The sun finally set.
Lukas couldn’t help but recall how fiercely Joanna had protested in the room.
‘We have to take Frey with us! If you don’t take him, you’ll regret it! Seriously!’
Despite her strong claims, Joanna was still practically dragged away by Lee Jong-hak without getting her way.
They seemed to have left through another exit, but Lukas used the same angel statue that they’d used the last time.
Click—
After the statue opened, Lukas poked his head out of the hole. As expected, there wasn’t a single person nearby.
“Hoo.”
He took a deep breath.
The air wasn’t fresh because the area had been corrupted, but it was still better than the air in the sewer.
Lukas climbed out of the entrance. He could feel Sedi’s aura not so far away. And it seemed that she still had no intention of hiding her presence.
He headed towards her.
After a brief walk, he entered a dark back alley. In it, he saw Sedi standing between a dumpster and a pile of corpses.
Her pitch black hair cascaded down her back like an ebony curtain, and she was uniquely beautiful in a distinctly inhuman way.
Lukas couldn’t help but think about his old companion as he looked at Sedi, but he soon shook his head slightly.
His gaze turned from Sedi to the corpses lying on the ground.
Before he could even identify to whom they belonged, he heard a cold voice.
“They’re Demons. I killed them.”
“Why?”
“As I said before, fools who don’t know their place deserve to die.”
“…you came here to meet me, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.”
Sedi looked at Lukas’ face for a moment.
It was only after a few minutes passed when Lukas realised she was hesitating.
“Letip said… that in this universe…”
Suddenly.
Hundreds of bats flew down from the sky. These bats all had ominous, blood-colored fur, wings that were several times larger than their bodies, and, above all, frighteningly long fangs.
These bats circled around while letting out terrifying cries for a moment before they clumped together between Lukas and Sedi.
Their bodies melted and merged together before eventually taking on a form similar to a human.
After the transformation, the figure that now stood between them was a middle-aged man with extremely pale skin. He wore a posh suit, a fedora, and a monocle. But the red horns that pierced through his fedora gave away this man’s identity.
Lukas could easily tell who this man was.
The Vampire Duke.
“I felt a strange presence… but it suddenly disappeared. Hmmm.”
After muttering to himself, Gullard looked down at the Demon corpses around him.
“Who did this?”
Neither Lukas nor Sedi answered him.
“So you won’t answer me. How fun. You’ll do everything I tell you after I suck all the blood out of your bod-”
“Hey.”
Gullard turned to look at Sedi with a confused expression.
“Are you calling me like that, Girl?”
“Can’t you see the grown-ups are talking right now?”
Annoyance was clear in Sedi’s voice.
“I’m not in a very good mood right now, so get out of here if you don’t want to die.”
Gullard’s expression hardened instantly, and his gaze became cold. At the same time, it felt like the surrounding air had become colder.
A simple change in his mood had created such a profound change in his surroundings. This went to show just how powerful the Vampire Duke was.
Even Lee Jong-hak, who was currently carrying out an operation in another part of the city, would have had difficulty displaying his true ability under this pressure.
It could be said that the Vampire Duke had reached a realm of ‘half-transcendence’ in which his soul was able to interact with the physical world. From the perspective of a Mortal, he was a being that was comparable to an absolute being.
To put it in a way that only Lukas would understand, Gullard was a being that was on par with a Demigod.
Unfortunately for him, his opponent was several levels higher than a Demigod.
A being who stood among the ranks of Absolutes.
Sedi.
“…”
Lukas quietly contemplated while he looked at the two from a short distance away.
The situation continued to devolve rapidly, and there were many things he hadn’t figured out yet, but the sight before him seemed to be a good thing for him.
The Vampire Duke used the pseudonym Dragul Phisfounder. There were many things that Lukas wanted to ask him, but it would be extremely difficult to capture him alive with the power he currently had at his disposal.
The moment he met him in person, this speculation became a certainty.
But what if Sedi incapacitated Dragul?
No, he didn’t even need that. His goal would be easily achievable as long as she just reduced Dragul’s power to a certain extent.
A hot wind blew across the dirty alley.
There was a brief standoff.
But it was Gullard who made the first move.
Flutter-
His body broke apart like fog before once again becoming bats that scattered in every direction.
Lukas narrowed his eyes.
Every single one of these bats was as strong as a low-ranked Demon Noble. As soon as their sharp fangs pierced its flesh, even a creature the size of an elephant would be sucked dry in an instant.
Hundreds, no, thousands of bats rushed forward like a wave that had gone past terrifying and now felt more like a disaster.
But Sedi calmly looked at this impending disaster as she summoned her soul weapon.
Paht.
A scythe that was longer than she was tall gently landed in her small white hand. At the same time, black smoke exploded from beneath her feet.
Boom!
The smoke shot out in all directions, swirling to create a large vortex. Sedi hadn’t even swung her scythe yet, but a fierce gale had appeared out of nowhere.
Seeing this, the wave of bats, which had been rushing forward with fierce momentum, trembled subconsciously.
Crack crack!
Splatter!
In an instant, thousands of bats were torn apart like paper planes. Like insects that had been sprayed with insecticide, the bats collapse to the ground one after the other.
And in the downpour of flesh and blood, Sedi muttered in a grim tone.
“Did you think such a paltry trick would work on me?”
Flutter-
As if to answer her question, the bats, who had collapsed in pools of blood on the ground, merged once again.
Gullard stared at Sedi with wide eyes.
“This…”
What the hell just happened?”
Gullard was unable to process the series of events that had just transpired. Or perhaps his brain refused to process it.
One attack, one response, one stalemate.
That alone clearly showed the difference in power between the two sides. This was a conclusion that came from their previous engagement. Their only engagement.
And it seemed that Gullard was the weaker of the two.
“Who the hell… are you…?”
“See for yourself.”
Sedi hugged her scythe in an alluring manner as a sadistic smile slowly spread across her face.
“Feel what kind of being I am with your body. Mortal.”
“…!!”
“Please don’t die.”
(TL: Sedi is such a badass. Love her.)