#Episode 99
“Twenty-five thousand Lux!”
“Thirty thousand Lux!”
“Forty thousand!”
The price escalated rapidly as excited bidders called out their offers.
Todd observed the scene with a gaze as sharp and searing as a heated blade. His eyes alone seemed capable of reducing everyone in the room to ashes.
Laurus, who had been silently watching the rising price, turned to Todd and asked,
“Why aren’t you bidding?”
“No matter who bids, I must not. It may not be a trap set to lure me in, but you never know when or where someone might find an excuse to come after me.”
Todd’s voice was calm and cutting, as if he had stripped all emotion from it. Yet, for a brief moment, a flicker of longing passed through his eyes.
But he held himself back.
“There’s no benefit in getting involved and stirring up strange rumors. It would only give people more reason to scrutinize me. In the end, they’re just meaningless bones.”
Todd repeated those words to himself, as if trying to convince himself.
Meanwhile, the price for the remains had climbed to seventy thousand Lux.
At that moment, Laurus suddenly raised his paddle and called out,
“One hundred thousand Lux!”
The unexpected bid sent a ripple of shock through the attendees.
But no one was more stunned than Todd. He turned to Laurus, eyes wide in disbelief.
“You…!”
“We’ve already bought so much. Adding one more won’t make much of a difference.”
Laurus spoke nonchalantly, his gaze fixed ahead.
He had known in advance that the remains of Van Drake would be auctioned. For a long time, he had debated whether or not to tell Todd.
It was impossible to predict how Todd would react.
Would he be furious at seeing his family’s remains put on display and mocked? Or would he feel relieved at the chance to reclaim them, even in this manner?
In the end, Laurus had chosen not to tell him.
The auction house, run by the unpredictable Lamphas, had a tendency to change its decisions on a whim. There had been a possibility that the remains wouldn’t be auctioned at all. Laurus had hoped that would be the case.
But life rarely goes as one wishes.
The remains had inevitably been put up for sale.
Laurus clicked his tongue.
Good thing I stayed.
When Todd had suggested leaving, Laurus had refused—because he had been waiting for these remains.
He let out a wry laugh.
“Besides, everyone keeps talking about immortality and whatnot, but they’re all younger than me anyway. If I bid on those remains, they’ll just assume I want to extend my life a little longer. Wouldn’t they?”
Todd had no response to Laurus’s half-joking remark.
Laurus spoke lightly, but the idea of using bones to create an elixir of immortality was nothing short of madness. Such an act would be widely condemned and could tarnish the reputation of Laurus, the renowned Painter of Light.
Watching him, Todd clenched his fists tightly on his lap. His not-yet-fully-grown hands wrinkled the fabric of his clothes beneath them.
His stomach churned.
A voice that shouldn’t be here—Vasha’s—echoed from a distant place, as if resonating in his mind.
<But Todd, don’t hate humans too much. That would be too painful for you.>
Vasha was right.
The ones who ridiculed his family’s bones as mere ingredients for some revered medicine and the ones who bore the disgrace of an unthinkable reputation just to return those bones to him—they were all human.
Having no one left to blame or resent was agonizing.
Yet, in a way, it was also a small source of solace for Todd.
***
Bang!
“Urgh!”
Bernardo’s body slammed against a massive door before being flung into the center of the banquet hall.
Vasha relentlessly pursued him like a predator toying with its prey, driving him from the hallway into the grand hall.
“Damn it…!”
Gritting his teeth, Bernardo forced himself up despite the pain.
He hadn’t expected to be so powerless.
Even if the vampire had perfectly analyzed his swordsmanship, he hadn’t trained so carelessly that he would be rendered completely defenseless.
Yet, unlike the battered Bernardo, Vasha advanced with unhurried, deliberate steps.
Yes.
That vampire was far more skilled with the sword than he had anticipated.
Bernardo had to admit it—his swordsmanship alone wasn’t enough to defeat her.
Defeat.
“Indeed, I can’t match you in swordsmanship.”
But that wasn’t why he had infiltrated this estate.
His goal was to stop the vampire at all costs and rescue Van Drake’s heir.
Steeling himself, Bernardo took a deep breath.
During our exchanges, the vampire hasn’t used any magic—that’s the only reason I’ve managed to hold on. Ha… Did she develop some sense of rivalry after seeing the Gydo family’s swordplay? That arrogance will be her downfall.
The two warriors locked eyes, each gauging the other.
Then, they clashed once more.
Vasha deftly intercepted Bernardo’s sword mid-air with the heel of her boot, sending it tumbling to the ground.
Without hesitation, she spun and lunged, her rapier aimed straight at Bernardo’s throat.
Swish!
Bernardo jerked his head back, barely dodging the blade.
He needed to counterattack. But with his sword out of reach, he had no choice.
He threw a punch.
Whoosh!
A fist flying at close range—ordinarily, Vasha wouldn’t have minded taking the hit. But a sudden, inexplicable sense of foreboding flashed through her, warning her to evade.
At the last moment, she twisted her body, narrowly avoiding the blow.
“Tch…!”
Yet, the punch extended farther than she had anticipated—
A sharp, burning pain suddenly flared across Vasha’s cheek.
Drip.
Blood trickled down her face.
This wasn’t just a superficial scratch from a blade.
A silver weapon!
Vasha leaped back, creating distance, and only then did she realize what had struck her.
A blade protruded from the back of Bernardo’s metal gauntlet.
Wiping the blood from her cheek, Vasha smirked.
“You use weapons more suited for an assassin than a holy knight. You certainly came prepared.”
“If I’m walking into a vampire’s lair, this is the least I should do.”
Bernardo steadied his breathing as he detached the bloodstained dagger from his gauntlet and gripped it firmly.
Using such underhanded weapons was disgraceful for a knight and unbecoming of a swordsman.
But Bernardo was a holy knight. And holy knights didn’t concern themselves with honor when facing their greatest enemies.
Their duty was to eliminate vampires by any means necessary.
After all, vampires had the power to tear humans apart with their bare hands.
Fighting one fairly was never an option.
“The blood of the unholy shall bind itself!”
Bernardo chanted as he raised the dagger.
The vampire’s blood, now coating the blade’s engraved grooves, would serve as a conduit for a sacred spell of the Lamphas faith—a binding curse meant to restrain the one whose blood was spilled.
The stronger the vampire, the more divine power was needed to complete the binding.
That was why Bernardo had refrained from using his sacred energy during the fight—he had been conserving it for this very moment.
And now, he had obtained the vampire’s blood.
Bernardo uttered the final words of the spell, summoning his divine power.
“The ropes of light shall hold her!”
All he had to do now was drive the dagger into the ground.
His divine energy would spread through the blade, down into the floor, and entrap Vasha completely.
“What…?”
But nothing happened.
No light.
No reaction.
Confused, Bernardo tried summoning his divine power again.
Nothing.
His dagger remained inert.
A realization dawned upon Vasha, her lips curling into a mocking grin.
“I was wondering why you weren’t using your divine power after breaking my magic earlier… So this was your plan all along?”
Bernardo, stunned by the failure of his sacred spell, swallowed hard.
“Did she… seal my divine power?”
A vampire sealing divine energy?
He had never heard of such a thing before.
“No… This is…”
Bernardo suddenly recalled a similar technique—the holy knights’ seal used to suppress vampires.
“But using a divine sealing spell with magic is impossible!”
Yet, his suspicion was correct.
