—–

“Of course, it wasn’t my fault! Whose fault would it be than on you all, incompetent servants?!” roared the man, hitting the table and standing up.

BOOM!

The entire table turned into pieces in an instant of his incredible physical strength. He glared down at the man on the floor as he quickly stood up and bowed down to him once more.

“I-I am sorry, my lord!” he cried.

“Explain to me more! What happened?!” roared the man.

His entire presence grew larger as his entire aura began to come out of his body like an endless ocean of crimson-red light, encompassing the entire room with its deadly embrace.

“The Priests! The Mercenaries and the Priests got in the way!” cried the man.

“…”

The Lord walked around the room while thinking.

“So the priests will most likely also try to get rid of her, what a pain… If they were a church that only originated from Albraun, then it wouldn’t be hard to take it over, but they come from their own Empire… They’re simply meddling with every single kingdom they can get their claws into after all…” sighed the man.

Perhaps by using his connections, power, and resources, he would be able to take over certain branches of the church in this country. Still, the root of the entire church was a completely external nation, so he couldn’t do much before he was to get caught in the end.

And even despite all of that, those corrupt enough to help him and cooperate with him would be easily taken down, while the faithful would use this opportunity to get rid of the menaces of the continent, the Vampires, which the church of the God of Light saw as enemies and monsters.

He had to sadly bear with the church fanatics and find other alternatives to finding a way out of this conflict, if possible, but the possibilities and chances were dim. What else could he accomplish?

“Such a nuisance, truly…” he sighed.

The church was a real eyesore to his plans. Although the royal family of the Kingdom, the Albraun Royal Family, was cooperating with him, and he had reached as far as even retrieving the fragment of evil from them, the church had already begun to try to dig their hands into it, desiring the fragment for themselves.

Of course, they were a mere church, not a nation that could force their way into others, and the King and the royal family had the Fragment of Evil well-guarded using the help of the Vampires and their underworld connections.

But how long would it be until the church attempted to be more aggressive with its approach?

And now that the ghost woman has begun to get involved in all these problems… Things were really getting worse.

Already two of his forces were destroyed by her: the one producing the black potions and the others producing the chimeras that could utilize the power of the Fragment of Evil somehow…

They were important losses, and he actually regrated them quite a lot. They were important for his research and also for his money-making potential, but now all of it was gone, completely gone.

The losses were big because those potions were being imported to various duchies that planned to use them to fight against one another. Now that the supply was cut, this entire process was cut down, which would have been very beneficial to him.

And the chimera’s ultimate goal was to create powerful mass-produced units capable of wielding the power of the fragment of evil and quite possibly be able to fuse with the real deal ultimately!

But now, all of that was gone from his grasp, even more, when he had hopes that the last one could be achieved soon as the knowledge about a pair of twins that were the first “perfect” test subjects that were able to take over the power of the fragments of evil… or well, the black crystal that grew out of it, a powerful and highly corrosive material.

And now the church was getting their claws into his own problems, trying to take her down in his place. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t because he really wanted to take revenge on her, and these pesky servants of the God of Light were simply getting in the way at this point.

“Hahh…”

The man sat down over his chair once more as he looked down at the floor.

“…”

The other Vampire looked at him with a bit of fear. He didn’t know what his lord would do now as his temperament grew more and more unstable over the years, as if he were growing senile.

“Go away.” He said.

The young Vampire nodded nervously and quickly rushed outside of the room.

“Well, she hasn’t been seen for a while. Should I just forget about her for now and hope she doesn’t show up once more to ruin my plans? …If she’s really Maria, the Maria from the family that descended from the heroes given the ask of protecting the sealed fragment of Evil… it is a matter of time before we clash once more… and the time she has been away might only be a way for her to grow stronger somehow…” he sighed.

Hope seemed rather dim, as the situation was only worsening with every day, and things would only continue getting worse as time went by. Could there be something that could be done now? Or was there the only thing left but to resign?

Well, not rea. Thishis Vampire wasn’t a person that easily gave up. He didn’t achieve all these things by giving up and being a coward. He got this far thanks to him grasping every opportunity he got, even if he had to betray his former allies in the past, even if he had to sell them off, even when he had to do all the things he never thought he would have done before.

And it’s not as if he didn’t have the resources or the personnel to strike back against the witch that had now come back in the form of a powerful and highly intelligent specter.

—–