This was insane.
How did things end up like this?
I had expected to be confined for a while, but a while in vampire terms ant years.
I needed a plan.
"Still, I can’t just sit around doing nothing."
["And what exactly do you intend to do?"]
The mont I suggested anything, her eyes sharpened.
Yeah, I couldn’t say I was planning to leave.
Instead, I simply moved closer and wrapped an arm lightly around her.
Her mood softened just a bit.
Not long ago, she would have snapped at for daring to touch her so casually.
Tyr had changed a lot.
"There’s not much to do, so I guess I’ll just play with a doll. Luckily, I have the perfect one right here."
["It is yours. Treat it however you wish."]
"I tried treating it however I wanted, but it seems to have developed separation anxiety."
["That depends on the user. Every tool has a proper way to be used, does it not?"]
I pulled her onto my lap and ran my fingers through her hair.
Even vampires, after a fierce battle, ended up with tangled hair.
One by one, I worked through the knots, smoothing them out.
Then, I asked:
"Tyr."
["Speak."]
"You want to change, don’t you?"
I had already changed her.
Even if it was sothing she had wished for, it had been who made it happen.
And that had only been possible because I had lost my power and beco ordinary.
Tyrkanzyaka turned slightly, gazing at as she asked:
["And if I did? Would you change for ?"]
"I’m sorry."
The King of Beasts speaks for all beasts.
That’s not the perfect analogy, but in a way, I am a reflection of all their desires.
That’s why I must be strong.
Even if I lost my strength for reasons I don’t fully understand…
Tyr turned away again, her voice distant.
["There is nothing to apologize for. Just as you hold firm to your beliefs, so too shall I act according to mine."]
"I’m still sorry."
["I said there is no need."]
"Not just for that."
I finished untangling her hair.
Then, I wrapped my arms around her from behind, pulling her close.
Even though my hands were pressed against her chest, she didn’t resist.
Tyrkanzyaka placed her hands over mine, deep in thought.
["Binding Hughes like this… It is not the ideal relationship others would envy, is it?"]
["But no matter how wrong it is, it is better than losing you. I am sorry, Hughes… for making you suffer my greed."]
"…I’m sorry for taking advantage of your kindness like this."
The term demon refers to a revelation—an ultimate truth that changes humanity.
The knowledge that governs the body may be insignificant compared to the grand order of nature, but for humans, it is everything.
"Set. Frank."
Lightning surged in my palm.
A flash of light pulsed, resonating with the heart I had carved into Tyrkanzyaka.
For a brief mont, her body froze.
Sensing sothing was wrong, she tried to regain control with her Bloodcraft.
But she failed.
The Heart of Spades, the card embedded within her, resisted.
Her trembling hands disobeyed her will.
I tightened my embrace and pressed my electrified palm against her body.
Her body functioned perfectly.
Too perfectly.
That was the problem.
["----!!!"]
"A normal person wouldn’t survive this, but Tyr, you’ll be fine."
The senses are the window to the world.
Through that window, light, sound, temperature, and touch shape us.
But that window does not fully open.
All living things are born with an instinct to protect themselves.
The world is death.
Disease, insects, blades, sunlight, curses—everything that could harm or alter a body cos from outside.
Life is the act of resisting change.
Death is the mont when the body stops resisting and becos one with the world.
The human body opens its windows to the world but keeps them covered with glass.
What we see, hear, and feel are all filtered, processed to be harmless.
And that process follows the laws of lightning.
The lightning in my palm flowed through the pathways I had carved within her.
Even if her body belonged to her, the path was mine.
She could not resist.
["------!!!!!"]
Tyr’s thoughts stopped.
A tidal wave of raw sensation surged in.
Her senses, amplified beyond reason, blurred the line between pleasure and pain.
Her thoughts were drowned by overwhelming existence, her body no longer obeying her will.
Last ti, I had only used the bare minimum of my power.
This ti, I used a formal spell.
It wasn’t even an attack—just a minor current.
But when applied directly to the nerves…
The difference was thousands—no, tens of thousands of tis more intense than what she normally experienced.
She couldn’t use Bloodcraft.
She couldn’t activate her abilities.
Because she had no room left to think.
The only way to stop this would be to halt her heart and return to being a corpse.
But Tyrkanzyaka would never choose that.
["----!! ----!"]
I held her face with one hand.
With the other, I gripped her trembling body tightly.
I filled her senses with nothing but .
Her body stiffened like a plank of wood.
Her muscles, locked in an extre state of tension, forced her into an arched position.
She gasped, her breath ragged, almost hyperventilating.
Each breath inhaled only , making her tremble harder.
Right now, her every sense was heightened to an impossible degree.
Touch, taste, scent—everything was .
Her lips parted slightly, her tongue weakly slipping past them.
["Haa… hhuuh… hhng…!"]
For an ordinary human, this level of sensation would cause insanity.
But a vampire, capable of regenerating even burnt-out nerves, was trapped in an endless cycle of renewing the sensation instead of escaping it.
She couldn’t run.
She couldn’t adapt.
Tyrkanzyaka sobbed, trembling in a storm of feeling.
Even though she was already incapacitated, I didn’t let up.
Tyr was too strong.
I had to be thorough.
This was my one chance.
How much ti passed?
When I finally ca to my senses, I was soaked in sweat.
Tyrkanzyaka, a being who had never shed anything other than blood, was drenched—her entire body trembling from the overwhelming flood of sensation.
Tears, sweat, saliva—everything dripped from her in a state of complete exhaustion.
Her lips were parted, a broken sound spilling from them—sowhere between a sob and a moan.
But there was no actual damage to her body.
It was just sensation.
Too much sensation.
Not enough force to truly harm her.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
Still holding her carefully, I placed her gently onto the bed.
Even the light brush of fabric against her skin made her shudder violently.
I leaned in and whispered:
"I went easy on you last ti."
Tyr’s eyes were unfocused.
At first, I thought she was looking at —but her pupils didn’t track my movent.
She was completely unconscious.
She had lost.
And this was the only way I could have won.
"Thank you. But… I can’t grant your wish to change . I am the King of Beasts. I can only change when humanity changes first."
With that, I turned and stepped toward the door.
But before I could leave—
["Do not go."]
There was no presence.
No thought.
The voice simply was.
I spun around, startled—but Tyrkanzyaka was still unconscious, unmoving.
Even when I tried to read her thoughts, there was nothing.
But her shadow—
Her shadow moved as if alive, gripping tightly.
["Where are you going? Don’t go."]
It was her power, shaped in her own image.
A manifestation of Bloodcraft, an extension of herself given form.
But it wasn’t her.
It wasn’t human.
It was a construct—her authority turned into a living body, designed to wield her full strength.
“Can I really say this isn’t human?”
I reached out and touched the shadow.
A pulse of blood throbbed beneath the surface.
I couldn’t read its thoughts, but I could feel the sheer power surging beneath that massive fra.
A homunculus? No… it was sothing more.
A homunculus rely recreated human structure.
This… this replicated function.
Its crimson eyes focused on .
Blood coursed through its veins, fueling its enormous body.
Compared to this, a homunculus was nothing.
"Humans are beasts. If they can do sothing, they will. I just… never thought they could do this."
Tyr had created it to fully manifest her power.
And by taking form outside her body, it resembled a human.
A tool, yet sohow alive.
One day, humans would reach this level of power.
By then, distinguishing between beast and race would be aningless.
I shook off the shadow’s grip.
"Let go."
["You can’t leave."]
"I will."
["Do you hate being with ?"]
"No. I like being with you. But I don’t want to stay only here."
["I don’t want to be alone either."]
Tch.
I really hadn’t expected her shadow to move independently.
I pulled out the Spade 8 and pressed it against the wall.
The surface caved slightly—then, a stack of cards spilled out.
They were just thin slabs of tal.
Pathetic compared to the power of demons.
But… The Golden Mirror’s power begins from the smallest pieces.
I swept my hand across the pile.
Alchemy surged, forging the scattered cards into a single, solid shape.
Cards were rely materials.
The Golden Mirror’s revelation was that diversity wasn’t determined by origin—
It was shaped by structure.
And structure could be changed.
The scattered cards fused—a saber ford in my grip.
Raising the hastily-made sword, I pointed it at the shadow.
"I have to go."
["For what?"]
"To catch up with humanity."
["Why?"]
"Because it's moving further away. If I don’t keep up—beings like you, caught between worlds, will be abandoned."
Could I win against it?
…No.
At best, I might be able to escape if I used everything I had.
Swinging this sword was my last resort.
The shadow didn’t seem threatened, but it understood my intent.
It hesitated slightly, then spoke.
["You’re trying to abandon ."]
"I never said that. I’m not abandoning Tyr, and I’m not abandoning you."
["Really? You won’t leave ?"]
"I haven’t. I know Tyr. And I know you—you are part of her. I won’t forget you."
A thousand years of refinent.
The culmination of vampire elders and Bloodcraft, all gathered into one.
The shadow of a demon, possessing every human function.
It lacked only one thing.
Sothing so insignificant, yet so crucial—
I didn’t know what it was.
Maybe it was the nature of her power.
Tyr had only used her authority for herself.
She had never extended it to all of humanity.
Her uniqueness made her strong, but that sa uniqueness prevented her from becoming a demon.
Because she had not used it for all humans—
I couldn’t use it either.
Like martial arts. Like magic.
It was frustrating, but also valuable knowledge.
["Then…"]
The shadow lunged.
I couldn’t sense it.
Not even the slightest warning.
For soone who couldn’t read its thoughts, I was pathetically weak.
I barely had ti to react—
By the ti I tried to swing my saber, it had already engulfed .
Darkness wrapped around my arms.
It pulled in, its head erging to kiss —
Then, it dissolved into my body.
Through every opening, it poured into .
My veins. My breath. My flesh.
It felt like I was being absorbed into the shadow.
My vision blackened.
Weightlessness.
In this thoughtless void, I felt nothing.
The only world I had left was my pathetic human body.
I couldn’t breathe.
I was about to steel myself for whatever ca next—
Then—
A chill coursed through my veins.
A thread-thin current of frost.
It seeped through my blood, declaring: I am here.
It traveled swiftly, circulating from my fingertips to my heart—
Then, suddenly—
Like a crashing tide, it surged into my lungs.
The shadow withdrew.
My vision snapped back into clarity.
I staggered backward, breathing heavily.
The shadow wavered before .
It had left sothing inside .
["Take it with you."]
"What…? What did you put inside ?"
The shadow didn’t answer.
It simply sank into the darkness—
Returning to Tyrkanzyaka’s side.
I couldn’t read its thoughts.
I had to figure it out on my own.
That was incredibly annoying for soone like .
My whole life was cheating, reading minds, taking shortcuts—
And now I was handed a puzzle with no clues.
Still, the answer wasn’t too difficult to find.
And that’s what made it even stranger.
"This is… ?"
Tyrkanzyaka knew her own body better than anyone.
She had shaped the shadow in her own image, and it moved on its own—proof of her deep understanding.
And the second body she knew best—
Was mine.
I was not a vampire.
She had never controlled my blood.
But she was the Progenitor.
She had observed , studied .
She had felt the pulse beneath my skin.
The warmth of my body.
The rhythm of my heart.
She had the power, the opportunity, and the will to understand .
Without even aning to, she had learned my body as intimately as I knew her.
What the shadow gave —
Was the knowledge of my own body, born from her love and obsession.
But.
"This isn’t human knowledge. This is mine."
A deeply personal truth.
Not sothing that belonged to humanity as a whole.
As the King of Beasts, I could not use individual knowledge.
That’s why I could never use Qi or magic.
They were personal—refined through individual effort.
And Tyr’s gift was the sa.
A wonderful thing, but utterly useless to .
Or at least… that’s what I thought.
Then—
My left wrist burned.
Sothing had been inserted into my biological terminal from the military state.
When?!
How?!
I didn’t have ti to think.
A sharp pain coursed through as I carefully pulled out the thin card hidden inside.
It was stained with my blood—
And its presence felt deeply wrong.
Because I had seen this card before.
I slowly turned it over.
A Spade 6.
A Demon’s Idol, glowing with crimson letters.
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