Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

'boom--'

In an instant, everything in the hall was blown into discrete molecules. These molecules then coalesced and collided, transforming into countless explosive bombs, though their explosive power was immense. The chain of explosions started in the hall and spread to a cluster of buildings several kilometers away, while the vampire lords caught in the storm remained unharmed, as expected!

This is inevitable; wars between extraordinary beings have always been like this.

Since the battle wasn't decided in the very first second, it's not surprising that it could drag on for thousands of years. After all, both the fourth-tier gene lock and Alucard's unknown enhancement possess a formidable ability to sustain life to the point of exhaustion for those lacking patience. Without a countermeasure or a secret treasure, such a battle is destined to drag on for a considerable period of time without ever reaching its end!

Guns collided with guns, resulting in tens of thousands of guns being fired in a chain reaction.

Every shot was meant to kill, every bullet to annihilate. Both the spear used to hunt for life and the enchanted silver bullets contained immense power capable of collapsing mountains and drying up the martial world. Yet, neither the spear nor the bullet could achieve any effective result.

The young vampire's thrusts were always aimed, each shot piercing through one of Alucard's forms, causing the blood-and-blood shell to bleed from its seven orifices and its internal organs to burn in an instant, resulting in a gruesome death. Yet, not a single drop of blood would spurt out, and another Alucard with the same appearance would emerge from the shattered corpse, unharmed and undiminished, continuing to unleash his fury upon his adversary in his full glory.

The bullets fired by the vampire lord were annihilation bullets. Two hands, two guns, one black, one white, deadly bullets of different colors and attributes—the white gun was a demonic bullet, capable of instantly shattering any obstacle. The black gun was a holy bullet, capable of silently destroying any barrier. And whether black or white, or the chaotic color born from their combination, all invariably veered off course and missed their target before even striking—sometimes due to subtle spatial tremors, sometimes due to unexpected errors in attribute guidance, and sometimes even triggering a complete quantum tunneling effect at the moment of impact. They bypassed the infant's body, completely destroying the grand hall behind it!

The massive fortress was destroyed, ravaged, yet it repeatedly regenerated from destruction. Alice initially believed it to be Alucard's stronghold, but during the battle, she realized it was merely a stage—the fortress possessed no offensive capabilities, or rather, its owner had stripped it of all offensive power, focusing its strength on maintaining the castle's very existence. It conveyed only one will, and Alice was fully aware of it.

—'This battle needs no outside interference, just you and me, fighting until one of us falls.'

The puppeteer, transformed into a young vampire, sensed this emotion in the opponent's gunfire. As the battle continued, she gradually came to understand the reasons behind their thoughts.

This battle... was a meaningless battle. If you ask why...

Amidst the battle and the clash of bullets, the child's voice could be heard.

"The vampires are all dead, aren't they?" the young vampire murmured, his crimson spear slashing forward, severing hundreds of holy magic bullets that blocked all blind spots before returning to his chest. A surge of deep red magic then erupted, its crimson domain eroding everything within the fortress structure within a ten-mile radius.

Red Talisman - Crimson City That Never Sleeps

A cross-shaped radiance of corrosive energy emanated from her. After deflecting approximately 147,555 holy and magical bullets, she had mastered 1,300 variations of the power attribute ratios in both types of ammunition and incorporated them into the structure of 'Red Rune: Crimson Nightless City'. Immediately following, the next bullet fired at high speed disintegrated and destroyed within the radiance, becoming part of the light itself!

"No, there's one more."

Alucard's voice came through the glow, and the twin pistols in his hands vanished. In their place appeared colorless threads wrapped around the white gloves covering his hands. These threads then unfurled, transforming into blades that tore through the crimson glow with a different kind of magical energy!

The threads, sharp as swords, swiftly approached the gun-wielding girl. A puppeteer in a vest struggled to suppress the urge to unleash puppet threads from his sleeves and clash with her. With a flick of his crimson spear, a crimson tornado materialized out of thin air!

"Yes, I know there's another one. And this one is right here."

The blades formed from the threads were destroyed by the tornado, but the vampire lord wearing white gloves had already rushed to the girl's side. The intricate magic array engraved on the white gloves reflected a ghostly light. Dozens of pre-constructed powerful magical energy shields, each capable of easily withstanding a near-miss of a megaton-yield nuclear explosion, shattered simultaneously. As if a giant shackle had been torn apart, the immense kinetic energy, comparable to an asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, bombarded the ground and converged on that right hand wearing white gloves!

Evasion was impossible; the gravitational pull generated by the powerful kinetic energy impact had already locked down the surrounding spatial structure like a hunting net. The only option at this moment was to meet force with force!

Killing Talisman - Heart Shattering

A tiny point of spatial collapse was born from the tip of the spear, then rapidly expanded into a light-absorbing void the size of a ping-pong ball. The gravitational tide caused by that meteor punch was used by the young vampire to condense an expanding spacetime vortex before the punch even hit him!

Strong against strong, weak against weak.

However, this optimal response strategy was not adopted.

Just as the meteor fist touched the energy barrier on the girl's body, the nascent black hole spear, carrying the sealed curse poison, arrived first at the chest, the most densely packed part of the vampire lord's body. And in the eyes of both, there was a resolute gaze that would never retreat!

To use strength to overcome weakness, to use Mount Tai to crush pebbles.

The instant the fist and the gun reached their respective destinations, a destructive wave of light erupted!

'boom--!'

'Boom! Boom!'

'Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom—!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

The power of a chain reaction, a chain of impacts and explosions. In an instant, all the material structures within the entire fortress were reduced to a chaotic, viscous broth. For a full ten seconds, the entire fortress complex, covering tens of thousands of square kilometers, was reduced to only the outermost layer of bricks struggling to maintain its structural stability. Like a tsunami, a torrent of light launched nearly a thousand cataclysmic impacts on that final, thin layer of bricks within those ten seconds!

The bricks remained unbroken, but the tide gradually subsided.

Ten seconds passed, and the fortress, devastated by the collision, rebuilt its internal structure. The two sides had fallen to the southernmost and northernmost edges of the reconstructed fortress, respectively, and were now enveloped by its new structure.

“You didn’t use your full strength,” the young vampire murmured, rising again from her defeated state. Her chest, dented from the punch, visibly began to heal and rebuild itself. She reached out and summoned the crimson spear, which had disintegrated in the previous attack, from the void. A glance revealed a spacious and elegant private bedroom.

Alucard wasn't there, nor did he answer, but the young vampire knew he was undoubtedly unharmed, just like her—her attack was on the same level as his. Both she and he had only used the power simulating the initial limit of the fourth stage of unlocking the genetic lock. They hadn't been able to utilize the true, deadly Mimicry of the Mind's Light!

It's just power, simply unleashing power. And while this level of power is immense, it's essentially nothing more than a ton of tofu or cotton piled up together. A ton of tofu or cotton may have the same weight as a ton of steel, but if you let them collide in mid-air, the result is self-evident.

She didn't give it her all, and neither did it.

She didn't exert her full strength because she couldn't use it at her current level. The reasons why it couldn't use its full strength are debatable, but they probably fall into a few categories.

[I haven't fully integrated into the concept of Remilia Scarlet yet. So I'm not her, not the Remilia who existed in this world before her true form appeared. Although even in my current state, I'm probably stronger than the original Remilia. But not being her means not being her; with this deficiency, I can't unleash my full power.]

The girl shifted her gaze slightly, taking in the exquisitely renovated bedroom.

This is a lady's private room, evidenced by the delicate fragrance in the air and the various cosmetics on the dressing mirror. Flowers, both beautiful and understated, adorn the room, and throughout history, many servants have diligently cared for and decorated it here.

This is a spellcaster's library, evidenced by the heavy bookshelves on the walls and the numerous magical books filled with defensive spells. While most of them are likely for collection purposes, a few are enough to pique a girl's interest simply by showing their covers.

This is the resting place of a powerful being, evidenced by the thick remnants of magical energy lingering on the ground and the numerous decorations hanging on the walls. From the claws of dragons to the hearts of demons, from the gears of mechs to the ashes of elves, the master of this room slew many powerful beings and brought parts of them here as spoils of war.

—This powerful figure is dead.

The girl turned her gaze and saw a graceful blonde figure in the dressing mirror—it wasn't her, because vampires don't have reflections in mirrors. And since it wasn't her, it could only be the other side in the battle.

"Alucard," the young vampire, flapping his red and black wings and holding a deep red spear, whispered.

"To be precise, it's Evangeline Anastasia Catherine McVeigh. Once the most powerful vampire progenitor in the world, now she's just an ordinary vampire lord in this world." A girl dressed in a black sheer gown, her long golden hair cascading to her ankles, stepped out of the mirror and slightly lifted her skirt towards the young vampire. "Greetings, visitor from afar, a strange fellow countryman with an otherworldly aura. I'm sorry I can't properly entertain you in this place, but I suppose you won't mind such details?"

“Evangeline Anastasia…” The vampire girl murmured the name, a smile slowly appearing on her lips that was enigmatic and perhaps devoid of any emotion. “…The name is long, but it’s still Alucard.”

“Not entirely.” The blonde girl shook her head slightly in denial. “Devouring and fusion are two completely different concepts. Although the results may be similar, they are still different. A name is a very important credential; it can be used to distinguish between the real and the false self. For example, don’t you also value the name you have and try hard to use it to differentiate yourself from other things?”

"Theory and facts are not necessarily the same thing."

"I may not be referring to the name you are using now."

"..." The amount of computation Alice mobilized experienced a slight fluctuation at that instant.

Her interlocutor seemed oblivious to this... or rather, ignored it.

Time passed silently, a few seconds slipping by.

The young vampire, having readjusted herself and returned to being 'Remilia Scarlet', sighed softly.

"...I thought the ratio between vampires and winged races was at most 30/70. It seems my judgment was completely wrong?"

"No, there's no mistake. It's definitely a 30/70 split, with us at 70% and them at 30%." The once supreme being from another world, the True Ancestor, smiled and denied. "If it were just those little girls with wings, I'm confident I could fight them to a standstill for a while. But if you include the War Lord behind them, then it's a different story."

“So you lost.” The girl sighed softly. “I should have known. The royal city here is now just ruins, the air is thick with the scent of blood, and there are no corpses on the ground—only the Skywing race will emerge victorious, and they even have the leisure to clean up the battlefield, leaving with their spoils and the remains of their companions… That’s why there is still blood on the remains of the battlefield that hasn’t been completely drained by the remaining vampires.”

“Yes, that’s it.” Evangeline nodded approvingly. “That little girl named Azriel, the one-horned Skywing, was actually a vessel for the Lord of War to descend. Although only a wisp of divine power descended, it still brought almost complete destruction to our vampire race. Apart from some offshoots that live in more remote areas, there should be no more vampires left on this land.”

"However, He did not come without paying a price. The flames on the deep space battlefield have not yet ceased. Although I do not know who the Lord of War's adversary is, I do know that in the moment when the Lord of War was distracted by the wisp of divine power He unleashed, a powerful being of equal caliber tore off one of His wings."

She blinked, her tone slightly mischievous. "The strongest doesn't equal invincible, and arrogance leads to certain death... You think so too, which is why you're here, isn't it?"

"...So what if it is? Alucard among you has already activated the essence of the vampire race, so my presence here doesn't really make much sense anymore."

“No, it’s meaningful.” Evangeline denied again. “At least the way you use your name, the technique of self-separation and purification, is meaningful to you. At least the information about the Lord of War, the traces left by that divine power, is meaningful to you. At least your arrival, this battle, is meaningful to us.”

“Meaning and need are reciprocal. Alucard isn’t very good at communicating with people in a normal way. So I took on this responsibility. And since this battle is meaningful to both you and us, I think our next confrontation shouldn’t be like child’s play. We should go all out and use our real skills.”

The young vampire remained silent, but a second later, she raised her red spear in response.

So, let's begin the second round, giving it our all.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Night Symbol - Cradle of the Demon King

Spare no effort.

What does it mean to spare no effort?

Ah, isn't that obvious? To go all out means igniting every cell, every soul, every will from the very beginning, mobilizing every last ounce of energy within oneself. Then, unleash a devastating attack on the enemy that appears before you!

In a single instant, all the doors and windows of the fortress's outer walls burst open, and a massive influx of dark matter transformed into the waters of the Styx. The gloomy Styx instantly crushed the space where the two conversing figures were standing on either side into dust. Countless monstrous beasts, unimaginable even in nightmares, then emerged from the Styx!

Theoretically speaking, I shouldn't exert myself so fiercely on this battlefield. While the opponent's advantages are certainly tempting, I'm not the kind of woman who would be swayed by such temptations. I will seek the knowledge I desire in my own way; whether or not I have reference samples to draw upon is merely a minor difference in the amount of time spent on it.

But is time...is time really that important to me?

Fist, elbow, leg, foot.

Just as Styx's position was taking shape, Evangeline, who was retreating with the first wave of the tide, rushed straight towards the young vampire's chest like a meteor! The crimson spear then flicked out, followed by a series of rapid and repeated strikes!

There are no fixed techniques. For extraordinary beings, designing any inherent techniques or skills is meaningless before they can gather the light of their souls. So-called fighting skills, exquisite combat techniques, and inherited mysteries become meaningless once the user's body transcends the realm of human form. The only thing one can do is to react to each move as it comes!

Are joint locks effective against slimes? No.

Can a grappling technique hold a ball of plasma? Perhaps.

But when the enemy's plasma is projected onto your face, why use such an inefficient grappling technique instead of directly approaching the front despite the painless damage to a superhuman being and delivering a heavy punch to the densest area of ​​the opponent's mass?

The answer is obvious, at least to the two vampires fighting here. In that very brief exchange, Evangeline, fighting bare-handed, had already exchanged thousands of blows with Alice, who had transformed into Remilia!

Is the spear sharp? Ah, yes, the crimson spear transformed from the Staff of Control might indeed be very sharp. But it wasn't forged to be used as a weapon against enemies; its primary function was as a ritual token, a medium for casting spells. Through it, Alice could unleash numerous powerful spells related to the Church's attributes without needing to prepare casting materials or pre-ritual rituals. But that was something only possible in the hands of 'Alice'. In the hands of 'Remilia', it was simply a sharp spear capable of bearing immense energy!

Alice will not shed her identity as Remilia here. She might have before, but not now. And Alice isn't the only one who knows this. Even Evangeline, who sees through many things but pretends not to, is fully aware of this fact!

The Staff of Domination is not Gungnir; it is disguised as Gungnir. When it is Gungnir, it cannot exert its original power. Even when it transforms into Gungnir's spear, it cannot unleash the power of the artifact.

Alice knew this, and so did Evangeline. Having obtained such crucial information, the spear was simply a long spear possessing the attributes of sharpness and sturdiness. While the flesh and blood body certainly had its limitations, and even after becoming transcendent, it was difficult to contend with a refined artifact specifically designed for warfare between transcendents, before the artifact was truly divine, even a bold and brutal direct confrontation was harmless!

Thus, in those thousands of exchanges, Alice struck Evangeline one hundred and thirty-three times. Each strike destroyed at least half of her organs, shattered a third of her bones, or eliminated a fifth of her mass, perhaps injecting a curse capable of destroying a nation in an instant. Yet, no matter how precise and effective her attacks were, her opponent was already fully recovered before the next blow could land!

The consequence of offense being weaker than defense is this, especially when defense or regeneration has reached its critical point and there is no further room for improvement. In such cases, no matter how hard one tries, the attack will be futile. This theory applies not only to Evangeline but also to Alice in her battles.

Because in the very last exchange, Evangeline hit her 132 times.

A chaotic storm arose from the area where the two sides were fighting and swept outwards.

'boom--!!!!'

"Why not use your full strength?" Alice breathed softly, the Styx River boiling beneath her feet amidst the storm. It seemed some enormous, monstrous creature was trying to break free from the Styx, yet it ultimately did not take that step. "You were the one who suggested using your full strength, so why did you hold back when you actually attacked?"

"You're a spellcaster, aren't you? Why are you using only your fists and feet, only strength and speed, to fight me?"

The storm subsided, and Evangeline, flapping her magical wings, gracefully landed on the River Styx, about thirty kilometers from Alice. Her bare toes lightly touched the boiling surface of the river, and thick black ice formed on the dark and eerie banks of the Styx.

“Because you’re not ready yet, and you are preparing.” Evangeline said slowly, a ball of elemental energy gathering in her hand appearing before her. She then tossed it gently into the air—nothing happened after that, and her gaze was already fixed on the Styx River at her feet, which was oscillating between freezing and boiling.

“I can sense the immense energy contained within this black water, and this immense energy intertwines with powerful concepts, ultimately forming a terrifying spell with unimaginable power. That must be your divine fire… or, to use the words of a transmigrator who once visited my original world, your trump card developed from your nascent spiritual light.”

“If you had unleashed it without restraint, the battle might have already entered the next phase… but you didn’t. So, I suspect you must have suppressed your most powerful abilities, because that’s something you can’t use in your current state.”

Her voice echoed far and wide across the vast River Styx. And before anyone knew it, the boiling waters of the Styx had calmed.

The gates and windows of the fortress were closed, and the reconstructed buildings and pavilions floated in the dark River Styx. This guy was right; if Alice had simply started compiling the Book of the Styx from the beginning without any regard for the consequences, the outcome of this battle would have been decided much earlier.

after all……