On the outskirts of Tantalus, where no light reached, something sinister and evil stirred. In that place forsaken by both heaven and earth lurked things that dared not stand before God. Something was certainly there, but the curtain of darkness concealed their forms as perfectly as it did their sins.

That was why Finlay could still walk about despite committing the mortal sin of daring to control the Progenitor. Had this not been the bottomless pit, had there been even one person to discover his crime, he would have been slaughtered on the spot.

'It's all right. I can pay for this sin with my life later. Once I escort her to the principality, the Progenitor will understand us.'

Feeling the guilt engraved in his blood, Finlay looked at the vampire.

She sat on her coffin with vacant eyes. Without her usual parasol, both arms hanging limply at her sides, she looked even more lifeless than usual.

Perhaps it was her pallid skin, utterly devoid of color.

Or the ominous darkness surrounding her.

Or perhaps the great fissure in her chest.

A large scar marked the vampire's chest. Crimson energy surged through the gap, looking as though it were trying to force its way inside—or escape.

"Progenitor, forgive my impertinence."

Finlay wound the blood energy leaking from the gap around his hand. Then, shouting loudly enough to echo throughout the darkness, he clenched it with all his strength.

"Progenitor! Make the blood steed obey my will!"

THUMP.

Finlay's blood manipulation squeezed the vampire's heart. Blood churned violently. Her carotid artery bulged as the newly driven blood flowed into her head.

Then a brief flash of focus crossed her vacant eyes. Her reason, still disconnected, carried out the command it had received in fragments.

But...

[NEIGH.]

The blood steed, the very creature meant to obey that command, merely snorted.

Finlay lowered his arm in dismay. Ralion, the blood steed and the strongest fighting force currently at the Progenitor's disposal, showed no particular response despite Finlay's control over her.

He shook his head.

"Does that mean you cannot grant this request? Or do you not understand my command? Phew..."

The instant he muttered those words and released the blood energy, Finlay felt death upon him.

The blood steed's hoof descended toward his head. That blood-red hoof, which had reduced countless humans to scraps of flesh, came crashing down without a moment's hesitation.

WHOOSH.

It was far too heavy to call a gust of wind. The air pressure alone forced Finlay to his knees and slammed him against the ground. The enormous hoof of the house-sized blood steed was large enough to cover his entire body, and its horseshoe of blood-forged iron offered not a single gap.

Another fifty centimeters, and Finlay would vanish into a mere smear of blood. Given enough time and effort, he might regenerate, but that would be a stroke of luck. In the meantime, the Progenitor might regain her senses, end his life, and reclaim his blood.

But...

"G-gh... I see. The Progenitor's command has already reached you properly..."

Finlay did not die. The reason was simple: Ralion had not brought its hoof all the way down.

Beneath the massive hoof and above the hard concrete, kneeling in that precarious gap, Finlay murmured in a trembling voice.

"You're desperate to kill me for daring to control the Progenitor. But you cannot kill me. Because even if it is not what she truly wishes, it is still the Progenitor's command!"

[NEIGH.]

"Good! That is enough. As long as I control the Progenitor, you will ultimately obey my commands! Hahahaha!"

Ralion snorted in displeasure and turned away. Then it walked of its own accord into the impenetrable darkness, as though declaring it would watch this spectacle no longer.

The hoofbeats faded into the dark. Only after they ceased could Finlay collect himself.

Having witnessed the blood steed's tremendous power, Finlay reflected anew on just how reckless his deed had been.

Overwhelming size, weight, and strength. Ralion, the blood steed of blood-red footprints, could defeat an army alone. Yet even so powerful a creature obeyed the Progenitor with all its body and soul.

The Progenitor's power was dominion. The power to spread blood in every direction and control whatever it touched, to fashion mighty familiars.

And Finlay held the reins of that immense authority.

Power beyond one's station. A person who grasped it would react in one of two ways.

With fear.

Or with ecstasy.

Finlay was the latter.

"Hehehe. Hahahaha! I... I have obtained the power of a god!"

The Progenitor's authority, which seemed to bind every drop of blood in his body, now lay quietly dormant. None other than the Progenitor herself had withdrawn it. And in that state, he was controlling her heart through blood manipulation.

Then was that not the same as possessing the Progenitor's power himself?

"The Progenitor must have acknowledged me. She must agree with my intentions! Otherwise, there is no way I could wield her power!"

As he reveled, intoxicated by that overwhelming omnipotence, the vampire suddenly raised her head.

Startled, Finlay let out a gasp. Had the Progenitor regained her senses? Tense with apprehension, he called to her.

"P-Progenitor?"

The vampire's eyes remained fixed on a single spot. Finlay's anxiously wavering gaze followed hers.

Then he gave a disbelieving laugh.

"I warned you. Do you truly place no value on your lives?"

Standing there boldly were the Regressor, holding a red sphere in one hand...

And me, carrying a large bundle on my back.

When I concentrated, I could hear thoughts clearly. Only Finlay's, of course. The vampire was in something like a half-asleep state, so I couldn't read hers clearly.

Without consciousness, there were no thoughts. No memories, either.

It felt like trying to read a book in pitch darkness. She was only faintly repeating a story someone had told her. Waking her seemed a distant prospect unless we could touch her directly.

All right. Enough mind reading.

I addressed the Regressor, who stood a handspan shorter than me, glaring ahead with a terrifying expression.

"Did you see?"

"Yeah."

The first of the Seven-Colored Eyes: the Red Eye, which saw heat.

The sixth of the Seven-Colored Eyes: the Indigo Eye, which saw far into the distance.

Having pierced the darkness with a different power in each eye, the Regressor clenched her teeth and growled.

"That bastard has Tyrkanzyaka's black knights hidden in the shadows..."

"Fortunately, Ralion doesn't seem to acknowledge Finlay."

"That still doesn't make it our ally. Better not count on it."

No sooner had she finished speaking than the ghostly flames vanished from her eyes. With her eyes black once more, the Regressor pressed them briefly as though tired.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Just need to press them for a moment."

When she lowered her hand, her eyes shone as keenly as before. Turning my gaze forward again, I asked,

"According to plan?"

"According to plan."

The Regressor and I took a step out of the area illuminated by the daytime lights and into the darkness.

It gave the illusion of moving. That sinister darkness was a living creature in itself, a mist of night that sheltered all vampires.

At its center, in a gloom utterly impenetrable to the naked eye, Finlay spread both arms wide to greet us.

"I explicitly told you not to come. Are your ears blocked, or do you not value your lives?"

The Regressor snorted in reply.

"You're the one who doesn't value his life. Are you insane? How could you even think of controlling the Progenitor unless you had more guts than sense?"

"This is not control! I am merely asking her indulgence for a moment and returning the Progenitor to where she belongs."

"Seriously? Forcing her to act without even asking what she wants isn't control?"

"What the hell do you know?!"

Finlay shrieked in a fit. The Regressor frowned at his violently shifting demeanor, as though he were manic-depressive.

"The Progenitor wanted this!"

"What kind of bullshit is that?"

"Had the Progenitor not permitted it, would the day ever have come when I held her heart in my hands? From obtaining this power to temporarily acting on her behalf! It is all as good as her will!"

As Finlay shouted, he displayed a madness that suggested he was drunk on power. Swept up in a frenzy quite unlike a vampire, he shouted, spraying blood rather than spit.

"Therefore, my will is the Progenitor's will! I wished for her to return to the surface, and so she has decided to ascend! If you interfere, it is tantamount to rebelling against the Progenitor! If you are her servants, bow your heads and see her off. If you are her enemies, be swept away and annihilated by an irresistible sea of blood! Choose, you lowborn wretches!"

His words held neither logic nor reason. It was behavior utterly unimaginable from a vampire with a cold heart.

The Regressor raised a finger to her head and twirled it.

"He's completely lost it."

"Well, he is crazy enough to try something as insane as controlling Trainee Tyrkanzyaka."

"True."

"And that insane stunt has already pushed his blood manipulation to its limit, so the blood manipulation moving his own body has become unstable. Looks like he sold off his cold heart."

In his extreme excitement, Finlay kept shouting whatever he wanted, whether we listened or not. He didn't seem to care that his only audience was himself.

"Phew. We'll die of old age before he finishes talking. Shall we get started?"

The Regressor nodded, and I cleared my throat. Finlay's grating voice rang out from the darkness.

"We shall ascend to the surface and take vengeance on the Holy See's deceitful whores! We shall blaspheme their god and reclaim our former glory! Hahahahaha!"

"Fucking hell. They say people get long-winded with age, but why the hell are you flapping your tongue so much?"

I let out a long sigh and cut in between his breaths. As excited people tend to do, Finlay directed vicious murderous intent at me for interrupting him.

"Instructor! I disliked you from the very beginning! How dare you!"

"Hey! Shut up for a second! I know it's hard keeping a senile old woman around, but I've got plenty to say too!"

"S-senile?"

An easy-to-use machine or a toy with a simple mechanism is always pleasing to behold. There's something reassuring about watching it behave exactly as predicted.

To me, a fanatic like Finlay was just such a machine.

A little tap on his fit-triggering switch, and out came the desired response.

"H-how dare you speak of the Progenitor... Such insolence!"

"Tyrkanzyaka? What a tacky name! Did she choose it to be deliberately hard to pronounce? And she's stupid enough to get tricked and controlled by her thrall's thrall's thrall! Who taught her to be such an idiot?"

Unable to hold back, the Regressor cut in.

"You did, idiot."

"Whoops! It was me! I'll be too ashamed to keep working as an Instructor!"

As I insulted the vampire in an impassioned voice, Finlay could only gape with his eyes wide open. The shock was so great that he had momentarily forgotten how to speak.

Good. Now he was finally ready to listen.

"And you, Finlay. You're apparently too stupid to realize this, just like your Progenitor. Do you seriously believe you can escape the bottomless pit by flying into the sky?"

Having said that, I laughed loudly. After roaring with laughter long enough to shake the entire bottomless pit, I abruptly stopped and spoke.

"You won't get anywhere."

This was a truth I had worked hard to uncover. It wasn't something to reveal lightly, but I decided not to hold back.

"The bottomless pit is a land of endless falling. What does that mean? Spatial coordinates don't mean a damn thing. Simply falling or rising won't get you anywhere, idiot. If you could reach the surface just by climbing up, you could reach the bottom just by falling. But, huh? It's a bottomless pit? There's no bottom? What do you think that means?"

The preparations were almost complete. The Regressor had put roughly half her mana into the red orb and was now imbuing it with a simple spell.

After checking that, I began bringing my speech to a close.

"Want to know?"

Listening to me, Finlay reflexively nodded. Even in this darkness, his eyes could locate me precisely.

Good. In that case, let him get a good look.

"It's in here."

I raised a finger and tapped my temple. Then, with a cold smile, I said,

"So come and get it if you can, you unfilial bastard."