As the last spark of life left her body, Anke closed her eyes. But in the second after her body turned limp, they opened wide, and she yanked herself off the Nargozi royal’s fist.

Backpedaling five meters, Anke stumbled and dropped on one knee. The gaping hole in her chest—that injury that neither Tamara nor Lena could survive—healed at a tortoise pace. Still it healed, and before this extraordinary scene, the blue-eyed Nargozi royal didn’t bat an eyelid.

“I’d almost forgotten. You’re the granddaughter of Alaric von Rulweil. With your Archon-level Dra Control, you can naturally use the Grand Duke’s Arcane Bloodline to perfection. Good, stomping helpless worms leave a sour taste in my mouth. At least, you can struggle,” the authoritative royal said. With sweat dripping from her forehead, Anke panted and clutched her chest.

The von Rulweils belonged to the ancestral houses that served Adramelech in his mortal life and helped found the Arcadian Empire. But in the past, their Arcane Bloodline merely built on Holy Magic to drastically boost their regeneration and healing abilities. After becoming an Exarch, however, Alaric von Rulweil modified his house’s Arcane Bloodline, creating the Hallowed Undead lineage. The Hallowed Undead Arcane Blood traded their regeneration speed to amplify their resilience and give them extra lives.

According to hearsay, Alaric had nine extra lives, the house’s largest number. Most of his children had three or four. But Anke had seven, well, six now—and before exhausting them—she couldn’t die.

But as she stared dubiously at the royal’s eyes, Anke’s face twisted into a frown.

“You...are not Kilian. Who are you?” she realized. Though the looks were 100% that of Kilian in his second life, it didn’t take long for Anke to discover all the inconsistencies. The man before her was a walking container of pride, hatred and arrogance. It was almost as if only two things existed in his eyes: worms and eyesores.

Using his mech suit’s Minor Teleportation, Wilfried reappeared beside Anke and released nanomachines that flooded and repaired her body.

“Your Ladyship, I’m afraid this man’s true identity is the least of our concerns,” Wilfried said as Anke stood up. Hearing this, the fake Kilian nodded.

“You’re absolutely correct. I, the Blood King of Nargoz must erase all of the previous model’s failings, prove my superiority by accomplishing all he couldn’t and execute him to establish my identity,” the Blood King declared, and stretched out his hands—making his dra erupt. The berserk surge of dra rocked the forest floor, triggering an earthquake that ruined Anke’s balance.

Alongside Anke, Wilfried soared into the air and activated his dra detector to appraise his foe. The numbers left him speechless.

“Over 100,000 dra? What is he? An Exarch?” Wilfried wondered, and seeing his foes retreat before this tiny display of force, the Blood King sneered and lunged at them.

“Too fast,” both Anke and Wilfried thought, and unable to counter, Wilfried activated his mech suit’s refraction field, surrounding himself and Anke in an invisible barrier that blocked and returned all assaults.

“Pointless resistance,” the Blood King scoffed, and summoned a sanguine greatsword of incalculable weight. Wielding it with his right hand, the Blood King slashed open Wilfried’s refraction field, appeared before him, and raked his greatsword at the mech suit’s waist.

One casual move, and this towering mecha able to rival an Archon was cut in two. And though the cockpit stood in the mech suit’s chest, the massive damages triggered a succession of explosions and electrical discharges that slammed and charred Wilfried’s body.

Shrugging off the pain, Wilfried pushed his propulsors for a hasty retreat while unleashing a volley of 30 missiles and 16, sky-blue dra beams at the Blood King. By now, he no longer counted on taking down his foe, only hoping to buy himself enough time to escape the Blood King’s sword.

Anke too didn’t dare linger, already fleeing in the opposite direction at maximum speed. Not even bothering to evade, the Blood King hurtled at the volley, an ear-splitting blast thundered, and emerging from the clouds of smoke, the Blood King rushed past Wilfried’s half mech suit and blocked him with one hand.

“Since it all started with you, how can you escape?” The Blood King rhetorically asked, drove his hand through the crystal mech suit’s defenses to seize Wilfried by the collar, and force him out of the mech suit. A Wilfried-shaped hole remained behind, and broken beyond repair, what remained of the mech suit burst into smithereens.

“Von Kressner Count, what a pity that you spent your entire life living for Klaus’ glory, and to this day, don’t have children. Otherwise, I’d keep you alive just to slaughter them,” the Blood King said, and with a nigh-instantaneous displacement, landed on the fleeing Anke’s back.

“Who said you could leave?” He asked, and with a stomp, sent her cratering. Unable to resist the Blood King’s hold, Wilfried stopped all resistance and accepted his fate. At least, since he’d connected his brain to Kars’ hypercomputers, after his convalescence, his lord would learn of all he saw and prepare for the threat.

For him, that was enough. And in a bid to get a final bit of info, Wilfried eyed the Blood King with scrutiny. His eyes stopped at his neck, or more precisely, on the blood-red mark of a crowned skull. Struck by disbelief, Wilfried’s eyes widened, and for the first time since his arrival, he shivered in fright.

“Isn’t this the Mark of…” Wilfried couldn’t speak the last word, for the Blood King raised his hand, a scarlet vortex appeared at his back, and from it emerged a monstrous beast with the body of a jet-black, wingless dragon, and a gigantic maw instead of a face. One-hundred jagged fangs stood in that maw, greeting Wilfried with the most grotesque picture he’d ever witnessed in his life.

“How may I serve you, Your Majesty?” A raucous voice resounded from the daemon’s maw-shaped face as he stretched his three meters long neck past the Blood King’s shoulders.

“Eat, Zog’doroth. From bottom to top, make every bite count, and eat till nothing remains,” the Blood King ordered, and hurled Wilfried toward Zog’doroth. The daemon didn’t delay, snatched Wilfried by his legs, opened his terrifying maw, and with dripping, sulfuric saliva, munched Wilfried from his feet all the way to his head.

“AAAAAAAARGH!” Though a man of great courage and iron will, the Guard Captain squealed like a pig. The strident sounds were music to Zog’doroth, who derived his Fehl High from anguish—and with Fehl Magic, he kept Wilfried alive till he reached his head. 

Meanwhile, the Blood King descended toward Lena and Tamara. By the time Zog’doroth devoured Wilfried’s head, the Blood King stood before Lena and stretched his hand toward her.

But before he could touch her skin, Lena and Tamara vanished.

“Boo! Never touch an unconscious woman! That’s the golden rule! How can you be so shameless?”

A voice came from the Blood Kings left.

Smack.

And a slap struck his right cheek.

Unprepared for the move and force, the Blood King whirled into the air, then somersaulted to land back on the ground.

Incensed, his eyes rose to meet his face-slapper, locking on a bearded dwarf who now held Lena and Tamara on one shoulder.

“But I suppose they don’t teach you that in fag camp, so this great imp lord has no other choice—but to reeducate you,” Urag said, sealed Lena and Tamara in a purple orb, and cracked his knuckles.

…

Meanwhile, Kilian awoke from his rebound-induced slumber, and his eyes opened on the blurred figure of a purple-haired woman that held him on her lap and watched over him with a tender gaze.

Kilian’s eyelids trembled, and he rubbed his eyes to clear the blur. The woman’s figure appeared in all her glory. And as his eyes locked on her sanguine hues, Kilian doubted his sight.

“Eleonora?” He blurted in doubt. Seeing him rouse from sleep, Eleonora beamed and replied:

“Greetings My King. You were taking too long to come home, so I came to fetch you.”