Chapter 410: The Masked Elf

Upon the crimson Fungal Mat, beneath a silver-gray crescent moon, a pale-skinned, beautiful lady held a scepter, looking down upon a pack of hounds. Black mist swirled around her, and behind her, thrones rose and fell in the air.

In both atmosphere and imposing presence, Silvia, at this moment, seemed to even faintly overshadow Jilannis.

Even her companions, who knew her well, would have been compelled to show her the respect a subordinate pays to a superior if they didn’t know her true story—to say nothing of the Night Howling Hounds before her, who were her servants to begin with.

The Magic Creatures craned their long necks, looking at one another with their near-human faces. They let out occasional low barks, their way of exchanging opinions.

But after a few seconds, following a short cry from the pack leader, all the Night Howling Hounds gave up their struggle. They willingly prostrated themselves before Silvia. The Vampire Descendant felt the Mind Link between herself and the creatures solidify once more. Their thoughts, feelings, and even their perceptions were again transmitted into her mind without the slightest distortion.

“Whoa, that was pretty intimidating!” Once Silvia reined in the power that wasn’t entirely hers, Sera came over, laughing. She playfully tapped Silvia on the shoulder with a fist the size of a melon, nearly knocking the Vampire Descendant over. “Why don’t you stay like that all the time?”

“If you were always that domineering, these big dogs would never dare to turn on you!”

“You think I don’t want to?” Silvia said with a wry smile, rubbing her smarting shoulder blade. “Have you forgotten the story we told you in detail? This power was ultimately a gift bestowed upon that Count by some unknown entity. I only managed to strip it from him by a stroke of luck. It’s not my own power at all.”

“Although I can control it as I wish, every time I use it, I feel like I’m losing a piece of myself. Until I completely understand its origins, the less I use it, the better.”

“Oh, right! I totally forgot!” The barbarian’s eyes went wide, and she quickly added, “Then you’d better use it less! I’ve heard stories about some tribes that rely heavily on the power of their Priests or Prophets, but those powers always come with a curse! Those tribes usually end up in a terrible state!”

The Goblin Hunter snorted. “I bet you’re actually jealous of those tribes. After all, your Ocher Tribe isn’t even qualified to be cursed…”

“Bullshit! We have our own Priests, okay? We just use their powers with restraint!” the barbarian retorted loudly. In response, Delaford curled his lip and clicked his tongue. Sera immediately shouldered her Grip of the Vast Wave and spread her arms, lunging for the goblin. “You make that sound again, I dare you!”

“Alright, that’s enough!” Ron had to step in and stop their squabbling. “That guy got away again. We need to catch him, fast!”

“There are too many things wrong with the Red Mould and the Spore People here. He might know something—he could even be the mastermind!”

Anastina helped pull Sera and Delaford apart, her expression also growing serious. “Sir, you have a point. The Red Mould is clearly propagating with a purpose, heading straight for the Vampire’s former castle. Otherwise, if you used the distance from here to the castle as the radius of their breeding ground, the total area covered would be absurdly large!”

“Unfortunately, this Vampire is now homeless and all alone,” Ron said, summoning his Weaving Introduction to re-catalog his few remaining spells. “We failed to stop him just now. Catching him again is going to be difficult.”

“Actually, it might not be that difficult,” Silvia said, looking up. She waved her hand, and the Night Howling Hounds quickly vanished into the Ethereal Plane. “Unluckily for him, when he tried to win over the Night Howling Hounds, he also let them memorize his scent.”

“Now that they’re back on our side, we can give them a chance to atone. What do you think, Benefactor?”

“As long as that guy doesn’t trick them again…” Aive muttered under her breath.

“Even a common beast would learn its lesson, let alone Magic Creatures,” Ron said, waving for everyone to move out again. “Silvia, have the hounds split into several groups. One group will keep an eye on our Lord Count, and the others will report back in shifts to guide our path!”

“He’s gotten away twice already. We can’t let him escape a third time, no matter what!”

Silvia immediately gave the Night Howling Hounds stricter orders. To her, Count Richthofen wasn’t just an enemy. More importantly, as long as this Vampire—the one who had once offered her his ‘patronage’—remained alive, her freedom, along with the castle, territory, and title that came with it, would never truly be hers!

‘So, this Vampire must die!’

「Two days later, in a dense forest infected by the Red Mould.」

The Vampire Count, his clothes in tatters, repeatedly sped up like a beaten dog, desperately trying to shake the pursuers who clung to him like a shadow. He seemed close to succeeding. From last night until today, not a single hound had appeared within his Perception.

However, when the Count looked down at the neat row of teeth marks on the edge of his left palm, a sense of crisis surged through him once more, compelling him to continue running for his life.

A bite from a Night Howling Hound inflicted mental damage, and the beasts used it to lock onto their prey’s location, hunting them relentlessly until they could feast on the fugitive’s last shred of flesh. But as a veteran Caster, Richthofen could also use the bite mark to reverse-locate his pursuers and evade their chase.

This was now deep within the heartland of the Red Mould’s expanding territory. The cunning of the Night Howling Hounds was ultimately no match for a Vampire Count who had lived for centuries. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get anywhere near the Vampire.

‘By midnight tomorrow, I’ll have shaken them completely…’ the Vampire muttered to himself. His opponents were nothing more than a few witless hounds; his calculations couldn’t be wrong. He weaved through the dense forest, which was overgrown with Red Mould, carefully avoiding the mutated and now exceptionally powerful Spore People and Thorny Beasts.

These creatures weren’t lethal to him, but they would slow him down. It was best not to provoke them at a time like this.

The Vampire’s gaze locked onto the unknown darkness ahead. There, he and his wife had a wondrous encounter when they first set foot in the Red Mould’s territory. It was also there that they had left a specially-made Sanctuary, impervious to the Red Mould, to serve as a laboratory.

‘Once I get there…’

A grim, half-mad, stooped figure flashed through the Vampire Count’s mind. The nightmarish image made the sprinting Count shudder involuntarily.

‘Once I get there, that old fellow can solve all my problems…’

‘An existence capable of making all the Red Mould in the entire region mutate in unison, even affecting the Spore People and Thorny Beasts born from it… a mere group of country bumpkins could be wiped out with a snap of his fingers—’

The Count thought to himself with a touch of smug satisfaction as he plunged headfirst into the fungal darkness. The Red Mould parted to let him pass. The feeling of being so heralded made Richthofen a bit giddy, but he soon discovered that he was not, it seemed, the only one to enjoy this privilege.

His blood-red bat wings folded behind him. The Count stopped, staring into the thicket before him with a mixture of shock and uncertainty. There, a head of silver-white hair swayed in the wind, along with the surrounding crimson fungi.

The newcomer was tall and slender, with long, pointed ears that extended sideways. Her blue-green dress, trimmed with gold, formed a distinct curve at her chest. All these signs indicated that she was a female Elf.

Two thin cords hooked behind her ears held up a light-colored masquerade mask decorated with gold, silver, and feathers, which covered only her eyes, nose, and upper cheeks. Such an exquisite ornament was completely out of place in this savage environment, making the Elf look like a noble lady who had gotten lost on her way to a gala.

But Count Richthofen stumbled back several steps, his expression a mixture of bewilderment and utter terror.

The howls of the Night Howling Hounds echoed faintly from the bite mark on his hand, but he could no longer pay it any mind. The being before him was dozens, even hundreds of times more powerful than any Night Howling Hound!

But what was even more terrifying was that as the Count stared at the mask, he saw, revealed from beneath it, a pair of lake-blue eyes!