Chapter 631

"Hoo......."

Su-ho gathered his anger.

Jack also waited without saying anything.

At that moment, Alucard, who had barely regained consciousness, lifted his head.

He still looked utterly aged.

"Heh heh...... You will never be able to kill me......!"

Alucard’s provocation.

Unable to stand the sight of him, Su-ho summoned the Blood Sword and drove it into the middle of his brow again.

CRUNCH!

With a chilling sound, Alucard fainted once more.

Su-ho spoke to Jack, his eyes still narrowed.

"Got any good ideas?"

- I can think of one right away.

"What?"

- Getting rid of Red Maria.

Su-ho had expected that much too.

To stop the authority from activating at all, its power source had to be gone, and Alucard’s power source came from Red Maria.

'But I didn’t know it would still work even after I cut the rune rings.'

He was truly one tenacious bastard.

But whatever the case, as Jack said, dealing with Red Maria would likely be the most realistic method.

After thinking for a moment, Su-ho said,

"It’s either destruction or absorption. If I absorb it, do you think my Blood Jade can handle something that huge?"

- That’s something we’ll only know after trying.

He was right.

It was something they would only know after trying.

Until now, he had stored countless...... no, far more blood than he had expected inside the Blood Jade, but he had still thought of it as an amount he could handle.

Because even with imagination added in, he had thought of it as being around the size of a large swimming pool.

But looking at Red Maria before his eyes, it felt as if what someone had once said, that Alucard possessed power like the sea, had been exactly right.

Seeing once was better than hearing a hundred times.

Su-ho raised both hands.

It was the posture for using Bloody Hand.

Seeing that, Jack laughed.

- I look forward to it.

"Don’t pressure me."

- No, master. Today, you will become a legend of Noctarion.

"Wow. That is one filthy way to pressure someone."

A legend of Noctarion.

Would he become that?

When I’m going to end Noctarion today.

Soon, after taking a deep breath, Su-ho activated the skill.

[ Bloody Hand activates. ]

The skill activated.

And then.

SHUAAAAAA—!

A rough pressure of wind.

An enormous amount of energy began pouring into his spread hands.

The source of that energy was, without question, Red Maria.

Red Maria, stained through with Corruption Sorcery, desperately struggled to keep the treasure it had held for hundreds of years from being stolen by a plunderer.

However, the situation was far too unfavorable for it to simply keep resisting.

The master who gave it power had lost his strength, and the plunderer’s power was too strong.

And so Red Maria began allowing what it possessed to a vampire other than Alucard for the first time in hundreds of years.

'This really is an insane amount.'

The blood and mana that had been entering him slowly soon began accelerating more and more as time passed.

And before long, they began moving into a new residence, crazily filling Su-ho’s storage, which had been almost empty.

"Keuk!"

It was hot.

He had thought it was simply the process of transferring blood and mana, but the more it accelerated, the more an indescribable sensation he had never experienced before filled his body.

And when that acceleration reached its peak—

BAAAAAANG!!

A huge explosion.

At the same time, Su-ho’s body was flung far backward.

- Master!

Jack rushed toward Su-ho, who had been thrown by the explosion.

"Agh......."

A groan burst from his mouth.

That hurts like hell.

Is this supposed to be this hard?

Thinking that, he braced himself against the ground and was about to stand, when Su-ho’s body staggered once more and nearly collapsed.

He barely held himself up with core strength and avoided falling.

"Huh?"

Su-ho’s eyes widened.

He had not simply fallen.

An empty feeling.

No, it was not just a feeling. It really was empty.

Due to the explosion just now, both of his hands had been blown off.

"Ha."

At the completely unexpected situation, a hollow laugh escaped him out of sheer disbelief.

Jack was also startled.

- Are you all right?

"I’m fine. I won’t die."

Answering that, Su-ho conveyed his will and used Recovery.

[ Recovery activates. ]

HWAAAAA!

Light burst out, and as a warm sensation washed over him, his hands regenerated.

Fortunately, Quai’s authority was perfect.

Su-ho wriggled his newly grown fingers, then stood again.

Then he looked up at Red Maria, still standing firm like a great mountain.

"Wow......."

What am I supposed to do with all of that?

I have to get rid of that thing if I want to kill Alucard.

Su-ho’s gaze shifted to Alucard.

Alucard, with the Blood Sword embedded in him, still looked shriveled up and dead, but as long as Red Maria existed, he must still be alive and breathing.

Su-ho’s gaze shifted to Jack standing beside him.

Jack said,

- It seems an overload occurred because Red Maria holds too much energy.

"Overload?"

- Not every vessel can hold absolutely everything. It is similar to a thin glass cup being unable to withstand a waterfall pouring down on it.

"That’s brutal. Hearing it that way makes me feel lucky I absorbed it through my hands. If I’d absorbed it through my whole body, my entire body would have exploded, wouldn’t it?"

- It might have.

Ugh, now that I think of it that way, I don’t even want to imagine it.

Would Quai really restore my exploded body?

Su-ho’s brow furrowed, and Jack asked,

- How is the Blood Jade?

"Blood Jade?"

At Jack’s question, he belatedly checked the Blood Jade’s condition.

But seeing the Blood Jade’s state, it seemed the problem was not merely energy overload.

Because that vast Blood Jade was almost completely full.

No exact number appeared, but he could instinctively tell.

The current Blood Jade was so full that it was practically at the point of surface tension.

A hollow laugh escaped him.

"......It’s full."

- Then the explosion this time may not have been only due to energy overload. The Blood Jade itself may have stopped the process on its own before it burst.

"Could be. But then what do I do now?"

- That...... I do not know either?

Jack did not know either.

Of course he did not.

Would Jack have ever experienced a situation like this?

Jack was a master of shadow magic, but he knew nothing about blood magic.

Su-ho asked Jack,

"What do your people do in cases like this?"

- Like what?

"Blood and shadows are only different in type. The attribute itself is similar. Shadow magic can only be used if there are shadows, so you steadily collect shadows in normal times. And Umbra even gathered the shadows of an entire planet in order to challenge an indie game. Then how was he able to store all of that without overload?"

- That is...... because shadows have no substance?

"Does that actually make sense?"

- I think it does. To put it bluntly, shadows are shadows, so they can be layered and stored even in a point the size of a fingernail. But blood for blood magic is somewhat different, is it not? In any case, you need blood with substance to make the Blood Sword, repair it, and so on, do you not?

"That’s true."

What a pain.

Su-ho furrowed his brow again.

He needed someone who could give advice.

Glance—

Su-ho’s gaze turned toward Alucard.

Was Alucard the answer after all?

But how was he supposed to get that bastard to open his mouth?

The most realistic option was Enthrallment, but would Enthrallment work on that bastard?

Seeing once was better than hearing a hundred times.

He used it right away.

[ Enthrallment activates. ]

When he snapped his fingers, a heart-shaped brand was stamped onto Alucard’s collapsed body and spread across him. However—

[ Alucard’s High Priest’s authority activates. ]

[ Enthrallment is released. ]

Damn.

The authority again, as expected.

Su-ho’s eyes narrowed.

'This is driving me insane.'

Then who should he ask for advice?

At that moment, one suitable candidate flashed through his mind.

It was Edersen.

Su-ho immediately summoned Edersen.

[ Summoning Edersen. ]

HWAAK!

The king of the House of Nosferatu and master of the White Blood Palace.

He might know.

Su-ho had ultimately seen the kill notification through Bloody Hand and succeeded in engraving his name into the Great Blood Jade.

That was why he confidently called him out.

At Su-ho’s summons, a blood-red effect surged, and the familiar Edersen appeared before him.

A handsome middle-aged man with a white uniform, red eyes, and an impressive beard.

The moment he was summoned, he drew in a long breath.

Then he looked around, and soon showed an empty look in his eyes.

"......So it ended up like this after all."

As expected of the head of the House of Nosferatu, he grasped the situation quickly.

At the same time, he seemed unable to help grieving over the fact that everything had come true according to Alucard’s prophecy.

Su-ho spoke to him, who looked sorrowful.

"You understand everything even if I don’t explain more, right?"

"......I understand."

Su-ho snapped his fingers.

Then Roynan, who was in the middle of educating them with a whip, was summoned together with the High Bloods he had been educating.

"The fight is all over. The prophecy you all believed so completely has also come true. But I’ll give you and the other High Bloods a chance. Especially you, since you were a king. This is your last chance to protect your dignity and honor as a king."

At those words, Edersen thought for a moment, then asked,

"......The price?"

"Serve me with all your sincerity. I have inherited Levan’s will, and Levan is already dead, so serve me in Levan’s place as though you are atoning to him. I heard vampires don’t have anything like paternal love. So atone as vampire to vampire. The same goes for the other High Bloods. Otherwise......."

He did not finish the rest.

Even without saying it, they would understand well enough on their own.

There were two reasons he was asking this instead of getting straight to the main point.

One was to secure obedient cooperation for solving the current situation, and the second was to prepare for the indie game.

In any case, Edersen was a fairly decent unit.

But if he did not listen, Su-ho planned to throw him away.

A subordinate he could not handle was essentially no different from not having one at all.

Edersen thought for some time, then nodded.

"There is something I want to ask."

"Ask."

"Why give us this chance at all?"

"If it were Alucard, I wouldn’t. In any case, I think you were victims who were incited by the prophecy too. That doesn’t mean you have no sins, but giving you a chance is up to me. That’s the privilege of the victor."

"I see."

"So, your answer?"

"......."

Another moment of thought.

However, soon he nodded.

"I shall serve you."

Edersen’s declaration of submission.

That was when—

"Look at the way this bastard talks?! You better answer properly!"

Roynan, who had been silently watching, raised his voice.