The room was silent save for the vampire's heavy breathing. His mouth, which had been chattering nonstop moments earlier, could no longer produce a single word.
His blood-red eyes held nothing but terror. All desire for the blood of the rather small human before him had vanished.
His soul-no, his soul core, to be precise-was pinned beneath a cross. Tendrils extending from it seeped into every tiny point of his soul. The slightest struggle made those tendrils tighten like garrotes, pressing him into the cross little by little.
That feeling of being slowly devoured was like the way he drank blood. Whenever he found delicious prey, he liked to torment them until they had no strength left, letting their blood trickle down his throat. That was precisely why he was afraid.
He was being suppressed, ground away little by little. Li Ziran seemed to be toying with him.
He shattered again. His void force remained undamaged, but his soul had suffered so much that it could no longer restore his body. Just then, that sinister face drew close, and a tongue reached toward his origin essence.
Bang!
The instant the tongue touched his origin essence, it burst, flesh erupting from it like popcorn. He could see the moss on that tongue and the writhing throat behind it. Every lick scraped away a layer of his soul like a barbed hook.
In mere seconds, that mouth had become a bloody mess. Even the lips had been blasted somewhere out of sight, yet the human wore a strange smile.
Yes, a strange smile-the sinister, bewitching grin of someone who had claimed a prize.
It all happened so quickly that he had no idea what he had experienced. After half a minute, the human finally left him alone.
The torn lips rapidly healed