When the scent of blood reached Nabi, she sprang up as if burned. Despite being surrounded by mana herbs made from processed catnip and World Tree leaves, she jerked her head up and looked around.

She looked frightened. Or perhaps anxious.

“Nya—ah?!”

I hurriedly grabbed Tyr and backed away. After sniffing the air for a while, Nabi approached the corpse. She checked the colonel's death over and over, then stood trembling as she looked down at him.

“N-no, nya. The servant, my servant's servant is dead, nya.”

She didn't seem angry over her servant's death, of course. A drug addict doesn't mourn a dealer.

“M-my tribute... There's no one to give it to me, nya.”

She merely regretted the loss.

The cardboard box was open, and mana herbs lay scattered everywhere. Yet Nabi writhed as though she had lost her drugs forever. She clawed at her face and wailed, oblivious to her nails scraping her skin.

“Nyaaa! Nyaaa!”

Ah, just as I thought.

I'd tried to be careful, but...

Cats do whatever they please.

An ordinary cat that couldn't overpower a human was one thing. But the King of Cats had no reason to obey humans and accept mana herbs doled out one at a time as so-called “tribute.”

Really, if Nabi attacked the person carrying the mana herbs and stole them, how could anyone stop her?

Not by force. There was only one way.

Naturally, they'd trained her.

They had taught her—with a few deaths along the way—that stealing mana herbs would never truly get her mana herbs.

When her stolen supply ran out, Nabi would return in a frenzy. They would torment the rampaging King of Cats with the tiny amount they had left, letting the drugs eat away at her body and mind, little by little. Every time she stole mana herbs.

How many times had they repeated that process? Eventually, instead of harming the keeper of the mana herbs, Nabi began obeying human commands.

All while deceiving herself by calling it payment and tribute.

Suspicious of a cat's obedience, I'd barely managed to glean that from reading Lieutenant General Ebon's mind. That was why I'd been wary of letting the scent of blood spread.

Tense as a drawn bowstring, Tyr murmured,

“... The King of Cats is in a strange state.”

“Well, even humans get a little strange when they're junkies.”

This was probably another reason Lieutenant General Ebon had entrusted something as important as the mana herbs to the colonel instead of managing them himself. Killing their keeper would trigger the King of Cats' frenzy.

... Though there was another, somewhat different reason, too.

Nabi reacted to the colonel's death as though something inside her had broken.

“Nyah! Dead, nya! My stupid servant's stupid servant is dead, nya!”

Her head bobbed in stiff, jerky motions, her eyes unfocused.

“N-no, nya. M-my tribute, my happiness...”

Her tail twitched little by little as she twisted her body into strange shapes.

“Nya, two, three, four... N-no, nya. Four isn't nearly enough, nya. Tomorrow, by tomorrow, it'll all be gone, nya...”

Watching her fall apart made everyone else uneasy, too.

A cat that seemed mad—no, a cat truly driven mad by drugs. The King of Cats, who would naturally have been clever, playful, and fastidiously clean, looked as unnatural as mismatched puzzle pieces.

Ralion snorted and stepped forward to confront her. Sensing the ominous atmosphere, Tyr tugged me back as well.

I didn't resist. Even I could see that I was in the most danger here.

I offered a suggestion.

“Now, how about we keep our eyes on Nabi and slowly back away? Like we're dealing with a wild animal...”

“Kyaaaah!”

Nabi's slit pupils flashed. Every hair on her body stood on end, and the wildness hidden within her fixed on me and lunged.

“Goddammit!”

I couldn't read animals' minds. And this was a Beast King. Someone my pathetic strength could never match. Even if I got a rope around her neck, one shake of her head would tear me into strips like I'd been fed through a threshing machine.

Death was coming for me. Just then, Tyr shielded me and shouted.

“Ralion!”

[“Ne-e-e-igh!”]

THUD!

The horse with blood-red hooves planted himself in front of me. As a heavy hoof swung at her, Nabi sprang out of its path.

She directed a menacing growl at Ralion.

“Tyr, I take back what I said about you getting weaker! Ralion alone more than pulls his weight!”

“Stop your nonsense and get out! Leave this to me!”

“No, to deal with that right now, we need...!”

It happened when I glanced away for a moment.

Nabi appeared before me in a blur. She moved so stealthily that even the blood steed and Tyr noticed too late.

A cat's stealth belongs to a hunter. It instinctively slips through any opening in its prey's defenses.

“Ah.”

Damn it, this was why I hated cats. What kind of mind reader gets taken by surprise?

I hastily raised both arms, but that wasn't going to do a thing. Sharp claws came straight for me.

A figure with tawny fur leaped into their path.

“Woof!”

That's right! That's the Azi I know!

With a rattle of chains, Azi lunged at Nabi. Sharp teeth snapped shut at the oncoming cat.

An ambush upon an ambush. But Nabi was already reacting the moment she heard the chain rattle. She twisted and thrust a forepaw at Azi.

Azi tried to counter with her own forepaw, but...

CLANK!

The chain clanked, and Azi's eyes wavered with it. Its other end was fastened around Callis's neck.

Rather than swing a chain with a human attached, Azi hurriedly turned and took Nabi's paw on her back.

WHAM!

The cat's forepaw struck the dog's back. Unlike dogs, cats were far more adept at using their forepaws.

Unable even to defend herself, Azi took the blow and cried out in pain.

“Yelp!”

Azi tumbled across the ground. Even then, she stretched her arm out as far as she could to keep the chain from pulling taut. If it wound around her body, Callis would die.

But she couldn't prevent the jolt. Callis, attached to the chain, was flung to the ground.

“Aagh...! Cough, cough!”

Callis gagged as the chain strangled her. Looking down at it, Azi howled urgently.

“Awoo! Awoooo!”

“Hiss!”

“Grrr...! Yelp!”

It was a far worse handicap than having one hand tied. Swing too hard, and the human's head would come off. To protect a human, the King of Dogs had no choice but to hold back.

But she could never defeat Nabi, a fellow Beast King, while holding back.

“Whiiine...!”

She could barely fend off the swinging paws with one hand.

THUD! THUD!

Azi's body shook violently with each merciless downward strike. Her skin tore and bled, and one entire arm turned blue with bruises.

She couldn't counterattack, or even block with her other arm. If the chain so much as caught on Nabi's paw, the human's head would come off that very instant.

“Kyaaaah!”

Nabi's forepaw flashed. The chain on Azi's arm lay in its path, almost as if she had aimed for it. Azi moved instinctively, blocking the attack with her whole body.

“Yelp...”

CRASH!

The impact jolted her entire body. Unable to withstand it, Azi rolled across the ground. Blood gushed from her mouth.

As Nabi approached the fallen Azi, Tyr shouted.

“Ralion! Help the King of Dogs!”

[“Ne-e-e-igh!”]

Ralion charged, his hooves pounding the floor. The charge of a blood steed the size of a house was a threat even to Nabi. She hopped from side to side to evade his attacks, then savagely tore into him with her forepaws.

Defeat loomed. I wasn't the only one who thought so. Tyr shouted with more urgency than I'd ever heard from her.

“Hugh! Let us get out while we can!”

“Wait! We need Azi to stop Nabi! That chain!”

“Fall back for now! I shall handle it!”

“That chain must be incredibly tough. Can you cut it?”

It was level 4 alchemical steel. The strongest steel available through ordinary means in the Military State. Vampires weren't exactly known for powerful single strikes.

After a brief moment's consideration, Tyr's eyes shone red.

“Surely it need not be the chain I sever.”

Aha. So instead of the chain, she'd tear off Callis's head—the stake it was anchored to? No neck, no collar? Wow. Rational, but cold-blooded.

... No, that wouldn't do!

“That's a little risky! Azi's smart enough to work out what caused a death! If a human dies because of her, she'll be devastated! She'll be just as helpless!”

“Then what am I to do?”

“We have to undo that chain! Could you get me over there?”

“Into the midst of that?”

Nabi was busy butchering Ralion from head to toe. Despite his flesh bursting apart and his hooves being torn off, Ralion desperately held her back. But even Azi had put him on the defensive. He didn't look capable of stopping Nabi, who was rampaging even more fiercely than Azi had then.

In the midst of it all, Azi was staggering to her feet while Callis struggled under the repeated jolts.

“No. I cannot send you there.”

Tyr shook her head firmly.

“I shall do it instead. I cannot die, so stay somewhere safe in the meantime. Please...”

“I don't think picking locks or untying knots is your strong suit.”

“I shall find a way. If I can bring that chain under the control of my blood manipulation and somehow force it open...”

As Tyr murmured, someone who should not have been there appeared in her eyes.

Nabi.

Baring her sharp teeth, slit pupils gleaming, she had raised a forepaw at me. She had left Ralion and Azi behind.

Instinctively spotting a vulnerable point, she had turned and launched a surprise attack.

Ah. This was why I hated beasts.

“Hugh!”

Tyr shouted urgently and stepped in front of me. Nabi's forepaw bore down on us both. It looked like a little girl's tantrum, but Nabi was a Beast King. The tremendous power within that paw could gouge up the ground and rip a horse the size of a house to shreds.

Just as I felt death coming...

Tyr reflexively raised an arm to block the incoming attack.

But that arm was as frail as a candle flame in the wind.

'I cannot stop it.'

The Progenitor, Tyrkanzyaka, was an assemblage of power. She created familiars from blood, strengthened her thralls, and commanded an immortal army.

Black knights wreathed in red blood energy. Thirteen Elders, including the blood steed Ralion. The thousands of vampires they led.

The Progenitor of vampires, who wrought calamity from empty air. The Queen of Shadows. Tyrkanzyaka possessed power to rival a nation.

'But my own body... is pitifully weak. I am immortal, and for that very reason, I neglected it.'

Her body could not die anyway.

Even leaving her heart outside it posed no particular problem.

Instead of breathing with her lungs, she could draw her blood out of her body and return it.

In truth, she didn't even need that imitation. She was perfectly fine without breathing at all.

Her blood manipulation, which had reached the realm of the divine, had instead robbed her of the desperate struggle to live.

'And now that even my blood manipulation refuses to obey... I am utterly helpless.'

She would not die, but the man behind her would. Whether she blocked the blow or not, the result was decided.

Even so, Tyr stood in Nabi's path.

'Even so, I cannot let Hugh die.'

With her blood manipulation in this state, she couldn't even revive him as a vampire.

Always cheerful, a joy to be with, the man who had given Tyr a heart... A man as precious as her own heart.

The life she had regained after twelve hundred years—perhaps she needed him even more desperately than that.

Perhaps, perhaps... this feeling was...

Dwelling on that feeling, Tyr drew on everything she had.

She had to save him. He had to live.

'Whatever it takes. Even if I must draw on everything.'

With that single thought, Tyr extended her arm to meet the King of Cats' unstoppable blow.

CRUNCH!

Tyr's arm burst apart. Blood sprayed uselessly. Along the path of Nabi's forepaw, flesh turned to blood. Before that irresistible force, Tyr's fragile body shattered like a wave against a rock, and the blow came for me behind her...

But Nabi's forepaw smashing through Tyr and reaching me?

That never happened.

Because that arm, though destroyed, had not been destroyed.

Blood manipulation was a form of energy arts. Energy arts were primarily used to strengthen one's own body.

Even after learning blood manipulation, the Regressor used it to return her own blood to her body or briefly accelerate its flow.

But Tyr, whose death had blurred the boundary between herself and the world, could exert those energy arts upon all things. With the Brand of Blood, she could control and strengthen them, and even bring the dead back as homunculi.

If magic was the outward manifestation of one's own world, the Progenitor's blood manipulation divided her very self and scattered it throughout the world.

So much like magic, yet something else entirely.

A Demon God.

But now that she had regained her heart and established a clear boundary between herself and the world...

Her blood manipulation, all her authority over blood...

Turned inward, into Tyr's body.

SNAP!

Tyr seized Nabi's forepaw.

CRUNCH!

With the sound of crushing bone, Nabi's paw twisted.

Her arm had undoubtedly shattered and burst apart. Her tattered dress proved it. The spray of blood, the exploding bone and flesh, had ripped the fabric to shreds.

Yet in the blink of an eye, it had returned to its original state.

Her blood manipulation, which had at last clearly distinguished her own world—inside from outside—would not allow her body to scatter. Her fragmented flesh reassembled as though its destruction had been a lie.

Nabi's eyes widened. Sensing danger, she struggled, but her firmly gripped hand did not budge.

Now that the full authority of her blood manipulation was directed inward, Tyr's strength instead overwhelmed even Nabi's.

“Ny... ah?”

“So this is what it was.”

Only after wielding it herself did Tyr understand her power. She spoke.

“I have never fought in so brutish a manner...”

It wasn't the strength of her grip. It was blood manipulation, controlling every drop of blood in her body.

Using that blood manipulation fully, without waste, she “moved” the blood within her.

And through Tyr's body, now clearly defined, that tremendous power was unleashed upon the world.

“But to protect him, I have no choice.”

“Nyanyah?!”

Tyr's clenched fist slammed into Nabi's chest.