Chapter 30: The Poisonous Woman’s Love

Just when Rhein and the immobilized Li Ruoyi thought there was no hope, a dim yellow aurora bloomed above their heads.

The sword in Zigris’s hands was a dusk that made all life tremble; he forcefully stopped the monster’s fangs that had already touched Li Ruoyi’s neck.

With a human body, Zigris achieved the speed of a missile; he himself was the blade, slicing through the domain of deadly poison.

With a roar like a dragon’s, a pair of wings swept back behind him, and he erupted with unimaginable speed.

The air shook, and a cyan sonic cone appeared behind him.

Zigris’s greatsword successfully severed the heart where the Heart of the Human King was located.

Even a Human King would undoubtedly die at this moment.

The immense force transmitted to the ground below, tearing the entire domain of poison apart.

Tranquil flames ignited, boxing Zigris and the monster girl together.

“Why! Why! Why does my poison not work on you!”

The monster shrieked.

She clearly had not expected this sword-wielding man to be able to break through her curtain of poison and wound her with that heavy iron weapon.

There was feedback; Zigris could feel it.

But facing the monster, who roared without even turning her head, he did not dare to relax.

Immense power once again flowed from the edge of his longsword into the monster’s wound.

What emerged from the cut was not blood, but something like a dark shadow.

The girl transformed into a black shadow, and in the distance, a swarm of bats gathered, beginning to reform into a human shape.

“Again, again, again, give him back to me, ahhhhhh!”

Like a starving demon, the monster girl scrambled and crawled once more toward the collapsed Li Ruoyi.

Zigris’s longsword met the monster’s sharp claws, and the sound of clashing metal rang out continuously.

Balmung, capable of cleaving Fafnir’s body, indestructible—yet it could not sever the monster girl’s long, sharp nails.

The elegant noble’s black attire was torn to shreds by the girl—something that was not flesh and blood, but a black shadow with mass, leaked out from within.

The vampire girl sent Zigris flying with her innate, extraordinary strength.

Just like that, Zigris was sent flying into the distance, crashing through a marble pillar.

Though the damage was minor, Zigris could not hide his surprise at facing a vampire who could overwhelm him with brute force alone.

The monster lunged at Li Ruoyi once more, but Zigris was faster.

He transformed into a cyan bolt of lightning and once again intercepted the monster’s claws and fangs.

The magic core in his chest rebooted and throbbed with his every breath, and this time, the violent power directly destroyed the monster’s hands.

In the distance, Li Ruoyi’s body, lying on the ground, jolted, his hand gripping Gungnir tightly.

The blessing of this Aika artifact spread throughout his body.

His body began to self-purify; blood containing the deadly poison was expelled from his mouth, and the brilliance of the Eyes of Life and Death shone once more in his sockets.

With Rhein’s support, he stood up, trembling.

The paralysis covering his entire body began to slowly fade.

Clearly, after the domain of poison was destroyed, the monster girl could not concoct a new poison so quickly.

This time, he had really been played!

“Lord Ruoyi, please leave this to me.”

Lowering his stance, Zigris vigilantly stared at the monstrous girl brandishing her claws.

“This time, I will not be a burden to you.”

A dim yellow light illuminated the entire street, clashing with the regrown crimson.

The foot Zigris used to gather power shattered the tiles beneath him.

A powerful storm of magic power swept up the surrounding trees.

Rhein could not see the process of their exchange; she could only feel the aura and power erupting from their battle.

“Are you alright?”

Li Ruoyi’s body had basically recovered.

With the help of Rhein, Galena, and the Aika artifact, the toxins in his body were either neutralized by the power or expelled.

“I am fine. Please, you must leave her to me.”

Zigris had his own thoughts; half of it was to repay Li Ruoyi’s kindness and not be a burden to this king, but the other half was that he could not let go of this monster girl.

From her amethyst-like eyes, Zigris already knew who she was.

It was no longer about winning or losing; his roaring Heart of the Human King was telling him so.

At the same time, the thought of “I might die” also arose in his mind.

Yet, he had no intention of backing down, nor had he thought of abandoning this pitiful girl.

A duty and an oath that far outweighed instinct were supporting his body.

—Even if I die, I must save her!

Even if she had forgotten all their promises and was sinking into her own darkness with a self-abandoning attitude.

Zigris simply faced the facts before him.

The swordsman showed a bright smile.

Even so, Zigris, who had engraved his oath and the girl’s smile from before he left for Nibelungen in his heart, still raised his arms.

In his hand was Balmung, the legendary demonic and holy sword that had once achieved the great deed of slaying a dragon, a testament to the hope and courage of a generation.

There was no fear, only heartache for the girl’s current crazed state.

The desire to save the girl was enough to overshadow everything else.

‘I just want to hear the name she remembers, to see her smile before me once more. Such a person, as beautiful as the night, should not be like this!’

The monster, which had been dispersed into mist, once again dodged the dim yellow aurora.

The bats transformed back into the girl’s form.

Though her entire body was torn open, the limbs, which regenerated first, had not lost their mobility; on the contrary, it allowed the vampire monster to recover and accelerate.

It was less like she was running and more like some soft ball repeatedly bouncing off the ground and leaping forward.

Blood seeped from the corners of her eyes, and her vision was completely blurred.

Relying on instinct, she relentlessly pursued Li Ruoyi, who was heading through the Brandenburg Gate toward the Holy City.

“Look at me, properly!”

A heavy punch from Zigris sent the girl sprawling to the ground.

Due to the influence of Li Ruoyi’s great scythe, her torn tendons recovered extremely slowly.

The pain kept her on the ground, unable to get up for a moment.

“Wh-Why!”

“Stop it. This is not you.”

Zigris stood before her, breathing heavily, his heart pounding like a roaring engine.

He felt everything around him starting to heat up; the domain of deadly poison spread once more, and the acrid, eye-stinging poisonous gas dyed the ground a dark green.

Dark shadows moved behind the decaying trees in the surroundings.

From the direction they had come from, a large cloud of dust rose as if from an earthquake, and a large number of winged vampire monsters swarmed in, brandishing their claws as if to rescue the girl and tear Zigris to pieces.

Zigris sighed faintly, ignoring the girl’s hand grabbing his ankle.

“Kingship—Dusk of Ruin.”

Zigris raised his longsword high, and the power entwined around the blade transformed into a violent green tornado.

The brilliance of this holy sword silenced the surroundings.

A dusk-colored magical light manifested here; the atmosphere wailed, and space continuously vibrated.

It was an overwhelmingly powerful magical flash that was almost nauseating.

The ground was burned to scorched earth, and the dark shadows swarming in from the distance became a thing of the past.

The greatsword cleaved through the blood-red clouds covering the sky, scattering a beautiful dusk-colored aurora.

Zigris collapsed in relief.

After all, it was the poison of a Human King—the poison of origin.

But from the pigeon that had delivered the medicine to him before his departure and this poison that surpassed Fafnir’s, he could already deduce the girl’s name.

“Aaaah! Aaah.”

The girl grabbed Zigris’s abdomen and climbed onto him.

Their skin was even pressed tightly together, and a poison ten times stronger than what had entered his ankle was now destroying Zigris’s body.

He grabbed the horn on the girl’s forehead and her sharp fangs.

The girl seemed to have no sense of pain; the fangs shattered under their combined force.

Zigris roared, and his sturdy gauntlets, with even greater force, shattered the horrifying horn.

The girl clasped her hands together and delivered a heavy blow to Zigris’s face.

Had Zigris not quickly turned his head, this strike would have been enough to shatter his skull.

But now, he had no way to retreat; all his escape routes were blocked by the girl.

Her feet were tightly wrapped around his waist, and Zigris was pinned beneath her, completely unable to move.

Her fangs bit down on Zigris’s neck.

Completely lost in madness, she no longer knew elegance or precision.

“I have returned from Nibelungen. You promised to tell me your name.”

The fangs, which had already shallowly pierced Zigris’s skin, stopped.

The monster girl ceased her biting motion.

Her body, pressing down on Zigris, began to tremble uncontrollably, and her completely red eyes began to flicker on and off.

Those words held the power to make her let down her guard.

Both the force pressing down on him and the deadly poison invading his body became less intense at this moment.

“Real name, Semiramis, descendant of a legendary queen in Assyrian history,” Zigris said, word by word.

“You are by no means such an ugly monster.”

“Aaaaaah!!!!”

Semiramis clutched her head and screamed, tearing at her beautiful black hair.

Zigris’s words were like a sharp knife piercing her heart.

“Wake up!”

Zigris released the power gathered in his entire body and broke free from the girl’s restraint, then flipped her over and pinned her beneath him.

The swordsman touched the girl’s wounds.

Though the exterior had regenerated and didn’t look too bad, that was all there was to it.

Even Zigris could understand the fact that the inside had been destroyed by Li Ruoyi’s long scythe and had collapsed.

“I… I!”

The girl’s right eye returned to its beautiful purple-black color, and tears wet her delicate face.

“Kill… kill me!”

She spoke intermittently, stretching out her withered right hand to stroke Zigris’s face, which was a mixture of blood and sweat.

She looked at the resolute face, twisted in pain from the poison yet still smiling brightly.

“How… gentle.”

The nobility of dedicating everything to a complete stranger.

Ignoring the dullness caused by all the depravity.

That should be a kind of peaceful love, a universal love that encompasses all things she had seen.

“Both just now and now, you had at least three chances to kill me.”

The girl’s chest heaved.

Though she had regained her sanity now, the intense pain and the torture from deep within her bloodline were destroying her spirit.

She didn’t know how much longer this rationality would last.

She begged, even pleaded, with the man before her to kill her.

That way, she could be free of this bloodthirsty corpse, free of this month of nightmarish, bloody life.

“Aah! Aaaah!”

Semiramis screamed, the pupil of her left eye flashing red once more.

That bloodthirsty desire, the lust that turned her from a person into a beast, entered her mind once again.

With a pop, her chest was easily pierced.

Semiramis’s body almost disintegrated; blood splattered, splashing onto Zigris’s face.

In the moment she lost consciousness, she had actually torn out the amplification core from beneath the skin of her left chest.

“Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop it…! I am a Human King, a descendant of the Empress of Assyria!” the girl cried, tears streaming.

“Don’t enter my mind, aaaaaah! I no longer…”

‘Lord Ruoyi, please sever the death power of the scythe!’ Zigris hurriedly connected with Li Ruoyi’s mind.

The girl could feel the vampire nature being slowly removed from her body, and her monstrous regenerative ability vanished with it.

Even though the death blessing from Li Ruoyi’s scythe had been remotely shut off, her battered body was already beyond saving and gradually lost its strength.

“Though I can’t offer much help right now, I will definitely not let you die so tragically!”

After ending his thought transmission with Li Ruoyi, Zigris pressed his lips against hers without another word.

The contact was only for a moment, and a warm power spread from her mouth throughout her entire body.

‘Perhaps dying so gently isn’t so bad.’

She regretted dying here, regretted that she couldn’t have a proper conversation with him while he watched her die.

But dying with regrets was the fate of humans.

At least she, a Human King, was not setting off with regrets, but with hope.

She had experienced an unprecedented feeling, and the gentleness from another.

Perhaps they could defeat that devil.

Even if this was as far as she could go, perhaps it was worth it.

“Perhaps all a venomous woman wants sometimes is just a bowl of clear water.”