The castle must be quite a distance away from the inn since it took quite a long while before the fog cleared up.

The first thing Vanora noticed was not how ridiculously large and spacious the room was but the humongous messy stack of paper by a majestic looking rosewood table, followed by other smaller messy stacks of paper scattered around the room. Vanora looked down at their feet and found that they were even standing on some important looking documents right now.

If not for the mess, the room was pretty decent and simple. It has dark red walls and a black cement floor. The brown double-door stood behind her, the study table in front of her, a ceiling to floor window that stretched from one end of the room to the other was to her right, a ceiling to floor rosewood drawer with countless compartments was to her left. Besides the golden hanging chandelier, a black thin chute that looked just big enough for documents extended from the ceiling and ended beside the table. She guessed that something that was supposed to hold the delivery was hidden in that mountain of papers.

"Bloody hell. Didn't Raven say that she took over my duties? How's it still such a mess? I don't think two months worth of work is even this much." He frowned, perplexed by the situation of his study.

"She probably did a bad job for you in vengeance." Vanora explained offhandedly. It definitely sounded like something Raven would do based on what Raven said to Vlad earlier.

He looked at her with surprise. "You think so?" He seemed to seriously consider what she just said then agreed with her. "It must be so then. What a prick."

His hand slid away from her waist to hold onto her hand then he led her to the only thing that seemed randomly placed in the simple room. A black curtain about 3 metres long and 2 metres wide hung from the wall beside the gigantic drawer. When he pushed it aside, it revealed a doorway leading into another smaller room. This room has a black king-sized bed with gold trimmings and a large wall-to-wall fish tank in front of it. The room was dark and was only illuminated by the blue glow of the fish tank. Seeing how the bed has a very comfy looking cushioned headrest, she guessed that it was a room for Vlad to either nap or admire the fishes.

"You can sleep in here while I work. We'll leave when you wake up." Vlad said but quickly noticed that Vanora's attention was still on the fish tank. He followed her gaze and realised that she was looking at the fishes swimming about in his tank.

"Nice, right?" He said proudly. "They only exist in the dimension between the living and the dead so are rare and hard to find."

Nice? Big skeleton fishes were indeed unique and interesting at best, but Vanora was not sure if she would use "nice" to describe them. "How are they not dead yet? You've been coming back to feed them? A servant?"

"They don't need to eat. It's like they're frozen in time. Don't they make the best pets?" He grinned.

"I guess they're the best if you intend to neglect them and only look at them when you're bored." She answered honestly.

"What pet do you like then?"

Vanora found herself stumped by his question. "Never thought about it." It may have sounded dismissive but it was also an honest answer. Not wanting to continue the conversation, she walked to the bed and tucked herself in with her back facing him. He took the hint and walked off to clean up the mess that his study was in.

It may have seemed like a lot of work, and it truly was, but the inhuman speed that Vlad could work at made it seem like it was not much to begin with. He was already done with almost half of all the papers strewn around. 

Vanora had told BaoBao to wake her up after 3 hours. She did not want to waste the day away since she would be sleeping tonight anyway. When Vanora walked out of the room, she was surprised to see everything looking so orderly. Perhaps there was no need to worry about wasting time waiting for him to do some administrative work every morning after all.

Vlad had immediately noticed Vanora when she walked out of the room. He stopped whatever he was doing then went to her side in a flash. "Let's go?" He asked with a bright smile.

Vanora tried to not pay attention to how he was dressed and nodded. She knew about his normal dressing style from the description in the book. However, seeing it in person still packed a punch. He only wore a lightweight long sleeved black coat that reached his ankles and was tattered near the ends to go with black pants that was tucked into dark brown combat boots. So his entire torso was exposed with only a black and silver necklace and a silver belt as an accessory. His hair was styled messily but it looked good instead of shabby.

BaoBao wondered why Vanora would let such a good chance to admire such perfectly sculpted muscles slip by. Vanora had brushed him off saying that there was no point in ogling but BaoBao felt otherwise. It was truly a sight for sore eyes.

Vlad silently reappeared in front of and above the hell beings that he left earlier in the day while Vanora tried to move a step back, intending to hide herself behind him. She did not want to draw unnecessary attention and trouble to herself just from being in his arms. However, Vlad kept a tight hold on her waist. 

It took the hell beings awhile to realise that someone has appeared and was floating above them. Without a leader, they behaved like headless chickens. Everyone of them did whatever they felt like doing. Some went ahead in search of more battle with their ego inflated from their prior success, some were knocked out, some went hunting, some were play fighting among themselves.  However, all it took was for one of them to stare into the sky agape for it to immediately catch another's attention, then the next one to look up would do the same. This became like a chain reaction and it quickly spread throughout the crowd. Those that were asleep were nudged or hit awake by the ones awake. As if on cue, they knelt down in unison and shouted out his name in greeting. "Lord Vlad!"

Their sound echoed through the forest. Vlad and Vanora could hear those hunting in the vicinity come running back. However, he did not bother waiting for them to begin addressing the mass. Finding that Vanora was still resisting him, he gave in and let her go, reminding her gently that she would fall since his power of elevation was not transferable. Almost immediately after she left his arms, he jumped straight into work and began briefing the hell beings without giving an explanation for his long and sudden absence. They did not seem to have an issue though and listened to him with rapt attention while keeping their heads down. In order not to stand out, she knelt down on one knee with her head down like everyone else. 

While everyone went into their positions after Vlad was done giving out his instructions, only one came towards Vlad. Her beauty was comparable to Raven's but of a different kind. This beauty was more exotic and dark but there was a touch of childishness which was revealed through her ocean green eyes. She has long wavy dark purple hair that framed her small face nicely. The traits that betrayed her identity was her long tail and small wings sticking out of her tailbone and back respectively.

Rosa went up to Vlad to personally welcome him back. It was clear for anyone to see how she was trying so desperately to catch his attention by batting her long and lush eyelashes and angling her body in a more provocative way. However, Vlad simply nodded in response then walked past her to get to Vanora.

Vanora had moved off to join the other descendants of the sin of wrath in their ranks who were assigned to be the front liners. This was her chance to build her connections with the other hell beings and distance herself from the second male lead. He used to be the only one she could depend on and learn from but now it was not the case. Although she has spent a decent amount of time together with him, she did not forget that staying with such high profile people like the leads of the story could only spell trouble eventually. It was a high risk high reward situation. She did not believe in her odds of surviving the high risk so decided to not play with fire. Moreover, BaoBao has informed her that a character matching the description of the second female lead was present.

The other hell beings that saw her walking towards them recognised her from the day before and felt elated that someone strong was going to be among them. They were not so observant to notice that it was thanks to Vlad perfect assistance which gave her the chance to battle it out with so many angels.

Just as they tried to strike up a conversation with her to welcome her warmly into the group, they saw her being pulled back by Lord Vlad.

"You have a different station. You don't belong with them." Vlad looked disgruntled. 

She frowned while the others looked defeated like they just lost a great addition to their team.

"Where do I go then?"

"To my side." 

"As your meat shield?"

"You got our relationship the wrong way round." 

Not wanting his answer to give others the impression that there was something more between them, she tried to change the meaning of his words. "I see you're still working on your sense of humour Lord Vlad. I'm happy to serve as your meat shield." Before he could say another word, she headed to the back of the army. 

Vanora now understood why Vlad said that he would be at the back of the army instead of at the front. Given his personality, she had guessed that he would like to be where it was most happening. He was strong enough to do such something like charging headlong into an army of angels anyway. Thinking that she was like a burden to Vlad, it gave her even more reason to pull away from him. 

Vanora's guess was not wrong. Vlad would have indeed put himself at the head but now that Vanora was with him, he could not afford to be as carefree and reckless as he usually was. To be able to pick the most appropriate opponents for Vanora, it was better to stay at the back to observe first. 

While Vanora stood at the back of the army with Vlad, BaoBao informed her that the girl they suspected to be the second female lead was glaring at her with hostility. Vanora sighed inwardly while she started thinking of ways to draw a line between Vlad and her. Considering how stubbornly clingy he has been behaving towards her gave her little hope of success though. She began to consider discussing about this properly with Vlad to reach an agreement.

Rosa felt a bittersweet feeling about Vlad's cold and aloof treatment towards her. Even though it was what she liked about him, she wanted to be his special one and to be treated specially. Being the top ranked succubus, she was the most attractive woman in hell. This was why she dared to believe that she stood a fair chance of attracting Vlad and that it could only be a matter of time before Vlad would seek her out.

Ever since she laid eyes on the demon beside Vlad when he was still waiting for all the hell beings to settle down, she had only been slightly disturbed since she assessed that the demon was of low threat to her relationship with Vlad. Her looks were mediocre at best and her combat strength was on par with hers. Raven was her biggest rival at the moment. 

All she thought to herself was how she was right in guessing that she and the guy from yesterday was acquainted with Lord Vlad. How lucky that Lord Vlad chose to return to them today. Otherwise, they would have missed the chance to track Lord Vlad down. 

With all these beliefs and assumptions in her mind, it was jarring for her to witness Vlad seeking her out and behaving more intimately with her than even Raven. What made her feel even more unsettled was the clear pastel pink colour present in his aura when he was interacting with her. It can't be. I must be seeing wrong. How can he like someone like her? 

Rosa decisively took it upon herself to find out what exactly their relationship was like with each other.