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At the boundary of Harker Count Territory after sunset, strict discipline maintained by the soldiers of the guard was already renowned, but with the flames of war spreading to the Southern Region, the soldiers’ morale evolved from merely avoiding punishment to an earnest state of readiness to protect the very life and safety of the territory.

That night, the guards remained diligent in their watch. In fact, concerns rose that the recent full-scale demon extermination initiated from the neighboring Baron Harriet’s Territory could trigger incursions by some demons migrating due to the conflict, leading to an even higher state of alert.

Naturally, the guards confidently spotted an approaching silhouette at the entrance to their territory. Following the established protocol, a soldier from the Harker Clan stepped forward to the midnight visitor, brandishing his spear to block unauthorized access.

“Are you a visitor? Please state your business and identity.”

Unlike Baron Harriet’s Territory, Harker Count Territory had a significant number of troops available for guarding; as such, five soldiers were stationed at the entrance during the night. While one guard approached to verify the visitor’s identity, the other four stood ready to prepare for an ambush at any moment, along with relaying the situation to their main force within the territory.

No matter how ample the personnel, there was no room for laxity or negligence. Yet, in the presence of beings far surpassing mere humans—those endowed with unfathomable power—the individual resolve lost much of its meaning.

“I am the Vampire Lord. I’ve come to meet the Count of this land.”

Dracula declared, revealing his pale face from the shadows. The guard, startled by this proclamation, thrust his spear forward in an attempt to impale the king of the vampires, but Dracula effortlessly twisted the spear aside, then flicked the guard’s chest with his fingertip.

What seemed like a mere poke from a finger resulted in the guard’s back bursting open. The soldier’s heart exploded, causing an immense surge of blood to spray forth, and the guards observing from a distance realized that they had finally encountered a ‘real combat situation’ that night.

As three soldiers steeled themselves and gripped their weapons to charge at Dracula, the fastest of them dashed inside the territory to relay the news.

Glimpsing the rushing soldiers, Dracula seemed to misunderstand the messenger’s retreat as cowardice and clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“There is no escape from what is inevitable.”

Dracula extended his hand, clenching his fist. With a sickening sound, the head of the guard rushing inward exploded.

Startled by the sound of shattering bones, the soldiers instinctively turned their heads to see the fleeing messenger collapse lifelessly to the ground. A tense atmosphere enveloped the scene, and all three soldiers realized.

They would die tonight. No matter where they chose to stand or what decisions they made, the likelihood of survival was virtually nil. The most senior-looking soldier exchanged glances with another and gestured for the two to run toward the territory.

Neither of their missions would be safer or braver than the other.

The two guards, aware that their attacks were futile, had no choice but to hold their spears ready. Meanwhile, the messenger, aware that he had become the priority target due to his earlier retreat, continued onward.

It seemed that Dracula realized only after seeing the second messenger run toward the territory that the soldier he had first killed was indeed not fleeing out of cowardice.

Dracula had no time for regret over his miscalculation. Soon, the two spear tips rushed toward him in a cross pattern. Even if the odds were low, if there was any chance to save the fleeing comrade, this was the one shot.

Even the mightiest of wizards find it difficult to strike down an unseen opponent from a distance. If he could buy enough time for the messenger to reach the territory and gather thousands of soldiers, there was still hope.

Even for a high-ranking demon, facing a thousand armed soldiers alone carries significant risk. Despite knowing his own mortality was likely, the soldiers instinctively moved toward any opportunity to save the most lives possible, impressing Dracula.

“What remarkable heroes. Even with such soldiers left behind, how could our motley army withstand the might of true heroes?”

As Dracula effortlessly seized the two spears hurtling toward him, he pulled them back powerfully before piercing the stomachs of the two soldiers with the blunt ends of the spears.

As if the spearheads had extended through to the opposite side, both men were impaled. Leaving the dead behind carelessly, Dracula reached out toward the messenger sprinting inside the territory.

At the moment when the king of vampires made a scythe-like motion with his hand, the body of the fleeing soldier in the distance was severed cleanly at the waist along with his armor.

In the blink of an eye, Dracula had exterminated all five guards and, licking his tongue in thought, spoke.

“If my subordinates had possessed both the strength of a vampire and this kind of spirit, these needless lives wouldn’t have been so easily forfeited. Though already cold and dried up, as one who has tasted the blood of warriors, my heart feels heavy with sorrow.”

The situation was resolved so silently that not only were the inhabitants of the territory unaware, but they noticed no sign of anything amiss. Dracula contemplated infiltrating the castle quietly to deal a blow to Count Harker.

This was not Dracula’s first incursion into Harker Count Territory. It was merely the first time he had brazenly committed murder while entering. Usually, he preferred much more subtle approaches, but the blatant brutality of this day must certainly have been linked to his desire for revenge against Jeongjae, who was staging antics near his territory.

Hatred breeds further hatred. In the endless loop of this cycle, at some point, it ceases to matter who was first in the wrong or who harbored hatred first.

The battle between the Demon King’s Army and humanity had long since entered such a phase. Instead of falling into philosophical musings about what hatred or justice is, they must kill one more enemy. They must protect even one more life that belongs to them.

Rather than transforming into a bat to fly to his castle or floating like a ghost through the air, Dracula stepped directly on the ground, dragging his blood-soaked black robe behind him.

It was a careless act completely unbecoming of him, driven by the euphoric thrill of slaughter.

As he walked through the quiet streets of night, Dracula felt a strange sensation at his ankles. The searing brilliance of mana distinctly pricked at him. By the time he removed his hood, it was already too late.

Dracula realized a blue magic circle was unfolding beneath him. At its center was the cross symbol of the Harker Clan.

As he gritted his teeth, he recalled that, at one time, a prominent wizard had dwelled in this territory.

“Jenis… Harker!”

In a rush to escape before the magic circle fully activated, Dracula invoked his transformation and morphed into a massive bat. However, the defense magic circle, triggered upon sensing the powerful dark mana on the ground, would not let Dracula go easily.

Soon, numerous tendrils of mana reached out and grasped his wings. Trapped like a fly, Dracula concluded it would be better to revert to his original form and dispel the magic, so he released his transformative spell and started to sever the blue mana tendrils.

These magic circles had been drawn long before Jenis ascended to the rank of Great Sage. Therefore, Jeongjae had produced these with the kind of skill that could deliberately destroy them, back in those days.

Dracula landed lightly on the ground and shattered the magic with a simple punch.

Yet the vampire lord could not breathe easy, thinking he had gotten away with it. The detection ability of this magic circle was a defense system constructed by Jenis, who had once been a lonely student terrified of any ‘potential threat’ that might come to her father while living in the dorms.

In those days, Jenis had been just the same as any other child who sat alone at a desk, doodling in her notebook.

As a sort of imaginary journal, the ramblings in her notebook were about crafting a ‘perfect territorial defense plan.’

If a normal human girl had penned it, it would remain merely a fantasy page dedicated to crafting the quintessential fortress of her imagination.

But for Jenis, given sufficient time, she had the capability to actualize those fanciful notions, and she even had a brilliant professor in mana studies who would provide serious advice on her scribbles.

Most professors overlooked Jenis’s doodles for various reasons. Since no one dismissed them as ‘trivial scribbles,’ wizards understood well how something deemed ‘silly scrawl’ could lead to terrible consequences and thus shied away from dismissive remarks, fearing they might one day face humiliation over belittling something that turned out significant.

Most professors simply had no interest in her doodles because they deemed the ‘concepts far too ambiguous’ or that ‘it seemed they would need to invest considerable time in examining it closely, which they could not afford.’

Before embarking on the concept of ‘Manhattan,’ Jeongjae—a student with abnormally high understanding of mana who graduated with top marks while barely studying—had been a colossal calamity for Dracula that day.

Jenis took Jeongjae’s jest about a ‘great fortress’ quite seriously and incorporated every detail. The first aspect was that if one magic circle responded to an enemy’s action, it would trigger a signal to all other magic circles in the territory.

Blue beams of light began shooting up into the sky from the myriad outposts established along the borders of the territory. Dracula could not decipher the nature of those beams but sensed an overwhelmingly bad omen.

The mana beams, soaring toward the heavens, seemed to be seeking Dracula’s position, illuminating the castle’s sky with blue flames. Feeling that being detected by those lights would spell doom, he hurried to hide among the buildings, only to be captured by another of Jenis’s activated magic circles in the process.

“Damn it!”

Dracula muttered as he saw his hands stuck to the wall of a building. Though he exerted mighty strength, shattering the minor tendril magic circle, the critical issue was that the defensive systems linked to that circle had pinpointed Dracula’s location.

The first of many beams surged toward Dracula. The vampire lord leaped into the air with lightening speed to evade the beam.

This time, a beam shot in from the opposite side of the territory, targeting his back. Dracula again rolled to the side to dodge, but as he fell, he accidentally triggered another magic circle, resulting in all his limbs getting stuck once more.

The new magic circle wasn’t hard to break either. But for just a moment, it effectively constrained Dracula’s movements, making him an easy target for the defensive beams.

This time, unable to evade, Dracula was hit squarely by a beam and let out a pained groan as he transformed into a bat, flailing his wings in the air.

The force of the beam was surprisingly potent for something a college student had constructed. Its flaw of being a one-time use weapon did not matter; it powerfully proved that if a jobless young man became immersed in something, it could prove frighteningly effective. Though not fatal, it was certainly painful and left him feeling quite unwell.

Hovering in the air, Dracula dodged a couple more beams flying toward him, then jumped onto the roof of a nearby building to cast a surveillance spell downward.

Having confirmed the state of the territory through the surveillance magic, Dracula shook his head in utter disgust.

Dozens, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of binding magic circles were intricately laid throughout the territory without gaps. Some had already begun to activate, and several were positioned within the attack range of Dracula’s location.

Dracula narrowly dodged a magic tendril soaring toward him and leaped onto the roof of another building.

Naturally, the commotion was steadily escalating. The soldiers of Count Harker’s army donned their battle gear and assembled as a battalion at the castle front per their emergency response manual. The territory’s nobility, hearing the riot, remained indoors, strictly ordered not to exit their homes unless given specific commands.

A few curious nobles took peeks out from their windows, but that was the extent of it. Dracula had no intention of invading the homes of civilians. Jenis had enshrined powerful defensive magic circles, making any direct intrusion impractical.

“Whoever crafted these defensive spells…”

Dracula sighed deeply, reflecting on the situation he had never encountered while previously stealthily infiltrating the territory.

“They must have been a rather idle individual.”

If a genius from a prestigious family, capable of exemplary grades while barely studying, existed, they would certainly have been someone who was idly productive.

 

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