“No, I can’t accept it,” Angela said. Despite her words, however, she seemed to be fully in heat as she looked at the heart of the Red Castle.

But regardless, she continued to refuse the offer, perhaps feeling uncomfortable at the thought of taking the Source of Blood for herself rather than offering it to her master.

“Only those who inherit the True Blood can inherit the Source of Blood. And unfortunately, I’m a human,” Kim Jin-Woo said.

“If that’s the case, I’d rather share the True Blood with Master,” Angela replied.

It was a solution Kim Jin-Woo hadn’t thought of, but in his eyes, it wasn’t a welcome one, whether it was possible or not in the first place. He asked, “Are you telling me to become a Vampire?”

As if Kim Jin-Woo had read her like a book, Angela, who had been yapping away just seconds before, fell silent. Kim Jin-Woo looked at her and clicked his tongue.

There had been times when he suspected she might have been a Warden, but seeing how she was willing to yield even the power of a Highlord to her master, there were no more doubts as to her loyalty.

However, the creepy Vampire had yet to give up on her lustful desires, and considering how she desired to make her own master one of her kind, it seems that only by doing so will finally satisfy her lust.

In hindsight, Kim Jin-Woo was simply glad that Angela hadn’t bitten down on the nape of his neck when he was vulnerable. However, it was an unacceptable offer to him.

“I have no intention of becoming a Vampire,” he said resolutely, leaving no room for objection. “No, it will be you who takes the Source of Blood.”

Angela pouted and put on a long face. At this point, her obsession seemed great enough to even overwhelm her desire for a Highlord’s power.

“Take the Source,” Kim Jin-Woo insisted, grabbing Angela’s hand and leading her to the Source of Blood. He finished, “And fight for me.”

Eventually, Angela sighed deeply and walked over to him. She began, “Master, do you know something?” A look filled with complex emotions flashed through her eyes. She continued, “This thing you call the ‘Source’, it’s so insanely attractive. I’m about to go crazy because I want to chow down on this right now.”

Her eyes were full of longing as she looked at the Source, as her whole body trembled. However, she didn’t reach out and take it.

“But the thing is…” Angela trailed off.

Kim Jin-Woo waited for her to finish her sentence.

Angela finished, “...I think Master is way more attractive than this crazily attractive Source.” It seemed she hadn’t given up yet.

“Give it up, I never want to be a Vampire,” Kim Jin-Woo repeated. There was no time. If he didn’t quickly return to the battlefield, everything that he had worked hard for would be for naught.

“If anything happens and the pact is somehow canceled, I’ll be really upset,” Angela complained.

The Blood Pact between the two of them had been maintained even when Angela received her True Blood, but there was no guarantee that it would remain in effect should she absorb the powers of the Highlord. She seemed to care more about those petty shackles, even in her moment of absurd glory.

“Argh, sheesh. This is all because of Master.” Angela kicked up a fuss that was unusual, considering the situation. Kim Jin-Woo stopped looking at her, because he had glimpsed the deep sense of resignation in her voice.

“I must have been completely tamed by Master,” Angela continued to whine.

“Argh, whatever. Even if the pact is broken, you can’t abandon me, okay?” With that, she finally broke her stubbornness and stepped closer to the Source. “If that happens, I’m really going to bite down on your throat, okay, Master!?”

Before the Vampire even finished speaking in a semi-joking manner, there was a flash in front of Kim Jin-Woo’s eyes as a new message window popped up.

[A new Highlord has been born in the Underworld.]

***

“Ah…” Having heard the full story of what had happened in the Back Floor, Dominique let out an ambiguous gasp that could have been either admiration or shock. She asked unexpectedly, “Master, do you think this is all really just a coincidence?”

Kim Jin-Woo wasn’t entirely surprised. After all, it was the same question he had asked himself multiple times before.

Why was it that the fragments of the Highlords continued to gather around him? The Deep Floor Counts, who had been wandering the entire Underworld in pursuit of power, had failed to succeed despite all their efforts, and they had only been able to obtain fake Grand Labyrinths.

In contrast to them, it was a totally different story for Kim Jin-Woo. He had already found five fragments of the past.

One-Eyed Lord. Fairy Lord. True Blood Lord. Lord of Brilliance. He had obtained all of their legacies with relatively little to no effort. All of them had somehow existed around him from the beginning, or had forcibly crossed paths with him.

Unless he was an idiot, it would only be natural for him to notice the suspicious intricacies of the situation. Besides, the avatar of the True Blood had even spoken about a prophecy.

“The abyss lurks inside of you as well... the abyss that has devoured all, and is yet unsatisfied.

“Aah, I now remember how much I had to suffer in pain as my soul scattered across the Underworld for eons.

“A prophecy exchanged for a single eye. A Promise made with the Light. The thread of Fate braided with the hairs of a hundred thousand Fairies. They all point to one.”

“I am willing to be a witness to that Promise.

“I bear witness with the reddest of blood.

“The prophecy will come true.”

He couldn’t understand the meaning of those words, but one thing was certain: The fact that his growth had never been natural. There was no way that all the fragments of the Highlords, except for the three that had awakened earlier than him, would have so coincidentally appeared around him.

Kim Jin-Woo felt his heart grow cold. The exhilaration from absorbing the power of two Dukes and the relief brought about by the return of the Nagas had fully dissipated in his heart.

“Don’t you think at least three or four of the Highlords are trying to achieve something through you, Master? Or perhaps, even all of them?” Dominique asked. The question was, what was their objective? Kim Jin-Woo was troubled by her words. However, he didn’t worry for too long.

“Does this mean the newly born Highlords are all mere puppets?” Kim Jin-Woo mused. He didn’t like the fact that someone had him by the collar and had control over his destiny at their will.

Nevertheless, he laughed it off. Even if there was an invisible hand behind his growth, the power within him was his and his alone. He remarked, “First of all, I’ll have to meet the big guy downstairs.”

Ironically, even after realizing that a conspiracy might have been going on behind the scenes, what he had to do didn’t change.

***

After Kim Jin-Woo had followed the trail of corpses for a long time, at some point, the fog finally cleared up. It was obvious who was responsible for the mist that was filled with the stench of death itself.

“Is this the power of her newly acquired abilities?” Kim Jin-Woo exclaimed in admiration.

Dominique, who was standing next to him, followed suit. “This is crazy.”

The air of death was so intense that it could easily overwhelm the presence of Valicius, who was called the King of the Dead.

“Mm?”

The fog, which seemed to have been formed by coalescing blood, suddenly split in half down the middle. The sight that revealed itself was so terrifying that it was nothing compared to all the devastation Kim Jin-Woo had seen before.

Corpses, corpses, corpses. There were nothing but corpses. Because of the corpses that filled the passageway, the foggy path that had opened up felt needless. However, no one was present to mourn the deceased.

“Sickening.” Kim Jin-Woo smirked. It was almost as if the emboldened Vampire had prepared a lavish welcome for him in her own way.

“Mm.”

Any other living being would have turned back immediately. However, Kim Jin-Woo stepped forward without hesitation.

Finding Angela wasn’t difficult. As if to guide Kim Jin-Woo to wherever she was, the mist lifted in front of him, and he continued to follow the opening pathway.

“Looks like this is it,” he eventually remarked. The path that hadn’t been blocked thus far was now blocked by a red mist. Kim Jin-Woo could vaguely tell that Angela didn’t want him to intervene in her battle. He resolved not to get in her way; there was something he wanted to confirm too.

The reason why all the other Highlords had been reluctant to act against the True Blood Lord was probably not just the Red Castle that they had been unable to locate. Kim Jin-Woo wanted to find out the true extent of the True Blood Lord’s powers.

As soon as those thoughts entered his head, a strange energy began to fluctuate from beyond the fog. The air of death around him grew thicker, but as if resisting it, an explosive wildness erupted.

However, that too was soon swallowed up by the energy of death, and an ear-piercing scream rang out immediately after. Kim Jin-Woo intuitively knew that the decisive blow had been dealt, and he muttered, “It’s over.”

The fog cleared. The red mist that had obscured his vision dispersed and eventually disappeared, as if it had never existed in the first place. Just beyond it was Angela, smiling widely.

***

Kim Jin-Woo was stunned when Angela presented him with a piece of living flesh that was still wriggling despite its wretched state. He asked, “This is a gift?”

Needless to say, despite Angela calling it a gift, it didn’t change that it was a ghastly body with all its limbs cut off.

“Yeah, it’s still a Duke, isn’t it?” Angela replied brazenly, as if expecting her master to pat her head and tell her that she had done a good job.

“Urgh.” Kim Jin-Woo was at a loss for words due to the absurdity of it.

It was shocking, after all. Angela had been nothing more than a mere Vampire, but now, she could turn a Deep Floor Duke into a piece of living flesh that was neither dead nor alive. This was a Duke who had already made all the necessary preparations to head into battle; and yet, this was the ending he had met against the power of the True Blood Lord.

Not only that, there wasn’t an ounce of fatigue on Angela’s grinning face. Rather, she seemed to be blushing red, and her complexion glowed brighter than ever before.

“What I’ve absorbed is the vitality. I’ve left the power Master requires completely intact for you,” she said flirtatiously, as if she were a salesman promoting a company’s latest product.

It would have been better if Kim Jin-Woo had been in the form of the Evil Dragon. When he saw the ghastly ‘present’ he didn’t even want to get close to it. However, considering that it was a gift, and from Angela no less, he simply couldn’t refuse it.

Whatever the case, a Duke was a Duke. In the end, he absorbed all of the feeble remnants of the Duke’s powers. Although he didn’t take the heart and devour it as he had in the form of the Evil Dragon, it was enough to absorb the power of the Duke of the east who had fearlessly joined the war.

“Huh?” While watching her master eat the delicious meal she had offered up at a leisurely pace, Angela looked at Dominique and gave her a look of surprise. She remarked, “What the? It’s you, my Naga lady. Shouldn’t you be in a deep sleep inside your egg?”

Angela’s tone, which seemed to insinuate that Dominique had been slacking off while the two of them were struggling out in the Underworld, ticked off Dominique. Angela continued, “Anyway, congratulations on waking up. However, compared to what I expected, you don’t seem to have changed much.

Dominique didn’t respond this time either. Angela’s frivolous attitude was the same as ever, but now that she was much stronger because of her unique presence as a Highlord, Dominique could no longer treat her as casually.

Kim Jin-Woo, witnessing the scene, had mixed feelings. Obviously, Angela’s growth was something to be happy about. However, seeing Dominique’s subtly suppressed spirit made him feel upset for some reason.

Just when he could no longer tolerate it any further and was about to step in to prevent the situation from escalating, Dominique spoke. “You look as if you’ve changed a lot in the short time since we last saw each other.”

“As you can see, I ate quite the good stuff for my body.” Angela had a creepy, arrogant look on her face, but it wasn’t long before she began frowning deeply.

“That wasn’t what I was talking about. Hasn’t your pact with Master been terminated?” Dominique remarked.

It was Angela’s Achilles’ heel. Just as she had feared, the Blood Pact with her master that she had wanted to protect so much was lost after inheriting the Red Castle and its powers. There was no way she could be happy about such a development.

She was left speechless and started fuming, saying, “How did you…”

“Gee, how did I know, I wonder?” Dominique cut her off. With the increase in her devotion and servitude to her master, the situation had now reversed for her. She shot back, “Since the pact is broken, you’re now just a complete stranger.”

However, Angela wasn’t able to go down without a fight. She quickly corrected her expression and put on a rather playful look, retorting with a strange confidence, “Well, ‘stranger’ isn’t quite the appropriate term. You see, while you were sleeping, we formed a deeper, more mature relationship.”

Dominique pondered Angela’s words before her eyes widened. She stuttered, “M… Master?”

As her face had turned bright red, she must have thought of something very embarrassing. Unlike the way she had been fighting against Angela just moments before with an upright attitude, she was now floundering with a shocked expression.

Her telepathic ability to communicate with her master worked against her, as she had just been embarrassingly forced to relive her master’s past deed inside her mind.