The God's Favored Priest Herotus opened his mouth and let out an enraged lion's roar, thrusting the golden scepter in his hand toward the Gate of the Saint. Brilliant golden lines rapidly emerged from the gray stone surface, forming the shape of a peculiar beetle. Suddenly, the Gate of the Saint erupted with blinding light, like a miniature sun, so dazzling that the High Priest's eyes filled with tears and went completely dark—he was temporarily blinded. In that brilliant radiance, the Gate of the Saint slowly swung open, the churning black mist suppressed, its "waves" quickly subsiding.……
The commotion at the Gate of the Saint alerted Lucian, who had been about to etherealize his form. Had the God's Favored Priest discovered something wrong inside the palace? Or had he simply come to inspect due to Prince Dracula's pressure? Regardless of the reason, Lucian had no doubt that the God's Favored Priest could see through the permanent illusion he'd left behind—his existence was no longer a secret! Activate the ninth-tier scroll and teleport? Lucian gripped Pale Justice in one hand while still holding the trigger-type scroll his teacher Fernando had given him in the other. As his brain raced to make a decision, his gaze unconsciously wandered across the palace, and he suddenly spotted the golden sarcophagus of Fenks, the King of the Sphinxes. An idea struck him. Perhaps there was no need to waste this precious scroll?
The Gate of the Saint slowly opened, and dazzling light poured in. Lucian's left hand, which held the ninth-tier scroll, reached into his storage pouch and pulled out another object—it bore a cross engraved at its center, surrounded by sun rays, none other than the talisman "Solar Crown" left behind by Maskilin! Since Fenks had fallen back into slumber, hiding in a rift of the Netherworld no longer seemed quite so dangerous! Warm, gentle waves of "Divine Arts" energy, like sunlight washing over him, spread through Lucian's entire body. The chill inside Fenks' palace rolled away as if fleeing from a serpent. Dense Netherworld energy emanated from the direction of the "golden sarcophagus." A pale black rift stood vertically above the sarcophagus, twisting and winding like a sharp sword suspended over Fenks' head. Gripping Pale Justice, the Solar Crown, and the teleportation scroll, Lucian dragged his heavy steps and lunged toward the rift just two or three paces away.
The Gate of the Saint stood wide open, the black mist completely pacified. Herotus, the God's Favored Priest, golden scepter in hand, stepped inside. His spiritual sense shrouded the entire great hall—but it was completely empty!
"Damn desecrator!" Herotus's terrifying lion's roar made the tomb tremble and sent the sphinxes outside the camp prostrate to the ground once more. Though the hall was empty, he had indeed sensed an unfamiliar presence, which led him to instinctively assume the intruder had already fled. That was why his fury burned so hot. Raising his golden scepter high, Herotus let out an eerie cry. One eye blazed brilliant as the sun, while the other gleamed pale as the silver moon. Through those strange eyes, scene after scene began to emerge: a hooded mysterious figure moving through the black mist, the blurred image of him raising a longsword and striking savagely at the golden sarcophagus, and finally, the eerie event of him lunging forward as space itself began to warp.
A ninth-tier spell—Retrograde Vision!
Though the abundance of external interference prevented him from obtaining rich details—the images were blurry and jumpy, quite simple—it did not prevent Herotus from recognizing the damned man who had desecrated the ancestral corpse, nor his primary purpose for entering. He had actually intended to prevent the great King Fenks from resurrecting!
"Lord Herotus. Where is the intruder who should be torn apart?" the High Priest summoned his courage to ask.
"He has already escaped. He seems to be equipped with a high-tier scroll or item for spatial teleportation." Herotus's voice was cold, as if blown from a silent abyss. "He sought to destroy the corpse of the great King of the Sphinxes and prevent his future resurrection."
The High Priest said in alarm, "Then?"
"The power of the 'Great King'—how could an insect like him possibly fathom it?" Herotus stared straight at the golden sarcophagus. "I can still feel the 'Great King' watching us, feel his vast and boundless power."
Having spoken, Herotus raised his scepter and, using the residual aura and the palace's layout, began a divination to track the intruder. Amid the flickering of sunlight, Herotus's golden scepter suddenly dimmed. He said in alarm, "He's not in this world? No—that's not right. I can faintly sense him, yet it's so blurred I can barely capture his trail!" By "world," he meant the Prime Material Plane plus all known extra-planar spaces.
……
After passing through the thick curtain of the Netherworld rift, Lucian felt the familiar lifeless stillness. The brilliant world had been reduced to dead silence in black, white, and gray. This was a tomb-palace devoid of all other colors, roughly the same shape as its counterpart in the outside world—Fenks' nether dwelling, it seemed. Yet upon the gray "golden" sarcophagus, reddish-brown threads like spider silk were wound in bundles, extending to every magical array node throughout the palace. The reddish-brown was quite faint, but compared to the surrounding pallid black and gray, it was strikingly vivid—impossible for Lucian to ignore. And floating above the gray sarcophagus was a ball of rust-colored light stained with blood, pulsing like a heart, its color equally vivid. It gave Lucian an extremely unsettling feeling.
Closing his eyes, Lucian discovered that this ball of light was entirely absent from his spiritual field! But when he looked at it with his eyes, it seemed to waver, as if it didn't truly exist here—impossible to touch, impossible to detect, impossible to truly approach! Inside this ball of light, there seemed to be many things endlessly shifting and changing.
"What is this ball of light? Those threads seem to be draining Fenks' power?" Lucian thought with curiosity and bewilderment, struggling hard to suppress the impulse to conduct research here. Who knew whether the God's Favored Priest might discover the Netherworld rift? Who knew whether the Solar Crown might attract the attention of the Netherworld's higher powers? Who knew whether high-level undead might come to patrol? He had to leave immediately!
To avoid triggering Fenks' resurrection again and disrupting Rhein's arrangements, Lucian painfully gave up the idea of harvesting a single reddish-brown thread, gave up the idea of using magic at close range to stimulate the rust-colored orb, put away Pale Justice, dispelled the strength-enhancing magic, layered multiple defensive spells upon himself, and pushed open the gray Gate of the Saint.
There could not possibly be high-level undead here, since the God's Favored Priest and even the senior High Priests were all able to establish their own tombs!
Outside the gate stood two more sphinxes—but they were bandage-wrapped, gray-white "Netherworld Guards." Their four long legs spread wide, they let out silent screams and charged toward Lucian with cold, mechanical precision.
Lucian calmly touched the Solar Crown talisman already pinned to his chest. A sacred, majestic halo immediately rippled outward in waves. Caught in the touch of that invisible warm light, both Netherworld Guards froze in place, then—as if eroded by tens of thousands of years—crumbled into piles of decayed dust.
Sixth-tier Divine Arts spell—Undead Dissolution!
Lucian kicked off and charged downward into the still, frozen tomb, the Undead Dissolution halo surging around him in waves. Sensing the disturbance near the Gate of the Saint, sensing the light utterly incompatible with their own aura, the interior of the tomb instantly boiled over. In the frozen tableau of black, white, and gray, Netherworld Guards raised their halberds and, alongside dense swarms of black beetles that covered walls and corridors, surged toward Lucian like a tide.
Two utterly different "waves" crashed violently together, and the tomb trembled slightly. Then, invisible light pierced through the frozen black-and-gray intermingled wave. As the wave of light passed, gray-white Netherworld Guards collapsed one after another, dissolving into clouds of dust. The black beetles emitted plumes of smoke and, in utter silence, perished completely.
Following the purified wide corridor, Lucian raced through passage after gray passage, approaching the tomb's exit.
Suddenly, a towering Netherworld Guard with pale light flickering in its eyes, wielding a massive sword and trailing a halo of death, lunged at Lucian from a corner.
Lucian did not dodge. As its two-handed greatsword struck him, layer after layer of defenses cleaved apart, he activated the Solar Crown. A massive, sacred pillar of light descended from nowhere, completely engulfing the Netherworld Guard as it tried to dodge, leaving afterimages in its wake. Wisps of black rose from its body, rapidly evaporating. By the time the pillar of light vanished, all that remained was a deep pit, its bottom and walls entirely covered with traces of vaporization.
Eighth-tier Divine Arts spell—Solar Flare!
Seizing the opportunity, Lucian burst out of the tomb and beheld the Netherworld's eternally gray sky and the scattered desert around him.
"The concealed magical array and the reddish-brown threads seem to be draining Fenks' power. Mr. Rhein's arrangement also appears to be siphoning this power for his own use."
"But who set it all up originally?" After a quick survey, relying on his fairly extensive knowledge of magical arrays, Lucian made a rough assessment. "But what is that rust-colored light orb?"
For some reason, that orb lingered in Lucian's mind, refusing to fade.
Not daring to delay, Lucian selected the bloodline of the most common type of undead in the Netherworld, activated the Transformation Mask, and began searching for another Netherworld exit.
……
The Gustaf Empire, Malinburg Province, inside Viscount Nul's castle.
Viscount Nul closed the door, activated his defensive traps, then walked into the hidden chamber within his study. Inside lay beautiful women of various ages, dressed in different styles of clothing, resting quietly with rosy complexions—as if asleep.
Viscount Nul gazed at them with fanatical adoration, as though admiring works of art. He then reached out his right hand and stroked the face of a girl of thirteen or fourteen, feeling that cold softness.
"They will never understand. Only corpses are the most perfect beings. Women with minds of their own will always betray, be fickle, make unreasonable demands—only corpses are flawless! The sensation of cold, the looseness of flesh—they are art beyond anything they could imagine in their lifetimes." Viscount Nul murmured to himself, eyes burning.
After being turned into a bloodkin by a vampire countess, he had gradually developed a repulsive obsession—necrophilia, specifically for corpses that could not think or move. As a result, he was deeply scorned by other vampires and had no choice but to rely on his inherited status to hide within human society, indulging his lifestyle.
Suddenly, he sensed an imperceptible ripple of energy, and then was horrified to find his entire body rigid. He could only see, through the full-length mirror opposite, that a mysterious man in black robes had appeared in the doorway.
"You... what... are... you... going... to... do?" His stiff throat could barely manage one word at a time.
Nul was terrified. He understood he had been frozen by a third-tier Netherworld Paralysis spell, and the fact that it worked so well meant the caster had to be a high-level mage!
Lucian said with disgust, "I only came to borrow a little blood and put you to sleep for a period of time. But now it seems all I can say is..."
"—I'll borrow your head."
After exiting the Netherworld through another rift, Lucian had followed Rhein's guidance to seek out vampires living in isolation or hidden within human society. With Prince Dracula busy tracking Rhein's whereabouts, transforming into another vampire to return to the Dark Highlands and teleport away was the optimal choice. Who would suspect a vampire with an established identity and acquaintances of being Rhein in disguise—especially one who had just left?
"No!" Nul screamed in terror, but his rigid throat could only drag out a long, slow, pathetic tremor.
An invisible wave of light engulfed Nul and the rows of corpses behind him.
……
Antifler, Sacred Helz Empire—the most magnificent city in the world.
Standing in a corner, gazing at the towering walls built in ancient times to defend against giant invasions, Borak van Anjou, a direct bloodline member of the Plantagenet family, wore a dark expression, his face somber, as if burdened by heavy thoughts.
"Young Master Borak. Let's go." An unassuming, thin man in black had appeared beside him at some point.
Borak snapped back to awareness, glanced at him, and nodded faintly. "Giz, I hope this time yields something."
"Young Master Borak, there's no need to rush. The old duke can live a long while yet." Giz smiled at the emotionally deflated, anxious big "client" before him.
As one of the oldest noble families in the Sacred Helz Empire, the Plantagenet family remained a powerful aristocratic class possessing two Gold Knights, commanding their own "Plantagenet Knight Order." Due to the early death of the previous first-in-line heir—the old duke's only son—Borak, with his excellent bloodline, had become a strong contender for the heir position. Unfortunately, he had been unable to awaken his bloodline power, and another heir, Arten, a third-level Great Knight, had gained an overwhelming advantage.
Thinking of Arten's arrogant and haughty demeanor, thinking of the noble youths who had fawned over him, the noble girls and women who had shared his bed—once Arten broke through to Great Knight while Borak remained lost and directionless, they had all changed their attitudes, becoming cold and dismissive.
Borak couldn't help clenching his fists tightly, feeling humiliated and suffocated. I will break through to Knight rank! I will become the Duke of Plantagenet! I will make every person who abandoned and looked down on me regret it!
Understanding that the family's internal potions had serious defects, Borak, after a long internal struggle, finally chose to seek out the Antifler black market to find miraculous magical items for assistance.
Under Giz's guidance, the two quickly entered a villa that appeared ordinary on the outside but held a vast underground complex—this was Antifler's largest underground black market.
Picking up item after item, only to shake his head and set them down, Borak grew increasingly disappointed.
Suddenly, he spotted an elderly man with white hair approaching him.
"Young man, I have seen your fate in my crystal ball. Would you like to know what it holds?" The old man, dressed in black robes and appearing extraordinarily mysterious, smiled faintly.
Borak's pupils contracted sharply as he looked at the crystal ball in the old man's hand. A mage, openly appearing in a black market?
"I do not believe fate is predetermined. Everything is a gift from the Lord." Borak would never trust a mage who approached him directly—there had to be a catch!
The black-robed elder showed no offense. "No matter. Fate was always meant to be changeable. If you ever truly fall into despair, don't forget to come find me for a divination." With that, the black-robed elder departed.
Borak shook his head and continued searching. This was his ninth visit to the black market—somewhat obsessively, he believed nine was the most auspicious number. Once this visit passed, the chance of finding miraculous magical assistance would only grow slimmer.
Gradually, his disappointment mounted, and his heart sank lower. Was there truly no hope of defeating Arten?
Borak was so dejected he seemed to have lost all color, reduced to a black-and-white silhouette.
"Young Master Borak, didn't that astrologer just say you could find him for a divination when you're in despair?" Giz, naturally, hoped his important client would become the Duke of Plantagenet.
Borak gritted his teeth in silence for a long time before finally steeling himself and walking to the spot where the black-robed elder had been sitting cross-legged. "Please give me a divination."
The black-robed elder smiled and caressed his crystal ball, making its interior grow exceedingly dark. After a few dazzling sparks of light, the elder looked at Borak and spoke: "Your fate faces an enormous turning point."
"What turning point?" Borak asked tensely.
The elder spoke slowly: "I can only divine that the turning point lies within the remote villa left to you by your father, after darkness falls."
The remote villa? How could he know?! That remote villa was private property left by Borak's father—it had been a place to keep a mistress and had never been disclosed to outsiders.
Borak paid two Gold Thalers and turned to leave. After just a few steps, he instinctively looked back, only to discover that the spot was now completely empty! The entire black market showed no trace of the black-robed elder.
"Where did he go?" Borak and Giz exchanged a glance, filled with a mixture of dread and hope.
……
Night fell. Inside the remote villa, Borak dismissed all his servants and searched frantically for the turning point, but found nothing.
"The turning point—where is it, where..." Borak sat in his study, muttering to himself with vacant eyes. It was now approaching midnight, the silver moon shining high.
Just as despair consumed him and his will died, he suddenly noticed a beam of silver moonlight falling upon the portrait left by his father. Under the silver glow, he could clearly see his father's right index finger pointing toward the inside of the painting—a subtle and awkwardly twisted posture that was easy to miss.
Inside? Inside!
Borak leapt to his feet, removed the oil painting from its frame, and felt along it carefully. At last, he discovered a piece of parchment tucked behind the painting.
The moment he saw this parchment, Borak "recalled" words his father had once spoken to him as a child: "If you ever reach your deepest moment of despair, come before this portrait and draw strength." Because it had been so long ago, the memory was hazy—Borak could only "vaguely" remember such a thing happening. With all doubt gone, he excitedly unfolded the parchment, which carried the musty scent of aged time.
From inside the parchment, a folded piece of white paper fell out first. Unfolding it, Borak recognized his father's familiar handwriting: "Borak, when you are most desperate, you may consider using this contract. But you must never sell your soul to a devil, and you must never rely upon it."
His breathing grew heavy. Borak's gaze shifted to the parchment. Written upon it in the ancient magical script of the Sylvanas Empire were the words: "The Law of Devils: What you wish to obtain must be paid for with an equal price!"
"Do you accept?"
Borak bit his lip tightly, his hands unconsciously crumpling the parchment. After a long while, he solemnly nodded and left a blood imprint.
Slowly, a line of text appeared at the bottom of the parchment—words Borak could not read but understood in meaning:
"Those who wish to enter into the contract, follow these steps to summon the most powerful devil:"
"When midnight strikes, light a white candle before a mirror, then let down your hair and peel an apple before it."
"If from beginning to end, the apple peel does not break and the candle does not extinguish, you will successfully summon the devil!"