"Who is she?" Shichen asked, playing along.
Zaharias put on a sorrowful face, narrowing his eyes as his tone turned mournful. "To answer that, I have to start with my homeland… if you don't mind?"
"Go ahead." Shichen gestured calmly.
"Thank you." Zaharias nodded and began slowly: "My homeland was a small town on the Balkan Peninsula—gone now. Seventy years ago it was dragged into a three-way war among the Warlord's Domain, the Fallen Dynasty, and the Western European Church, and it was wiped out…"
He paused, looking toward the coffin on the left. Inside slept Vessel No. 1—her chest gouged open, white bone exposed.
"…Those who started the war were after her—the No. 1 was sealed in my hometown."
"And then?" Shichen prompted.
Zaharias turned to the gray-haired girl lying quietly inside the gemstone crystal. "Her name is Valasta. She's my younger sister—and the priestess who guarded No. 1…"
At that, the grief on his face twisted into hatred. His body trembled; his lips quivered.
"Later, my sister was killed by vampires. I tried to protect her and was killed in the same place…"
He glanced at Shichen and noticed the man was unmoved, with no intention of asking anything—puzzling. Was the Witch of the Void's brother really this heartless?
He forced himself on: "Only I came back to life. Valasta revived me—revived me as a blood servant to No. 1, just like…"
Snap!
Zaharias snapped his fingers. A Nosferatu appeared behind him, and in his hand he dangled an unconscious girl.
It was Nagisa.
"…just like she revived her brother!"
Zaharias spread his arms and lifted his face to the ceiling, elated. "I'm going to have this girl use her power to awaken the perfect Fourth True Ancestor! There are six Night Lord here, and you have two more. That's over half the base components for the Fourth True Ancestor. They're all brimming with mana—enough to bring the Fourth True Ancestor back!"
"Mm…"
Perhaps from the noise, Nagisa stirred awake. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw Shichen, Avrora, and the others across from her.
"Sense… where is this? Eh? L-let me go!"
She reacted at once and struggled, but she was too slight to break free.
"Nagisa, no need to panic. I only want you to lend a hand," Zaharias said with a mild smile.
He knew about Nagisa—otherwise he wouldn't have grabbed her—but his intel was badly out of date.
"Lend a hand?" Nagisa looked to Shichen, confused.
"Nagisa, don't worry. With me here, nothing will happen to you," Shichen said with a soft smile.
"Oh…" Soothed by him, Nagisa calmed down and stopped struggling.
"So, did you summon me here just to listen to this nonsense?" Shichen asked Zaharias.
"Nonsense? You're cold. But no matter—you came, and I'm grateful. If you hand over Miss Avrora and Miss Kaguya now, my previous offer still stands. How about sixty billion yen?"
"Si—sixty billion?!" Avrora's mouth fell open.
"You little dummy, why the big reaction?" Shichen flicked her lightly on the head.
"Mm…" Avrora covered her head, pouting.
Shichen shook his head and looked back at Zaharias. "You should know I won't sell them. Avrora and the others are priceless to me."
"Shichen…" Avrora gazed at him, moved.
Kaguya, too, watched him quietly, eyes rippling.
"Heh. If a soft approach doesn't work, I'll use a hard one. I already have six vessels—you can't possibly beat me," Zaharias sneered.
"Don't be hasty, Zaharias. Let me tell you a few things first."
"What?"
"First: there aren't only eight vessels here."
"…What do you mean?"
"See for yourself." Shichen summoned Sansan and the others. Like Avrora, they wore Saikai Academy sailor uniforms.
They said nothing, merely arraying themselves behind him.
"T-this is…?!" Zaharias stared, overwhelmed.
All twelve vessels—assembled!
"Don't get excited yet," Shichen said with a smile. "I'm not done."
"What else?" Zaharias had no patience left.
"Heh. Second: there is no soul of the Fourth True Ancestor inside Nagisa."
"What… did you say?" Zaharias froze.
Without explaining, Shichen continued, "Last: your sister was killed by you."
By the time he finished, his expression had gone glacial.
"You—?" Zaharias gaped, speechless.
"Hmph! To gain eternal life, you sacrificed your homeland and your sister—ripped a rib from No. 1—and you dare claim it was to resurrect her? What you wanted wasn't your sister back—it was the Fourth True Ancestor! Don't think I don't know you planted a soul-capture ritual inside your sister's body."
"H-how could you know that…" Zaharias asked in disbelief.
His question already conceded Shichen was right—this was intel Shichen had gotten from Shizuka Koyomi. The Lion King Organization's information network was no joke.
"How I know isn't your concern. Know this: you dared to seize Nagisa—that alone is your death warrant."
With that, Shichen flicked a clump of golden flame onto the gemstone coffin holding Zaharias's sister.
In an instant the stone was engulfed; a blink later, the girl's remains and the crystal burned to nothing.
She was already dead. Zaharias had no right to keep exploiting her.
"Sensei…" Nagisa hadn't been frightened before, but hearing Shichen say that made her heart thump wildly; color warmed her cheeks.
"I have a death warrant? From you? Even Minamiya Natsuki couldn't help you! Descend—Mesarthim-Adamas, the Adamant Ram!"
In a heartbeat, a colossal familiar manifested above Zaharias, its pressure enough to obliterate the entire abandoned island in an instant.
A great-horned ram with a diamond body; thousands of gemstone crystals floated around it, forming a shield for Zaharias.
It was a familiar of the Fourth True Ancestor. He wasn't just a blood servant—he had stolen a familiar as well.
"Shichen—tell me. You said the Fourth True Ancestor is gone. What do you mean?" As he spoke, Zaharias's appearance shifted, the middle-aged guise falling away to reveal a youth's face.
As a blood servant, his vitality was inexhaustible—he hardly looked middle-aged now.
"The Fourth True Ancestor's familiar, is it?" Shichen shook his head and walked toward Zaharias without concern.
"What are you getting at?"
"Zaharias, one more thing," Shichen said, arriving before the familiar.
"What?"
"I have another identity: the Fifth True Ancestor."
Boom—!
Mana surged from Shichen's body. The air thickened; the ground trembled; pressure blanketed the entire artificial island. Beyond it, the sea heaved; storm winds rose; blazing sun and pounding rain co-existed. Onlookers to the banquet felt their hearts leap to their throats.
Across the island, colossal familiars appeared: a prismatic divine bird; a silver-gleaming sacred beast; a deep-blue rain-bathed leviathan; a crimson earth-stomping giant; a sinuous green dragon; a violet-white mystery beast.
Six towering, awe-inspiring familiars that stunned everyone witnessing the "banquet."
"You… you're…?" Zaharias went pale with fright.
Even the Fourth True Ancestor's familiar quaked.
Shichen rose lightly to hover before it, pressed a hand to its brow—and in a blink, the beast dissolved into pure mana and flowed into him.
"H-how… is that possible…"
"It isn't. You're just that foolish."
Shichen's gaze went cold. He drifted down to stand before Zaharias; the Nosferatu holding Nagisa vanished without a trace.
Zaharias couldn't move. He could only watch as Shichen thrust a hand straight through his chest.
Squelch—
Blood sprayed—and never touched Shichen. He pulled his hand free, a crystal-clear rib in his grasp.
Without a glance at the corpse collapsing to the floor, Shichen turned to the coffin of No. 1.
He opened it, knelt, and set the rib back in her chest.
Before their eyes, No. 1's body knit whole. She opened her eyes and looked at Shichen with a gentle smile.
He gave her a nod, rose, spread his arms, and proclaimed in a voice that carried to every onlooker:
"Let it be known to the world—the Fifth True Ancestor has arrived!"