Chapter 29: Bloodshed in Berlin

“Ugh!”

Groaning softly, Zigris rubbed his still-heavy eyelids.

He felt as though he had been in a very long dream.

But as if suddenly realizing something, he shot up from his bed.

“Where’s Fafnir!” he shouted.

The sudden, rough roar startled the entire convoy.

The steeds pulling the hay wagons were frightened by his shout, and their hooves kicked a large number of stones into the Rhine, causing a splash.

“Relax, brother!”

Hank quickly came over to steady Zigris.

Another female magician wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

“Fafnir has been defeated!”

‘Defeated?’

All Zigris could remember was being enveloped by that murky mist, then being carried out by Sigurd.

A strong sense of shame and self-blame, befitting a knight, surged within him.

Once again, he had become a burden to the team, not a trustworthy sword.

He had brought shame to his ancestors!

The convoy came to a halt; it was time to eat and make camp.

In the blink of an eye, this year’s winter had also passed.

Like all winters, the winter of this era also had an end.

Spring once again brought life back to this paradise of the Germanic people.

Undeniably, the reflection of the evening sunset on this legendary river was a breathtakingly beautiful sight.

Even the gloomy and depressed Zigris was somewhat intoxicated by this beauty, escaping his powerlessness in it.

He gazed with such fascination that he didn’t even touch the steaming milk in his hands.

“The milk won’t be good if it gets cold.”

Li Ruoyi pressed an equally warm bottle of milk against Zigris’s dazed face.

The warmth spread from his cheek throughout his entire body, causing him to flinch reflexively.

“Your Excellency.”

Zigris didn’t even dare to look Li Ruoyi in the eyes.

“Until I am no longer a burden, I might not be able to drink.”

“What are you talking about!”

Li Ruoyi lightly tapped the head of the man who was a bit taller than him.

“Look at your core.”

Following Li Ruoyi’s instruction, the man revealed the Heart of the Human King in the center of his chest.

The crack-like crest was almost twice as large as before.

As Zigris tensed his muscles, the patterns connecting his entire body appeared.

Li Ruoyi summoned Gungnir and lightly tapped Zigris’s chest.

The patterns emitted a dazzling green light, and Zigris felt as if he were about to explode.

Every part of his body began to wail.

The Heart of the Human King in the center of his body roared as a power twice—no, ten times—stronger than before flowed through his body, translating and replacing the cells within him, making him grimace in pain.

“Feel this power, Zig,” Li Ruoyi said, gently patting his head.

“Slowly digest it on the way back to Berlin.”

****

Three days later, Rhein’s convoy returned to its starting point, Berlin Acropolis.

Evette Rhein Nicolae stood on Unter den Linden, the capital’s famous street and one of Europe’s renowned boulevards.

It had once been Rhein’s favorite place to enjoy tea and read.

The linden and walnut trees lining both sides of the street had been replanted under her own supervision.

This glorious metropolis of Western Europe was now shrouded in a blood-red cloud that covered the sky, turning the world the color of gore.

Now, only nightmares filled this place.

The stench of blood hanging in the air was almost unbearable.

Galena quickly covered Rhein’s nose and mouth with a handkerchief.

The handkerchief, sprinkled with floral essential oil, finally blocked the terrible smell.

A preliminary estimate suggested the fire had been burning for more than three days; it should have gradually extinguished due to a lack of fuel, but its momentum had not diminished, and it continued to burn fiercely.

It was obvious someone was behind this.

The toxic smoke rising from the decaying matter and human corpses, along with the acrid smoke from the fire, irritated their eyes and throats.

There were bodies everywhere, the vast majority being unarmed ordinary people, but there were also magicians from the city defense team.

Tears welled up in Rhein’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

She moved in a daze, carefully stepping over the swollen corpses.

When Rhein saw that they hadn’t even spared the children, a faint yet pain-filled whimper finally escaped her throat.

Li Ruoyi stepped forward and gently turned over the body of a young woman.

As he had expected, marks like razor bites appeared on her neck.

He stood up, his teeth clenched.

Black flames like glazed glass ignited in his eyes.

The King in Black was enraged.

He finally understood why Dracula had so readily agreed to let them go slay the evil dragon and had even allocated a large number of forces to them.

It was to get Zigris and him out of the way!

He had fallen for that old fox’s trick of luring the tiger out of the mountains!

On the abutments of the Marx-Engels Bridge at the eastern end of the street stood eight marble statues.

These statues were masterpieces from the mid-19th century, depicting various goddesses from ancient Greek mythology, their bodies graceful and lifelike.

Three giant winged creatures perched on them, holding torn human corpses in their hands.

They were feeding.

“Haha! There are still living people!”

“Hahaha! Eat them, eat them!”

The monsters sneered and flew down.

They were so fast that the accompanying magicians didn’t even have time to react; their forms were almost just a blur.

In his haste, Demos could only block with his flintlock, parrying the monster’s sharp fangs.

The monster’s immense strength made his arms creak.

Fortunately, the flintlock had been reforged in Nibelungen; no matter how the monster bit, it was futile.

With the help of magic that strengthened his arms, he held on with difficulty.

Hank revealed the crest on his back and entered a combat stance.

A large amount of magic power surged into his body, and his figure almost doubled in size.

He uprooted a slightly smaller tree and sent the charging monster flying with a fierce swing of its sturdy trunk.

“Your Highness Rhein, Your Highness Li Ruoyi, hurry to the Holy City!”

Hank and Demos said in unison, clearly confident they could defeat these monsters.

“Then please be careful.”

Rhein’s fireball engulfed the monster that was charging at Demos again.

The crackling sound of burning skin filled the air, and the monster, screaming in agony, was burned to a pile of ash.

Galena flashed past behind them, her golden dagger slitting the throats of two dark figures as she picked up Rhein from behind and, with a single leap, chased after Li Ruoyi, who had left earlier.

The Brandenburg Gate, the building that had once astonished Li Ruoyi, now caused him intense discomfort.

The six stone pillars were nailed with corpses, each with a single, precise bite mark on its neck.

Most of the bodies, soaked in poisonous water, were completely unrecognizable in shape and face.

Severed limbs, melted by the poisonous water, were scattered everywhere.

Not even the gates of Hades had such cruel decorations!

At the top of the Victory Goddess statue stood a girl, holding a convulsing young magician in her hand.

A pair of sharp fangs tore at the crest on the magician’s right cheek, and blood splattered from his neck, dyeing the marble a deep crimson.

Seeing the hell before him, Li Ruoyi’s body trembled, whether from anger or disgust, he couldn’t tell.

“Bastard!” he roared.

All his magic power gathered at his feet, and like a divine arrow streaking across the sky, Li Ruoyi, scythe in hand, was already in front of the girl.

Perhaps this could no longer be called a girl.

Numerous veins bulged from her neck and skin.

A giant horn, nearly half a meter long, grew from the left side of her forehead.

Her beautiful black hair was messily curved, and a pair of horrifying fangs grew in her mouth, the corners of which were stretched to a degree impossible for a human.

These things alone might not have been enough to stop Li Ruoyi’s descending scythe, but as the sharp wind from the scythe cut through the girl’s flesh, he saw the swirling magic core on her right chest.

That was!

The Heart of the Human King?

Surprise replaced anger, and the strength in his hand weakened.

The humanoid monster finally managed to stop the giant scythe’s blade from cutting further into its body with its hand.

A fully vampirized Human King?

When his eyes fell on the girl’s right chest, a cold sweat broke out all over his body.

That was the Biological Amplification Core he had destroyed in Nibelungen.

The pitch-black metallic sphere was glowing beneath the girl’s pale skin.

An unparalleled monstrous strength lifted both Li Ruoyi and the scythe into the air.

With a piercing shriek, the girl, trailing two red streaks of light, delivered a heavy punch to Li Ruoyi’s chest.

A sound that broke the sound barrier echoed.

Li Ruoyi was smashed heavily to the ground, the powerful force leaving a deep crater.

The King in Black lay in the crater, two streams of blood flowing from the corners of his mouth.

That preternatural strength had almost shattered his heart.

He could clearly feel that some of his ribs were broken.

He took a deep breath, restarting his heart’s rhythm to heal his injuries.

Just by doing so, he could already breathe in the killing intent of the woman on the Victory Goddess statue.

It was a dark black killing intent, filled with a venomous aura.

What a distinct and complex scent.

Though it contained hatred and murderous intent, she had also held back against him, and it also carried a hint of mockery and sorrow.

It was a chaotic mixture of positive and negative emotions, an incomprehensibly complex heart.

That monster was also performing the same reboot, its body beginning to slowly recover.

“Ruoyi!”

Rhein, who had arrived, unleashed the full power of the crest on her back.

Two powerful flashes of magic shot out, the immense destructive force blowing up the entire statue.

Amidst the smoke, the monster fell before them.

Rhein slid down the slope of the crater, golden and green light shining in her hands.

Li Ruoyi could feel his internal organs, pierced by broken bones, beginning to slowly heal.

The monster’s twisted body stood up.

She smiled!

Seeing her tragically horrifying smile, Rhein suddenly felt a bone-chilling cold run down her spine.

At first, she thought she might have been hit by some kind of mental magic, but then she realized it wasn’t so; she was simply showing an expression called a smile.

The moment the monster raised its right hand, Li Ruoyi suddenly trembled.

That was a fatal mistake!

The current situation was far beyond the scope of winning or losing.

The concept of “death” itself was closing in—!!

“Run! Rhein!”

Before his words could finish, Li Ruoyi leaped up, ignoring the excruciating pain of his shattered bones.

He threw Rhein fiercely into the distance; the acceleration from the powerful force almost made her pass out in mid-air.

“Damn… it…”

Li Ruoyi could clearly feel everything around him starting to heat up.

Gas rose from the surroundings, yet in this sweltering environment, he felt no heat.

His body temperature was slowly dropping.

Even his vital signs were beginning to fade.

“The poison of origin is a poison that works on everything.”

The monster’s voice was either a sneer or a lament, but it was incredibly cold.

Li Ruoyi felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.

“Your killing intent is like a gentle breeze.”

The monster spoke, its words still cold.

But Li Ruoyi was already somewhat dazed; not only his sight but also his hearing were beginning to fail.

He collapsed to the ground, leaning on the handle of his long scythe.

Like a mouse being toyed with by a cat, or a frog about to be swallowed by a snake, the monster before him was undoubtedly the predator.

But Li Ruoyi was no mere mouse.

Even if he were, he was a mouse with fangs sharp enough to kill a tiger.

He scrambled up with all his might and thrust out the tip of Gungnir.

A powerful hurricane of lightning swirled, and the monster’s left hand was sent flying.

Viscous, purple-red liquid splattered—the monster’s blood.

The blood also splattered on Li Ruoyi’s face, and an excruciating pain shot through him once again.

His limbs were completely paralyzed.

Like a ferocious tiger with its limbs bound, he collapsed to the ground once more.

Due to the poisonous gas, Li Ruoyi’s face quickly began to twitch.

The pain he had barely managed to block out now rushed in like an avalanche.

“Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”

“Ugh, ughaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

All his senses except for sight were taken away.

The dull, feeling soon turned into a pain that felt like his internal organs were being burned.

He couldn’t even keep his eyelids fully open.

Li Ruoyi clutched his head and rolled on the ground in agony.

For a poisoner, the most toxic thing is likely their own blood.

Li Ruoyi had made another mistake, and this time, the mistake was enough to kill him.

The agony of being cut by a sharp blade, the breathless pain of being struck by an iron hammer, the burning of flames, the direct hit of magic, the piercing of an arrow, and the pain of being pierced alive by sharp claws in the final moments before death—he had experienced them all and had the willpower to endure them.

But this was different.

Pain was supposed to be something one could control, and one’s actions should never be swayed by it; this was a basic tenet for a warrior in a life-and-death struggle.

However, right here, right now, this understanding was overturned in Li Ruoyi’s mind.

“Guuuuu—aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

It was a pain Li Ruoyi had never felt before, a method that seemed to attack every cell from within his body.

Li Ruoyi screamed incessantly, rolling on the ground.

At this rate, he would likely suffocate and die in less than a minute.

If he hadn’t desperately thrown Rhein away, perhaps before he could even react, the delicate girl would have been instantly melted by the poisonous gas.

“Damn it, there’s nothing I can do…!!”

The intense pain continued, and “death” was approaching second by second.

For him, even organizing his thoughts was an arduous battle.

The opponent seemed to have configured the poison specifically for him.

Who was she?

Could she devise such a perfect tactic even in a state where her rationality had evaporated?

Looking at the monster slowly approaching him, Li Ruoyi even wanted to give up thinking, because right now, he was like a fish that had been knocked out, just waiting for the butcher’s knife of this chef.

The monster did not kill him immediately.

She knelt gently before Li Ruoyi and pulled the screaming King in Black into her embrace.

She stroked Li Ruoyi’s cheek with her hand, showing a kind attitude, like a parent comforting a child.

Li Ruoyi felt as if his brain were being filled with poisonous water.

Any thought of resistance vanished, and he finally gave up thinking.

The monster wiped Li Ruoyi’s pale neck and revealed a pair of horrifying fangs.

Clearly, this woman believed in the principle of completely exploiting her prey.

The blood of a Human King would likely be exceptionally sweet