Ch.388388 – Fragments of the End

<388 – Fragment of the End>

A mural of spirits containing the secret of the origins of the vampire race.

The information received through resonance magic was shocking.

‘I thought resonance magic was a beginner-level magic only used in healing professions like psychotherapists or caregivers!’

It was completely different.

Oknodie’s magic didn’t heal people’s hearts by sharing petty emotions.

Nor did she harbor a sick mind like young care magic practitioners or criminal psychotherapists who retire after resonating with too much darkness and becoming mentally ill themselves.

‘So this is how a high-performance brain works!’

The spirit language came through clearly, as if borrowing a genius’s mind.

Now I understand.

Oknodie’s metaphor about inserting the mana puzzle key into the memory regeneration magic lock and turning it.

‘She’s enviably intelligent.’

So this is what scholarship means.

I understand the meaning of culture now.

The child educated by the Foundation was truly brilliant.

How many things are there to enjoy in the world?

And how many things are there to learn?

Among all those entertainments and learnings, she accumulated knowledge that was of no practical use in daily life.

It’s not something the lower class could even attempt.

Not even all upper-class people would challenge it.

Oknodie, who devoted herself to archaeological knowledge and spirit language that only stuffy, single-minded scholars would delve into.

‘It probably wasn’t by choice. Surely that child also struggled because of the Foundation’s forced teachings.’

But I envy her.

The intelligence and perseverance to learn and digest what is taught.

A narrow-minded jealousy to harbor toward an 11-year-old child.

Was that the root of the problem?

Suddenly, Dobby encountered a strange point permitted by his talent.

[Vampire’s Possibility]

Beyond the fairy tale that unfolded in his mind through resonance magic, he saw something else.

It was a door.

A large, bright red door.

A door with elegant embossed carvings following the arch-shaped frame.

A door engraved with the names of countless vampires, from the first vampire Nosferatu to the aristocrats of the night known to the world.

He grabbed the handle.

But the sticky feeling like blood made him realize something was wrong.

The viscosity was thick.

The correct answer from the touch was hardened blood.

Not a door that should be opened out of mere curiosity.

Yet the reason he opened it might have been out of stubbornness.

‘Even if I’m aiming for the Production Department, even if my skills are nothing compared to those brilliant talents, I still got into the world’s best educational institution.’

One more step forward.

If I just have a little more courage, maybe an opportunity will come.

Greed pushed him forward.

He opened it.

He went ahead and opened it.

A sky dyed blood-red to the horizon.

A red moon larger than the sun.

The moment of miserable destruction when the blood of countless lives was forcibly extracted and fell to the moon in the sky.

Just looking up made him feel his blood being drained from his entire body.

Consciousness blurring.

Death approaching slowly.

As his consciousness was about to collapse, an enormous mana penetrated and forcibly restored it.

“W-what… what’s happening here?”

“Bloody Super Moon.”

From the solemn voice behind him, he realized this was the person who had breathed life into him.

“The progenitor Nosferatu. The ancestor-slayer Dracula. And following them, as the last vampire who carved his name in the heavens alongside theirs, Vladimir’s work, perhaps.”

A giant whose face was barely visible even when tilting his head up painfully.

He had a massive build matching his height.

Yet the greatest enormity Dobby felt was neither his height nor his build.

“Everything is too late. Everyone considered the Blood Clan’s struggle for true blood someone else’s problem.”

“When the beastkin asked for help, they were ignored as if it was irrelevant, and now that their powers have united, there are no races left anywhere to help humans.”

“Who are you? How do you know these things? What is all this!”

The man didn’t answer Dobby’s questions.

He simply spoke quietly to those following him.

“But humanity still has us.”

Us. Only after hearing the man’s declaration did Dobby finally sense numerous presences.

“Those skilled enough to protect the blood in their bodies with their own mana against the <World Domain> that craves the blood of all beings.”

“Those who will bring down the blood star of Vladimir, the master of blood magic and the last vampire.”

“Yes. Unlike the student council that turned its back on the mission of world protection, we are the Star Hunters who have not given up fighting even at the end of the declining world!”

Vladimir, who reduced all beings made of bone and flesh to pure blood mana.

The hordes of Bloodspawn, creatures rampaging on earth under the influence of the Bloody Moon, the culmination of blood magic he gathered, were gathering at the highest mountain on earth that reaches the moon.

A high mountain at 12,500 meters.

Mount Shinjung, called the Garden of Gods.

The master of this mountain is the Blood God Vladimir, who has ascended to new divinity, and human civilization has already perished with the death of beings unable to protect themselves with mana.

Nevertheless, they climb toward the summit of Mount Shinjung for the final battle.

“Let’s go. This is our graduation assignment.”

“!?”

These people, could they be seniors in their final year!?

There was much he wanted to ask.

Whether the campus rumor that you had to kill ten third-year classmates to advance to senior year was true.

What was the origin of what he was seeing now.

Whether this was merely a record of past events like an imprint in a fairy tale.

But questions were unnecessary.

Because among the group of Star Hunters, humanity’s final warriors climbing Mount Shinjung, he recognized familiar faces.

As if labeled with name tags, their identities appeared before his eyes.

[Northern Archduchess Irene]

[Imperial Emperor Yayoi]

[Ultraspeed Rockpell]

[Heavenly Sound Mandela]

[…]

Class 981, first-year advanced class.

Or skilled individuals from the advanced class of previous years.

A group consisting entirely of Academy notables.

Now he understood.

This was a resonance memory.

A fragment of memory deep within Oknodie.

Her secret that he had pried into on his own.

‘Oknodie knew one of the possibilities of the world’s end!’

She knows a past that has already happened in another world and a future that has not yet arrived.

Whether she experienced it directly or received memory resonance from someone.

A future too heavy and cruel for that small girl to shoulder.

‘Was that why? That smiling face that always tried to enjoy something since we met.’

Because the future of destruction is so tragic.

Because she knows the preciousness of the short peace that can be enjoyed until then.

Because she remembers the future tragedy that cannot be prevented without sufficient growth before graduation.

She cannot stop smiling.

She cannot stop growing.

Joy, strength.

Behind everything he considered evidence of talent was a spirit that faced such a tragic future without breaking.

But that fight was too overwhelming for someone as weak as him to follow.

“Bloodspawn are creatures made of blood. To defeat them, you must destroy the mana field that maintains the liquid in monster form while simultaneously evaporating the blood that regenerates the mana field. Give your all in a single strike against every enemy you face!”

He couldn’t even deliver that single strike.

Rather, trying to draw out power for futile attacks only collapsed his own field that protected his internal mana from the power of the Bloody Moon.

“Huk!”

With his barrier broken, Dobby experienced the horrific death of his blood boiling alive and evaporating through his skin.

* * *

A sky dyed blood-red to the horizon.

A red moon larger than the sun.

As Dobby, who had once become part of that moon, stared blankly at the sky, a thick, solemn voice awakened his mind again.

“W-what… what’s happening here?”

“Bloody Super Moon.”

Once again, the man who had breathed life into him before placed his hand on Dobby’s back and filled him with energy.

Dobby realized he was a hindrance who couldn’t even defeat a single Bloodspawn, and that the man had no reason to help him.

He was just trash wasting precious energy to maintain a worthless life, unworthy of joining humanity’s final resistance.

“The progenitor Nosferatu. The ancestor-slayer Dracula. And following them, as the last vampire who carved his name in the heavens alongside theirs, Vladimir’s work, perhaps.”

The story repeated once more.

But it didn’t reach his ears.

It was shameful.

I wish they would leave me behind and go quickly.

“Let’s go. This is our graduation assignment.”

They left.

Dobby, who survived by not participating in the futile battle.

On the path to the summit of Mount Shinjung, mana of various colors exploded, and giant Bloodspawn as large as parts of the mountain burst one after another.

But he could also sense it.

Explosions of that magnitude couldn’t be produced while maintaining a mana barrier.

Surely the owners of those explosions had perished in that moment.

The world’s most extravagant and cruel fireworks, using human lives as sparks, were launched toward the summit of Mount Shinjung.

‘It’s cruel. Too cruel.’

That this is humanity’s future.

That he can do nothing but watch.

This powerlessness.

This despair.

It felt painfully cruel every moment.

But when a beam of light shot up from the summit of Mount Shinjung, becoming a massive pillar connecting earth and sky, he finally witnessed it.

The fact that salvation exists even at the end of this despair.

The Bloody Moon.

The world-scale domain.

Melting away like snow, restoring the color of the sky.

Although the world has perished, humanity’s victory comes at this end.

‘I want to witness it. Even a little closer.’

From the summit of that mountain.

I want to know what happened at the end of this despair.

As he desperately wished, a door appeared before his eyes.

The blood-red door he had opened once before.

The sticky sensation gripping his fingertips.

Dobby willingly turned the doorknob.

Again and again.

And again and again.

And finally witnessed the truth.

“It’s your turn now. Self-destruct, Irene.”

“How cruel. Marine, you as a man, always.”

The cruelty of the leader who cleared the path by making humanity’s final heroes explode one by one.

The man who had saved Dobby.

He was ordering their deaths with his own mouth, pushing them forward with his own hands.