CHAPTER 86: CHAPTER NO.86 TO THE LIBRARY ONCE AGAIN

[Location: Morningstar Manor, New York]

After having an extravagant dinner prepared by Zeraphira, and let me tell you it was surprisingly divine—like she’d poured a piece of her soul into every dish—I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the chandelier of black crystal above the dining hall. The light reflected off its jagged edges, scattering faint motes of mana that shimmered in the air like fireflies.

Zeraphira sat across from me, watching in quiet satisfaction as I devoured the last bite. Her crimson eyes glowed faintly in the dimness, her chin resting on one palm. "Satisfied, darling?"

"Yeah," I said, setting the fork down. "Didn’t expect you to know about cooking, honestly—"

"Oh, then what do you expect~"

Trap.

I can see one from miles away, and this was definitely one. The lilt in her tone, the tilt of her head, the way her eyes ’sweeten’ a bit, all of it spelt danger.

"The last time I fell for that tone," I said slowly, "I almost lost a lung."

Zeraphira laughed softly, leaning back in her chair. "Ah, you remember~ I was merely teaching you the consequences of underestimating a woman’s touch."

"Yeah, well, lesson learned."

Her laughter faded into a smirk that lingered a bit too long before she stood and began clearing the plates. She didn’t need to— Manor can do it on its own, but she seemed to enjoy doing it herself. It was oddly... domestic.

"Don’t tell me," she said without looking back, "you plan on brooding beside the silver ice statue tonight?"

My eyes narrowed before I could even respond.

"No," I said, standing from my seat. "I’ve got something else in mind."

Zeraphira turned slightly, one brow arched, crimson eyes glinting like embers. "Oh? Should I be jealous?"

"Depends," I said, sliding my hands into my pockets. "Are you going to start competing with books now?"

Her expression flattened. "Books?"

I grinned faintly. "To the library."

She blinked, then rolled her eyes. "Ah, of course. My rival is made of paper and dust. How could I ever compare?"

"Relax," I said, already heading toward the door. "You can glare at the shelves if it makes you feel better."

Her laughter followed me as I left the dining hall. The sound lingered for a moment, melodic and faintly mocking, before fading into the quiet hum of the manor.

...

The vast double doors groaned as I pushed them open. A familiar scent greeted me—aged parchment, dust, and faint traces of mana ink. The Morningstar Library was as enormous as I remembered, stretching upward into darkness. Floating lanterns drifted lazily through the air, illuminating rows of ancient tomes and shelves carved with infernal runes.

The first time was when Grayfia was here—

’Argggh! Stop being such a melodramatic cunt!’

I thought as I slapped myself to focus on the task.

Which is—Gathering Information on... Vampire King

, if any.

I don’t know what I am looking for, honestly, but anything is better than going into an S-rank dangerous dungeon blind with absolutely no clue what kind of nightmare is waiting inside.

The Vampire King’s Castle. Even the name sounded like a bad idea wrapped in an invitation to die slowly.

The library’s ambient mana reacted faintly as I walked deeper, recognising me—or rather, recognising the bloodline I wore. Ancient runes glimmered to life along the edges of the bookshelves, whispering in languages that would shatter mortal minds.

"Authorisation: Morningstar confirmed," a soft mechanical voice chimed from the air itself. "Access granted to restricted archives."

"Now, this first, I wonder why this didn’t happen the first time... maybe because Grayfia was there the first time..."

I exhaled and started scanning the rows. Most of the books here weren’t made of paper; they were bound in preserved demon hide or crystallised mana, each one alive in some way. When I reached the section marked ’Undead & Forbidden Lineages,’ the air grew heavier, colder.

It took me nearly fifteen minutes before I found it—a book.

"Codex of Nocturnal Sovereigns."

The tome floated off the shelf the moment I touched its spine, humming with a deep, hollow vibration that felt like something ancient was waking up inside it. The cover was blacker than shadow, bound with some material that wasn’t quite leather—more like pressed night itself—and the title glowed in faint sanguine letters.

"Codex of Nocturnal Sovereigns..." I muttered. "Sounds pretentious enough."

The book opened on its own, pages fluttering as if caught in a silent wind.

An index page opened showing—

• Banshee Queen "The Whore Unleased"

Reading just the first few texts was kind of... refreshing?

"Wow, the author seems to have some sort of agenda against her; otherwise, to write a whole fifty-something pages on just insulting her existence," I muttered, flipping ahead. "And people say internet forums are toxic."

As I saw that the second... Chapter? Was starting from page fifty-one, which gets on the second Chapter itself, which is—

• Dullahan Lord "The buck nakedness of a headless bastard who refuses to die."

I blinked. "...Okay, whoever wrote this had issues. And this one has more than seventy pages dedicated to insulting the poor guy’s lack of fashion sense," I finished under my breath, flipping a few more pages. "This book’s author was either a genius or completely insane."

The third entry caught my eye, and I wish I could unsee things:

• Lich King — "207th Bone Jerking Messiah of Eternal Celibacy."

I froze, staring at the words. "...What the actual—"

The next few paragraphs read like an unhinged rant written by someone who either hated skeletons or had trauma involving them. It was absurd enough to almost make me forget what I came for.

I had to manually flip the page before I get traumatised just by looking at the titles, much less the content written on those titles.

I shivered just by the sheer creative profanity written in the margins. Whoever wrote this Codex had a serious vendetta against the undead.

I kept turning pages until finally, the tone shifted—less mockery, more reverence laced with fear. The heading bled across the parchment in dark crimson letters that seemed to throb faintly under the light.

• The Vampire King — "The True Immortal"

The mocking tone that carried through the earlier Chapters vanished. The text that followed bled authority, reverence, and dread all at once. It was as if the writer’s insanity had been replaced by terror when this name was mentioned.

I immediately looked at the page number to confirm where it began. Page 666.

"Of course it’s six-six-six..." I muttered under my breath. "Subtlety really isn’t your thing, huh?"

I pinched the side of the tome with both hands, and only lifted the part where I could see the page number because I didn’t want to accidentally open the earlier-mentioned sections. I wasn’t ready for another mental breakdown over undead anatomy jokes.

Only after seeing the number six-six-six, did I release the sigh of relief and flip it open.

The page pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat trapped in parchment. The ink shimmered red and black, forming words that almost crawled as they rearranged themselves into legible script.

• The Vampire King — "The True Immortal"

— Let me clear something up for the ignorant and incompetent. The Vampire Count Form is nothing more than the most talented Vampires recovering the Ancient Form that was used hundreds of thousands of years ago, when even the current Gods did not exist.

— The Form of Ancient Vampires. Our True Form. When a Vampire achieves full Vampire Count Form, he is only one step closer to returning to our Origins of the past.

Our original Power... It was a Power that even the strongest monsters of the past feared, and because of that fear, they joined with the other strongest monsters of the time and crippled our Race.

Suuuu!

My breath caught just halfway through the next line.

— Helel, also later known as Lucifer Morningstar, was the one to end the Vampire King’s reign.

The words didn’t just appear—they burned across the page, branding themselves into the parchment with a hiss, as if the book itself despised what it was forced to reveal.

I stared at it for a long moment, the weight of that name pressing down like a curse.

"...Lucifer ended him?" I muttered, my voice barely audible in the silence.

The ink pulsed again, and more words followed—like the book itself was remembering.

— The Vampire King, Alucard Dracul, was not slain by blade, spell, or holy rite. He was sealed. Bound beneath his own castle by the Archangel, Helel, for crimes that transcended death.

— He drank divinity. He feasted on godflesh. He dared to taste the ichor of the Archangels themselves.

— For that, even the Thrones trembled.

My eyes widened slightly. Drank divinity?

That... sounded absurd even by demonic standards. But the words carried an echo that felt real—too real. The page shimmered again, and more text bled through, darker this time, like the blood of something ancient pressing against the surface.

— But Helel could not kill what was beyond death. The seal was made using three fragments of the Crown—the same that bound the Morningstar’s soul. When the Morningstar fell, so too did the prison weaken.

My gaze immediately flicked to the Crown Fragment sitting in my inventory.

"...Wait." My voice came out low, tight. "You’re saying this thing is a key to that seal?"

The book didn’t answer. But the crimson letters pulsed once, slowly, like a confirmation.

For a moment, the entire library felt colder. Even the floating lanterns dimmed slightly, as if the place itself didn’t like where this was going.

I closed the book halfway, running a hand down my face.

"Perfect. Just perfect. So the dungeon isn’t just based on the Vampire King—it’s his prison."

The kind of dungeon no sane person would ever open.

And I was about to stroll in carrying one of the three keys that could unseal him.

A bitter laugh slipped out before I could stop it. "Of course, cursed box. Of course, that’s what I ’needed.’"

Still, part of me couldn’t help but wonder—if Lucifer sealed him personally, then this Dracul wasn’t just a monster. He was an anomaly. Something beyond life and death.

But getting stronger is exactly what I need.

So I reopened the book again, this time slower. The next lines formed, and this it was different.

— Alucard Dracul Tepes, was the Progenitor of the entire Vampire race. He who has no need for shape or form; he appears as a being entirely composed of darkness. In his true form, Alucard has a pair of large wings made of blood, slightly grey skin, eyes with black sclerae and glowing crimson irises, slightly pointy ears and a mouth entirely made of sharp teeth with no lips. His hands were made of sharp, monstrous claws, as were his feet. He has patterns of black tattoos wandering across his body as if they were alive...

***

Stone me, I can take it!

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