Right now.

The society of the bloodlines was in utter chaos.

Until just a short while ago, they had thought that once they completely wiped out the resistance hiding on that southern island, they would be able to complete one of the objectives the Grand Duke had ordered them to fulfill in this land—

the total occupation of this land.

But.

The current situation was the opposite.

—Run, my lord!

All the bloodline members scattered across the continent.

Every noble and every thrall among them.

All of them had no choice but to flee north, trembling in fear of death.

—The sun...

And no wonder.

Crrrssh...

That massive sun was entering their territory as if it had a will of its own!

“We’ve lost at least tens of millions of thralls!”

One noble shouted, clutching its head.

“Starting with His Excellency the Marquis, who knows how many of our brethren have been erased...”

They were beings who, as nobles, had cared more than anyone about honor and dignity.

But now they were in such panic that they had no room to care about any of that.

It couldn’t be helped.

That sun had clearly been their natural predator since ancient times.

But that predator had always remained floating up in the sky.

The bloodlines could survive by hiding beneath shadows, or by making lands where the sun never rose into their territory.

Even before their Grand Duke created those blood-clouds with great power and covered the sky,

the sun had clear hours when it rose, and certain hours when it set.

‘A situation where the sun itself moves around like this...’

‘Isn’t that the kind of thing you only occasionally heard about in the ancient myths the elders used to tell?’

‘Who could possibly have imagined something like that would really happen...’

It was a natural disaster moving around with a will of its own.

Impossible from the start.

There was no way a response to it could exist.

“Is there still no answer from the Grand Duke?”

If there was anyone capable of responding to a phenomenon like this,

it would be their Grand Duke.

Among the old records they possessed were stories of a nation of insects that had handled the sun in ages long past.

The Grand Duke was a being who had continued living since those days.

If it was the Grand Duke, then surely there would be some answer.

“The messengers requested an audience, but all of them were turned away on the grounds that he is busy.”

“Busy meaning...”

...But.

The Grand Duke did not accept their pleas for help.

The reason was simple.

“Is it because of that count?”

For a while, the Grand Duke had cared only about the complete occupation of this land.

But recently, his attention had turned elsewhere.

He was personally overseeing something he could have left to another noble.

‘...We can’t count on the Grand Duke’s help. But.’

‘We don’t even know where that sun is headed.’

Most nobles had assumed that sun was merely floating over the south.

From the moment it started moving, nothing that happened after that would be strange.

If it simply wandered through their territory like that and then vanished, that would at least be a relief.

But if.

If by any chance at all—

‘...toward the capital where the Grand Duke resides.’

‘If it heads for our stronghold.’

That would be an absolute catastrophe.

It had to be stopped somehow.

That was why they mobilized every thrall they had, erected those canopy barriers, and built a wall of shadow.

Only possible because they ruled every monster on an entire continent.

They had to stop it there, somehow.

And yet.

“...My God.”

“...My God.”

What they could see from the shadows in the distance was the miserable collapse of the structures they had built.

When even the last resort available to them failed, what the nobles swallowed up by fear chose to do was this:

“...This is all because of that bastard.”

To identify someone to blame.

“That half-breed mongrel!”

The nobles cried out, clutching their heads.

“That bastard boasted that he could bring down the southern island, and because he failed, even the Marquis has gone missing!”

“If His Excellency the Marquis, who had lived for so many long years, were still here, perhaps there might have been some way...”

“In the first place, if he hadn’t recklessly meddled with that island, wouldn’t the sun inside it never have come out!”

They turned furious eyes.

If it were the Grand Duke, he might be able to produce some answer to this.

But their failure would not disappear.

The one who had to bear responsibility for that failure.

“Where is Jinlei!”

But, unfortunately—

“...Where the hell did he really go?”

“Just what you’d expect from a mongrel, vanishing at a time this critical...”

The person they were looking for was nowhere in sight.

And no wonder.

“...By the way.”

Because right now, beneath the very sun they could not even properly bring themselves to look at,

“I never expected I’d be seeing you again in a place like this.”

“Khk...”

he was standing there, looking down with an indifferent expression at the man collapsed at his feet.

***

“Cough... khh...”

A man collapsed on the ground, bleeding and dragging out rough breaths.

Looking down at him, Jinlei took a deep breath.

“Haaaaaa...”

As air entered his lungs, the blood flow inside his body, driven by his pumping heart, began moving rapidly.

Blood racing through his entire body.

‘In ages so distant...’

Part of it flowed into his head—

into his brain.

‘An ancient technique that most of the nobles today can’t even remember.’

Blood dissolved into his brain.

Jinlei distinctly felt that sensation as he thought.

The Grand Duke merely ruled over his bloodline kin.

He did not teach them much.

That was why most nobles did not properly understand the true nature of the sun that had floated over that southern island.

The same had been true for Jinlei as well.

No—

‘Ridiculous. I thought it was some miracle achieved by an extraordinary method...’

it had been the same.

‘To think it was made by sacrificing believers.’

He let out a faint chuckle as he read the memories rising in his head.

The vampires who fed on humans, and the humans who stood against them.

He found himself thinking they might actually be quite alike.

Even—

‘Maybe I’m no different.’

Lost in those thoughts, he finally opened his eyes again and looked down at the ground.

“By the way.”

According to the knowledge engraved in his mind, the technique that created that sun belonged to an ancient faith that had already perished.

So he had come here thinking that if he hunted down the priest wielding that faith, that would settle it.

“I never expected I’d be seeing you again in a place like this.”

“Cough...”

But.

The face he encountered beneath that sun was a very familiar one.

‘So the story about being that count’s knight was a lie?’

He looked down at the bleeding man—

Shin Youngjun—and thought,

‘...That island’s sun had already been maintained from the time this man was with me.’

The one who had maintained the island’s sun and this man were not the same person.

The Marquis’s judgment—that once the one creating the island’s sun fell, it would be safe to enter the island—had not been wrong.

...He had simply failed to imagine that a variable like this could exist.

“I don’t know what happened in that short span of time to make something like this possible for you, but.”

Thinking about it now, this was actually for the best.

Unlike in the past, when the Grand Duke had focused on the continental conquest Jinlei was leading, the Grand Duke’s attention was now fixed on that count’s affairs.

This man could become that count’s weakness.

If he could be captured alive here, there could be nothing better.

And judging by the way the sun’s light was connected to him, the moment this man was subdued, the sun would vanish as well.

‘Once I deal with this one, it’s over.’

With that thought, Jinlei lowered his gaze toward the ground.

As his gaze followed, a faint power spread outward.

Drip...

The blood Shin Youngjun had spilled across the ground began to move as if it possessed a will of its own.

Jinlei stared blankly at that blood as he thought,

‘...If there’s one thing bothering me a little.’

While surrounded by that light, Jinlei had grabbed at his back without even realizing the man was Shin Youngjun.

It had been a situation that forced carelessness.

He had been sure Shin Youngjun would never notice his presence.

...But at that time.

If Jinlei had not imagined it—

‘At my attack... he didn’t seem all that surprised...’

If anything, there had been a strange sense of wrongness, as though he had been waiting for Jinlei to appear.

‘...Wait.’

That intense unease.

Just as Jinlei, sensing that something was off, was about to knit his brow—

at that exact moment.

“JINLEIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!”

“......”

A tremendous voice roared from behind him.

At that voice—

KWA-AAAAAAANG!!!

“Tch.”

Jinlei clicked his tongue and had no choice but to retreat backward.

A massive explosion.

As the sand and dust settled and the figure inside was revealed,

“To meet this often. It brings back old memories.”

Jinlei looked at the man and spoke in a courteous tone.

“...General Kaio.”

There, a huge warrior wrapped in bandages from head to toe stood waiting.

***

“Huff, huff...”

Kaio breathed roughly as he stared at the man before him.

“...By the way.”

Many people were fighting beneath that wall of shadow.

Even if there were people who had noticed what was happening here from a distance, it should have taken them a long time to reach this place.

And yet there was only one reason he could be standing here now.

“Where did you get hurt so badly?”

“Huff...”

He was a wounded man.

The healing light that man had released had healed the injuries of the other wounded.

But—

[Penalty - Vital Energy Loss]

[Permanent or semi-permanent loss of vital energy will occur due to excessive overuse of vitality.]

The injury Kaio had suffered was not an ordinary external wound like the others’.

Even when that light touched his body, the recovery of his wounds was extremely slow.

Even as others bravely charged beneath that wall of shadow to fight, they had all tried to dissuade the general, at least, from taking part.

Because of that, he had been able to remain to the rear as the only wounded man ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) in the entire procession.

“Huff...”

Truthfully, even when he had been left behind alone like that, the general had not thought much of it.

He had simply kept walking in the rear with quiet indifference.

In truth, it had not only been now.

—You’re summoning all the generals?

—Yes.

—Hmm. You don’t know anything about it?

The day he had been called to the capital.

—Jinlei.

Ever since that day, when those vampires began to be unleashed across the continent, he had stopped caring about most things in the world—

no, he had become unable to.

“Jinlei.”

But.

The mind that had always seemed clouded over, as though covered in fog, suddenly began to clear.

The pain of his injuries only sharpened it further.

[Secret Art]

[Esoterica of an Ancient Paladin]

A massive light flared from his body.

Not golden, but a gray-white radiance.

The power passed into him from that fragment of the sun.

[Warning!]

[This is a secret art that requires severe life force expenditure.]

The heat of that sun filling his body set his entire frame ablaze.

His whole body burned like a furnace, and every muscle across him grotesquely swelled.

[If used in a state where vital energy has already been lost, survival will become impossible to the degree that...]

The message floating before his eyes.

Kaio read it through his dimly awakening consciousness and thought,

‘...I knew from the beginning this was a power that could threaten my body.’

The master who taught him had never hidden the danger of the technique.

If anything, the master had told him plainly that most who learned this power met horrific ends.

And even so, Kaio had learned the technique without hesitation.

And he had become the first in this land to successfully awaken the esoterica of an ancient paladin.

“Jinlei...”

Even knowing the terrible end that awaited, there had been only one reason he chose that path.

“I’LL KILL YOU!!!!!!!”

Because if it was to kill the traitor to humanity, to kill his former comrade, even his life was not too precious to pay.