Brokoslac Clan (5)
“…So, this is what it means to be a clan lord.”
Hainz stole a glance at the severed arm in Mulo’s hand before returning his gaze to Mulo’s face.
It seemed that by concentrating all the power of the barrier onto himself, all of his abilities — strength, speed, detection, and stealth — had surpassed their limits.
Seeing that blood magic had little effect on Hainz, Mulo must have thought of this strategy.
‘It seems like a method that puts a lot of strain on the body.’
However, with the vitality of a Trueblood vampire, he could probably withstand the aftereffects for quite a while.
This was quite troublesome.
‘Did I move too hastily? …No, this was the best course. It’s just that the lord’s level exceeded my expectations.’
No matter how well one could disguise themselves, the unusualness of the blood kin would eventually be discovered.
Hoping to delay that as much as possible, he had involved Frigia, but that was merely a temporary fix.
‘I thought it would be more efficient to launch a surprise attack the moment the opponent had no expectation of danger…’
Thanks to that, he had reached Mulo unimpeded.
The problem was that Mulo’s level far exceeded anything he could have known from Frigia’s description of him as a martial expert.
“Hoo— hoo— I’ll finish you off as quickly as possible.”
Fwooosh—
The severed arm in Mulo’s hand engulfed in crimson flames.
He casually threw it to the ground.
Before the burning arm touched the floor.
Swish—
The sound of slicing through the air was heard.
But perhaps because he never took his eyes off Mulo even for a moment, this time he was able to react the instant Mulo vanished.
He narrowly evaded the five claw-like nails that swept towards him by using Acceleration.
And with his heightened senses, he thrust his left hand into the gap he found, but…
Clang clang clang!
It only ricocheted off Mulo’s tough body and sent sparks flying.
‘That’s tough. Is this how Hainz’s opponents felt?’
As if ignoring Hainz’s attack, Mulo’s right hand swiped through the air again.
Though he specialized in magic, Mulo was a vampire who had lived for centuries.
While he might not be as powerful as Frigia or Obor, his movements were indeed extraordinary.
Just as Hainz attempted to evade once more, Mulo suddenly stopped moving.
‘What? What’s happening?!’
Red thorny vines shot up from the ground and wrapped around his legs.
They were cut apart in an instant by Hainz’s strength, but by then Mulo’s hand was already reaching for him.
“Huh!”
Using his left hand, where he concentrated his blood magic, he struck Mulo’s wrist to throw him off balance.
But before he could even recover his blood-soaked left arm, Mulo’s sharply extended left hand aimed for his heart.
In that life-or-death moment, with his posture disrupted and unable to evade…
Hainz twisted his body to protect his heart and urgently extended his ‘right hand’ to intercept the attack.
Slice—!
Mulo’s sharp nails tore away his right arm.
Once again, his right arm was grasped tightly in Mulo’s left hand.
“Hoo— hoo— Huh…? What is this?”
Mulo, momentarily stunned, panted heavily, glancing at the severed arm in his hand with a sour expression.
It was déjà vu.
“You… Have an arm?”
His face twisted grotesquely, bleeding from both eyes and nose, as he compared the arm in his hand to the one still burning on the ground.
Both were definitely the right arm.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
“Hmm? Ah— Is this what I think it is?”
Hainz boldly reached out his right hand and wiggled his fingers at him.
Displaying the smooth new arm that had regenerated thanks to Enhanced Regeneration.
For a moment, Mulo alternated his gaze between Hainz’s severed arm and his newly grown arm, his mouth moving silently.
Of course, a Trueblood could regenerate lost limbs to a degree, but never at this level.
Was he a slime or something? How could a severed part regenerate that quickly?
“What kind of blood have you inherited to have such abilities? A branch of Brokoslac? That’s just nonsense…!”
Mulo ground his teeth as he brought his nose close to the severed arm’s edge to sniff it.
Sure enough, despite being altered, the essence was still from Brokoslac’s bloodline.
It seemed Frigia’s earlier words weren’t just ramblings.
“…Something feels off?”
But he sensed a tremendous strangeness in that blood.
The foundation felt familiar to him, but that was as far as it went.
Everything else was an incomprehensible ‘something.’
‘Can a branch’s blood be altered to this extent? Even when consuming members of other clans, this wouldn’t happen…’
Something was fundamentally different.
It was a contradiction, a series of incomprehensible incidents.
This situation was exasperating.
He glared at Hainz, contemplating the implications, then licked the blood dripping from the severed arm.
For a Pureblood, tasting a small amount of blood to analyze the opponent was a common practice.
For a Trueblood, this was no problem.
…It shouldn’t have been a problem.
But that became the problem.
“Ugh—?! Ptoo! Kugh… Grrr—!”
Thud—! Splash—!
Mulo immediately spat out everything he had consumed as he vomited blood.
“What, what on earth…?”
The small amount of blood he ingested rapidly influenced his own blood throughout his body.
Had that been it, it might not have been such a big deal, but the issue lay in the terrifying thoughts condensed within that blood.
[My covenant…]
[The blood oath…]
[Power…]
[…etc.]
Because of that, he had to vomit out all the other blood affected by Hainz’s blood as well.
‘Tens? Hundreds? How is it that I’ve survived with such toxic blood?’
This was blood equivalent to deadly poison for vampires.
Never once had he imagined such blood could exist.
Though it lasted only a brief moment, the shock was enough to destabilize the explosive surge of his abilities concentrated through the barrier.
‘Oh no…!’
And when his disarrayed senses gathered, he realized his mistake.
Thwack—!
“Cough!”
“Looks like you’ve been cooped up for too long! Have you lost your edge? Thinking about other things during a fight, huh?”
From their perspective, of course.
His lapse in concentration had been a mere three seconds.
But to them, that was ample time for life and death to hang in the balance.
With Hainz silently approaching, he could stab his hand into the heart of the distracted Mulo.
“Lord—! Get out of the way, Frigia!”
“Wait, you need to play along with me.”
Frigia, who had already subdued all the vampires, stood in the way of Obor, who was rushing in.
Chasing down an assailant type like him was something she had never dared to attempt, but with the boosting effects from Refined Blood Essence, it had become possible.
“Ugh— You cursed things!”
Whoosh—!
As the heart of Mulo was destroyed, Hainz deftly backpedaled to create some distance.
He had the chance to pierce through the weakened defense, but now that Mulo had regained his focus, there was no advantage in continuing a melee fight.
As Hainz retreated, the gaping hole in Mulo’s chest quickly healed thanks to his exceptional regeneration power.
But his retreat wasn’t without its gains.
“Urgh— Gurgle! Hoo— hoo—”
Eyes, nose, mouth, ears.
Mulo, bleeding profusely from his seven orifices, gasped for breath, indicating that his time was running out.
*
Swish—
“Cough! You…!”
The two severed right arms dissolved into blood and transformed into two crimson chains that bound Mulo’s entire body.
Thanks to Hainz’s extraordinary vitality concentrated into the remaining arm, even the one that had been aflame for a while only sustained minimal surface damage.
‘Hoo… This will end it.’
Hainz let out a light sigh as he looked down.
Mulo, having exhausted all his energy and with the barrier’s magic dispelled, seemed devoid of the strength to resist, merely gasping for air.
Boom—!
Just then, a fierce clash erupted between Frigia and Obor, which consequently came to an end.
Of course, Frigia was the victor.
With the significant difference in their abilities due to Refined Blood Essence and the inherent advantage of being a warrior against an assassin, the outcome was obvious.
Dragging sound—
She grabbed the limp neck of the young boy and approached him.
“Seems like it’s all over for you. I’m just wrapping things up myself.”
Frigia smiled proudly at Hainz with a satisfied expression from experiencing her own abilities firsthand.
“Ah! And I managed to subdue the other vampires without killing them. Once the effect of the barrier dissipated, it wasn’t too hard.”
Perhaps because they shared a blood kinship, there was also a reluctance to kill, but anyway, they would need a considerable force in the times to come, so the more labor, the better.
Nodding at her, Hainz looked down at Mulo, still subdued.
He was worried as to whether it was alright to inject him with Refined Blood Essence.
Although Frigia lacked the blood magic and martial power compared to him…
Mulo certainly wasn’t an easy opponent.
In fact, he could even have more blood magic than her.
“Hmm, then let’s give this a shot.”
After a moment’s contemplation on what to do with him, Hainz finally decided, pulling the chains to lift him upright.
And he brought his mouth to Mulo’s neck.
“What do you plan to do…?”
“I’m in the process of inheriting the lord title.”
Thonk—
Hainz’s sharp fangs sunk into Mulo’s nape.
*
Deep underground, hidden in a stone chamber.
In the suffocating silence of the sealed darkness, a figure lay unmoving.
Twitch!
A small change occurred in that still space, where the body lay like a corpse.
Starting from the fingertips that twitched slightly, the tightly closed lips trembled and gradually parted.
“…Ah…”
A rough, ragged voice echoed through the sealed chamber.
“Ahh…”
The voice croaked several times, clearing its throat before finally beginning to sound normal.
And slowly, within the pitch-black darkness, a pair of red lights flickered to life.
“What is it?”
That being muttered quietly.
Something felt strange, but they couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
Sleep continued to cloud their mind, hindering normal thought processes.
“Ah, I’m so sleepy…”
Having awakened much earlier than scheduled, they found it impossible to escape the hibernation state immediately.
Their eyelids, which had suddenly opened, became heavy again.
“…Just a bit more sleep before I wake up.”
With that, the pair of red lights that had illuminated the darkness gradually closed, and the chamber was once again engulfed in quiet darkness.
*
Days had passed since Harris walked alongside the elves along the ‘Forest Path.’
Amid ongoing training and instruction, the leader, Laforey, turned to his companions with a smile on his face.
“We should be arriving soon. Just a little further to go.”
Yet there was no immediate change in the surroundings.
The same dreamy forest path they had been looking at for days stretched endlessly before them.
“Wow! Really? That means we’ll be able to meet the World Tree soon, right?”
Cecily, who had been training hard with a competitive spirit against Harris, asked with sparkling eyes.
Having never seen the World Tree in her life, the prospect of meeting it for the first time filled her with emotion.
‘And that also means Cecily will soon be a High Elf.’
Reaching the World Tree was the final condition for becoming a qualified High Elf candidate.
“Of course! The World Tree will surely welcome you, Cecily.”
Laforey nodded knowingly, smiling at her cheerfully.
Finally, the long journey was nearing its conclusion, and they were getting to reap its rewards.
Afterward, the group walked along the forest path for several hours, their excitement palpable.
And at last.
The path they traversed began to transform into a regular forest…
“Wow~!”
Against the backdrop of Cecily’s exclamation, Harris stared upward in awe.
Before his eyes stood an enormous tree that disregarded perspective.
“How astonishing! Unless you have something urgent, it isn’t advisable to go directly toward the World Tree on the forest path. Moreover, since this journey is for Cecily to become a High Elf, it’s even more critical.”
The road toward the World Tree was a kind of pilgrimage.
Approaching that massive tree with reverence, calming one’s mind was also part of the journey.
‘It’s so large that I have to look up at it like this, and this is still quite a distance away…’
A sense of reverence crept over him without him even realizing it.
They still needed a bit more time to reach the World Tree, but compared to the emotion they were currently feeling, that didn’t really matter.
At last, Harris arrived at the Elven Kingdom on the Enamel Continent.
