“Wait, someone’s here!”
Nolan pushed Vivian away and shouted.
He keenly sensed a faint trace of killing intent nearby. This killing intent was locked onto the two of them and was rapidly approaching.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to eat you.”
Vivian pressed down hard on Nolan, who was trying to get up. She thought he was scared and wanted to run away.
“Besides, I’ll make you feel very good~”
A red light flashed in her pupils as she activated hypnosis magic.
‘No resisting!’
The light in Nolan’s eyes gradually dimmed as Vivian pinned him to the ground, and the highlights in his pupils vanished. The resistance from beneath her weakened rapidly. Before long, Nolan was at her mercy.
Vivian licked the corner of her mouth, revealing two sharp fangs. An endless thirst flowed in the depths of her eyes. With a wave of her small hand—
*Snap*
She stripped off the upper half of Nolan’s armor, revealing his neck. Since Vivian had been the one to help Nolan put on the armor, she was now intimately familiar with the techniques of taking it off. This made her blood-drinking much more convenient. After all, her fangs couldn’t bite through thick steel plates…
Vivian wrapped her arms around Nolan’s neck. She stuck out her tongue and lightly licked the skin near his throat.
It was a bit salty…
The sweat exuded from a man’s skin during daytime activity left behind a faint salty residue once dried by the night breeze. He also carried a strong scent of pheromones. Vivian buried her head in the crook of Nolan’s neck and took a deep breath of that scent. For a moment, it made her head spin.
‘I feel like I’m getting closer and closer to being a pervert…’
Vivian reflected on her perverted behavior in her heart. However, the excitement on her face could not be hidden, and her cheeks turned a deep crimson.
‘A pervert is a pervert then. I’m a huge pervert!’
She whispered to herself in her mind.
‘I’m going to dig in!’
Opening her mouth wide, she gently pressed her lips against Nolan’s neck. Her two small, sharp fangs pressed lightly against his skin. As the pressure increased, two small indentations appeared on his tough skin. Catching a faint scent of blood, Vivian stopped hesitating.
She clamped down hard!
“Ngh.”
Nolan let out a low, muffled groan beneath her. Sweet blood shot out from the vessels, splashing against the hard palate of Vivian’s mouth.
‘It seems like a bit much…’
She lifted her head slightly, letting the blood fill her mouth. Some of the liquid overflowed from the corners of her lips.
Just as Vivian was immersed in the sweetness of the first mouthful of blood, unable to pull herself away, a pale blue glint of cold light sliced through the night. A sharp dagger, gleaming with a chilly luster, stabbed fiercely toward Vivian’s back. The blade pierced through her clothes with ease, but it could not advance a single millimeter further once it hit her skin. It felt as hard as a Dwarven steel plate.
‘Hmm? My back is a bit itchy…’
Annoyed that her meal had been interrupted, Vivian felt a surge of dissatisfaction. She thought she had been bitten by a mosquito. But then, she suddenly felt that the thing against her back was somewhat cold. She realized something was wrong.
She reluctantly let go.
‘I only got half a mouthful…’
Vivian turned her head in confusion and looked behind her. She saw a bald man drenched in sweat, his head reflecting the bright moonlight.
The perpetrator, Carlyle, looked at the dagger in his hand in disbelief.
‘This dagger of mine… it’s a treasure bestowed by the Emissary… how can I not pierce this strange person?’
Carlyle raised his head in silence. The girl before him had blood clots at the corner of her mouth that she hadn’t wiped away, and her pupils glowed with a faint red light. She was looking at him with a curious gaze. Meanwhile, that Paladin lay beneath her like a marionette, completely unresponsive.
The scene looked quite eerie.
‘Is it too late to pretend I’m offering up this precious blade?…’
An absurd thought flashed through Carlyle’s mind, but he quickly discarded it.
What a joke! Being caught by the Church would also mean death. Carlyle steeled his heart. Since things had come to this, there was no room for hesitation! He flipped his palm, gripping the dagger in a reverse hold, and charged at Vivian.
“Die!”
With a roar, he held the dagger high and stabbed downward!
*Clang*
A crisp metallic sound rang out. Vivian lightly raised her index finger, using her fingernail to block the tip of the incoming dagger. Under Carlyle’s full-strength thrust, her finger did not budge an inch, and not even a white mark was left on her nail.
“You want to kill me, don’t you?”
Vivian lowered her voice and spoke calmly. She raised her hand to lightly wipe away the blood at the corner of her mouth and slowly stood up. “But unfortunately, you don’t have that kind of power.”
“You…”
Carlyle stumbled back several steps. He pointed at Vivian but couldn’t squeeze out a single word for a long time.
“What happened?”
Nolan, who was lying on the ground, rubbed his sore neck and climbed up. A series of noises had brought his thoughts back to reality. His searching gaze swept over Carlyle, who was holding the dagger. Then, his face hardened.
“You cultist, you’ve finally shown your true colors!”
Nolan’s legs instantly exerted force, and he lunged toward Carlyle, wanting to take him into custody. Just as Nolan’s large hand was about to grab Carlyle’s shoulder—
*Bang!*
A pale red energy shield repelled Nolan. He was thrown back by the massive force, rolling several times on the ground. Carlyle seized the opportunity, turned tail, and ran. He bolted into the distance without looking back.
Vivian did not rush to catch up. Instead, she jogged over to Nolan. She gave him a hand and pulled him up from the ground. She could chase the enemy later, but she couldn’t let Nolan get hurt.
‘I haven’t had enough blood yet…’
She helped Nolan over to the carriage and let him lean against it. He had just been heavily hypnotized by Vivian, bitten, and then finally hit by the unknown power on Carlyle’s body. His head was spinning, and he could barely stand.
“I’ll go deal with him. You rest here,” Vivian said with some concern.
“Be careful. He likely has a holy relic of the Demon God on him,” Nolan told Vivian.
“Yeah, I know. Wait for me to get back.”
After saying that, Vivian’s body burst apart, turning into a swarm of bats that flew in the direction Carlyle had fled.
***
*Huff, huff, huff.*
Carlyle panted heavily, his feet moving like the wind as he ran across the wilderness. Just as he was about to look back, a massive force suddenly came from behind, slamming into his back.
Vivian kicked Carlyle, sending him flying.
*Thud!*
His face made intimate contact with the yellow sand of the wasteland. He ended up with a mouthful of dirt. Carlyle did a nimble roll to get back on his feet, looking at Vivian behind him with sinister eyes.
Damn it, I’ll risk it all!
“You forced me into this!”
Carlyle took off the twisted icon from his waist and threw it in front of him. But the icon did not fall to the ground; instead, it was suspended in mid-air in front of Carlyle’s chest by an invisible force.
‘What is this?’
Vivian was momentarily intimidated by Carlyle’s display. She stopped in her tracks, not daring to act rashly. She maintained a short distance, observing what Carlyle was up to.
She saw Carlyle reveal his dagger again. Just as Vivian thought he was going to charge at her again, Carlyle actually pointed the dagger at his own chest.
“I pray for the descent of the Holy Lord’s Emissary…”
“To clear the obstacles for the arrival of the Holy Lord!”
After saying that, he slammed the dagger into his chest. The blade cut through the skin and muscle of his heart, and the tip pierced into the atrium. Carlyle threw his head back, a localized, frantic smile on his face. Then, he yanked the dagger out.
A large amount of blood gushed from the wound. Guided by an invisible force, the blood slowly covered the entire icon.
“Cough, cough, cough… You’re finished…”
“The Holy Lord’s Emissary will arrive here very soon.”
“And you, along with your friends… will all die…”
Carlyle collapsed weakly onto the sandy soil, blood foaming at his mouth. Then, he closed his eyes and fell into a peaceful, eternal sleep.