Chapter 154: White and Yellow

“Miss Vampire, in the end… aren’t you even curious why we’re killing you?”

Andre straightened his collar.

Inafa bit her lip and looked up in a rage.

“Trash humans trespassing on my territory, you all just need to die! Give me back Mom’s magic!”

“It seems the forceful approach was correct. Though, I don’t like it.”

Andre lowered his head slightly, and in the next instant—

Hundreds of Hands of Sand erupted from the ground, surging toward Inafa like a tidal wave.

“Ugh!”

Inafa immediately had her Blood Spirit defend her while simultaneously summoning a Blood Red Barrier Sphere.

The massive form of the Blood Spirit vanished from beside Nasagi and Dige, reappearing from Inafa’s shadow.

It moved at a dizzying speed, continuously shattering the approaching Hands of Sand.

“The Box of Confusion Drunk on Night… Tsk!”

A Hand of Sand shattered the red defensive barrier into fragments, grazing her golden hair.

Inafa maintained her Mistification, struggling to dodge.

She was forced to keep moving, unable to find an opening to chant.

The reason Inafa had laughed earlier was because she felt that within this field magic they called the Nest, there was no power from the sun.

This was the Great Desert, but the sun overhead was a fake.

Without the interference of solar power, the power of the dark night was partially liberated, putting her in a better state.

If it were a one-on-one duel, she was absolutely confident she could take down any one of them.

“Lord Andre, are we just going to do nothing?”

Dige answered on his behalf, “The safest way is to simply protect Lord Andre like this. Fighting that vampire directly would just turn you into a blood pack for her to drain and convert into her own power.”

“Ahhh! Fine, how boring! Once Lord Andre opens the Nest, there’s nothing left to do.”

Nasagi simply thrust his giant axe into the ground and leaned against it, his lips curling upward.

“Still, watching her slowly die like this is actually quite nice. I almost want to record it with a camera.”

Inafa felt a surge of anxiety; staying like this meant a slow death.

Just as she had repeatedly tried to stop Andre from releasing the Nest, Andre would not stand by and watch her cast a more powerful spell.

“Miss Vampire, I take back what I said. You’re quite remarkable. Even Tuners of my same Level can only hold out for about 10 seconds, yet you’ve actually lasted 25 seconds.”

Andre checked his watch as he offered the praise.

Inafa didn’t hear him at all.

Her brain was buzzing and overheating just from focusing on dodging.

Sudden, violent exercise was not friendly to a vampire who had been lying in a coffin for a long time.

She couldn’t be touched even once.

Not even a little.

Otherwise, her held magic would be stolen.

‘Could it be that I’m going to die here today?’

A dark fear began to spread through her body.

‘No, I have to find a way to survive this wave of attacks. There’s no way a wide-range field magic with such a fast startup can be maintained for long.’

‘That’s right, I still have two, three, four, five, or six other types of magic. There must be a way.’

‘Besides, Tiana is surely on her way.’

Inafa’s nose felt stinging.

Although she tried her best to endure it, tears fell uncontrollably.

“Miss Vampire, if you’re praying that Dragon will come to help you, I advise you to give up on that idea early.”

What?

Inafa’s pupils contracted.

As if reading Inafa’s thoughts, Andre reached into his trench coat and pulled out—

“You should recognize this. I specifically found the piece with the most residual magic.”

It was a piece of skin.

A very thin Layer, reflecting a beautiful silver light under the sun.

It belonged to the partner, friend, and family she had spent years with.

Inafa could not be mistaken.

It was Tiana’s Silver Scale Skin.

“Ah… Ah… You—!!”

Grief struck Inafa first, followed by an extreme rage that filled every drop of her blood.

flutter flutter

The girl with golden hair and eyes transformed into a swarm of bats, quickly flying higher into the sky.

The Blood Spirit vanished along with her.

‘This move consumes a massive amount of energy…’

The distance bought Inafa time to use magic, but the consumed mana could no longer support the Blood Spirit.

The sand below formed a giant wave that struck at the swarm of bats.

The bats were forced to fly even higher before huddling together to reform into Inafa.

From high in the air, Andre looked like a tiny dot no bigger than a fingernail.

She had been grazed slightly by the sand, and two more of her spells had been stolen.

At this moment, Inafa had no strength left for sorrow or regret.

‘So high! It’s terrifying!’

The thought flashed through Inafa’s mind.

‘You… trash! To do that to Tiana—!’

Fortunately, her anger suppressed her fear.

As Inafa began to fall, she waved her hand, preparing to use her strongest magic—and her enemy was thinking the same thing.

It was too late.

The enemy was faster.

Inafa’s vision was excellent; she could clearly see the top of the opponent’s Staff forming an aqua-blue sphere entwined with electric currents.

“I wanted to keep waiting for you to be eliminated, but I can’t maintain the Nest’s expansion for much longer. I’ve already started consuming the Fruit,” Andre said flatly.

Nasagi and Dige also retreated behind Andre.

The mass and quality condensed within that aqua-blue sphere were clearly not simple.

Silently, the small ball grew larger.

“Drunk on Night…”

Inafa’s magic casting was still too slow.

Andre released his magic—

A circular patch of white light filled Inafa’s field of vision.

The intense light turned everything in front of Inafa snow-white and everything behind her black.

The sky lost its color.

Inafa closed her eyes, but even then, she could only see white.

Even using Mistification wouldn’t let her dodge.

Turning into bats wouldn’t be fast enough either.

‘If only I had learned a teleportation spell…’

‘But then again, I wouldn’t have the mana to drive it.’

‘If my whole body turns to ash, can I still undergo Resurrection?’

‘Am I going to die?’

‘The Silver Particles seem to be gone. My body doesn’t hurt as much.’

‘If I can go see Mom like this, it might not be so bad.’

‘The problem is the Castle was destroyed by them and hasn’t been repaired yet.’

‘The flowers in the back garden haven’t been trimmed.’

‘Did I sleep for one week or one year?’

‘The Castle must have accumulated so much dust, and it hasn’t been cleaned yet.’

‘Tiana… I couldn’t avenge you… I’m not resigned to this.’

She opened her eyes and stared directly at the white death.

clack

It was the sound of an eggshell breaking.

“AT Field Defense,” a young girl’s voice came from above.

The white light shifted.

The white light before her, carrying blue electricity, angled upward at 25 degrees, forming an obtuse angle as it blasted into the sky.

It exploded into ripples of energy fluctuations, causing the sky to shimmer.

What happened?

Does this mean I’m saved?

Inafa’s mind couldn’t process it for a moment, unable to understand what was going on.

She glanced down.

Beneath her, Andre, Dige, and Nasagi were all frozen with expressions of bewilderment.

Andre’s gray eyebrows were furrowed deeply.

Then there was her own body—a sensation of weightlessness.

“Waaaaah!”

Realizing she was falling from a great height, fear reclaimed Inafa’s mind.

She flailed her limbs in a panic, her tears flowing upward.

‘Magic, magic! Gravity magic, how do I use it?’

‘Come to think of it, I’m a vampire, so I won’t die if I fall, right?’

‘No, no, no, no, it’s terrifying, terrifying, terrifying—’

When Inafa first rode Tiana as a child, she had fallen to her death.

Since then, she had developed a fear of heights.

Whenever she reached a high place, she would feel dizzy and nauseous, and her legs would go weak.

Inafa felt her consciousness drifting away.

Then, a warmth from behind enveloped her.

“Eh?”

She realized someone was holding her from behind.

Thud

They slammed into the sandy ground after falling, kicking up a large cloud of dust.

The person held her tightly in their arms, using their body to shield her from the dust.

“Ugh…”

Inafa opened her eyes slightly, realizing they had safely reached the ground.

‘Thank goodness…’

The fear in her heart finally dissipated.

Following it was a sense of shame.

‘I was saved. This is so humiliating.’

“Who are you, you jerk! Thank you! Don’t just touch me so casually…”

Her face flushed red as she looked up curiously.

“—Wait, what?”

If this were a cartoon, Inafa’s golden eyes would have turned into white circles with question marks floating above her head.

A person stood there, dressed from head to toe in a smooth, one-piece yellow suit.

The mouth area of the mask was a cylinder, and the eyes were large, round lenses.

A Beak Doctor?

She was being held by such a strangely shaped, human-looking creature.

Or maybe it was a gorilla under the suit?

Inafa’s mind was a mess.

The sensation of arms holding her from behind told her they weren’t very thick—in fact, they were quite slender.

Inafa had seen similar human clothing before; knights in full armor or certain monster shamans would dress this strangely.

“Sorry, breaking the Nest took longer than I thought. I really didn’t mean to time it like that.”

“You’re way too light. Have you been eating properly?”

A muffled voice came from the cylinder.

It was slightly husky yet pleasant, as leisurely as a warm afternoon, like someone asking if she wanted to come over for a cup of rose green tea.

For a moment, she couldn’t tell if this yellow figure was male or female.

Inafa felt that as long as her memories weren’t erased or her soul wiped out, she was confident she wouldn’t forget this unique voice for hundreds of years.