Lee Sungmin’s head started to feel like it was ringing. His legs, which were relaxed, faltered greatly and swayed from side to side as he started to hyperventilate. His body, which was about to collapse, was trembling for an odd reason.
Jehu and Scarlett, who were following behind him, stared at Lee Sungmin with an odd look.
Lee Sungmin did not know it, but his gold irises that were the result of the mutations in his body, were shining brither than ever at that moment.
His chest felt warm. Incredibly warm. He felt a thumping in his chest as if his heart was going to explode and his ribs were going to crack.
It was horrendous for his senses at that moment. He could hear the uneven and rhythmic of his heart, and heard a plethora of distorting noises ringing throughout his ears.
The only thing in between the shrill sounds that screeched inside his ears and the pounding of his head and chest, was…. the sound of a child giggling.
What was happening to him? In the midst of the creepy sounds of the child’s laughter, Lee Sungmin felt like he could feel Heoju’s presence slowly fading away.
The landscape before him started to shake as his vision blurred and the giggling continued to get louder and louder.
H ehehe…hehehehehe….
The sound of laughter gradually became clearer and clearer as the rose garden in front of him started to completely disappear and was replaced by a new scenery. Brightly lit lanterns reflected in the scene in front of him. A dark and cloudy sky followed by rows of streets filled with shops and brothels. Lee Sungmin’s eyes widened as he recognized this place. It was the City of Endless Night.
[Argh!]
BANG!
Lee Sungmin felt like a thunderbolt had struck him as a yell inside of his mind woke him up, and his vision started to blur once more.
He closed his eyes and regained his breathing. When he opened them back up, his scenery was back to the garden inside of Geniella’s mansion.
As the headache subsided, Lee Sungmin blinked repeatedly in confusion.
Sima Ryunju was holding Lee Sungmin’s wrist. Surprised by the warmth felt from his shoulders, Scarlett was glancing down at Lee Sungmin with a look of embarrassment and concern.
The flag that came through the wrist was Samaritanism. A loud shout in my head. It was the voice of vanity.
[Are you okay? Can you hear me?!]
Heoju asked urgently. It was him who had destroyed the vision Lee Sungmin was seeing and was the yell he had heard when he came to.
Sima Ryunju was holding onto Lee Sungmin’s wrist, injecting him with his own internal energy to suppress the trembling and monstrous energy that was running rampant.
Scarlett was casting auxiliary mental magic, placing a barrier on his mind and reinforcing his cognitive abilities to regain focus.
“Wha… what?”
Lee Sungmin stuttered like a child as he was confused as to what happened. Geniella, who was standing far away, was not looking at Lee Sungmin.
What she was looking at was the child, Aine. Unlike Lee Sungmin, who suddenly had a seizure, Aine showed no agitation.
On the contrary, Aine was staring at Lee Sungmin with a painful expression as if he could not possibly know what she was going through right now.
It was a keen but single difference.
Geniella took note of it as she recalled what she heard from Kim Jonhyun about what happened in the City of Endless Night.
She knew that Lee Sungmin had a Black Heart just like Aine did.
She also knew that the power that Arbeth was planning to collect in masses from the massive amounts of fear that gathered in the town square, were equally distributed to both Aine and Lee Sungmin.
In that sense… The Predator of Massacre, her goal, of which she worshiped and prayed to come into existence, was actually not suited best for Aine.
The current being that was closest to the Predator of Massacre, was actually Lee Sungmin.
Even as they were now, Lee Sungmin was much stronger than Aine right now.
He was a Transcendent Realm martial artist, his Black Heart had merged with a Dragon Heart, he inherited the power of the Great Yokai Heoju, and had monstrous regenerative power thanks to his mutated body with monstrous origins.
His progress with magic was pretty much non-existent, but he could easily make up for that if he decided to use the Black Heart’s Predation skill.
But, Geniella knew that Lee Sungmin had no intention of eating other beings’ hearts.
He wanted to be a human even though his body was that of a monsters.
Geniella loved being sadistic in the way she made humans give up their humanity, and Lee Sungmin certainly suited her tastes as a gourmet, but he was missing one thing that would not make him the Predator of Massacre.
It was because Lee Sungmin had never truly ‘predated’ anybody yet and refused to do so.
It was the complete opposite of Aine, who had constant urges to binge and ate up almost anything she could when she was in these states.
In addition, there was one more critical reason that made Geniella not interfere with Lee Sungmin’s business.
This was because Geniella had never seen Lee Sungmin in any of the futures she saw or wanted.
Therefore, even if Lee Sungmin had the qualities and strength to become a potentially stronger Predator of Massacre, he was not the one destined to be so, she thought.
‘But……’
There was a huge variable this time. It was a complete miscalculation in the future she saw.
In that vision on the snowy plains of Juwon’s territory, there were Jehu, Scarlett, and Sima Ryunju. But, none of the visions she saw had Lee Sungmin present.
Yet… he was there.
Her future was only possible to create once she sorted out all the fragmented visions she had and met certain conditions.
Having such faith that she would be able to create the future she so desperately wanted, Geniella spent hundreds of years in preparation for it.
However, that feeling of confidence in the feeling that she was moving towards the right future as she had predicted, was shaken when Lee Sungmin’s appearance was seen today.
No, the future she had predicted couldn’t be wrong. Geniella thought so as she glared at Lee Sungmin.
She could no longer recognize his existence or his importance of the future. More specifically, it was not that he had no importance, but a lot of it since he was now a variable she could not predict.
What if the future she saw was not real? Geniella trembled at the thought of it. Was Lee Sungmin being hidden by someone or some being?
If that was the case, Geniella was seriously worried.
Who the hell had deceived her?
“There’s been a flood of monstrous energy for some reason inside your body.”
Sima Ryunju spoke as he let go of Lee Sungmin’s wrist.
“You’re bothering me with something we don’t have time for, what is going on with you?”
“I don’t know……I really don’t know.”
[It was a resonance.]
Heoju gave the answer to Lee Sungmin.
[The powers within that girl resonated with yours.]
‘What do you mean……?’
[It is from the time you spent in the City of Endless Night. The power that you both consumed from that Lich was split between you and resonated within your body. She didn’t have any lingering attachments to her humanity, so she didn’t struggle nearly as much as you in terms of the mental world.]
At the words, Lee Sungmin snuck a peek at Aine. This time, however, the power inside his body was not resonating as strongly as it just was, but his chest was still beating like crazy.
‘Did you hear that?’
[What are you talking about?]
‘The sound of a child’s laughter’.
Lee Sungmin collected his exasperated breath.
What had just happened to him? Why did he see the City of Endless Night and why was there the sound of a child laughing?
However, Heoju replied that he had not heard anything.
Lee Subgmin then explained to his master, Sima Ryunju, about what happened to him a while ago.
The eyes of Sima Ryunju behind the mask, faltered briefly as he heard the explanation from Lee Sungmin.
[You’re like an onion.]
‘What?’
[Why do I keep finding out about you every time I peel open a layer?]
“Aren’t you coming?”
Standing in place for a long time, Geniella finally asked them. Sima Ryunju merely shrugged and turned away.
Lee Sungmin finally gave Aine a final look. It was truly questionable why she was here looking so miserable.
“You have a strange pet.”
“Aren’t you cute?””
“Isn’t this kind of punishment too much?”
“It’s okay because it’s strong.”
Geniella replied without looking back. Where she guided the party to, was a restaurant with a long table in the center that seemed to be able to host dozens of people.
Dozens of dishes were placed on the large table as well, varying from… all sorts of things.
But none of the party felt appetized by the fancy dishes. This was a vampire’s mansion.
That red wine could be blood, and how could they be sure whether the meat floating in the red stew was human flesh or not?
“Sit down.”
“I’m not here for a meal.”
Sima Ryunju opened his mouth. Lee Sungmin, Scarlett, and Jehu were already feeling very threatened by Geniella. It wasn’t the case for Sima Ryunju though.
He straightened his posture and stared the Vampire Queen right in the eye, despite her not holding back much of her atrocious energy.
Geniella giggled and clapped her hands, giving a round of applause.
“You don’t have to be so sharp.”
The sound of applause was a signal. The doors all over the restaurant opened in unison.
Scarlett looked around in surprise, but Lee Sungmin, Jehu, and Sima Ryunju stood still and stared at Geniella.
It was a group of pale-skinned boys and girls entering the dining room through the open door.
“Are they your pets too?”
“The mansion is so spacious that we’re quite short-handed.”
“It’s a human being.”
Lee Sungmin muttered. There was no bloody scent that vampires gave off when looking at the boys and girls in maiden-like clothes.
Sitting at the far front of the table, Geniella shook a wine glass containing a bright red liquid.
“We don’t only mass-produce vampires. It’s inefficient. Besides, it’s a waste to create vampires made out of my precious blood all the time.”
Now, don’t be too nervous.
Geniella giggled as she thought so.
The Maids acted on their own as they were instructed beforehand. The chairs were pulled back according to the number of people, and the empty glasses were filled with alcohol.
Tableware such as knives and forks was moved to an easy place to reach, and large chunks of meat were cut into bite-size pieces.
“I didn’t use human flesh. The same goes for blood. So don’t worry too much…….”
“I said I wasn’t here to eat.”
Sima Ryunju repeated himself.
-Fsssss!
A current of black electricity splashed around his shoulders. There was a terrible sense of foreboding power coming out of Sima Ryunju’s body.
The pressure quickly wrapped the entire room and crushed down on everything inside. The chandelier was smashed and the floor started to tremor violently. The several boys and girls in maid clothing, fell to their knees.
Amidst the shaking room, Geniella’s body was not shaking at all. She asked, shaking the wine glass slowly.
“Do you know what it means to refuse my favor?”
“You’ve never seen this behavior in the future, have you?”
“Yes, the future I’ve seen has been fragmentary, the encounter with you……that you cut my throat. And coming here was the end of the vision.”
“Then what happens afterwards is something you don’t know.”
“Do you think I’d be embarrassed? Do you think your presence can deny the future I’ve seen? Do you think you can actually ruin my path to the future?”
The more she talked, the louder Geniella’s voice became.
“You can’t change anything. What you’re doing now is just a small meeting to me, and to the future I’m headed for. Well, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to enjoy this irrelevant moment together, but…….”
Geniella’s eyes glanced at Lee Sungmin’s.
“Let’s stop. I like this mansion, and I care about the garden. I don’t want to have my home where I’ve lived for over hundreds of years destroyed over a petty squabble.”
“If I destroy this mansion, will it make you angry?”
“That would never happen.”
Geniella grinned as she bared her canines.
“Let’s stop provoking each other with meaningless actions. I know exactly why you guys are here. And I know what I’m supposed to do for you. Of course, it’s your choice to take my word for it.”
“Do you mean you’re going to tell me what I want to hear?”
“That’s what I’m still thinking about. I’ll tell you the truth, but I won’t swear on anything because there’s no reason for me to do that.”
There was no reason for her to swear an oath she said.
Geniella put down the wine glass.
“There will be signs before long anyway. First from the south. You made a mistake, Black Dragon Jehu. Or was it inevitable in the first place? A poor halfling. He couldn’t take control of anything in his life, and he became a puppet of Murim and Beyond the Heavens.”
Geniella’s grin as she spoke the words, made Jehu speechless. He stuttered in reply.
“……mistake……?”
“You should have killed Kim Jonghyun, not stopped him.”
After laughing for a long time, Geniella took the wine glass to her mouth. Half inhaling the red liquid, Geniella continued in a delighted voice.
“Thanks to your intentional mistake, Kim Jonghyun will be the first disaster in the South. He is already starting his distaste as we speak. Quietly, but explosively.”
“…… Is Kim Jonghyun the apostle of the end?”
Geniella laughed loudly at Lee Sungmin’s question.
“What do you think Kim Jonghyun like?”
Geniella’s laughter stopped suddenly as she posed the question.
“I just told you, he’s only the first of many.”
Lee Sungmin heard Geniella giggle to herself as if she were enjoying the entire thing.
“He is only the first catastrophe of many, heading toward the end of the world.”
Geniella’s canines curled from her mouth in an eerie grin.