[Location: Dungeon—Vampire King's Castle]

"Interesting."

His gaze held amusement rather than hostility, and that alone made the air heavier.

It was not the amusement of a predator playing with wounded prey.

It was the quiet curiosity of a scholar noticing an anomaly in a world that should not allow anomalies.

Alexios tilted his head slightly, silver hair shifting against the immaculate collar of his butler attire. The tip of his spear did not lower, yet his stance no longer carried the immediate readiness of execution. Instead, it spoke of evaluation.

"Interesting," he repeated softly, eyes following the slow, impossible coalescence of shadow behind him. "So, is it endless? What price do you pay? Mana? Hmm... strange, you don't even have a drop of mana?"

[MP: 0/4310]

No shit.

My gaze flickered for a fraction of a second before settling back to neutral, but inside, irritation coiled tight.

Zero mana. Still zero. Still nothing.

Even after everything.

Alexios noticed. Of course he did.

His eyes moved again, slower now, assessing not my stance but my existence. Like a physician observing a corpse that insisted on breathing.

"How curious," he murmured, voice smooth as polished marble. "A body that should be hollow… yet refuses to collapse. A will without a source. A shadow without a sun."

The spear shifted minutely, not threatening now — contemplative.

"Are you aware," he continued, "how rare that is, boy?"

Well, try getting sucked dry by seven demonesses at seven years old. Stripped of the seven-demonic heart and still breathing.

The thought didn't surface aloud. It didn't even fully form. It simply existed like a bitter phantom at the back of my mind, half-mockery, half-memory.

Try being turned into an empty vessel and still being expected to walk.

Alexios's gaze lingered, unblinking.

"The seven demonic heartbranches," he said calmly, as if discussing the weather. "Removed. Severed cleanly. You should have rotted before your first scream finished echoing."

A pause.

"But here you stand."

The spear shifted again. Barely perceptible. Like a scholar adjusting a quill.

"Interesting indeed."

"Enough talk." With that, Paimon and the newly reformed twenty-six charged at Alexios while three shadow mages started chanting spells in gublish.

But this time, I followed behind them with Muramasa humming softly in my hand, its edge catching the ghostlight reflected from the castle walls like a vein of frozen moon.

I did not shout.

I did not announce myself.

There was no grand declaration of defiance, no fiery monologue of righteous fury. I simply moved — one step behind my own shadows.

Clang!

The first to reach him was Paimon, whose longsword clashed with Alexios's spear in a shower of pale sparks that hissed like dying stars.

The remaining twenty-six shadow Infantrymen flanked the first, pressing forward in a loose, fluid formation. The clang of metal rang again and again as Alexios's spear danced with preternatural precision, each strike parrying, hooking, or deflecting attacks that should have overwhelmed a normal human in a heartbeat. Yet, none of the shadows fell to his spear alone—he was not cutting them down; he was testing, observing, dissecting their movements with clinical exactitude.

"Dull—"

Before he could finish, My Armament Chad Muramasa slashed at his seemingly open back.

And yet, even that was insufficient to surprise him.

Alexios pivoted almost lazily, the curve of his spear following the motion like a living extension of his will. The tip barely grazed Muramasa, deflecting it by millimetres, yet the force reverberated down my arm like a hammer striking a metal rod. The impact wasn't violent—it was absolute. Control, not chaos, radiated from him.

His crimson eyes, sharp and unreadable, flicked to me."So you wield another layer… Interesting."

"It's not mana... so what is—Soul Energy?!"

For the first time, Alexios bared his surprise as his gaze bore into my Muramasa, enveloped in my Armament Core's blackish membrane.

Alexios's posture didn't change, but a subtle tension threaded through the air, like a bowstring pulled taut but not released. His eyes lingered on the faint shimmer of my Armament Core, the dark membrane crawling across Muramasa's blade like a living thing. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The silence itself became a weight, pressing against the shadows and even my own heartbeat.

"—Hmph," he finally murmured, the single exhalation soft yet sharp, carrying the faintest edge of recognition. "So this is…pure soul energy with physical energy. Creating a thin membrane... acting as both offence and defence... Hmm~ Now I'm curious what else you have—"

"Show me." Before my Observation Grid could even flare. His spear's butt slammed into my gut as if a mountain had decided to speak through impact.

The world folded.

Air evacuated my lungs in a silent, choking rush, and for a heartbeat, my feet were no longer on the ground — only the sensation of travelling backwards, spine screaming, vision blurring as stone rushed to greet me.

I crashed into the castle wall with a dry, fractured thud.

Cracks spiderwebbed outward like veins under pale skin.

"…Gh—"

I didn't vomit. I refused to. Instead, I forced breath back into my chest, each inhale sharp and obscene. My boots scraped against the stone as I levelled Muramasa again, Black Armament trembling but unbroken.

Paimon was already mid-swing, his shadowy black armour rippling as though forged from liquid dusk, his blade tearing downward in a brutal arc meant to cleave Alexios from shoulder to hip. The others closed in behind him, shadow infantry flowing like a tide of ink, their movements synchronised not by orders but by an instinctual defiance of the man standing before them.

Alexios did not retreat.

He stepped forward.

The spear danced — not to kill, not yet — but to demonstrate. A flick of the shaft, a half-turn of his wrist, and Paimon's blow was guided aside, the force redirected so cleanly it looked almost courteous. Another soldier lunged, and the spear reversed, its haft striking the shadow warrior's neck with a dull crack. The figure dissolved, only to re-form seconds later, further back, as though humiliated by its own failure.

"Clumsy," Alexios observed mildly. "You marshal them poorly."

"They're not meant to win," I replied, voice rasped but steady as I pushed myself off the wall. "They're meant to learn."

For the first time, his brow arched.

"Oh?"

Another shadow charged. He disarmed it without even breaking eye contact with me.

"Then," he said, "allow me to instruct them."

He moved.

It wasn't speed. It wasn't teleportation. It was simply that the space he occupied became his to govern, every inch responding to his intent like a disciplined army obeying a silent command. Paimon and three others were swept aside, their forms contorting as the spear passed through their guard with surgical precision. Every clash rang like a bell struck by inevitability.

I surged forward to join them.

The world narrowed.

Muramasa slid through the air, its edge cloaked in that unnerving black sheen of Armament Core, the membrane humming as my will bled into it. I aimed not for his vitals, but for the shoulder — a test, a probe.

Alexios twisted.

The blade bit into the fabric of his coat, slicing clean through the butler cloth — and beneath it, pale skin marred by faint, old scars.

A ripple ran across his expression.

Not pain.

Acknowledgement.

"So it does touch," he murmured. "Fascinating."

The spear handle struck my wrist. Not hard enough to break it. Hard enough to remind me he could.

"Again," he said.

I didn't hesitate.

We exchanged blows in a rhythm that should not have existed between us. My shadows pressed, reformed, adapted. My Observation Grid strained, etching faint white scars behind my eyes as I tried to trace every micro-adjustment in his stance. Every time I thought I predicted him, he had already shifted.

Yet… not all of my strikes were being allowed to fail.

He let some through.

He chose which ones.

Minutes — or perhaps seconds that felt like eternities — passed in that suspended violence until even the shadows sensed the change. Their attacks became sharper, movements more precise, as if learning from each clash.

"That's enough."

The air stilled.

The spear swept in a wide arc, not striking flesh but space itself. A pressure wave boomed outward, scattering the shadows like mist before a gale. Paimon skidded across the stone. The others dissolved entirely, forced back into formlessness.

I slid to a stop, boots scraping grooves into the cracked stone.

Alexios lowered the spear slightly.

Not in surrender.

In contemplation.

"You are weak, pathetically so," he said plainly. "Only your soul energy trick is somewhat interesting. But this is all you are, then, you take that pathetic life of yours yourself. Because if I were to finish that thought, you would not last the second it takes for a heart to stop."

The spear tilted, its tip hovering a breath away from my throat.

His eyes were calm.

Almost bored.

"If I were to cease indulging your anomaly," Alexios continued, voice level and refined, "you would simply perish. Your little parade of shadows would disperse, your borrowed spine would fold, and you would become a stain on stone that no one would bother to remember."

And just like that—

BOOOOM!

Conqueror's Will erupted and focused on a single point of Muramasa, which instantly howled like a star being born in reverse.

"Conqueror's Coating—"

I pumped Conqueror's will into Muramasa like crazy until I was just edge of losing consciousness.

The world narrowed to a razor's edge.

Muramasa screamed.

Not audibly — not for the ears — but through my bones, my nerves, my marrow. The blade became a conduit, a channel forced open by my will, flooded by the violent royalty of Conqueror's intent. The black membrane of Armament thickened, deepening into a void so dense it swallowed the ghostlight around it.

Cracks surged outward from my feet.

The stone moaned.

Even the shadows recoiled — not from fear, but from recognition. Like insects acknowledging a storm can crush them all and choosing instinctively to bow.

"DIVINE DEPARTURE!"

The moment the words left my lips, the world bent.

Muramasa cleaved forward — not as a blade, but as a decree.

The air ruptured.

A crescent of annihilating will exploded outward, black and gold entwined, reality twisting along its path as if existence itself were being peeled open by an invisible god. The floor screamed. The walls buckled. The very architecture of the Vampire King's sovereign domain recoiled in protest.

The shockwave devoured the space between us.

For the first time…

Alexios moved with urgency.

The spear snapped up, not in a parry — but in defence. An instant barrier of blood-red sigils erupted from the tip, spinning like a celestial seal as the slash struck it head-on.

BOOOOOOM!!!!

The detonation shook the entire castle.

Crimson light surged across the corridor, veins glowing violently along the walls as if the structure itself had felt pain. The ground caved, stone torn apart and hurled into the void of the hallway. Windows spiderwebbed and shattered somewhere far above. Chains roared as they strained against ancient anchors.

For a heartbeat, sound vanished entirely.

Then—

CRRAAACK!!!

The Sigil barrier shattered like glazed glass under a hammer.

The crescent of Conqueror's-coated will slammed into Alexios — and for the first time since this confrontation began, his feet slid.

Stone tore beneath his polished shoes as he was driven back several steps, heels carving twin trenches into the dark marble floor. His coat snapped violently behind him, silver hair flaring like a blade of moonlight caught in a tempest.

His spear cracked the ground as he anchored it, halting his momentum with brute domain authority.

Silence.

Dust rolled through the corridor like fog.

My knees trembled.

My vision darkened at the edges, a cold sheen slicking my skin as if my body itself rejected what I had forced through it. My heartbeat banged against my ribs like a prisoner against iron bars.

I did not fall.

Not yet.

Across the drifting haze, Alexios straightened.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

He glanced at his sleeve.

The fabric had been torn open, shredded where the slash had grazed him — and beneath, a shallow crimson line traced diagonally across his pale skin. Blood welled, a single bead slowly descending, bright and almost beautiful against the monochrome of his existence.

He stared at it.

Then, very gently, wiped it away with two fingers.

His eyes lifted.

And the amusement was gone.

Not replaced by rage.

Not replaced by malice.

But by something far more chilling.

Interest… sharpened into intent.

"Pure...Spiritual Intent... such a thing should not exist in a corpse-shaped boy."

Alexios's eyes gleamed faintly now — no longer with mild curiosity, but with a precise, cutting focus that stripped the air of all warmth.

"Pure spiritual intent, forced through a body with no mana circuit… no demonic spine… no astral anchor," he murmured, almost to himself. "And yet it manifested. Coated. Condensed. Directed."

His gaze lifted fully to me.

"You are not a vessel," he concluded quietly. "You are an error."

The words were not cruel.

They were diagnostic.

The spear rotated once in his hand, subtle blood-red symbols crawling across its surface as if awakened by my strike. The domain's pressure deepened, no longer merely testing — it was responding.

Chains trembled somewhere in the unseen depths of the castle.

"Tell me, anomaly," Alexios continued, stepping forward, his polished shoes clicking softly against fractured stone. "Does your will come from borrowed divinity… or—"

***

Stone me, I can take it!

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