Chapter 415: A Far Away Tale, The Principle of the Doctor Sage

No blood remained in the wake of the vampire Elder’s wrath.

Shei and Peru buried the dead while also tending to the wounded.

It was a grave incident that made the leadership of an entire city vanish.

The citizens of Claudia, thrown into chaos, believed that the vampires had attacked in anger because they had tried to seek forgiveness from the Sky God, but neither Shei nor Peru bothered to correct them.

It was easier to let people accept what they could believe than to make everyone understand the truth.

The only small mercy was that the Thunder Guardian and the Thunderarch in Claudia had no families or relatives.

They were chosen by fate… malformed beings cast aside by their families, with no one but fate to take them in.

That’s why Claudia wasn’t steeped in sorrow and could instead direct its pure rage toward the Duchy.

Whether that was truly a good thing was another matter.

Even so, the chaos in Claudia didn’t last long.

The Thunder God had vanished and the Thunderarch was dead.

In their place, a new Goldenarch had appeared.

And this Goldenarch wielded both the power of the Golden Lord and the Thunder God.

To the people of the Fallen Dominion, who had lived under the terror of the two Divines, the appearance of the Goldenarch felt like a revelation, like an enlightenment.

It was a sign that they no longer had to flee from the Dominion.

Now, Peru—who carried the weight of everyone’s expectations in the midst of strange tension and excitement—was with the patients in the Lightning Tower.

Shei clutched her head as she looked at the groaning Peru.

“Ugh. What am I supposed to do? What good does it do for you to be lying down next to the patients like this?”

“…Ugh.”

“Forget it. Don’t talk. Just focus on recovering first.”

Peru lay down on her back, drenched in sweat.

Shei sighed as she looked at the seemingly endless rows of injured patients.

Even though the remaining Thunder Disciples tried to help, their strength and experience were lacking.

Everything was falling apart, and fixing it required Peru.

But Peru was bedridden.

Shei was on the verge of exploding from the stress.

“And on top of all that, the King of Humans is driving me mad…”

Shei trailed off and fell deep into thought.

The King of Humans.

The predecessor of the King of Sin—and possibly the key to resolving all of this.

But thinking about it twisted the cause and effect.

In the future Shei knew, the King of Sin had the same origin as the King of Humans, but was undeniably a different being.

She was a calamity who wielded countless Divines and was hellbent on destroying everything in its path.

Aside from taking human form, there was nothing about it that resembled Hughes—neither her appearance nor her gender.

“The timelines don’t match… Even if Hughes died the moment he met me and a new King of Humans was born then, it still doesn’t make sense. Hughes didn’t seem to possess any notable power either.”

Still, it was hard to deny he was the King of Humans.

His behavior so far had been bizarre beyond belief.

Even if one generously called it the rampage of a madman, with the Sanctum’s confirmation, Hughes had to be the King of Humans.

“In that case, if I hadn’t gone to the Abyss, then Hughes…”

It wouldn’t be strange if Hughes had survived… but even so, not while trapped in the Abyss.

As Shei considered the possibility, she shook her head.

“Ugh, whatever. I can confirm it later. Right now…”

She could leave Peru behind—but Peru had been recognized by two Divines.

To bring order back to Claudia and stabilize the Divines, Peru was essential.

More than anything, she couldn’t just let her die like this.

Having come to that conclusion, Shei made her decision.

As long as Hughes was under the Progenitor’s protection, he wouldn’t be in danger.

“First, I need to save the Witherarch.”

Now that she’d made her decision, she had to choose a method.

Peru was holding her shattered body together solely with her own power.

No elixir or Qi Arts could help.

As far as Shei knew, there was only one person who could treat her.

The Doctor Sage, Lyre Nightingale.

“At this point, she shouldn’t have formed a coven yet, so it has to be Lyre herself. Because she killed Luscynia, she should be lingering near the Duchy until Tyrkanzyaka returns to deliver judgment… Wait.”

Shei froze mid-sentence, her expression darkening.

Lyre had slain Luscynia and inherited her Primordial Essence.

It was a grave crime—killing an Elder—but under the laws of the Duchy of Mist, only another Elder could judge an Elder.

And only the Progenitor could pass judgment upon one.

Lyre’s sentence had been deferred until Tyrkanzyaka returned.

The only restriction placed on her was the formation of a coven.

So, she wandered the outskirts of the Duchy, using her medical skills to treat others.

So aggressively, in fact, that one might call her insane.

That’s why Shei had assumed Lyre would come here quickly, where there were plenty of injured to treat…

“But Tyrkanzyaka returned to the Duchy!”

There was a chance she’d encountered Tyrkanzyaka on the way back.

Or that she’d already been detained until her judgment.

“Worse yet, Tyrkanzyaka is unharmed! The Progenitor has no reason to be merciful! Damn it. I have to go save her…!”

Lyre had been spared from annihilation and only exiled because of her contribution to the Progenitor’s recovery.

Her merit had earned her mercy.

But now that the Progenitor was fine, no one knew how her judgment might change.

If Shei wanted to avoid the worst possible future, she had to act.

But just as Shei grabbed Chun-aeng and Jizan to set out—

Someone strode confidently into the ward.

Her black hair was neatly twisted up and covered with a cloth.

She wore a short dress like a uniform with an apron— like a maid from a noble household.

But Shei knew better.

That outfit was for treating patients.

With white fabric at her side to make the color of blood more visible, the doctor always wore a white apron.

And now that the very person Shei had just been thinking of stood before her, she was momentarily taken aback.

Regardless, a young Thunder Disciple stood in her way, trying to block the barefoot intruder.

“Wh-who are you? You can’t just barge in here…!”

“No. This is exactly where I need to be.”

The Doctor Sage, Lyre Nightingale, calmly counted amidst the blood and death.

The moaning wounded, the blood seeping from bandaged injuries, the sorrow and fear in their eyes—

She ignored everything that might unsettle a human heart and coldly declared.

“Now then. All of you are my patients.”

A beat later, one of the Thunder Guardians, who realized that Lyre was a vampire, stood up with his spear.

“You! Vampire…!”

Though one of his arms was twisted and wrapped in bandages, pain meant nothing before his rage and fear.

Whether he could win or not was a secondary concern.

The Thunder Guardian lunged with his spear in a fit of desperation.

Lyre turned her gaze toward him.

Her eyes weren’t fixed on the spearhead but on his twisted arm.

Lyre watched in silence until the tip neared her, then suddenly pulled out a slender scalpel she had hidden in her hand.

– Srrk.

The thin, sharp blade flashed.

Lyre passed behind the Thunder Guardian.

A moment later, the cleanly severed arm hit the ground with a splat.

Even if she became an Elder through inherited blood, an Elder was still an Elder.

The Thunder Guardian, who lost an arm in a single move, writhed in pain.

“G-Gyaaaah! Aaaargh! Aghhh!”

The slender blade had cut through his shoulder and sliced off his arm.

Twisted and ruined though it was, it had still been his arm—until it was severed and no longer his.

At the moment everyone believed the cruel vampire had returned to kill them all—

Only Shei felt relieved.

Because a doctor was always a doctor.

Because it was still her.

“I will take responsibility for your cause of death. If you die, it’s because I was incompetent. That’s all.”

The severed arm twitched.

The Thunder Guardian, writhing on the ground, suddenly felt… a strange absence of pain.

“H-huh…?”

No blood flowed.

It was a bizarre sight. Blood should’ve gushed from the cut.

Yet instead, it drifted through the air, not scattering but flowing in a stream.

Flowing to where it should have, had the arm not been severed.

The red blood connected like a thread, linking the shoulder to the severed arm—as if they were still one.

No—what even is ‘one body’ in the first place?

“It would be better to sever and reattach it. But that will be done after I’ve treated the other forty-four. Your death will be the forty-fifth.”

Fear first, then awe, and finally curiosity.

That was how Lyre took control of her patients.

Amid the silence of reverence, Lyre moved, scalpel in hand.

Her criteria were clear: start with the one closest to death.

To save everyone, she must begin with the one who would die first.

That was Lyre’s principle.

Shei cautiously approached her.

Lyre paid her no mind and continued to slice into bodies with her scalpel, examining their condition.

It was called healing, but to others, it likely looked like a delicate but live dissection.

Shooing away the Thunder Guardians who approached just in case, Shei asked quietly.

“Do you need anything?”

Lyre replied without even glancing her way.

“I’m short on blood. I only have enough for thirty people. Starting from the thirty-first, I’ll need a new supply.”

“But you can’t just use unrefined blood, right? If you accept someone else’s blood, your body will reject it. Unless that’s suppressed with medicine, you’d have to keep monitoring them constantly.”

Only then did Lyre show interest in Shei.

The fact that blood rejection occurs is no secret—it was common knowledge among vampires and even among those who practice Qi Arts.

But the fact it could be suppressed with medication?

That wasn’t widely known—unless you were from Luscynia’s coven, the Blood Aura Practitioners who studied the body itself.

Of course, Shei had heard it from the Lyre of the future.

As Lyre looked at her with suspicion, Shei pointed at Peru.

“The Goldenarch is injured. If she were healthy, she could create homunculi. The Thunder Guardians here are mixed with homunculi. With homunculus blood, you could replenish the supply more quickly, with less risk of rejection.”

The source of that knowledge?

How homunculi were created?

Whether their blood truly had less rejection?

She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure.

But these were Lyre’s patients now.

Their lives all depended on her judgment.

They were lives that had to be saved either way.

Even the time spent hesitating was a waste.

Lyre made her decision.

“Please lead the way.”

Lyre had a principle: treat the patient closest to death first.

She did not change the order for personal reasons.

Doing so would decrease the chance of saving them all.

However… in the face of death, principles meant nothing.

If twisting those principles could stave off death, Lyre would do it a hundred times over.

The responsibility for a patient’s death rested with Lyre—not with her principles.

She would never say, even on the day she was annihilated, that she lost a life because she stuck to her principles.