A Journey Through the Multiverse Beginning with the Supreme Sovereign

"...So-called demons were merely a rule of this world, discovered by ancient humans through magic rituals, something akin to 'equivalent exchange.'"

"Then, the world's first Witch improved that ritual, trading her own soul in exchange for magical power that could even surpass high-ranking demons."

"...From that point on, demons entered people's field of vision."

"Precisely because demons are merely a kind of rule, it naturally follows that they should not possess self-awareness."

"...Don't tell me you came from 'beyond the heavens.'"

The Lihavain Princess that the Third True Ancestor had transformed into leaned closer. Curiosity shone in her azure eyes, and her cherry-red lips hovered close to Saigō's cheek.

The True Ancestor's transformation was incredibly lifelike. Even the fragrance emanating from her body was identical to the Princess's.

Saigō did not answer the Third True Ancestor's question. He merely continued, "...After realizing that you might not be the Princess, I began considering who you really were."

"...The Third True Ancestor may be mysterious, but she is not entirely without information. At the very least, String God Island has some records on you."

"At the time, I guessed that you might be Jada Kukulkan, so I tried to bait you. I didn't expect you to make no attempt to conceal it and directly admit your identity."

The Third True Ancestor said indifferently, "...Since I was discovered, it was better to admit it openly. There was no point in continuing to hide it and making a fool of myself."

Saigō asked curiously, "...Still, I'm quite surprised. Your transformation ability can even imitate the Spiritual Power possessed by humans."

"It only feels like Spiritual Power. In essence, it is still magical power."

The Third True Ancestor waved a hand as she spoke, chatting with Saigō as though they were especially familiar with each other.

"So, what did you come to see me for? Chaos Princess, Jada Kukulkan!"

Saigō set down the drink in his hand. His expression turned serious as he asked the final question.

Jada Kukulkan gave a sly smile. Looking at Saigō, her eyes brimmed with anticipation at having found something entertaining. "...Do you want the Vessels of the Fourth True Ancestor that I have preserved?"

"...As long as you can make me happy, I'll give them to you!"

Saigō frowned, then laughed. "...Don't tell me your bloodlust has really taken control of you and you want me to spend a night with you."

"...Wouldn't that make me a host?"

The Familiars of the True Ancestors

"Bloodlust? Hmm, compared to those two, my urges in that regard are indeed stronger."

"...Zai Juranbarada has seventy-two Blood Companions to relieve his bloodlust."

"Aswardgull lived a depraved life, and that fellow had no preference between men and women. Something like bloodlust would not trouble him."

"...But we True Vampires are different from ordinary vampires. Even if we have bloodlust and sexual desires, those instinctive urges can be overcome through willpower alone."

"Demon, if that sort of thing interests you, then pursue me as boldly as you like. If you are capable enough, I can grant you the pleasure of satisfaction as well."

Jada Kukulkan's smile was wild. Though she was still using the Princess's appearance, anyone could tell by then that she was not the Princess at all.

"Hahaha!! I've lived for so many years, yet this is the first time anyone has said something like that to me. You're simply outrageously bold!"

"...But you are a demon. In legends, demons are aggregations of desire, so it is only natural that you would think this way."

"Now I'm even more interested in you. Before I lose interest, you will be the one to satisfy my dull and tedious life!"

As the Third True Ancestor finished speaking, her appearance changed in an instant.

One moment earlier, she had still been "Lihavain Princess," an elegant woman with long silver hair and refined features. The next moment, her tall figure began to shrink, and the Third True Ancestor's true form appeared before Saigō.

She was a petite girl, and judging from her appearance alone, she did not look much older than Nangong Nayue.

Her skin was a healthy bronze, but it had nothing to do with roughness. Instead, it gleamed as though coated in a layer of moist radiance.

Her pale green hair resembled light emeralds, fresh and vibrant, while her equally emerald eyes were like deep lakes, carrying a dreamlike sense of mystery.

Jada Kukulkan wore a white dress that looked steeped in the flavor of some ancient civilization, as though it had come from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. The garment was so simple that it looked like a sheet wrapped around her body.

Because the dress was so revealing, the Third True Ancestor's delicate shoulders and plump thighs were exposed.

Her powerful, cheetah-like legs were filled with an absolute sense of strength.

Jada sat with her legs crossed, her small, delicate feet clad in white high heels. Her bare toes hooked around the shoe straps, bobbing them enticingly.

A wild smile appeared on the Third True Ancestor's exquisite, beautiful face. Without any apparent extra movement from her, the surroundings fell into absolute darkness.

"Hmm?"

Saigō, who had been seated beside Jada and admiring the True Ancestor's beauty, so unlike that of ordinary women, frowned and looked up at the black heavens covering everything above him.

The once-lively restaurant had now fallen completely silent. Other than the dining table before him and the food upon it, everything around him had sunk into darkness.

"A barrier?"

That was Saigō's first thought. No matter how he looked at it, this scene resembled a barrier being activated to seal someone within it.

But Saigō quickly dismissed the notion.

In the past, he truly would not have been able to see through the Third True Ancestor Jada's method.

However, after devouring the Primogenitor, although Saigō had not gained the vampire's memories, he had acquired a deeper understanding of vampires' various abilities.

"This is... a Familiar! A barrier-type Familiar?"

Saigō murmured as he looked toward the Third True Ancestor, only to find that she had vanished at some point.

"Ha, you want to trap me in here? As a True Ancestor, you can't possibly be that foolish, can you, Jada... Or should I say, is this our appetizer?"

Aurora shrank back slightly. A trace of fear appeared in her flame-colored eyes as she looked at the silent darkness. "...Primogenitor, what should we do next?"

Saigō smiled brightly at Aurora. "...What comes next is simple. Since the other side has made her move, we can only respond accordingly."

"...This is a contest between the Familiars of the Fourth True Ancestor and the Third True Ancestor. Unfortunately, I only have you as my Familiar right now. If we were purely comparing vampire abilities, I would not be Jada's match."

Guilt appeared on Aurora's lovely face. "...My power is too weak, Primogenitor!"

Saigō shook his head. His gaze gently brushed over her iridescent hair as he comforted her. "...This has nothing to do with you, Aurora!"

"...You are merely one-twelfth of the Fourth True Ancestor. Trying to defeat the Third True Ancestor with one-twelfth of the Fourth True Ancestor's power was always wishful thinking."

"But it doesn't matter. I am not some pure Fourth True Ancestor, nor am I merely a vampire. I am—a demon!"

"...Now, heed my command. Come swiftly, Crimson Ice of the Demon Princess!"

Seated in his chair, Saigō raised his right hand. Terrifying magical power, condensed to the extreme, erupted from Aurora's body!

That magical power was like a storm, sweeping up polar snow. Countless shards of ice scattered through the black space, as though they had arrived in an ancient Ice Age.

If the Familiar were likened to a living creature, then Saigō had now been swallowed into the belly of a monster.

With the Third True Ancestor's strength, her Familiar would naturally be difficult to break. But that was only in comparison to other vampires.

For Saigō, who possessed the Fourth True Ancestor's Familiar, such a barrier-type Familiar could never seal him away.

The Fourth True Ancestor's Familiars possessed terrifying destructive power. They were, in the purest sense, natural disasters.

"Krii..."

A Familiar glittering with ice crystals, a fusion of a mermaid and a demonic bird, appeared within the black space.

The Familiar cried out like a phoenix. Centered around Crimson Ice of the Demon Princess, an immortal icy wind rose, freezing heaven and earth and tearing apart all things!

"Woooooo..."

An icy north wind exceeding force ten howled past, bringing a piercing, shrill whistle.

"Crack..."

A faint cracking sound came from the dark space. Immediately afterward, the boundless darkness surged, as though the True Ancestor's Familiar itself were suffering immense damage and could no longer endure it.

"Boom..."

With an earth-shattering explosion, countless cracks spread across the dark space. When the space shattered completely, light from outside flooded in.

Crimson Ice of the Demon Princess spread its demonic bird wings, and the howling cold wind swept through. In an instant, everything around it froze.

When Saigō's gaze met the sunlight, what appeared before him was a world completely frozen over.

The restaurant, the diners around them, the table before him—even the entire district—had become ice sculptures, like an amusement park made of frozen crystal.

Within that absolute freeze, aside from Saigō, the only one still able to move was the Third True Ancestor Jada Kukulkan, who remained seated beside him with her legs crossed.

The Third True Ancestor stared at Saigō with her emerald eyes, her gaze blazing. "...It seems you truly devoured the Primogenitor completely and can now wield the full power of the Fourth True Ancestor's Familiars!"

The Princess's Marriage

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Within the royal palace of the Kingdom of Aldegia, the Princess was spending time with her parents, the King and Queen of the kingdom.

The current King, Lucas Lihavain, was a powerfully built man. Judging from his physique alone, one might suspect that he was not a king at all, but rather a berserker.

His Majesty the King had indeed once been a renowned warrior. He later fell in love with the kingdom's previous Princess, married into the royal family, and became the current King.

Of course, the reason the Princess's mother had taken a liking to him was likely because beneath that imposing physique, His Majesty possessed a delicate, gentle heart—and one that was very easy to bully.

Simply put, His Majesty the King was utterly henpecked.

"Princess, what did you gain from this trip to Gozo Island?"

"...Was the demon contracted by the Witch of the Void any different?"

The dignified, imposing Queen was chatting with her beloved daughter in the King's private chambers.

It was both a mother's concern for her daughter and a Queen listening to a subject's work report.

The Lihavain Family's royal palace was not particularly large. Apart from the Kingdom of Aldegia's cultural preference for this rugged architectural style—

—it was also because the kingdom had been poor when it was first founded. To conserve resources, the royal family had set an example by living frugally.

As time passed, this virtue had continued to be passed down through the Lihavain royal family.

Even now, when the kingdom had become economically prosperous and wealthy, the royal family had no intention of expanding the palace.

The Witch of the Void had risen to fame in recent years. Countless powerful demons and humans had died by her hand.

Naturally, this Witch had entered the sights of powers across the world, and the demon she had contracted drew an especially extraordinary degree of attention.

If the Witch merely possessed grand ambitions and had therefore obtained great power from a demon, that would not have been anything remarkable.

But the Witch of the Void was different. The demon she had contracted was an existence beyond people's imagination.

What kind of changes a monster with self-awareness would bring to this world was still unknown.

People were always uneasy about unknown changes.

"Mother, that demon is quite incredible. I could not even sense that he was an inhuman being, or rather, a demon."

"...He seemed more like a human, as though he understood humanity completely despite being a demon."

After considering her words for a long while, the Princess slowly described her impression of Saigō.

Upon hearing her daughter's words, the graceful and luxurious Queen frowned. "...That is not good news, my daughter."

The more a demon resembled a human, and the better it understood humans, the deeper the fear it would inspire in them.

After all, even in this world's legends, demons were not benevolent beings.

Though the demons of this world were merely rules of exchange, obtaining a demon's power required the offering of a human soul.

That was the terror of never being reborn, and the source of witches' tragedies.

If a demon with self-will could thoroughly understand humanity, it would only cause humans to fall more quickly and offer up even more souls.

"You are right, Mother... Under normal circumstances, it would not be a good thing for a demon to understand humans too thoroughly."

"...But I feel that Mr. Zarathustra is different. He does not seem particularly interested in this world."

"If I had to put it into words, I think his behavior and way of life are rather similar to those three True Ancestors."

"...They all seem to have lived for such a long time that they have lost interest in everything, treating 'pleasure' as the fundamental principle behind their actions."

The Princess lowered her gaze slightly. Light flickered in her azure eyes as she spoke of her feelings and understanding of Saigō.

To a certain extent, the Princess truly possessed discerning eyes. She saw through Saigō's attitude toward life at a glance.

It was something even Nangong Nayue, who had lived with Saigō for five years, had failed to notice.

Saigō was not particularly interested in anything. He did everything simply because it was "interesting."

But unlike those True Ancestors who had become this way after living far too long...