Ch.66Oath (1)

The sound of blood dripping on the floor was deafening. Even with one ear barely functioning—perhaps from a burst eardrum—I could hear it clearly.

Even more striking was how that sound of falling blood etched itself into my mind more vividly than Isla and Lorian’s panicked voices calling my name.

I realized something serious was happening.

‘I swear on my blood.’

Suddenly, I recalled what had just happened. When Isla refused to leave, that monster—who appeared to be level 20—had sworn not to harm me.

But that oath was immediately broken. The consequences?

I could see it clearly. The flowing blood was visibly excessive.

Even the aura I felt was gradually diminishing. Weakening. Whatever power had been accumulated was noticeably decreasing.

Even I, unable to sense magical energy, could tell. The beast before me was growing weaker.

Due to an oath made willingly, but broken against its will.

Yet it remained terrifyingly strong. My arm still felt like it had been kicked off, throbbing with pain.

Such a monster charged at me.

A crimson blur of movement. It was Lorian who blocked it.

She shot forward, drawing her beheading sword from her waist in one fluid motion.

A crescent-shaped slash cutting through the red mist and crimson afterimages.

The same strike that had once severed my neck. Moonlight Shadow.

The moment Lorian appeared behind Hertol and swung her sword, the attack was simply blocked.

By just a single arm intercepting its trajectory.

KAAAAANG!

My hearing finally caught up. Lorian’s beheading sword was deflected by a mere forearm, and in that opening, Hertol swung his leg—

THWACK!

An arrow shot by Isla pierced Hertol’s knee, stopping his kick. As his body recoiled, Lorian and I rushed in simultaneously.

I raised the Star Blade I had just drawn and brought it down, while Lorian, maintaining her low stance, spun her beheading sword.

A perfect coordinated attack striking two points at once. Normally, this would be impossible to block. Normally.

Unfortunately, Hertol was far from normal.

Through the violently scattering sparks, I saw both our blades stopped.

He had blocked them with his forearm and leg. Limbs of flesh and bone had stopped both the Star’s flame that could melt steel and the heavy beheading sword.

But there was no time for amazement. As I leaned back, a fist flew toward my head.

Before the few strands of cut hair could even fall, my leg kicked Hertol away, and Lorian, drawing a deep breath, thrust her sword forward.

The crimson energy erupting from her blade pushed Hertol back, sending him flying through several mining carts before crashing far away.

In this brief moment of respite, Lorian’s eyes turned to me.

“Edilum?”

“Hertol killed him.”

Her face, initially filled with dismay, quickly hardened with cold resolve. She recognized what needed to be done faster than she could express regret.

“A blood oath inflicts massive damage on the one who breaks it. Even for an elder of the bloodline, it cannot be ignored. His physical abilities and blood magic performance will be greatly diminished.”

She prioritized overcoming the situation rather than analyzing it.

She was a Blood Knight.

What mattered was that she was a knight, not a blood kin.

“I’ll use blood.”

A declaration. Immediately, crimson liquid began covering her skin.

In the blink of an eye, it enveloped her entire body, forming armor similar to what I was wearing.

Slightly smaller and thinner in form.

The only difference was her long white hair flowing beneath the helmet.

But she paid no attention to her appearance or the situation.

She simply gripped her beheading sword with both hands.

Isla loaded her crossbow, and I lowered my stance, gripping the Star Blade.

Here he comes.

Even weakened, he’s still level 20.

We can’t underestimate him.

But victory isn’t impossible. Though I’m only level 6, I’m strong and possess skills specialized against the three clans.

Lorian is a Blood Knight. She knows all the enemy’s techniques and how to counter them.

Surely that’s the case.

Yet an inexplicable unease gnawed at me. An anxiety that consumed me and filled me with doubt.

I would soon understand why.

*

KUWOONG!

A distant rumbling sound.

The old man who was once in charge of this mine lifted his head, pausing his mining work.

It felt ominous. The entire mine seemed to tremble, and having lived in mines for much of his life, the old man knew.

This was no natural sound.

It was man-made. And the source was obvious.

The old man looked up, trembling with fear.

He wasn’t alone. Hundreds of mixed-blood vampires were all looking up anxiously.

It was natural for them, having chosen to bow their heads since ancient times.

Not angering their masters, pleasing their masters’ representatives.

They never complained about insufficient supplies. Too many had died doing so.

They were mixed-blood vampires. Unwelcome in the human world, less than livestock to vampires.

They might as well be insects. Knowing this well, they huddled together as usual, chins tucked, leaning on each other.

Hoping this commotion would pass quickly.

But the disturbance only grew worse.

It seemed to get closer, growing louder. Just as someone suggested checking what was happening—

KWAAAAAAANG!

Suddenly, the ceiling of the cavern collapsed, and two figures fell through.

The two were entangled. One gripped the other’s neck, repeatedly driving his fist down.

Each punch shook the air with force that seemed capable of overturning mountains and shattering the ground.

Every impact produced a thunderous noise, and fragments of the receiving man’s armor scattered in all directions.

They’re falling. We must retreat. Faster than the thought formed, the old man shouted:

“Everyone, fall back!”

People moved hastily, retreating to avoid the falling figures.

KUWUUUUNG!

With a heavy thud, the two forms tumbled across the floor.

The contrast between them was stark.

One was a man bleeding from his entire body, with only a single vambrace remaining of his armor; the other, a middle-aged man in noble attire without a single blemish.

The difference was evident. There was a vast gap in their capabilities.

Even weakened by a broken oath, the Red Beast was beyond Ruwellin’s reach.

Manipulating blood throughout his body, strengthening his flesh with that blood—a simple magic taken to its extreme.

The Red Beast Hertol was the superior version of the unique homunculus Mourner.

The difference in endurance was clear. After 60 seconds, Ruwellin’s fight had devolved into desperate survival.

“Kuh, kugh…”

Dark blood spilled from his mouth, staining the floor. Ruwellin struggled to steady his pain-wracked body.

Even standing was agonizingly painful. But not standing meant death.

So he stood, though victory seemed impossible.

The best he could do was separate from his companions to keep them uninvolved. That decision had led to this.

Death. He might die. The thought made Ruwellin’s legs tremble.

Still, he stood. Ruwellin raised his fist with the lone vambrace near his cheek and somehow lifted his other broken hand to aim when—

As Hertol approached and Ruwellin faced him, someone else stepped between them.

“My lord, perhaps you might consider showing mercy at this point?”

He was an ordinary old man.

A mixed-blood vampire just mobile enough to function, his thin body and pale complexion revealing his poor health.

An utterly ordinary old man who had lived and worked in mines his entire life.

He stood before one of the most powerful vampires.

His own blood master, no less.

“I don’t know what this young man has done, but surely someone as generous as yourself wouldn’t need to go this far…”

His words stopped mid-sentence. He vividly felt his own death approaching.

A fist shot forward. It connected without any warning, as if it had always been there.

The old man’s face collapsed from the front. His nose bridge crushed, jaw shattered, head compressed and burst from the impact point.

The long life of the old man ended with pathetic abruptness.

His headless body fell backward, twitching as blood leaked from it before going still.

Ruwellin stared blankly at the dead old man.

His chest tightened.

He felt sick. For reasons he couldn’t explain, his insides churned and he felt like vomiting.

He had seen people die many times before.

This death wasn’t special. It was just a mixed-blood vampire.

In a game, he would have seen countless such deaths and become accustomed to them. Even in reality, he was becoming familiar with killing.

Yet he couldn’t look away from this death.

Why had this old man stepped forward like this?

Did he not know he would die?

No, that wasn’t it. The outcome was obvious.

He stepped forward knowing he would die. Why?

Ruwellin raised his head with a feeling like his chest was being wrung out, and faced the expressionless Red Beast.

The beast’s form blurred again. He had already leapt. Ruwellin crossed his arms, but no impact came.

Instead, he realized the blurry afterimage had jumped past him and was charging toward the mixed-blood vampires.

And the blood flowing from the dead old man’s body was following Hertol.

What followed was a massacre. A horrific sight that couldn’t be ignored.

Something that made Ruwellin follow without even realizing it.

“Stop.”

His urgent words came too late. Where Hertol landed, a child was crushed.

Blood droplets sprayed upward and absorbed into his body, and immediately after, his fist split someone at the waist, their blood returning to its master.

The fight wasn’t long.

But the blood spent due to the broken oath and subsequent injuries was substantial.

Like Lorian, vampires weakened when they expended blood.

This was replenishment.

Devouring his mixed-blood vampire possessions to prepare for battle.

It was logical. But that didn’t make it acceptable.

“I said STOP!”

He shouted. It didn’t reach. He clung to Hertol’s waist, but when he blocked a fist aimed at him, his consciousness briefly cut out and he was thrown back.

There was almost no way to stop a vampire in feeding mode, especially a level 20 vampire.

Knowing this, Ruwellin still couldn’t give up.

“Stop, you fucking bastard!”

Ruwellin used Mortality. It was his strongest available technique.

The most effective means available to his dying self.

But it didn’t connect. He was easily caught.

Hertol, with a body imbued with superior techniques, grabbed Ruwellin’s arm and swung his leg.

CRACK! With a shock that resonated through his entire body, his arm was torn off. Ruwellin flew with his arm detached and crashed into a wall.

The wall caved in as his body embedded in it, his bones feeling twisted throughout his body, unable to move.

He could only squirm and twitch, desperately trying to get out.

‘It’s my fault.’

He was desperate.

‘If I hadn’t come here.’

He felt as if all this was his fault.

If he hadn’t come here, the old man wouldn’t have died.

Perhaps that’s why Ruwellin recalled someone who had once left a similar dying message.

A lion beastkin who wielded the Star’s flame, who died in this new continent after being used by the three clans.

Star Blade. He understood the words that man had left at the end.

All these deaths were his fault. Though he didn’t understand why he felt this emotion, he grieved.

He just tried to extract his creaking body from the wall to mitigate the cascade of deaths as much as possible.

Holding his severed arm that hadn’t even finished regenerating, raising his seemingly broken arm near his face, he lifted his head.

With the thought that he must somehow stop this.

But.

‘…What?’

Hertol wasn’t killing the mixed-blood vampires. Rather, he was frozen, twitching.

The mixed-blood vampires were retreating and fleeing.

‘What’s happening?’

Belatedly, his eardrums regenerated. What he heard was a sad yet familiar melody.

A sound like whistling.

As Ruwellin looked up in disbelief, he saw someone at the end of the tunnel in the ceiling.

A small girl with amber-colored hair.

A girl holding a thin, long sword in one hand, wearing a long, ornate cape.

She was whistling with her eyes closed.

That whistle was imbued with magic, magic powerful enough to bind a weakened level 20 blood mage.

Ruwellin unconsciously called out her name.

“Mel, Rodi…?”

The Golden Nightingale, Golden Cape, the strongest bard.

Called by many names, the girl smiled at the man who called her true name, then winked with one eye.

“Did you miss me?”

With such a small body yet overwhelming presence.