Surrounded by three vampire dukes, with several Golden Ones nearby eager to join the fight, Lady Lily stood at the center of the encirclement, her face expressionless.
As if the danger before her did not exist.
As if she did not care about anything happening in this world beyond her mission.
Cold as ice, calm as water.
Like an aloof millennia-old sovereign, distant and impossible to approach.
Among the three vampire duchesses, Hathor and Lily had once been close friends. Lily's name was among the three confidantes Triss had personally acknowledged. Strangely enough, however, Hathor and Triss were not friends. In other words, the web of connections among these three older vampire women was rather complicated, perfectly illustrating the simple truth that six girls in a dormitory could have forty-eight group chats.
Shani, however, had no ties to Lily at all.
Although her elder, Sophie, had once been close to both Lady Lily and Triss, Shani was in a bad mood right now. Before arriving at the Place of Origin, she had received some strange intelligence from the Kavkhoka region. She sensed danger, but had no idea how to deal with it.
That pent-up anger had to be let out!
So, while the other three women were still confronting one another, Shani decisively sounded the call to battle.
She vanished from the spot. Her opening move from the shadows was an emotional ignition, boosted by the Thorn Crown to burn three times as much mental power. But it did absolutely nothing to Lady Lily, as if the other woman had no emotions at all.
Like a searing fireball thrown into the sea, it raised nothing but a few wisps of smoke and not the slightest ripple.
But Shani had never relied solely on the Thorn Clan's innate abilities. The instant