Chapter 1: A Crucial Turning Point

“Stand up.”

Inside the training grounds, Lovelenica held her gunblade, its gleaming, cold blade pointed at the girl slumped on the ground.

The girl’s flawless face bore a fresh crimson gash from Lovelenica’s recent attack. Even a few strands of her golden hair, which framed her ears, had been shorn away. Yet, despite such brutality, not a single person among the onlookers in the training grounds dared to speak up for the girl or step forward to halt the session.

No, this couldn’t even be called training; it was nothing short of abuse.

Whether it was the training ground’s administrators, the accompanying nuns and servants, or the nobles who had come to watch purely for amusement, they had long grown accustomed to the scene before them. Lovelenica’s training of Lucia had always been this way.

Indeed, Lovelenica typically treated everyone else within the church with a similar callousness.

As a nun, Lovelenica was not wearing her veil at that moment; her silver-white hair cascaded like a waterfall. Her black and white nun’s habit clung to her form, accentuating her long, graceful curves. Her slender, pale legs were tightly encased in sheer black stockings, revealing a hint of flesh, and a faint ligature mark was visible at the base of her thigh.

Lovelenica’s crimson eyes were filled with disdain, her gaze fixed on Lucia as if she were mere refuse. Lucia’s pale golden eyes flickered, and then she struggled, forcing her weak and aching body to rise with immense difficulty.

Each time Lovelenica looked at Lucia with such contempt, it wounded Lucia deeply.

Hence, Lucia felt compelled to fight desperately, to prove her worth at all costs.

“…Maggot.”

However, when Lucia truly stood up again, just as Lovelenica had commanded, the chill in Lovelenica’s eyes deepened further. She even muttered a low curse under her breath.

She aimed her gunblade at Lucia, and this time, Lovelenica would not have minded if she broke Lucia’s leg.

“Stop it!”

Just then, a lavishly dressed, purple-haired girl arrived, her crystal shoes clicking urgently as she rushed to intervene.

Her name was Imeline, a royal noble of the Kingdom of Arcadia.

“Lovelenica!”

Approaching, Imeline gazed at the heavily scarred Lucia, then glared furiously at Lovelenica.

“Why are you treating Lucia like this? Can’t you see she’s already reached her limit?”

“Limit? If this level truly represents her limit, then it merely proves she is nothing but a failure!”

“You!”

Hearing Lovelenica’s utterly merciless words, Imeline was engulfed by immense fury. She yearned to immediately whisk Lucia away from Lovelenica’s side. However, Lovelenica was Lucia’s teacher, and even as a royal noble, Imeline could not arbitrarily interfere with church affairs. Moreover… there was one crucial, overriding factor…

“Lady Imeline, I appreciate your kindness, but my teacher is right. If I cannot endure even this much, then I am unworthy of being her student, and certainly unworthy of becoming the Church’s Saintess.”

Lucia, having just risen, was astonishingly speaking in Lovelenica’s defense. Despite being battered and bruised all over, she still believed Lovelenica’s training was meant to temper her. With great effort, she gripped the two gunblades in her hands, assuming a stance ready to face the next assault.

Yes, this was precisely the most exasperating point for Imeline: even after enduring such treatment, Lucia remained fiercely loyal to Lovelenica. Consequently, Imeline, despite her immense power, could never take Lucia away.

“Why… why must you always injure Lucia every single time?”

Imeline pressed Lovelenica with an aggrieved tone. If it were merely a matter of exhausting Lucia’s stamina, Imeline could still comprehend it. Yet, each time, Lovelenica seemed to deliberately inflict wounds upon Lucia, as if she were actively tormenting her.

“Heh heh, do you imagine one emerges from battle with a fantasy race unscathed? Besides, Lucia is the Saintess known as Angel’s Dust; these minor injuries will heal swiftly.”

Lovelenica was not mistaken; after Lucia stood, the wounds on her body quickly began to mend.

Hearing Lovelenica’s words, Lucia was ultimately left speechless. She silently clutched the hem of her clothes, her gaze fixed on Lovelenica with palpable hatred.

Lovelenica seemed utterly unconcerned by Lucia’s stare. No, rather, that very gaze only intensified Lovelenica’s enjoyment of tormenting Lucia.

“Clang!”

The next instant, the silver gunblade in Lucia’s hand was once again knocked away. Lovelenica’s own gunblade, however, thrust directly towards Lucia’s face, aiming for her bright eyes.

“Lucia!”

Imeline shrieked Lucia’s name in utter panic. She had never imagined Lovelenica would go to such extremes.

Yet, just as the sword tip was poised to pierce Lucia’s eyeball, Lovelenica’s movement abruptly ceased, freezing her in place as if a pause button had been pressed.

Lucia was clearly startled, her own reaction delayed, for she had never conceived that her teacher would attempt to blind her. She stared at the sword tip before her, forgetting to blink, her very breath seeming to halt.

After a brief moment, Lucia finally realized that the cold, gleaming blade before her was actually trembling. Upon closer inspection, it was Lovelenica herself who was shaking.

“Lovelenica! Stop this at once! Lucia! You too, why aren’t you moving? It’s incredibly dangerous!”

From the edge of the training ground, Imeline urged Lovelenica to cease, but Lovelenica seemed not to hear, continuing her subtle tremble.

“Lu-Lucia, take two steps back.”

‘Oh, that was close! I almost blinded Lucia! Transmigration is one thing, but why did I have to transmigrate to *this* point in the plot? If I hadn’t pulled back my strength in time… No, my hands are shaking too much.’

‘Lucia! Hurry and take two steps back! I can’t move!’

Indeed, just moments ago, she had transmigrated into a novel, becoming a villain.

Lovelenica Scarlet, outwardly a nun within the Church, was in truth the younger sister of the current Blood Queen.

Liliana, the present Blood Queen, differed from her predecessors. She wielded the power to glimpse, and even to some extent manipulate, destiny. Using this formidable ability, she had established a human faction loyal to her within the human society of the Kingdom of Arcadia. They were known as the Crimson Family, one of Arcadia’s powerful noble houses, their influence comparable to Imeline’s mage family.

The Crimson Family, however, was bound by a Bloodline Curse from Liliana. Its members revered Liliana as their mistress, and even newborn infants bore this as an ideological imprint, destined to serve Liliana for life.

Naturally, the Crimson Family served only Liliana; they harbored a profound disdain for all other vampires.

As for why Lovelenica, Liliana’s sister, found herself in this place, that was a long story indeed.

Lovelenica possessed power on par with Liliana’s, and thus was feared by her. Not long after Lovelenica’s birth, Liliana had imprisoned her.

Initially, Liliana had sought to kill Lovelenica, but discovered that Lovelenica was virtually immortal; no matter how many times she was slain, she would invariably revive. Consequently, Liliana was forced to strip Lovelenica of her power, scattering it across the world, and then keep her under strict surveillance.

Even so, Liliana remained uneasy, constantly searching for a method to utterly destroy Lovelenica.

Finally, through her unique abilities, she sensed the advent of Angel’s Dust.

She dispatched Lovelenica to the Kingdom of Arcadia, leveraging the influence of the Crimson Family and her own powers to allow a powerless Lovelenica to enter the Church as a human. After several years of maneuvering, Lovelenica took in Lucia, the orphaned Angel’s Dust, into the Church and became her teacher, guiding her.

Liliana had told Lovelenica that once Lucia was fully trained, she was to be manipulated into crushing the nations of other fantasy races. After that, Lucia would be killed, enabling their vampire race to unify the continent. At that point, Liliana would pass on the title of Blood Queen to Lovelenica.

The original Lovelenica had believed this implicitly. However, the transmigrated Lovelenica, having read the original work, knew that Liliana’s narrative was nothing but a deception. Liliana merely wished to eliminate Lovelenica, for Lucia possessed the very ability to utterly destroy her.

Liliana’s primary objective was to kill with a borrowed knife: to have Lucia crush the other fantasy races. Her secondary objective was the elimination of Lovelenica.

She intended for Lovelenica and Lucia to fight until both were gravely wounded. If Lucia won, she would kill Lucia. If Lovelenica won, she would simply continue to imprison her.

In the original plot, however, Liliana’s desires were not fulfilled. Because Lovelenica had always blamed Lucia for her own displacement, she had trained Lucia in a nearly abusive manner. In her daily life, she had been arrogant and overbearing, neglecting Lucia entirely, even specifically assigning her dangerous missions that caused considerable trouble for the Crimson Family. Consequently, Lucia’s feelings for Lovelenica later became nothing but pure hatred.

Lovelenica’s behavior had aroused suspicion in the Church, Imeline, and Lucia. In the mid-to-late stages of the book, they conducted a long-term covert investigation into Lovelenica and the Crimson Family, ultimately uncovering the family’s secrets and Lovelenica’s true identity. Thus, before the final battle arrived, Lovelenica was eliminated by the protagonist group. Without Lovelenica’s assistance, Liliana alone could not contend with Lucia, eventually dying beneath Lucia’s gunblade as well.

The exact moment Lovelenica had transmigrated to was a crucial turning point in the novel’s plot.