The Shadowed Legacy of the Soulless Messenger [EN]: Chapter 351

“Hand over Ashajit’s Eye!”

A vampire charged at Azadin, wielding two side swords and attacking like a whirlwind.

However, as Azadin swung the Azure Executioner, the steel side swords were cleanly severed, and the vampire’s body was also cut in half horizontally.

If he had swung it like a polearm, such power would have been surprising, but Azadin simply held the axe-head and swung it like a tonfa [a type of baton with a perpendicular handle].

To cut through steel swords like reeds and bisect a vampire with it. The vampires, already exhausted from their fight with the Bree, were no match for him.

The startled vampires tried to move, but the black-clad nun, Nicelda, pierced another vampire’s heart with a stake carved from a piece of wood.

With a terrible scream, the vampire fell and died.

“Hah!”

A gloomy paladin swung his sword, splitting a vampire’s collarbone. He lightly cut through the ribs, and the lungs popped out of the body. Vampires have regenerative abilities, but regenerating with their lungs outside their body only prolongs their suffering.

“………”

The paladin, panting, severed the neck of the suffering vampire horizontally, ending its life.

‘Unbelievable! These guys, even if we were tired from fighting the Bree…’

The vampire leader was astonished by the power of Azadin’s group, who were cutting them down like grass.

In the end, only the vampire leader remained.

“It seems you’re the only one left… Well then, shall we talk? Bernard. What do you think?”

“…Bernard?”

The vampire leader looked at the mage beside Azadin, bewildered.

“You’ve aged, Bernard. Time is fleeting, but to see that handsome face like this.”

“Is that voice Hendrick?”

“Y-yes, it is.”

The vampire leader, Hendrick, took off his hood, revealing his face.

“You know each other?”

“We were apprentices together at the Dwarf Academy in our youth. It’s nostalgic, Hendrick. Fate is truly cruel.”

Bernard said with a bitter smile.

“Bernard… you should have become a vampire with us. Then Lady Griselda would have favored you much more. Such beauty is wasted.”

“Just living one life as a slave is terrible enough, let alone becoming an eternal slave, Hendrick.”

“Then are you not a slave now?”

The vampire glanced at Azadin.

“It looks like you’re still a slave to me?”

“Is that so?”

Azadin raised the empty hilt of his sword, and the golden flames that had been burning the ground gathered on the hilt, forming a gleaming blade once more.

The Seramite longsword, Aurelia’s Dawn. The holy sword of the Order of the Savior, which destroys vampires, had regained its form.

“…W-wait a minute. A paladin isn’t going to torture me, right?”

“Well, well. Even the Order of the Savior doesn’t really recognize me, but a vampire sees me as a paladin? I’m flattered.”

“You should kill him. Hendrick is loyal to Griselda, and no matter how much you torture him, he won’t open his mouth easily.”

As Bernard said this, Azadin nodded and raised Aurelia’s Dawn.

Then Hendrick was startled and waved his hand.

“No, wait! Bernard! What are you saying?! I, I said you had something to ask, right? Ask away. I’ll answer everything!”

“Ah, thank you for your cooperative attitude.”

Azadin lowered his sword.

“That’s unexpected. What are you thinking, Hendrick?”

“Well, it’s just that Lady Griselda hasn’t been looking for me lately.”

“………”

It seemed that Hendrick’s loyalty in Bernard’s time stemmed from his close relationship with Griselda. Had his loyalty faded naturally as they grew apart? Or was it that the thought of dying by Aurelia’s Dawn was an unbearable pain for vampires, causing him to submit? Whatever the reason, it was an opportunity for Azadin to hear the details from one of Griselda’s close aides.

“What happened to the Banling Kingdom? I know the general outline, but I don’t know the details. What did Griselda and the dwarven royals do?”

“The Wish Spell.”

“The Wish Spell?”

“Yes. The dwarven dynasty of Banling, or rather, the Banling Academy, had been researching the ultimate Nether magic, the Wish Spell, for a long time. It’s often called reality-warping magic. Lady Griselda was also researching it with the dwarven sorcerers.”

“So. Did the Wish Spell activate and cause all this? A Wish Spell, is that even possible? Tell me what you know about the Wish Spell.”

“Ashajit.”

“Ashajit?”

“The Blood God Ashajit, one of the Nether gods. Lady Griselda persuaded the dwarven sorcerer king that the Wish Spell could be used through Ashajit, and so they continued their research with the Banling Academy.”

“That’s news to me.”

Bernard frowned, hearing that such a thing had happened in Griselda’s camp.

“Well, you ran away halfway. We didn’t know from the beginning either, we only found out after the Banling Kingdom became like this.”

“So. Did you and the vampires accept it? That some wish magic went out of control and the world became like this?”

“For us, blood is the greatest delicacy, meal, drink, and everything. With just the blood flowing from Ashajit’s Eye, all the vampires in this land can live. The enemies of the vampires will be destroyed, and only those chosen as vampires will rule this land….”

“For someone who says that, you seem to have been beaten up by the Bree.”

Azadin looked around at the corpses of the Bree and goblins, and the vampires who had died fighting them.

“You were originally humans, weren’t you? Do you really want a world where human civilization is destroyed and only monsters roam? Even when the gods of the Kurt Pantheon and the Naga Empire ruled the world, human culture existed. But I can’t imagine a world ruled by the Nether gods.”

“………”

“Why?”

“Ah, no… I…”

The vampire named Hendrick was flustered by his own emotions.

“Does it sound plausible when you hear it? Hendrick. You’ve forgotten what kind of being you are to survive under Griselda.”

“No. I enjoy my life as a vampire. I don’t grow old, I drink blood every day, and with Griselda, of course, and with Griselda’s daughters….”

“…….”

Nicelda swallowed hard when he mentioned Griselda’s daughters. A murderous aura emanated from her. Although the words were spoken without any particular intention, the words themselves seemed to have thorns, irritating and digging into Nicelda’s wounds.

Bernard restrained Nicelda’s anger.

“Not all of Griselda’s daughters are bloodthirsty beings. They are desperately acting to survive because Griselda wants them to be that way. Hendrick, it’s the same for you. You enjoyed the nightly revelry and were happy in Griselda’s court? Is that really so?”

“I…”

Hendrick was bewildered.

“Of course, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Gambling and drugs are also enjoyable in the moment. Even though you know that your future is being shattered piece by piece every moment, and that your soul and body are being ruined and bound, you still indulge in it. But you know it yourself, don’t you? The moment of pleasure is enjoyable, but afterward, it’s endlessly empty and frightening.”

The vampire named Hendrick knelt down.

As Bernard said, he had always lived wearing a mask because he was afraid of the other vampires.

Ironically, he hadn’t even realized this fact until he was separated from Griselda on a mission, and instead, he was still loyal to her.

In the vampire’s banquet, he had been brainwashing himself, believing that he was craving and enjoying this pleasure, spending nights in a frenzy.

“But what am I supposed to do! I’m already a vampire….”

There was no way to reverse the vampirization, and pleasure still held a chain around his neck.

Even if he could escape Griselda’s bondage, he had no confidence that he wouldn’t succumb if Griselda and her daughters tempted him again in a moment of crisis.

His soul, already soaked in pleasure every night, was as tattered as rags.

He wanted to escape this swamp of pleasure, but after escaping, he would want to jump back into it again.

Desire was his master, and he could not escape it before death. He knew very well that becoming a vampire was only a secondary issue.

Then Azadin’s voice cleared his mind.

“I’m looking for Archbishop Akenar of the Coxhall Order of the Savior.”

“You mean former Queen Akenar? The vampires took her. You won’t find her in Coxhall. Lady Griselda already… Ah, look at me. Even in this situation, I’m saying Lady Griselda… Anyway, Griselda likes that kind of thing. She probably played with her and made her one of her daughters. It’s been quite a while, so it’s already too late.”

“…….”

Azadin was speechless at the news that Archbishop Akenar had already become a vampire.

Archbishop Akenar was Azadin’s patron, the one who had helped him become a Savior Knight.

That favor was by no means small, but Azadin himself had too much to do to build his own power, so he couldn’t pay attention to Coxhall.

“Coxhall fell not long after the Banling Kingdom became like that, so no matter what you did, you couldn’t have saved her. Don’t suffer over something that was inevitable.”

Jibek said to Azadin with a bitter smile.

The words he spoke to Azadin also applied to Jibek himself.

There was no need to blame oneself for delving into the inevitable.

He knew it, but that’s not how the human heart works.

“Ha… hahahaha.”

Jibek’s words resonated with Hendrick as well.

“It was inevitable. Being violated by the power of Griselda and the dwarven sorcerers was also inevitable. Yes, I shouldn’t blame myself for something I couldn’t help.”

Hendrick, still kneeling, reached out to Azadin, exposing his neck.

“I hate Aurelia’s Dawn. Let me go without pain.”

“I understand. Then. I will let you go without pain.”

Azadin picked up the Azure Executioner instead of Aurelia’s Dawn.

The grim-looking mace grew from his hand, wrapping around the Azure Executioner and transforming it into a large poleaxe.

“Ah, I don’t want to die. But…”

The vampire named Hendrick made a complex expression, not knowing whether he was laughing or crying, and trembled, perhaps because the situation was too stressful.

“I’m tired.”

“I’m sorry.”

Azadin swung the Azure Executioner, cutting off Hendrick’s neck and piercing his heart.

Despite the vampire’s powerful vitality, he killed him without him feeling any pain, showing respect to his collaborator.

“…….”

“Count?”

“It feels strange to be called Count. Call me Captain as usual.”

“…Yes, Captain.”

Before this, even when Azadin had heard about Griselda or actually met her, he hadn’t felt any particular animosity.

However, now that he knew she was the one who had destroyed the Banling Kingdom and how much she had ruined the lives of so many people like Bernard, Nicelda, and Hendrick, he felt self-loathing for not having killed her when he had the chance.

“I will definitely kill Griselda.”

The thought of Archbishop Akenar falling into Griselda’s hands filled him with worry.