—Kkeuaaah...!

In a world filled with blood-red light, someone’s agonized scream rang out.

—Aaah, ah...!

It was impossible now to even imagine what that being had originally looked like,

but that someone had once been human too.

A warrior who had resisted in order to survive in a world struck by ruin.

He had been fairly confident in his own skill,

and it had not been confidence without basis.

But...

no matter how exceptional one’s skill might be—

—Ghk, aaaaaaah...!

in the end, now,

he had been devoured by the vampire queen, and his soul had been reduced to a droplet of blood, drifting through the queen’s veins.

'I made a mistake.'

When he first fell into this place,

that was what he thought.

'I shouldn’t have believed that rumor.'

In his mind, a small regret surfaced.

'I should have... followed those soldiers instead...'

But.

That regret did not continue for long.

Splash.

The moment a single droplet of blood sank into a sea made of countless other drops of blood,

he fell asleep within the quiet flow of that sea.

Even if he wanted to wake,

he had already become a droplet of someone else’s blood.

And blood could not move by will of its own.

So all he could do was sleep in this space for a long, long time.

...And so.

How much time had passed?

Slosh.

The once-calm sea suddenly began to heave.

'Ah...?'

And the consciousness that had been asleep was forced awake by that movement.

Instinctively, he could tell.

The master of this space that had kept him asleep.

The being that had kept that sea under quiet control.

'...The vampire queen.'

had lost control over them.

—Ah, ah...!

At first it was only a small ripple.

But there was no power left in this space capable of stopping that ripple.

And so—

—Kkeuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!

the awakened souls let out agonized screams.

—Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!

Until then, they had at least been sunk in deep sleep, so there had been no pain.

But.

Once they awakened from that long sleep,

the thoughts they had held before falling into this place—

—Queen!!!

—made them writhe in pain, regret, and rage.

Paaang—!!!

Countless souls.

Countless currents of blood rampaged in fury, and the once-calm sea turned into a tidal wave that violently tore through the queen’s castle.

'I regret it.'

And that was true

for the man’s soul as well.

'I hate you...!'

He had slept for a long time.

But that did not mean those emotions had disappeared.

'The queen who made me like this.'

If anything, they were emotions that had continued piling up even while he slept.

'And ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) everything that did not save me...!'

They had piled up far too much,

until they had become grotesquely distorted.

Kwaaaaaaang!!!

They rose as a massive wave and slammed into the ash-gray castle.

No matter how sturdy that castle was,

with such violent waves battering it again and again, the damage was gradually accumulating.

'Revenge!'

The souls filled with fury realized that fact,

and hammered at the castle with even greater excitement.

That castle was the final barrier protecting the master of this space.

And they knew that if it fell, the queen who had cast them into this place would fall as well.

...But then, at that moment.

'...A familiar presence.'

The man, who had been rampaging as if he would destroy everything around him,

sensed a familiar presence somewhere far away.

It was a presence he could never forget.

And for good reason.

His final regret, just before he fell asleep—

'That time, that...!'

Within that regret,

it was the presence of someone he had thought of over and over again.

Paaaak!

The waves that had been battering the castle so violently.

The direction of one among them shifted slightly.

—I always regretted it.

Back then.

If I had made a different choice, might things have turned out differently?

—I always thought about it.

Even if I was a lost cause,

maybe my comrades could have been saved.

And.

—I always hated you...!

Back then.

—If only you had stopped me...!

A wave filled with bitterness and hate came crashing with terrifying force toward the heart of the castle.

Toward the keep.

“Sorry, but...! I still... have a lot left to do...!”

And there, the man found the one he had kept seeing within his regrets.

That wave, overflowing with hatred, came surging toward him with immense force.

“Instead.”

But.

At that moment.

“I’ll take responsibility...”

The man submerged in blood gave a bitter smile and tightened his grip on the sword in his hand.

“I’ll set you free.”

That hand, carrying some mysterious and wondrous power,

swung in a beautiful arc.

Slice—!

With that single slash, the wave that had been crashing harder than any other—

“...Ah.”

the man’s soul was cut free.

“...Ahh, so that’s what it was.”

The body he had once inhabited.

Even though the wave of blood that formed it had been severed,

strangely enough, the man felt no pain at all.

'You...'

What he felt instead...

was the exact opposite of pain.

'You had come... to set me free...'

The sticky regret and hatred that had bound him all this time.

...As he was freed from them,

he felt a supreme happiness unlike anything he had ever known in life.

—Ahh....

Wrapped in that happiness,

the man looked at the one who had freed him.

—Thank... you...

With those last words of gratitude, drawn from the bottom of his heart,

the soul that had been bound for so many long years finally regained its freedom.

***

The countless souls rampaging inside Ariella’s inner self.

I looked at those souls.

[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]

[Chef’s Eye]

[You have acquired ‘Supreme Culinary Secret - Comprehension of How to Prepare Blood-Transformed Souls.’]

Souls were not originally things that existed in the form of blood.

But these had, through a vampire’s power, been forcibly trapped here with their souls bound into blood.

So what I had to do was simple.

[Soul Cooking Mastery]

To [prepare]

those souls.

Slice—

I swung my blade, carrying the insight of the trait I had awakened back in Gyeonggi Province.

[Soul Cooking Mastery].

Preparation was nothing special.

You removed what clung to the outside that you did not want,

and left only what you did.

If someone’s soul was contained in that blood,

then separating only that out was exactly what it meant to “prepare” a soul.

They said a blade could not cut water.

But that sea of blood was the exception.

As my blade brushed past,

I could see the souls forcibly bound inside that blood being released.

And then— 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

—Thank... you...

one among them spoke to me.

'...A familiar voice.'

It was a faint voice, but I could guess who it belonged to.

...Someone I had known, and yet had failed to save properly.

At the fact that he had thanked me, I could only think to myself with a bitter smile.

'This isn’t something I deserve thanks for.'

The souls gathered here.

Even if they had remained quietly asleep until Ariella lost control,

I too had played a part in trapping them here.

To these souls,

I too was one of the perpetrators.

'So this is not something I should be thanked for.'

For what I had done,

I was only paying the responsibility I owed.

If anything, they were in a position to blame me for hesitating over it.

So hearing gratitude from one of them could only make me smile bitterly.

And besides...

'I had hesitated over whether to carry this method out at all.'

Honestly,

when I first thought of this method, I hesitated a great deal.

The countless souls piled up in this place.

It was those souls, gathered together and mixed with Ariella’s essence, that had created the Ariella of now.

Which meant—

'if I removed all of these souls,'

then Ariella would most likely return to her original essence.

To who she had been in the days when she was called Ella.

Right.

'To those days... when she had been extremely reluctant to use the abilities of a vampire.'

The power she had already accumulated would likely remain,

but she would no longer be able to commit blood-draining or increase the number of her retainers.

Because Ariella’s original nature had been that kind of person.

For me, who had been benefiting enormously from that combat strength,

it would be a terrible shame.

An enormous loss.

But.

After a brief period of deliberation, I ultimately went through with it.

'Isabella abandoned Ariella because she had changed a little from the form Isabella had known.'

More precisely, even if it was that Isabella had failed to recognize her—

from the start, the image of Ariella Isabella had wanted had been extremely narrow.

The moment Ariella stepped outside that range, Isabella had become unable to perceive her as the Ella it knew.

'I’m different. '

It didn’t matter if she lost the ability to use some of her powers.

Because—

even the one who changed like that was still one I had decided to take in.

With that thought in mind,

I kept swinging my blade.

...But.

“...Kuh-huh!”

A ragged breath burst from my throat.

The hand I was moving was gradually slowing.

—...I do not know what you hope to gain by doing such a thing.

Maybe it had noticed me.

A voice came from somewhere.

—In the end, you are nothing but an inferior species.

“......”

—The quantity of souls rampaging in this place is beyond imagination.

I could feel it.

Freeing even a single soul here took far more power than I had expected.

When those souls had still been in the form they possessed before death,

this was a task that took about as much strength as bringing down one of them a single time.

—This is not something an inferior species like you can accomplish alone.

The souls Ariella had devoured over the course of her entire life.

This was no different from fighting every last one of those souls.

—It is impossible.

Just as that one said,

it was infinitely close to impossible.

...But.

“You keep calling me inferior species, inferior species...!”

I grabbed hold of the structure and pulled myself up,

looking out over this world.

A red liquid, spread beyond the horizon itself, raging in madness.

Its end couldn’t even be seen, like looking out over a storm-tossed sea.

“Even an inferior species has its own stubborn pride.”

But.

Looking at that scene, I smiled.

“Impossible?”

Isabella had talked about circumstances, this and that.

Had grieved as though the end it suffered had been unavoidable.

And it was not entirely wrong.

“Sorry, but.”

When you spend long enough in the military,

sometimes you get assigned things that feel truly impossible.

Plenty of times, I’d wanted to just give up right there.

But.

“I’m in no kind of position where giving up is an option...!”

Unfortunately, military life was not something that ran that leniently.

In most cases, giving up was never an option to begin with.

And that...

[Oath]

was true for me now as well, after I had gone and made those outrageous promises.

For the me of now, there was no such option as saying it was impossible and giving up.

If so, there was only one choice left.

“I just have to make it possible.”

Fortunately, I had already prepared that method too.

“I’m counting on you.”

I placed a hand over my chest, then shoved that hand into my own body to grab something inside.

“Morjan.”

***

...And then.

Only then did I realize that I had forgotten one fact.

This place was a world inside a mental image.

And because of that, Isabella, who in reality was no more than a single drop of blood, could wield overwhelming power over me here.

...And.

The same would be true for someone else.

For example—

—Then so be it.

someone else of whom only a few scraps of flesh remained.

Kuuuuuuuuuuuuung...!

A world that had been filled entirely with red light.

From the sky above it, something impossibly enormous began to descend, radiating a brilliant blue light.