#90. The Red Castle

Kim Jin-Woo was the first to notice when something that had been hiding amid all the malice started to reveal itself. He felt a wave of formidable energy that suddenly forced itself through the heightened tension of the battlefield, and he soon realized it was the trap the Ursus had prepared.

But there was nothing he could do. By the time he felt the oddity, it was already too late.

“Dodge it!” he exclaimed. The explosion was fleeting, and he was forced to release the Highlord’s power that he had been suppressing all along due to the emergency.

Boom!

Flashes, roars, and shocks rattled the world around him, as the searing heat that felt as if it would melt his body turned everything white.

***

The Dragon Emperor wasn’t fond of this expedition. Leaving one’s Floor was always a dangerous act, even for a mighty Duke like himself, and the fact that there were monsters that were no less powerful than him on the 9th Floor made him even more hesitant. Even the descendants of the fearless and brave Dragon clan dissuaded him. But in the end, he had to go.

Before he knew it, he found his gaze following the exceptionally shining golden Drakan who was amid the sea of three thousand other Drakans. The last descendant of the few remaining Golden Dragons—the prince who would stand at the apex of ten thousand Drakans—his own son was there.

“Mmm.” With a rare, heavy sigh, the Dragon Emperor continued to look proudly at his descendant, albeit feeling conflicted on the inside.

That was his son, but his son’s blood was no longer pure, and his spirit and tenacity was nowhere to be found; the only thing that he had inherited was his outward appearance.

And it was that very same half-blood Drakan who was the cause of all that. If it weren’t for the rascal Ortehaga, there would be absolutely no reason for the Dragon Emperor to follow the whims of that reticent man.

But he had no choice. Only the descendents of the Golden Dragons had the ability to lead the thousands of Drakans, and even though he was a half-blood, Ortehaga was still undeniably a precious being who had inherited the blood of the Golden Dragons.

Even if the decision would cost a lot of his own clan members, he had to avoid breaking the link that was the only key to uniting the Drakan as one. The might of the clan was great, but even as the descendants of a mighty dragon, the ferocity of the Underworld was not to be underestimated.

“The dragoons are ready.” The Drakans who had crossed through the portal the Black Merchants had hastily prepared for them finished their preparations and made their report.

“All dragoons are to march toward the north,” the Dragon Emperor gently but firmly commanded. A thousand Drakans began to advance in unison.

Claaaang.

Suddenly, the Dragon Emperor’s scales stood up like goosebumps. He would soon find out why.

Goaaaaaaaar.

His body was unknowingly reacting to a powerful wave of energy, radiating from a distance so far away that not even he could guess how far away the source was.

“What the…”

***

“Aaah.”

While she was standing guard over the Naga eggs, Morrigan froze on the spot. It wasn’t just Morrigan who reacted that way. Balzark had been rolling his own head on the floor out of boredom, and Heimdall had been using his stout beak to peck away at his feathers, but they both froze up as well.

“The connection with Master has been lost…”

The summons, who lived only to serve their master, had lost their communion with Kim Jin-Woo.

“Perhaps he went up to the surfa—” Balzark began hesitantly.

Morrigan shook her head before he could even finish his sentence and said, “No, it’s different.”

She lacked the ability to telepathically communicate with her master. And unlike the King’s Representative, they had no means of grasping his intentions either. But even so, they had always been able to subtly feel the existence of their master.

But now, even that sense of presence had completely disappeared. That subtle feeling in the corner of her chest that she had always felt when her master headed up to the surface had also disappeared.

It was a terrible feeling, as if her world had collapsed. As if parts of her body had gone missing, leaving her with an indescribable emptiness within her. Morrigan remembered the last time she had felt this way.

When she had lost her One-Eyed Lord, the great Lord and her old master, she had felt exactly the same.

“Oh, no, no. Not again…” Morrigan, who was usually arrogant and cocky beyond belief, shuddered at the terrible sense of loss.

“Calm down, Morrigan,” Balzark said as he picked his rolling head up off the floor and reattached it to his body. “If something had indeed happened to Master, do you think the labyrinth would remain unaffected?”

Indeed, the labyrinth that should have deactivated along with the death of its master was still perfectly fine.

***

“Master! Master!”

Kim Jin-Woo was barely able to respond to the screams that broke through his hazy senses that felt like a dream. “Ah… Angela?”

“Master, are you okay?” Angela asked.

No matter how many times Kim Jin-Woo blinked, all he could see was pitch black darkness. There was no sense of reality because there was nothing he could see, which only further confused him in his dreamlike state.

From that darkness, Angela’s honey-colored hair and pale face suddenly appeared.

“Where are we?” Kim Jin-Woo asked. It wasn’t as if he had lost consciousness, but for some reason, his memory was fuzzy.

“This is the Back Floor,” Angela replied.

“The Back Floor?” Kim Jin-Woo asked. He knew that the Floors were split into the Lesser Floors, Middle Floors and Deep Floors, but he had never heard of the Back Floor.

Angela calmly explained to the bewildered Kim Jin-Woo, “This is the negative boundary that exists between the Floors. It’s a hidden world that only those with True Blood can enter.”

Initially, it wasn’t the ten Ancient Lords who had ruled the Ancient Underworld. Among the Ancient Lords, there was one who had belatedly risen to the position of Highlord and received late recognition for his mighty prowess. That person was the True Blood Vampire, the ruler of darkness.

“I thought the True Blood Lord left nothing behind…” Kim Jin-Woo began.

“It’s not that he left nothing behind; it’s just that no one knew about it,” Angela said.

From the moment she had entered this realm, Angela had seemed extremely relaxed, as if she had become a completely different person. And that wasn’t the only strange thing about this realm.

Unlike the other Highlords, who had at least scattered their fragments across the Underworld, the True Blood Vampire had left no traces of himself in the Underworld, let alone fragments. However, Angela was talking about the True Blood Lord with unshakable certainty.

Finding it to be too strange, Kim Jin-Woo questioned her, to which Angela replied immediately, “I simply found out about this on my own.”

It wasn’t unheard of. The timing of obtaining a power wasn’t something that could be predicted, and the moment one acquired a power, gaining such knowledge was inevitable.

“Shall I tell you what else I’ve learned?” Angela shrugged with inexplicable joy. It was hard to believe that she had been on the battlefield that was drowning in blood and death just moments before.

“I’ve told you that only beings with True Blood can enter this place, right?” She continued her explanation, stating that she had obtained the True Blood while maintaining the blood contract with Kim Jin-Woo, which had resulted in an imperfect awakening that allowed both of them to step into the Back Floor. “In other words, Master and I are the only ones who have entered this place since ancient times.”

Something clicked inside Kim Jin-Woo’s head. He muttered in bewilderment, “No way. That means…”

Angela smirked and said, “That’s right. No one else has been able to find this place so far.”

Her white fingertip pointed somewhere in the distance. “This is the tomb of the king, and the labyrinth of the forgotten Highlord.”

When her fingertip touched the darkness, the black world suddenly changed.

[In the past, when the Highlords ruled the Underworld, the Vampires were so great that they stood shoulder to shoulder with the Ancient Lords. The True Bloods’ ability to rule the darkness was something even mighty Lords could not take lightly, and the numerous clans and creatures that followed the True Blood were as powerful as the armies of the Highlords.]

[The Highlords were able to prevent making a terrible enemy out of the True Bloods by finally recognizing their mighty dark ruler as a Lord, and by granting them their own dominion over the Underworld.]

[What the Highlords feared the most was the realm of darkness, where even reality itself could be concealed. Real and unreal, ubiquitous but nowhere to be found. The stronghold of darkness was so powerful that it forced even the mighty Lords to be wary of their own shadows.]

A red carpeted hallway was revealed behind the flashing message window in front of Kim Jin-Woo.

[You have found the Red Castle located in the Back Floor—the boundary between the Floors.]

[The Red Castle is a territory ruled by the mighty Vampire Lord, whom even the Highlords were reluctant to face in the past.]

[You are lucky to have entered the source of the True Blood’s power, that no one else has yet discovered and entered.]

Angela bent over exaggeratedly and coyly greeted Kim Jin-Woo, “Welcome to the Red Castle, Master.”

While most labyrinths emphasized practicality and exuded a sense of majesty, they were also crude and monotonously bland. However, the Red Castle was the epitome of luxury in itself.

The statues erected everywhere were full of vitality and vigor, and were exquisite and beautiful; the paintings that hung on every wall were bizarre yet elegant. Every step on the carpet exuded perfection.

“Hurry, Master,” Angela urged Kim Jin-Woo, who was looking around blankly.

“Where are we going?” Kim Jin-Woo asked Angela, who appeared way too carefree as she hummed along while holding his arm/

Angela responded in a very natural manner, “It would be strange to receive such a great gift and not check it out, right?”

Angela was full of excitement. Her own clan, which she had invested so much into, had been annihilated. She hadn’t seen it happen with her own eyes, but surviving such an intense explosion was a far-fetched expectation. Her mind knew it, and her body felt it.

It was a painful blow for the True Blood Vampire, whose strength increased in proportion to the numbers of her clan. Angela seemed to be making up for her sense of loss through the newly discovered Red Castle.

“Now, let’s go,” she said.

“Urgh,” Kim Jin-Woo groaned. Now that he had found the legacy of yet another Highlord that he had no idea about, he could also feel his heart racing. But he couldn’t entirely say he was enjoying the moment.

He too had been on the bloody battlefield not so long before. Although he had been able to escape the trap the Ursus had prepared by entering the Back Floor, he was too greedy to just be grateful that he had survived.

Besides, if he spent too much time wandering the Back Floor, the wrong person would end up enjoying the spoils of the war he had put so much effort into.

Even if it weren’t for the loot, the 9th Floor Dukes were enemies he had to defeat someday; thus, he wanted to avoid a situation in which a single victor other than himself would monopolize the spoils of victory and become dramatically stronger.

But even so, he couldn’t simply shake off Angela right away. The legacy the True Blood Lord had left behind was way too attractive to pass up.

Even though he didn’t think he’d be able to become the master of a legacy that was passed down through bloodlines unlike that of the other Highlords, just collecting a few of the True Blood Lord’s artifacts that were lying around would be a huge boon to his war effort.

“Don’t worry, they’re still fighting over on the other side,” Angela said with a smile, perhaps noticing his concern.

“You’re able to check on the situation over on the other side?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

“Not in detail, but I can tell that the violent and powerful life energies are flickering away as we speak,” Angela replied.

Kim Jin-Woo paused to think, before deciding that there was still some time left. After all, even if he were to head back right now, he would only continue to lose his strength as he got caught up in the battle between the ravaged Taurus and the vengeful Ursus.

Having made his decision, Kim Jin-Woo began to pick up his pace. Angela was thrilled to lead him. They continued walking for a very long time.

Finally, Kim Jin-Woo arrived at the depths of the Red Castle through the splendidly decorated corridor.

[The Red Castle, which has been left without a master for a long time, is ready to accept a new master.]

Its red Labyrinth Core, as if dripping with blood, rippled as if to greet the two of them.