Yet Duke Brad's obstruction proved entirely futile; the roaring flames mercilessly swallowed the vampire spawn bound to the stone pillar.
The duke's eldest daughter, the symbol of Pride, Alexia, perished then and there.
She was the oldest, most noble, and most powerful of the vampire spawn, the absolute embodiment of pride. Duke Brad had imagined absorbing her countless times—what an intoxicating surge of power that would have been.
Unfortunately, she was gone now.
"Let it all end."
The air warped under the searing heat of the flames, white smoke permeating every corner.
Cassius closed his jaws, having not yet had his fill, and glanced at the vampire diving from the sky, who had almost entirely lost his sanity.
"No, Alexia, my only treasure..."
"Die—!"
Duke Brad's roar turned increasingly shrill until it morphed into an ear-piercing shriek. His body swelled violently to nearly five meters in height. His pupils turned a deep, dark red, and his deathly pale skin rapidly shifted toward an ashen gray. His fingers transformed into razor-sharp talons, and a pair of massive bat wings unfurled from his back—an undead abomination born from an incomplete ascension.
Gone was Duke Brad's former aristocratic grace. He was naked as a wild beast, and across his bare chest, an eerie black tattoo was visible.
The vampire blurred into a phantom silhouette darting through the air. Countless shadowy tendrils erupted from his flesh, accompanied by an eerie green necrotic mist that rolled across the space.
*Blight.*
This necromantic energy would siphon every drop of moisture and vitality from any living being, turning them into sustenance of blood.
Cassius cast *True Strike*, a purple magical gleam flickering in his pupils as he tracked and anticipated the monstrosity's spectral flight path.
"I see you."
Just as the shadow draped in thick mist lunged at him—
*Globe of Invulnerability.*
A barrier of shimmering, fine light enveloped Cassius, calming the turbulent Weave and dispelling the *Blight*. Stripped of the mist's cover, the vampire's hideous form was instantly exposed.
The red dragon extended a massive claw, snatching the caught-off-guard vampire right out of the air. He dragged him down to the ground by brute force and slammed him violently into the stone floor, just like swatting an annoying fly.
The vampire struggled desperately to break free of the restraint, but beneath the red dragon's absolute physical supremacy, every struggle proved utterly futile.
Stone shattered instantly. The vampire was crushed feet deep into the bedrock, flattened nearly into paste.
"No—!"
The vampire let out a wretched wail, trying to disperse into a cloud of blood mist to flee in all directions, but the *Globe of Invulnerability* locked down the surrounding Weave like solid rock, rendering him completely unable to trigger any spell-like abilities.
Even pinned beneath the red dragon's claw, his flesh warped and squeezed, bones fractured and piercing through the skin, the vampire who possessed the sin of Gluttony still regenerated at a rate startling to the naked eye.
The surrounding blood flooded toward him.
As long as the tens of thousands of lives he had hoarded over two centuries remained unexhausted, he could resurrect again and again. No one could kill him.
Fresh flesh and bone constantly regenerated, restoring the vampire's mangled, unrecognizable body back to form, only to be crushed again, then regrown, repeating in an endless cycle.
Even as his body was shredded like a tattered rag, the vampire laughed maniacally: "Reptile, you cannot kill me! I am immortal!
"I can wear you down here forever.
"Until you die!"
Cassius looked down upon him.
"A pathetic creature clinging to a lingering breath..."
The corner of Cassius's mouth curled into an intensely cruel, savage grin that even he did not notice—just like any red dragon in the throes of fury.
"Then I shall make you understand what it means to never reach the truth of death."
Cassius drove power through his forelimb, muscles bulging with throbbing veins, faintly venting wisps of white steam.
This was physical power in its purest form—the very hallmark of a red dragon.
*Boom!*
With a dull, thunderous crash, the stone platform sagged violently downward.
"It's... use... less..."
Before the vampire could finish his sentence, he was crushed into paste once more. Flesh and blood splattered outward, brains burst, and bones pulverized, carving a bloodstained crater into the bedrock. By now, the vampire had lost consciousness; injuries of this magnitude took even him several seconds to recover from.
And right then, Cassius dismissed the *Globe of Invulnerability*.
His chest once again took on the glowing texture of molten magma, and a blinding incandescent light flared within his throat.
*Maximized Flame Breath.*
A pillar of fire immediately submerged the vampire's hideous frame.
Yet Cassius did not stop there.
The incandescent, terrifically hot flames burned ceaselessly, gradually liquefying the bedrock. The stone inside the crater melted into a sluggishly flowing stream of fiery, viscous magma, hissing like molten steel freshly tapped from a furnace as it enveloped the vampire's body.
During this time, the vampire regained consciousness for a brief moment and realized that the *Globe of Invulnerability* had been dispelled.
Yet turning into blood mist while submerged in magma would not allow his evil essence to escape; it would only ensure he burned more completely, making his next recovery take even longer.
The moment he realized this, the searing magma scorched his skin to ash and melted his flesh away.
Yet throughout this agonizing ordeal, new flesh grew back, only to be charred anew...
"Tsk, tsk. Truly formidable immortality."
Even Cassius could not help but marvel at the terrifying regenerative capacity the vampire had gained after absorbing the sin of Gluttony. The magma's destruction and the vampire's regeneration occurred simultaneously; fresh tissue continually replaced charred flesh, forming layer upon layer of blackened crust over his body.
The vampire squirmed and writhed within the magma pit.
"It hurts..."
"It hurts... so much..."
A smothered voice came from the bottom of the magma.
"I... curse you..."
"I offer... everything... to kill you..."
Cassius felt a powerful surge of magical fluctuations radiating from the depths of the magma, and shock stirred in his chest.
*Does he still have a trump card?*
The red dragon quickly thrust his claw into the magma pit, snagging the vampire from the bottom and dredging him out without the slightest effort.
The vampire was in a truly wretched state. His face was burned beyond recognition, his entire body covered in scorched scars, magma sluggishly dripping from his limbs. Yet the mysterious tattoo across his chest was pulsing with an intense, eerie light, as though threatening to swallow all illumination.
Brad Lakeman stared intently at the red dragon, a twisted smile spreading across his horrifyingly burned face.
"I am dying."
"But you... will die, too."
"All of you will die."
The vampire's eyes snapped wide, his mouth hung open, and an eerie radiance bled from his eyes, mouth, nostrils, and every crevice of his body.
His body violently detonated, transforming into a dense plume of sinister black mist.
Only this time, he did not re-form.
Instead, the mist drifted upward, flowing away toward a specific location.
[You have slain the Bloody Duke, Brad Lakeman. Gained 13,000 XP]
The vampire who had lurked in the Northlands and ruled the Principality of Lakeman for two hundred years had finally perished, and Cassius had reaped a massive bounty of experience. Yet not the slightest joy of having felled a mortal enemy stirred in his heart; instead, he felt an unsettling unease.
"Fluctuations of this scale...
"Damn it, what on earth did he do?"
The red dragon's golden pupils gleamed in the dark. Fixing his gaze upon the black mist, he snapped his wings open and gave chase.
Chapter 140