[Ohoho! Masquerade, is it? What a truly splendid name! It suits you all perfectly!]
The middle-aged man—Doctor—clapped along as if genuinely delighted.
But Heinz II, who had finally managed to set foot in this place after breaking through the dungeon, did not answer. Instead, he slowly looked around.
His face subtly tightened at the information he had gleaned through his newly blossomed spiritual senses.
‘Playing petty tricks, are we?’
At first glance, it seemed as though he had finally reached his destination after pushing through all manner of obstructions, but in truth, this place was by no means ordinary either.
It was merely an illusion that projected the real space exactly as it was, like a mirror.
Naturally, the Doctor chattering away in front of him was no exception.
‘A last-ditch struggle, then.’
But at this point, resistance of this level was not even laughable.
The instant a deep blood-red energy settled in Heinz’s eyes, the space overlaid around him began to tear apart into shreds.
Craaaack—
He paid no attention whatsoever to whatever the other party was babbling and simply continued doing what he had to do.
An ultra-small localized dimension formed by artificially overlapping and twisting the phase of a reverse-side space.
That was the rough conclusion he had reached regarding the method the Doctor was using.
‘If Hans or Horus were here in person, they could grasp it faster and more precisely.’
The various techniques applied to this space were so intricately intertwined and of such a high level that there were bound to be limits to analyzing them indirectly through another avatar.
After all, when it came to receiving and interpreting information, wasn’t the element of sensation an absolute standard?
‘I’m also not yet fully accustomed to these newly developed senses.’
Besides, that level was more than enough to smash apart whatever was blocking his way right now.
No matter what anyone said, he was the only Level 10 in this world and a vampire of divine blood.
[Goodness me, this is truly troublesome! Pahahahat! I suppose this is what they call being cornered!]
“…Noisy.”
And the Doctor, who was directly involved in this matter, knew that fact very well too.
After all, the final barrier preventing him from directly facing that monstrous being was on the verge of collapsing.
[Hyahahahat—!]
And yet, even with the final moment clearly approaching, he merely burst into laughter laced with a strange madness, as if nothing were wrong.
At that attitude, difficult to understand no matter how much of a lunatic he was, Heinz’s brow furrowed slightly.
‘Has he given up? If not, there’s no reason for him to react like that… Hm?’
At that moment.
His thoughts halted as he sensed something.
Wooooong—
The surrounding energy began to roil violently under the sudden surge of a vast current of causality.
And his senses, sharpened to their utmost, instantly derived a certain result from it.
The corners of his mouth twitched again and again of their own accord.
Because this was…
“…Ha. Self-destruction?”
[Oh? You’re remarkably quick on the uptake!]
An abnormal phenomenon activated as it devoured every mystery deployed around this mansion.
It swelled in size in an instant and began to sever the surrounding area from reality.
‘A technique deployed at the cost of his own life. It doesn’t seem like it was an original function… Did he construct this in that short amount of time?’
Inwardly clicking his tongue in admiration, Heinz looked at the Doctor again.
A ritual to separate the reverse-side space combined with the dungeon and return everything inside to nothingness.
As a result, the mansion grounds they were standing on would vanish from the world, leaving behind nothing but an enormous crater.
‘Of course, if it succeeds.’
A hollow chuckle escaped his lips.
‘…There’s no way it will succeed.’
It wasn’t as though the man was hiding somewhere to carry this out. He was charging in with all or nothing right in front of him—there was no way Heinz would just stand still!
No matter how abnormally fast the ritual the man was leading activated, there were bound to be limits.
Ziiiing—
Heinz’s thoughts rapidly accelerated.
As time slowed endlessly, their depth grew greater and greater.
The causality roiling around him approached more vividly than ever, as if he could grasp it in his hand.
‘Then now.’
In that state, sensing all of it, he slowly reached out.
And with a strand of will, he seized one loose end of it.
Wooooong—
And.
…That was the end of it.
The interior of the mansion, which had been noisily shaking just moments ago, fell silent once more.
The only thing that had changed was the Doctor, as if he alone had taken the full brunt of all the backlash. Blood streamed from his seven orifices, and his body rapidly began crumbling into powder from the extremities.
“Cough! My, my~ I didn’t expect it to be blocked so easily…? Kihihik, to think even something like this was possible… As expected, you seem to be far more capable than I imagined!”
Even so, his frivolous mouth did not shut.
After cackling for a while, he merely looked this way and that at his own arms and legs scattering into the air, nodding as though he had encountered an interesting research topic instead.
“It’s a shame I can’t research it right away! This also seems like it would make quite the fascinating subject.”
Then he smacked his lips and let out a light complaint.
The way he thought of research even with his confirmed death right before him was truly that of a mad scientist.
However, even that appearance of the Doctor did not last long.
The recoil of annihilation, having consumed his body in an instant, raced beyond his limbs and straight into his torso and head.
“…Then I shall see you again next time! When that time comes, I hope I’ll be able to see not only you, but all your friends as well! Pyahahahat!”
Fsssh—
And so, leaving behind words that could have been either a will or a curse, the Doctor’s body soon completely turned to powder and scattered.
Heinz felt somewhat uneasy at that rather hollow ending, but that did not mean there was anything he could do about it now.
‘…It would have been best if I could have captured him alive, but if he came out intending to die from the very start, it can’t be helped.’
Whatever else one might say, the other side had the advantage when it came to techniques.
Still, thanks to that, while preventing the collapse of space, he had managed to salvage various pieces of information from the Doctor’s laboratory here, so it was not all bad.
‘This entire place is excellent teaching material. If I strip it clean and examine everything, I should be able to gain something more. There are also quite a few items that look useful… Oh? That one should help with Howard’s research.’
Crossing the empty space and finally stepping into the Doctor’s private laboratory, Heinz let out a murmur of admiration as he looked around the thoroughly cluttered interior.
Not only research logs bound into files, but even instruments whose purposes were impossible to discern were strewn everywhere, to the point that at a glance it almost looked like a junkyard.
However, the items here were all precious things that would possess tremendous value once taken outside.
After all, they were either objects touched by the hands of the Doctor, the world’s greatest supernatural engineer, or handwritten records containing the principles behind his thoughts.
“Hm? This is…”
Just then, as his gaze lightly skimmed over the research proposals, one extremely familiar phrase lodged itself in his mind.
‘…Complete Evolutionary Organism Project?’
It was an experimental topic he had once made good use of quite some time ago in order to create Harley.
Skimming the contents roughly, perhaps because a fair amount of time had passed, it certainly felt more advanced than what he had encountered before.
“Still far off.”
But Heinz assessed it mercilessly and tossed the document onto the desk.
After all, unlike that side, which was still struggling at the design stage, his side had already given birth to the ultimate work of art surpassing perfection, had they not?
No matter how much additional theoretical updating had been done, it could only seem laughable to him.
‘In any case, there’s still a lot to do. I need to choose someone to lead Romania’s remaining Dracul faction in their place, and I need to gradually bestow Refined Blood Crystals so the ones below won’t entertain other thoughts…’
As he quickly thought of the next tasks to handle, the Masquerade he had casually blurted out was no longer in his mind.
And so, on the day the European branch chief of the Beoncheonhoe, the “Duke,” and the chief technical director, the “Doctor,” died…
Their control over Europe hit rock bottom to an unprecedented degree.
And the events that took place in the process went on to affect other countries as well.
***
No matter how chaotic the world had become, the strength of modern society still lay in rapid information transmission.
A high-speed network capable of delivering events in real time, even if they happened on the opposite side of the Earth.
And that had an immense influence in quickly conveying the recent events in Europe to East Asia far away—among them, even to Korea.
Despite the events having taken place at an unimaginably great distance, the truth was successfully made known almost exactly as it was, with hardly any loss of information.
In fact, that was possible because the news itself possessed more than enough topicality to draw the public’s attention.
Of course it did.
Hadn’t a single vampire who had crossed over from the backwater known as Korea been toppling Europe’s vampire clans, traditional powerhouses, one after another all on his own and absorbing their forces?
Naturally, people at first found it difficult to believe.
But no matter how much they dug into the evidence, the truth only became clearer.
To begin with, Phantom was already famous enough that there were no small number of photos of him, making comparative analysis extremely easy.
The Heterosis office located in downtown Seoul.
In the executive office of the building they had newly moved into after Alpha’s attack, Jin Soran quietly stared down at a report.
“…When the Lord said he would briefly visit Europe, I did think perhaps something might happen…”
Jin Soran, the acting head of Heterosis, a woman in a neat suit with her long hair tied in a ponytail, spoke with a conflicted expression as she looked at the photo of Heinz included in the attached materials.
In truth, anyone would have reacted that way.
How long had it been since he went abroad, and he had already brought several nationwide-scale underworld organizations under his command?
On top of that, they had suddenly ended up in the same boat as those who each lived on territories far larger than Korea.
Frankly speaking, whether in terms of scale or combat strength, there was no aspect in which Korea’s Blood Alliance could claim superiority.
Europe was not a land where vampire forces were powerful for no reason.
‘Mm, certainly, with the Lord’s abilities, as long as he can somehow win over the leader first, the rest would be relatively easy.’
Still, it was clear that the scale was on an entirely different level.
She sighed as she examined the keywords that had set Korean online communities ablaze.
In truth, if it had only gone this far, it would have been fine.
Since this could also be considered an element of national pride in its own way, domestic communities and the mass media were generally showing a favorable mood.
The problem lay elsewhere.
Namely, with most foreign media outlets, chiefly those of Japan and China.
“The Beoncheonhoe must have made a move…”
Recently, Phantom had been showing open hostility toward the Beoncheonhoe, so pressure had begun to come in from areas outside of force as well.
Above all, China was still their home ground, and the cleanup in Japan had not yet been properly concluded either.
‘Even without the Beoncheonhoe inciting them, they would never miss an opportunity like this to take a hard line against the Korean government.’
The problem was that the method was more effective than expected.
In any case, objectively speaking, it was an undeniable fact that Phantom and the vampires under him were criminals who did not abide by national law.
If they did not somehow refresh that image, it would continue to hinder them again and again in the future.
“What would be best?”
Jin Soran clutched her head and groaned with her forehead pressed against the desk.
In order to oppose the Beoncheonhoe, which had already taken root deep within society, the best course was to gather as much strength as possible in one place and respond jointly.
In that case, rather than a hardline approach, they would need to choose a path that approached the public in a more familiar and friendly manner…
But could vampires, who needed human blood to begin with, appear friendly to humans?
“Haa, familiarity… Should we put out an advertisement? Something like, Our children don’t bite. We’re not some celebrities; there’s no way something like that would be useful…”
She stopped mid-sentence.
Then she carefully rubbed her chin and sank into thought.
Was it really impossible?
Considering Phantom’s current popularity, it did not seem all that impossible.
Above all, vampires were generally beautiful.
They could truly be said to be personnel optimized for the entertainment industry.
‘As it happens, through the Korean Returnee Association, we’re also having positive exchanges with the government. If we do this well here…’
Her eyes sparkled like stars as she revealed her sharp fangs in a smile.
Jin Soran, acting head of Heterosis and the person in charge of the Blood Alliance’s external affairs.
It was a fact known only to those who knew, but she was a former idol trainee and a current internet streamer.