The woman’s aura was suppressed to the extreme, not even a trace of bloodline fluctuation leaking out.
Before leaving, her gaze fell on Lorevil, who was chatting happily.
It inexplicably softened for a moment, but she quickly looked away.
The next moment, her sight locked onto a patch of blood-colored bushes diagonally ahead.
The Shadow Blood Wolf was lurking there, belly to the ground.
After its failed strike, its eyes were full of unwillingness and ferocity.
Drool dripped from its mouth onto the fallen leaves.
If that wolf claw had landed on a vampire, it would have inflicted severe injuries, allowing it to feast.
And Lorevil’s instinctive act of saving someone had completely exposed its trail.
The blood wolf gathered strength, preparing to ambush again.
But it didn’t notice that a fatal killing intent had already locked onto it.
The next second.
A figure of icy blue streaked through the air.
Its speed was like an arrow leaving the bow, leaving only a faint afterimage.
The cold woman formed her fingers into claws, radiating chilling air, and pressed them lightly against the Shadow Blood Wolf’s neck.
There was no earth-shattering roar.
The chill spread visibly along frost patterns.
The Shadow Blood Wolf’s movements came to an abrupt halt.
Its massive wolf head lost support and fell with a “thud,” smashing heavily against a nearby tree trunk, producing a dull sound.
The headless body, carried by inertia, stumbled forward a few steps.
Then, eroded by the biting cold, it shattered inch by inch, completely breaking into ice shards scattered in the air.
Not a single trace of blood remained, let alone a scream.
Only a high-rank vampire could possess such overwhelming lethality against a third-rank blood beast.
The woman’s identity was already obvious.
The icy aura slowly dispersed through the forest, carrying a suffocating pressure, but it was quickly withdrawn by the woman.
Only then did Lorevil, Leina, and Fini notice the commotion and turn to look.
By the time they arrived, only faint water marks remained on the ground.
“That third-rank Shadow Blood Wolf is dead. We don’t have to look anymore.”
Leina pointed at the blood core that had fallen to the ground, speaking with both shock and helplessness.
Lorevil was silent for a moment.
She wasn’t too concerned about the wolf’s death.
Instead, she felt that aura was strangely familiar, as if she had encountered it somewhere before.
What they didn’t know was that Catherine hadn’t really left.
She had been hiding in the shadows all along.
Only after they finished hunting the blood beast and encountered no further danger did she turn and leave.
Catherine shouldn’t have been here.
But her resignation as a Practical Combat Class teacher had already been submitted.
This week, she was to formally transfer to the Counterattack Bureau and step onto the Blood Realm Front, a place that had buried countless vampires.
Yet before leaving, she still came.
To take one last look at Lorevil.
To do a little something for her, and leave herself a keepsake.
…
Meanwhile, deep within the faculty building.
Warm sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating an ancient book and also falling upon Jerwen.
He held an old book in his left hand, quietly flipping through and studying it.
Unlike usual, his face today was as pale as paper.
His right arm drooped slightly, and the entire person exuded a decaying aura, like someone on the verge of death.
“Take this. The injury from your bloodline rupture is still hard to heal. That thing has been blocking the repair effect of the soothing agent.”
Vivian, small in stature, handed him a bottle of dark purple magic potion.
She had learned the art of potion brewing from a reclusive powerful witch.
Most ordinary injury remedies she could almost concoct with ease.
But facing the old wound left by Jerwen’s bloodline rupture, she could only alleviate it, not cure it.
“Thank you.”
Jerwen took the potion, tilted his head back, and drank it all.
After taking the soothing agent, some color finally returned to his pale face.
His lion-like sharp eyes also regained a bit of brightness.
“Catherine has submitted the quota for Lorevil. I’ve already confirmed it.”
“Catherine is resigning as the Practical Combat Class teacher and transferring to the Counterattack Bureau.”
“Is that so?”
Vivian’s eyes dimmed slightly.
She knew well what the Counterattack Bureau meant.
Entering the Counterattack Bureau was equivalent to stepping halfway into the Blood Realm Front.
That is a place all vampires fear, yet must hold.
“This happened much sooner than expected. Catherine didn’t have this plan before.”
Jerwen was silent for a long time before speaking in a low voice:
“Perhaps… the rift on the Blood Realm Front has widened again.”
Vivian didn’t respond.
Her gaze drifted toward the deep darkness in the distance.
As the youngest and most outstanding Secret Art researcher at Holy Blood Academy in recent years,
she had hit a dead end in her research on secret arts and ancient vampire runes.
Vivian sighed softly.
“Sorry, Jerwen, I let you down.”
“That’s not your fault, Vivian.”
“You just perceive things more keenly than others and see things more clearly.”
“That is not your burden, but your talent.”
But after saying these words, even Jerwen himself felt they were hollow.
Talent.
Sometimes, it itself is a curse.
Vivian bore the negative effects of her talent, like a cancer that clings to the bone.
The deeper the night, the more it eroded her mind.
“Sister Disurka… from the same class as me, do you remember her?”
Vivian suddenly spoke.
“She’s already dead on the front line.”
“Three days ago, I could sense that her soul and body had completely dissipated.”
A powerful vampire dies.
What remains is only death.
Silent and unnoticed.
Jerwen said nothing.
His mind conjured the image of that bright, cheerful girl.
Her figure had already blurred.
The only thing he still remembered was that she always liked to wear a bright flower tucked behind her ear.
As for the flower’s name,
no one knew anymore.
After Vivian finished, the atmosphere in the room became especially oppressive.
They exchanged a few more trivial words.
Jerwen stood up to leave.
“I’ll head back now. I still need to prepare the lecture notes for the students’ theory class.”
“Mm.”
Vivian responded without looking up.
The door slowly closed, completely shutting out all sound.
…
Jerwen walked out of the faculty building.
Outside, the sun was still bright.
But he felt a chill through his bones.
He raised a hand to push up the glasses on his nose, discreetly wiping away the moisture almost spilling from the corners of his eyes.
Over the years—
No, to be precise, from the day he retired from the front line—
he had been asking himself the same question.
If, back on the front line, he hadn’t chosen to operate the cannon turret but had charged forward with his comrades,
would the outcome have been different?
Or,
if he had known his bloodline would rupture,
would he still have made the same choice?
In fact,
the moment he put his hand on the cannon lever,
he had no idea his bloodline was already on the verge of collapse.
He could only watch helplessly as one batch of his comrades after another was swallowed by the tide of blood beasts.
Their screams.
Their pleas.
The unwilling looks in their eyes before death—
they always lingered in his mind.
He hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye.
This question will never have an answer.
Life never offers a chance for retrospection.
There are no ifs.
He could only keep moving forward.
Who ever cared about their suffering?
The vampires of Holy Blood City still lived their peaceful lives.
The students at the academy still trained hard to raise their ranks.
As if that tragic war had never happened.
Time is too cruel.
It buries all blood and pain,
leaving only him, forever remembering those sacrifices that should never be forgotten.
Jerwen didn’t run away.
He just chose another way to continue fighting at Holy Blood Academy.
So what if he was only a theory class teacher?
So what if he could no longer step onto the battlefield?
He could still pass on his experience and his lessons to these students.
If they could become stronger,
they could avoid many detours.
And when they eventually set foot on the battlefield, they would have a greater chance of survival.
The moment Catherine resigned as the Practical Combat Class teacher and decided to transfer to the Counterattack Bureau to return to the front line,
Jerwen fell silent.
He felt those long-buried memories being awakened again.
His heart pounded fiercely.
The wind blew.
Leaves fell.
“Hey, Jerwen, you kid, what are you looking at today?”
It was as if the young Raymond, Karon, Sera and the others were patting his shoulder again, their faces full of smiles.
“I…”
Jerwen’s expression was dazed.
He looked toward the Blood Hunting Ground.
He saw batch after batch of aspiring students walking out.
His burly figure swayed slightly, but didn’t fall.
Instead, almost stubbornly, he headed toward the teaching building.
“It’s nothing.”
He walked silently along this path,
watching generation after generation of young vampires grow up,
and then head toward the battlefield destined to be soaked in blood.