Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint

Chapter 415

Wherever vampires passed, not even blood remained.

Shei and Peru buried the dead and tended to the wounded.

An entire city's leadership had been wiped out—an event that could only be called catastrophic.

The confused citizens of Claudia believed that the vampires had attacked because the Thunder Overseer had sought divine forgiveness, angering them. Neither Shei nor Peru bothered to correct them.

It was easier to let them believe a lie they could accept than to explain the truth.

If there was any silver lining, it was that neither the Thunder Guardians nor the Thunder Overseer had family.

They had been chosen by fate—abandoned by their families, left with nothing but their destinies to embrace them. A lineage of misfits with nowhere else to go.

And so, rather than mourning, Claudia channeled its emotions into pure, undiluted rage against the Mist Duchy.

Was that really a good thing? Hard to say.

Regardless, the chaos didn’t last long.

The Thunder God had vanished. The Thunder Overseer was dead.

But in their place, a new Golden Overseer had emerged.

And not just any overseer—she wielded both the power of the Golden Mirror and the remnants of the Thunder God.

To the war-torn nations who had spent their lives cowering beneath the terror of two Mad Gods, Peru’s arrival was nothing short of a divine revelation.

A sign that they no longer had to run.

Bathed in the peculiar mix of tension and anticipation surrounding her, Peru… was currently bedridden in the refuge tower.

Shei sighed as she watched Peru groan in pain, drenched in sweat.

“Ugh. What am I even supposed to do with you? How is lying next to the patients supposed to help?”
“…Urgh.”
“Forget it. Don’t talk. Just focus on recovering.”

Peru, struggling to keep her strength, slumped back onto the bed.

Shei exhaled heavily and turned to face the seemingly endless line of wounded.

The Thunder disciples were assisting, but their skills and experience were lacking.

The situation was already a disaster, and Peru was the only one capable of truly fixing it.

Yet here she was, incapacitated.

It was enough to make Shei want to tear her hair out.

“…As if my head wasn’t already exploding from all this nonsense about the King of Humanity.”

She muttered to herself, then fell into deep thought.

The King of Humanity.

The being that predated the King of Sins, and possibly, the key to solving all of this.

But the more she considered it, the more the threads of causality tangled.

In the future Shei had come from, the King of Sins and the King of Humanity had stemmed from the same origin—yet they were entirely different entities.

The King of Sins had all the Mad Gods under their command, wielding their power like a storm of destruction. A cataclysm.

Nothing about them resembled Hughes.

Not their appearance.

Not even their gender.

“…The timeline doesn’t match up. Even if Hughes died the moment I met him, even if a new King of Humanity was born at that very instant… that still wouldn’t explain it.”

She had never sensed any real power from Hughes.

And yet, it was impossible to deny the truth.

Hughes had been recognized as the King of Humanity.

Even the Holy Crown Church had acknowledged it.

Which meant…

“Then… if I hadn’t gone to the Abyss, Hughes…”

Hughes surviving wouldn’t have been shocking in itself.

But surviving while being trapped in the Abyss?

As she considered the possibility, Shei shook her head.

“No. Forget it. I’ll figure it out later. Right now, I need to focus on—”

She could leave Peru behind.

But Peru was one of the few people acknowledged by two Mad Gods.

To stabilize both Claudia’s chaos and the Gods’ influence, she needed to be here.

Besides… Shei couldn’t just let her die.

Making up her mind, Shei took a deep breath.

“If nothing else… I need to bring the Golden Overseer back.”

Once the decision was made, the next step was finding a solution.

Peru’s body was in complete disrepair, barely held together by sheer divine power.

Medicine was useless. So was internal energy.

There was only one person Shei knew who could heal her.

The Doctor of the Future—Lir Nightingale.

“She hasn’t created any new bloodkin at this point in the timeline. Which means she has to handle this herself.

And considering she killed Ruskinia… she’s probably lurking near the Mist Duchy, waiting for Tyrkanzyaka to return so she can receive judgment…

…Wait.”

Shei’s expression hardened.

Lir had killed Ruskinia and inherited his True Blood.

That was treason of the highest order.

By the laws of the Mist Duchy, Elders could not pass judgment on other Elders.

Only the Progenitor had the authority to do so.

Until Tyrkanzyaka returned, Lir’s sentencing had been in limbo.

She had been banned from creating new bloodkin, but otherwise, she had been freely roaming the outskirts of the Duchy, using her medical skills to aid those in need.

A bit too eagerly, even.

That’s why Shei had been sure Lir would come here the moment she heard about the wounded.

But now…

“…Tyrkanzyaka’s already back.”

Shei’s stomach dropped.

Lir might have already run into Tyrkanzyaka.

Or worse—she could have been imprisoned until the trial.

“And right now, Tyrkanzyaka is perfectly fine! There’s no reason for her to show mercy!

Damn it. I have to go get her—now!”

Lir had only been spared from execution because she had contributed to the Progenitor’s recovery.

It was that merit that had allowed her to escape with banishment instead of annihilation.

But now that the Progenitor was fully healed…

Her fate was completely uncertain.

If Shei wanted to prevent the worst-case scenario, she had to move.

She grabbed Tianying and Jizan, ready to leave.

But just as she turned toward the exit—

Step.

Someone strode into the infirmary.

Their movements were calm, composed.

Hair neatly tied back beneath a white bonnet.

A short dress with a fitted apron, resembling the uniform of a noble’s maid.

At first glance, it might have seemed a simple aesthetic choice.

But Shei knew better.

That attire was meant for patients.

The white fabric wasn’t for elegance—it was to make the color of blood more visible.

That was why the Doctor of the Future always wore white aprons.

Shei had just been thinking about her—

And now, here she was.

Barefoot, she entered the ward without hesitation.

A young Thunder disciple, flustered, immediately tried to block her path.

“W-Who are you?! You can’t just barge in here—”

Lir Nightingale didn’t even blink.

“No.”

She spoke as if correcting a mistake.

“This is exactly where I should be.”

Lir Nightingale, the Doctor of the Future, calmly counted amidst the blood and death. The groaning of the wounded, the blood flowing from bandaged wounds, the resentment and terror in their eyes.

She remained indifferent to everything that could shake a human heart, keeping her cold composure as she made her declaration.

“You are now my patients.”

A moment later, one of the Thunder Guardians, only just realizing that Lir was a vampire, grabbed his spear and rose to his feet.

“You! A vampire…!”

His arm was twisted and wrapped in bandages, but before his fury and fear, pain meant nothing. Whether he could win or not was secondary. The Thunder Guardian thrust his spear in pure instinct.

Lir’s gaze turned to him, but her eyes were not on the spear’s tip—they were fixed on his mangled arm. She watched him intently, right up until the spear nearly reached her. Then, in one smooth motion, she pulled out the thin scalpel she had concealed in her palm.

A flash of silver. A whisper of a blade.

Lir moved past the Thunder Guardian’s back. A moment later, with a wet plop, something fell to the ground.

A cleanly severed arm.

Even if he had inherited power, an Elder was still an Elder. The Thunder Guardian lost his arm in a single stroke. Writhing in agony, he let out a scream.

“A-AAARGH! AAAAAHHHH!”

The razor-thin blade had sliced through his shoulder, neatly severing the twisted limb. It had been damaged and useless, yet it had still been his. Now, lying on the ground, it was nothing but discarded flesh.

The moment the others saw this, their perception shifted. The ruthless vampire had returned to slaughter them all.

But only one person remained unfazed.

Shei.

The Doctor of the Future was always the Doctor of the Future.

“I will take responsibility for your cause of death,” Lir said. “If you die, it will be because of my incompetence. Nothing more.”

The severed arm twitched.

The Thunder Guardian, who had been writhing in pain, suddenly stilled—because the pain had vanished.

“H-huh…?”

The bleeding stopped.

It was an eerie sight. Blood flowed from the wound, but rather than spilling freely into the air, it moved along an invisible path, weaving itself together like strands of silk. The blood connected the severed limb to the shoulder where it had been cut, as if it had never been separated.

No, more than that…

What did it even mean to be a single body?

“…It will be better to reattach it later,” Lir remarked. “However, that will only be done after I have treated the forty-four others before you. Your death will be the forty-fifth in line.”

First, fear.
Then, astonishment.
And finally—curiosity.

This was how Lir took hold of her patients.

Amidst the stunned silence, she raised her scalpel and began to move. Her criteria were clear. She started with those closest to death. To save everyone, she had to treat those who would die first.

That was her principle.

Shei carefully approached Lir. The vampire paid her no attention, focused solely on cutting into flesh, assessing the state of the wounded. To anyone else, it might have looked more like butchery than treatment.

As the remaining Thunder Guardians hesitated, Shei shooed them away and whispered,

“Do you need anything?”

Lir did not look up as she answered.

“I am running low on blood. I only have enough for thirty more patients. Starting with the thirty-first, I will require a fresh supply.”

“But you can’t just use someone else’s blood raw. If you take foreign blood, your body will reject it. You’ll need medicine to suppress the reaction, or you’ll have to monitor them constantly.”

At this, Lir finally turned to look at Shei.

The fact that vampires experienced rejection when consuming foreign blood was not a secret. It was common knowledge among vampires and those who practiced qi manipulation.

But the fact that the rejection could be suppressed with medicine? That was not widely known. It was knowledge only possessed by the Blood Alchemists—those who had studied the body itself under Ruskinia’s lineage.

Naturally, Shei had heard it from the future.

While Lir regarded her with curiosity, Shei gestured toward Peru.

“The Golden Overseer is injured. If she were fully healed, she could create a homunculus. The Thunder Guardians here already have homunculus blood mixed into them. If we use their blood, the rejection rate will be lower, and you’ll have a steady supply.”

Where had she learned this?

How exactly was a homunculus created?

How did she know it would reduce rejection?

There was no certainty. No true understanding.

But none of that mattered.

These people were Lir’s patients now.

Their lives were in her hands.

They had to be saved. There was no time to hesitate.

Lir made her decision.

“Lead the way.”

She had her principles. She always started with the patient closest to death. She never altered the order for personal reasons.

Because if she did, the chance of saving everyone would decrease.

However…

Principles meant nothing in the face of death.

If breaking a principle meant stopping death, then Lir would break them a hundred times over.

For a doctor, the responsibility for a patient’s death lay not in their principles.

It lay in their own hands.

And Lir would never allow herself the excuse that she had let someone die because she was too rigid to adapt.

Not for as long as she lived.

Or for as long as she existed.