At the center of the chapel.
Count Palocas's figure twisted beneath the sunlight refracted ever more intensely through the stained glass, his strength draining away like sand in an hourglass.
"Aaaagh! I will kill you all!"
His lungs felt torn to shreds, his soul scorched by the sun, every breath burning like raw fire.
Tortured by these three ruffians, not just his eyes, but the nerves throughout his entire body throbbed with needle-pricking agony!
Disoriented and blind, he had been reduced to a plaything for the Executioner, the Paladin, and the male guard.
Yet Count Palocas refused to give up, counterattacking with every ounce of strength left in his body.
Because he was immortal!
This momentary pain was utterly meaningless; it would only make his vengeance that much more frenzied!
Dizzy and concussed though his mind was, he knew one thing with certainty:
That black-haired, green-eyed bastard could never maintain the sun indefinitely!
There were still five or six hours until dawn.
The moment this damned brilliance faded from the chapel would be the moment these people faced his endless wrath and torment!
Count Palocas trembled with rage beneath the piercing sunlight, growing ever more frenzied like a cornered beast battered without respite, leaving deep streaks of blood seared into the silver floor tiles.
Every sweep of his claw-like hands unleashed a violent tempest of destructive pressure.
Yet beside him, the Paladin, the Executioner, and the male guard fought in concert. Their tactics were utterly devoid of shame or boundaries—a torrential onslaught from which there was no refuge, shattering Count Palocas's understanding of humanity with every passing second!
And in the distance...
Frey sat at the banquet table continuing to eat his late-night snack, raising his heavy hand crossbow now and then to loose a bolt into Count Palocas.
Even though everyone assumed he was a frontline fighter as well,
he insisted he was actually a ranged marksman who belonged in the backline.
Hyperion could only shake her head.
The tank was dealing damage from the backline, the mage was in the midfield protecting the healer, and the healer was drawing aggro on the frontlines.
Their team truly had a unique understanding of division of labor.
"Once Professor Borao finishes developing the magitech heavy sniper, I'm sure you'll reach new heights as a sniper, Frey," Lanqi said with a smile.
Ever since getting to know Professor Borao, the Dean of the School of Magic Engineering, he had discovered that the professor could manufacture all sorts of bizarre contrivances.
Given Lanqi's design concepts and pledges of funding and investment, Professor Borao had eagerly thrown himself into developing the various "practical gadgets" Lanqi described.
"I'm looking forward to it. A weapon that lets me attack from outside the enemy's field of view truly suits me," Frey grinned.
And as they made idle conversation, the nearby Priest kept relentlessly casting Erroneous Healing on Count Palocas.
Because the three frontline fighters sustained minimal damage from the weakened Blood Clan Count, the Priest had not needed to heal at full capacity like he had against the Saintess of Destruction. Instead, he had borrowed Lanqi's [Erroneous Healing] card series, adjusted the composition of his magic card deck, and attained enlightenment on the true meaning of healing.
With every ray of healing brilliance that fell upon Count Palocas, the Count's mind grew muddier, his trembling agony intensified, and his entire world seemed to spin without end.
"Mr. Lanqi, please focus your mana on maintaining the sun without worry. Leave the reformation of this Blood Clan Count to me," the Priest said to Lanqi.
For the priests of the Church of the Goddess of Fate, who possessed high Spirit and low Mana, Lanqi's playstyle was just as suitable.
The Priest was thoroughly convinced that upon returning to the mortal realm, he would prepare a full deck of Erroneous Healing magic cards and share the strategy generously with his colleagues.
"Mm, much appreciated."
Lanqi nodded.
Even though his greatest point of confidence was his mana reserves, maintaining [Radiant Virtue] still rapidly depleted his mana.
This was also tied to the fact that he was only Tier 3.
Before Lanqi ran out of mana, they had to deal with this immortal Blood Clan Count.
Otherwise, the moment the Count recovered his full Tier 7 strength, every single one of them would be doomed.
Meanwhile, in the center of the chapel battlefield.
Count Palocas kept his eyes tightly shut, his trembling breath coming in ragged gasps, his heart pounding erratically in his chest like a deer driven mad by terror.
At last, the duration of his [Blood Frenzy] ran out first.
Under the continually intensifying sunlight, his combat prowess instantly plunged to less than half of what it had been at the start.
The truly agonizing nightmare had begun.
The last shred of Palocas's sanity told him that as long as he held out, it would soon all be over. He would use his immortality to show these foolish humans the impassable gulf between mere worms and superior beings!
No matter how grievously wounded he was, given the slightest chance to catch his breath, he would regenerate in no time.
Up to this point, not a single attack these mortals made held any real meaning!
The Executioner and the Paladin—two humans he had never deigned to look at—had now become his greatest threat.
Their blades whipped him like a spinning top, slicing open his flesh again and again to leave deep gashes, while mocking bursts of harsh, uproarious laughter grated against his ears.
In the distance, the Priest chanted spells that brought him unimaginable agony, while every so often a cold quarrel pierced straight through his body.
Yet most hateful of all were the supreme being who controlled the sun and the grey-haired succubus who taunted him with demonic cacophony—a pair of colluding angels and demons.
With every passing second, Count Palocas suffered excruciating physical and mental torment, yet the rage churning within him surged ever closer to madness.
"Hahahaha! You're even easier to beat than your thrall!"
Once the duration of [Blood Frenzy] expired, Count Palocas could not even withstand the Executioner's bare fists. The Executioner seized him by the throat with one hand, hoisted him up, and slammed him heavily onto the stone floor. Before Palocas could rise, the Executioner pinned him down and began pummeling him within an inch of his life.
"You *fucking* Count!"
The Paladin, finding swords too troublesome, simply laid into Count Palocas's groin with his iron-plated greaves, leaning down every so often to sneer a taunt or two in his ear.
Seeing this, even the Priest stopped casting spells. Shouldering his pewter staff, he sprinted over and started swinging it like a baseball bat directly at the Count's skull, grinning savagely as if having the absolute time of his life.
Farther away by the banquet table.
Only the backliners—Lanqi, the Poet of Great Love, and the like—had not joined the fray.
"...How did their fighting style turn into this?"
Hyperion asked blankly.
She remembered that when these three fought the Saintess of Destruction that afternoon, they hadn't been like this at all—nowhere near this violent!
What kind of profession they looked like right now was something she dared not say aloud.
No, wait.
If they rewound time by eighteen hours, these three were completely different people, all right?!
"I had Teacher Frey do a brief post-battle review with them about the fight against the Saintess of Destruction. The three of them likely picked up quite a bit of practical combat knowledge from Frey, who soloed the Saintess without taking a scratch," Lanqi explained with a genial smile.
He looked every bit the noble soul troubled by the state of the world, never ceasing for a moment to ponder how to make the righteous clergy stronger.
"..."
Hyperion buried her face in her hands.
It was now just past midnight.
If the faculty of the School of Sages were still working overtime in their meeting to follow the progress of their Shadow World...
she didn't even dare imagine Dean Loren's mental state right now.
"All right, my mana isn't bottomless either. Time to proceed to the next step of the treatment."
Lanqi finally rose to his feet and strolled toward the utterly subdued Count Palocas.
Heavily wounded, Count Palocas was pinned against the brightly illuminated chapel floor, bedraggled and broken.
Yet he had not completely lost consciousness. The veins bulging and twitching across his skin were proof of both extreme fury and his patient wait for vengeance.
The dead of night was still long.
As long as he waited until that sun vanished... it would be his turn.
Count Palocas endured the savage beating from the Executioner, the Paladin, and the Priest. Every strike of pain and humiliation was deeply branded into his soul.
Gradually, the corners of Count Palocas's lips even curved into a wicked grin. That completely unhinged laughter rang out especially horrifying in the otherwise quiet chapel.
He could not wait to regain his power, capture every single one of them, drag them away, and torture them day and night in the most brutal ways imaginable!
Before his immortality, these mere Tier 4 and Tier 5 humans were already as good as dead!
If anyone wanted to seal a Blood Clan Count like him, it would take a Tier 8 great demon who had mastered sealing arts to even stand a chance.
Among this pack of weaklings, there was no archmage who could pose a threat to him!
"All right, show some mercy."
Lanqi's gentle voice drifted from behind the Executioner.
Immediately, the clergymen paused their onslaught, merely pinning Count Palocas down with firm grips as they waited for Lanqi's next move.
Although none of them knew how Lanqi planned to further subdue the Blood Clan Count—after all, he was only Tier 3, and no matter how specialized in sealing arts one might be, crossing four full tiers to seal a Tier 7 Blood Clan Count was an impossibility—
they knew that according to Lanqi's instructions, beating the Count until he couldn't move was all that was needed.
He had his own ways of calming a vampire down.
And so.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone present and amidst Palocas's manic cackling,
Lanqi drew a magic card.
[Blood Pressure Resuscitator]
[Category: Equipment Card]
[Quality: Blue Precious]
[Tier: 1]
[Effect: Possesses a faint life-drain effect; inflicts continuous blood loss when attacking an incapacitated enemy.]
[Remark: Safeguarding your cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health.]
In Lanqi's hands materialized a colossal medical syringe.
It left everyone in the chapel dumbfounded.
It looked as though with enough brute force, a single full pull of the plunger could draw two liters of blood from a patient.
Count Palocas was still laughing. Deprived of sight, he couldn't see what Lanqi was holding, let alone know what horror was about to befall him.
Even Hyperion, who had stayed by Lanqi's side the whole time, froze at the sight of the equipment, instantly overtaken by a chill that sent goosebumps rippling across her entire body.
A giant intravenous syringe—not only would the Blood Clan tremble before it, but its deterrent power over humans was just as terrifying!
As a magic card, the equipment was quite ordinary in principle; it was simply vastly larger than a regular medical syringe and exceptionally sturdy.
Yet such a thing was no equipment at all—it was purely an instrument of torture!
Lanqi walked up to Count Palocas. Hearing the Count still laughing, he felt reassured.
Since the Count was in such high spirits, his mental state should hold up fine during the injection.
To prevent Count Palocas from becoming overly excited once the sun was dispelled, Lanqi decided to lower the Count's blood pressure first.
Ever since accidentally causing examiner Mr. Ferrat to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage during the entrance exam, Lanqi had been contemplating medical tools that could be used for emergency resuscitation.
Before challenging the Blood Clan Shadow World, having anticipated what lay ahead, he had conveniently crafted a simple magic card that could come in handy against vampires.
A large portion of a vampire's power derived from the blood coursing through their veins.
Even if their blood was drained completely dry, a vampire wouldn't die, but they would certainly be paralyzed and require a lengthy period to recover.
"My apologies. I haven't quite gotten the hang of sealing arts yet, so I'll have to make do with this,"
Lanqi said with a sheepish look as he gazed down at the giggling Count Palocas on the floor.
Since magic sealing was out of the question, physical dehydration would have to suffice.
Chapter 153