It's no use. This entire ocean is my Reality Marble, a manifestation of my magic. Even if you hide within it, I can still sense where you are.
Brad murmured to himself. With a cold flick of his Blood Blade, he split the water giant in the sky in two. He severed the three hundred and forty-two points where the magic converged and the network connecting them, and the giant collapsed into an explosive, super-sized waterfall. With a thunderous crash, it came pouring down, raising a tsunami dozens of meters high!
Beneath the tsunami, Rimuru was in a rather sorry state.
Trying to outlast his opponent in a battle of magical energy inside a Reality Marble had been the worst possible choice. But... the four or five bloody holes and more than a dozen claw marks on his body made one thing perfectly clear: if he didn't create some distance and use magecraft to fight indirectly, the other man would slowly wear him down with blood curses until he died.
Curses were his opponent's greatest weapon against Rimuru!
That power directly suppressed Rimuru's hyper-regeneration and physical immunity!
The pain cut deep into his soul. He had already had Great Sage block eighty percent of it, but even so, the curse clung to him like a maggot in his bones, burning his soul. It was so painful that even running was difficult!
He slowly closed his eyes. Things looked bad, but they weren't hopeless—not yet. His opponent might seem relaxed, but that was only because everything so far had gone according to plan.
By trading wounds, Rimuru had concluded that Brad's injuries were far worse than he let on.
"But your body is about to give out."
Great Sage sounded worried. "With my assistance, you've been fighting in a state that forcibly activates all 173 of your Magic Circuits. Your body is already under immense strain. At this rate, even if you win, this body will probably collapse..."
"So..." Rimuru closed his eyes and said with quiet certainty, "I'll settle this with my next move."
Seeing Rimuru close his eyes, Brad raised an eyebrow. "Have you given up?"
He felt a little regret, but he didn't let his guard down. As the tsunami caused by the water element's collapse was about to swallow Rimuru, Brad once again became a series of afterimages. Accelerating to his utmost speed, he swept forward with his bat wings, countless blood-red blades trailing behind him to form an endless storm!
He came crashing down!
At that very moment, Rimuru had no choice but to open his eyes. He raised a small hand, and as his Magic Circuits began to burn with heat and ran beyond their limits, the tsunami overhead suddenly came apart like a disassembling Rubik's Cube. It broke into hundreds of millions of tiny water cubes, which began to radiate a chilling cold.
In an instant, hard, tiny ice cubes surrounded Rimuru. The cold they released made it difficult for Brad to move—
"Ice?!" Brad stared in surprise. "Is this your last, desperate struggle?"
The Blood Blades behind him shattered, forming countless tiny arrows that blasted the surrounding ice into shards. He charged at Rimuru without hesitation!
He realized that Rimuru was in the middle of the hundreds of millions of floating ice cubes. He knew that if he went in, the ice formation would suddenly contract and crush him. The field of ice might even be a seal specifically designed to trap ghosts.
But so what?
He was still confident that this magecraft couldn't kill him. More than that, he was certain his opponent would die before the magecraft took effect!
This time, he aimed for Rimuru's heart!
This move would decide the winner!
"Rimuru, water is soft enough to smother an enemy, while ice is hard and cold enough to do plenty of damage. You haven't even fully explored those possibilities yet. Why did you suddenly decide to study mist?"
"I don't know." Young Rimuru blinked, then chuckled. "Maybe because it's mysterious?"
"Mysterious?" Liddell asked, puzzled. "What's so mysterious about it?"
"I had a dream yesterday! There was a technique in it." Rimuru shook his head, then looked toward Kuonji, who was quietly reading nearby. "It was called Silent Killing Technique. It seems like a good fit for your magecraft, Alice."
"My... magecraft?" Kuonji set down her book and looked at Rimuru, a hint of confusion in her eyes.
"Monsters are terrifying precisely because they're unknown. You could call that mystery, too." Rimuru nodded. "That's why I like mist. It can hide my figure and let me become a monster. And... it's beautiful, too, isn't it?"
"In the thick fog, the victim is cut into a dozen pieces. By the time the white mist clears, the killer has vanished."
"Creepy...?" Liddell blinked.
"No. It's the killer from the city of fog, right, Alice?"
"Yes. Jack the Ripper." Kuonji nodded calmly and lowered her head to continue reading, but a ripple stirred in her heart. Use thick fog... to hide a monster?
Just as Brad had expected, the countless ice cubes suddenly contracted. But before they could—
Pfft!
A Blood Blade laced with curses had already pierced Rimuru's heart—
Agonizing pain flooded Rimuru's mind. His consciousness began to fade, but in the end, he smiled.
His opponent had focused all his attention... on defending against the ice cubes, leaving his guard wide open!
Brad saw Rimuru's final smile and suddenly sensed that something was wrong. The next moment, within the dim mist, a mass of murderous intent emerged!
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Brad's pupils contracted. He stared in disbelief as the air around him seemed to turn into an enemy. The faint mist surrounding him, so easy to overlook, suddenly transformed into hundreds of needle-like weapons as fine as strands of hair. They shimmered with holy hunting spells designed specifically to target vampires, and reached out to butcher him, piercing every joint and vital point in his body—
"How... is this possible?"
"So... I told you... you're ignorant." Watching Brad crash to the ground as holy flames began to consume his body, Rimuru forced himself to endure the pain of the curse. Amid Brad's shock and disbelief, he murmured, "I—"
"Am Rimuru, Fairy Tale Lord!"
"And the reason I'm called Fairy Tale Lord is that, like the Witch of Fairy Tales, I especially love thick fog!"
Yet you'd ignored the mist around you, naively thinking that all of it was part of your Reality Marble...
"Releasing a large-scale spell with all my strength was just a distraction."
Rimuru struggled to lift his magic sword and aimed it at the mark beginning to appear on Brad's forehead. His opponent was already doomed, but that mark linking him to Princess of the Black needed to be destroyed as soon as possible.
"Your service to Princess of the Black is over, Brad!"
"I... admit... you won." Brad's lifeless eyes suddenly flickered back to life. He strained to curl his lips into a smile. "But... I curse—"
Rimuru's pupils contracted. The instant he brought down his blade, holy light rose from his left hand. He meant to continue the Church's ritual and hasten Brad's death, but... it was too late.
His sword couldn't stop Brad, a vampire, from speaking!
"I curse you! With my eternal life, I curse you!"
"You will become... a Dead Apostle, tormented by endless... blood. In the end... you will..."
"...I look forward... to seeing... you become... like me..."
"...someday..."
As the Soul Flame in Brad's eyes finally went out, he uttered his last words and lost every trace of life.
"..."
The ocean began to turn back into land. The Ghost Ship sank beneath the waves, and the surrounding scenery began to shatter like a broken mirror. Rimuru stared blankly at Brad's corpse, speechless.
Even in death, his final curse had been in service of Princess of the Black's orders?
What had Princess of the Black done to deserve such loyalty from him?
"His curse isn't strong enough to change your bloodline, but..."
"But what?"
"He gave you a Blood-Sucking Impulse..."
"Damn it!" Rimuru drew a deep breath and cursed under his breath. In the Nasuverse, the definition of a blood-sucking creature didn't depend on what kind of species you were. If you drank human blood, even if you were just a mosquito, you counted as one.
Strictly speaking, although the definition was broad, he was a mage with a Blood-Sucking Impulse. If it came to light, he'd almost certainly be classified as a Dead Apostle!!!
"Now isn't the time to worry about that," Great Sage reminded him. "You just killed one of Princess of the Black's guards. We need to run!"
"I know!" Rimuru nodded and tried to stand, but suddenly stumbled and nearly fell. "The curse that worsens my wounds didn't disappear when he died. I need to... heal slowly with purification."
"You could eat him. Maybe you could gain the ability to dispel this ordinary curse. We need to leave at once."
"But... he's a Dead Apostle."
"You already have a Blood-Sucking Impulse, Rimuru. We can't let that go to waste, can we?"
"..."
Rimuru took a deep breath. A swirl of black mist appeared and swallowed Brad's corpse in one gulp. Then, struggling through the pain, he changed his appearance and conjured a clean coat to cover his wounds, ready to leave at once!
"Where are we going?"
"Head south. Leave Germany. Italy, Croatia, and the Vatican are over that way—the heartland of the Holy Church. Princess of the Black probably won't dare go there."
"Let's get through this first and heal up. We'll figure out the rest afterward."
"Okay!"
Several kilometers away, at the shopping mall's base. Nearly ten minutes had passed since the battle began.
Princess of the Black gently stroked the white beast in her arms as she stared into the distance.
"Has Brad still not returned? If we wait much longer, the Church and the White Winged Duke may notice us." The Black Knight was already getting impatient.
"..." Princess of the Black raised her blood-red eyes slightly, then said, "Let's go."
"Hm?" The Black Knight stared at her in surprise.
"Brad." Princess of the Black turned around and said quietly, "He isn't coming back."
London · Clock Tower.
"That concludes today's lesson. Everyone, go and get some rest."
Rimuru quietly closed his textbook and glanced at Eler, who was asleep at the front of the room. With an exasperated sigh, he went over and tapped her little head—
"Teacher!!" Eler looked up excitedly and jumped into his arms with a thump, rubbing her little head against him. "Is class over?!"
"Yeah, let's go." Rimuru reluctantly set the little girl down, took her hand, then turned to his students and said softly, "I'm sorry, but something came up today. If you have any questions, you can ask another professor for now... I'll take stock of them in class tomorrow—"
"Huh?!"
Seeing the disappointment on the students' faces, Rimuru nodded apologetically. The moment he turned away, a shadow crossed his eyes.
After finally making it back to the lounge, Rimuru shut the door with a bang. Struggling to breathe through his discomfort, he said softly to Eler, who looked worried, "Eler, could you go get your big sister Liddell?"
"Mm... but... Teacher, you..."
"I'm fine," Rimuru said softly. After finally persuading Eler to leave, he grabbed a cup and slammed it against his own head!
He hadn't expected Brad's curse to take effect so quickly. Even worse, its effect was based on the target's very concept, so it had even affected his clone!
Just now, he'd actually wanted to drink Eler's blood!!
Damn Brad! Damn Dead Apostles!
Hah... hah!
Rimuru shut down the lounge's ward to keep any students from coming in and getting hurt, then hurried into the washroom, trying to suppress the terrible discomfort, which felt like withdrawal.
Meanwhile, Liddell had already hurried over as fast as she could.
In truth, he'd asked Eler to call her only to get Eler out of the room. He had already contacted Liddell with a familiar before class had even ended.
"Rimuru?!"
When Liddell forced the lounge door open, Rimuru had nearly lost consciousness. He lay on the floor in a daze, surrounded by signs of a violent struggle.
"Are you all right?!"
"Blood... the blood I asked you... to bring..."
"...I didn't bring any." Liddell bit her lip, then gently shook her head and held out her arm. "Getting blood from the blood bank would draw unnecessary suspicion... Drink, drink mine."
"..." Rimuru tried to shake his head, but managed only a weak movement. He looked at Liddell for a long moment, then sank his teeth into her arm.
Five minutes later—
"Even if it's only a Blood-Sucking Impulse, if you can't get rid of it, people will consider you a Dead Apostle and either seal you away or hunt you down." Liddell looked at Rimuru, who had recovered but had fallen silent. She spoke softly. "After all, when you lose control, you'll be inclined to attack humans... Rimuru, can you find a way to break the curse?"
"One of the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors cursed me. Heh, how am I supposed to break it?" Rimuru gave a bitter smile. "Can't the Achelotte help?"
"The Achelotte alone—or even the Kuonji family—can't do enough." Liddell shook her head decisively. After thinking for a moment, she looked up and said with complete seriousness, "Rimuru, don't reveal who you are. I'll give you blood regularly—"
"At least until you become a Lord, you mustn't let anyone find out!"
"Yeah, I know." Rimuru lowered his eyes and spoke softly. "Thank you... Liddell. I'll find a way to suppress the Blood-Sucking Impulse as soon as I can..."
"Mm..." Liddell turned her head away, hiding the concern in her eyes. "I believe in you."
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