After such an exhausting battle—one that drained both body and soul—Naro felt empty.
Not injured... But just… spent.
He chose to return to his castle by foot.
There was no way in hell he was activating Immortal Light Travel again. Not now. Not after what the loop had done to him. His soul still felt scraped raw, like it had been dragged through broken glass and stitched back together too many times.
So he walked.
He took roads he would normally ignore. Passed through forests without purpose. Let days blur into nights without caring where he slept. Sometimes under trees. Sometimes in barns. Sometimes on rooftops in villages.
He treated it like a road trip, a rest.
He stopped at villages often. Gambled with drunk farmers and merchants who had no idea who they were playing against. Lost on purpose sometimes. Won shamelessly other times. Drank cheap alcohol that burned his throat and better alcohol that didn't. Ate too much. Ate badly. Ate like someone who hadn't eaten properly in a very long time.
At night, music filled taverns.
Crude instruments. Off-key singing. Laughable rhythm.
Dracula, surprisingly, didn't mock it much at first.
but then…
"Tch," Dracula scoffed while Naro watched villagers dance. "Such short lives… and yet they insist on wasting them loudly."
"You're listening" Naro replied.
"I am observing," Dracula corrected sharply. "There is a difference."
But later—much later—Dracula began commenting less and listening more.
At one village, Naro played a strange string instrument he barely remembered how to use. His fingers moved awkwardly. The tune was wrong. The rhythm unstable.
Dracula sighed inside his mind.
"…Your tempo is dreadful."
"Then fix it." Naro muttered.
Dracula paused.
Then—quietly—he did.
He guided Naro's fingers. Not forcefully, nor dominantly… just enough. The melody smoothed out.
They didn't speak about it afterward.
Some nights, Dracula told stories; of old wars. Forgotten castles. Nobles who begged beautifully before dying. Of loyalty bought with blood and betrayal paid in screams. He spoke like an Nobel reminiscing over wine—elegant, cruel, amused.
Naro listened without judgment.
And Dracula noticed.
Weeks passed.
Then months.
By the time the familiar silhouette of Naro's castle appeared on the horizon, something subtle had changed between them. Not trust. Not friendship.
But understanding.
They had survived the same hell.
Finally—
Naro reached his castle.
The gates stood as they always had.
The purple-eyed fairy rushed out the moment she sensed him.
Her purple eyes filled with tears. Her wings trembled. Her smile was wide and genuine, relief written openly across her face.
Naro flicked his finger.
A blood-forged bullet pierced straight through her forehead.
She fell where she stood, still smiling.
Dracula froze.
If his soul had a physical form, his eyes would've been wide, his mouth open in pure shock.
"…What." Dracula said slowly.
"I don't need this annoying trash up my ass anymore." Naro replied calmly.
Silence…
Dracula stared at the corpse.
"…I have not interacted with her much," Dracula said at last, his voice tight. "But she appeared loyal. I reward loyalty. It is… a principle of mine."
Naro stepped over the body without looking down.
"Doesn't matter."
The Asrith sacrifice mask appeared on Naro's face and sucked the purple eyed-fairy's essence.
After a long pause, tears formed on his eyes.
He kept walking; ignoring it.
"Now we travel west," Naro continued. "Far west."
As if nothing had happened.
Dracula said nothing, though displeasure coiled tightly within his soul.
Slowly, something inside him shifted.
"It seems I keep forgetting," Dracula thought darkly, "that this boy was once an immortal demon."
And the most unsettling part?
He did not kill in rage.
He did not kill for pleasure.
He did not even hesitate.
He killed the way one discards an object—
Simply because he no longer had a use for it.
"How troublesome…" Dracula mused grimly. "I may have shackled myself to something far worse than I ever was."
…
Raphael's Castle
Raphael's castle never slept.
Outside its black walls, lower-quality blood vampires moved with mechanical discipline. The blood press groaned endlessly, crushing human blood into refined essence—food fit for vampire lords. The air itself carried the metallic perfume of wealth and cruelty, a scent Raphael had cultivated for decades.
Inside, silence ruled.
Raphael Duskborne sat alone upon his throne, fingers resting against his cheek, eyes fixed down the length of his great hall. He did not pace. He did not rage. A man like Raphael did not waste energy on panic.
He thought.
Many assumed his thoughts revolved around Naro's impossible feat—defeating Dracula. That alone should have shaken the realm.
But that was not his true concern.
Raphael understood something deeper.
He was in danger.
Raphael was not merely a vampire lord. He was one of the richest traders in the realm—a broker of blood essence refined for high-ranking vampires, a merchant whose market included vampire lords and corrupt human elites alike. Slaves, contracts, secrets—everything passed through Raphael's hands before reaching its destination.
And Dracula?
Dracula had been his greatest partner.
Dracula supplied the slaves. Raphael supplied the distribution. He stood between Dracula and the customers.
Until Dracula vanished.
That single disappearance shattered entire supply chains, exposed hidden agreements, and—worse—turned eyes toward Raphael. Whispers spread quickly.
Rumours claimed Raphael had stolen something from Dracula's castle.
A Rank 5 Nyx.
The rumour was true.
Hidden deep within Dracula's private chambers, Raphael had found it—an artifact so ancient and obscure that even Dracula himself had not understood its purpose. Raphael took it without hesitation. Opportunities like that did not wait for permission.
Yet irony mocked him.
The Nyx was Rank 5.
Raphael was only Rank 4.
Unless the artifact was a one-time consumable—which it clearly was not—it was useless to him for now. A treasure beyond his reach, a crown he could see but not wear.
"This damn rascal Naro…" Raphael muttered softly, lips curling.
"…has placed me in a most unpleasant position."
Dracula's disappearance reached humans as fast as it reached vampires. And humans noticed. Rank 4 vampire lords began plotting. Rank 4 human elites smelled blood in the water. Without Dracula, the balance tipped.
For the first time in centuries, humans held the advantage.
They spoke openly of eradication.
Rank 4 and Rank 5 were worlds apart. Raphael understood that better than anyone. Naro's breakthrough had been a miracle—one Raphael knew he could not replicate in time. There was almost no path left forward.
Raphael Duskborne was deadlocked.
So he did what he had always never thought he'd do.
He planned his disappearance.
Within days, Raphael began dismantling his own empire. Using the same blood-mask Nyx he once sold to Naro, he erased his identity piece by piece. Assets were liquidated. Contracts vanished. Trails were burned.
Servants. Workers. Witnesses.
All were silenced.
Not out of cruelty—but necessity.
A storage Nyx, heavy with unimaginable wealth, swallowed the fortune he had accumulated over decades. That Nyx alone rivalled the treasuries of kings.
In less than a week…
Raphael's castle fell silent, no guards, no servants, no master.
Raphael Duskborne vanished from his castle without a trace.
And somewhere in the darkness, a Rank 5 Nyx waited patiently—for the moment its true owner would finally be strong enough to use it.