His voice was gentle, filled with the warmth he had always struggled to show. “In more than a thousand years of existing for your sake, there is nothing I regret.”

“No. Please do not say things like that. I do not want to hear this.”

If there was regret, it was in failing to express his love sooner. It was in not making her smile freely just a little earlier. Those were the things that remained. Even so, there was relief.

My sin ends here, and your future begins.It took more than a thousand years, but I have seen you smile. That is enough.

Tirund turned his gaze away. The human from another world who had given his daughter that smile stood there. He had words for him as well.

“There is no need to make that face. If you had not been here, if not for what you did, my end would have been nothing but ruin.”

“Grand Duke...” Do-Jin started to object, then stopped himself. He didn’t want to waste what little time remained on words that would change nothing.

Reading that hesitation, Tirund smiled faintly. “She is a lonely child. Please show your face a little more often. And one last thing.”

Above Tirund, a massive Magic Circle began to form. “I admit this is selfish of me, but I hope my daughter will not so easily lose the friend she struggled to gain. I ask that you understand.”

“What do you mean by that...?”

Before Do-Jin could fully grasp the meaning behind those words, the Magic Circle that had formed above Tirund descended in a torrent. That spell contained everything Carneth Tirund had left behind.

[The unique magical system of Vampire Lord Carneth Tirund has been registered.]

[Storage capacity exceeded.]

[Initiating data compression...]

[Interpretable information is extremely limited.]

Do-Jin had possessed Crimson Night for a long time now. As the magic eye gradually fused more deeply with his body, it was effectively the same as continuously receiving fragments of Vampire Lord Carneth Tirund’s inherited magical data.

That was what the Grand Duke was exploiting now. He was transplanting what remained of himself into Do-Jin. The flood of information pouring in was far beyond anything a human should have been able to endure. Even the Grand Duke considered it fortunate if only a portion of it could be absorbed successfully.

And that wasn’t all. From the Grand Duke’s eyes, drops of true blood spilled forth, falling like tears. Knowing that humans lived far too briefly to truly become companions to vampires, he offered his true blood to Do-Jin. It was the final gift of a father leaving his daughter behind.

It was the right decision to give him the magic eye.

While Do-Jin was immobilized by the overwhelming flow of magical information, the purest and most untainted true blood of the Vampire Lord flowed into him. It was blood that had already been freed from the curse’s influence, and it quietly embedded itself within him as the Grand Duke’s final act.