“Duke? Duke?”

Gaunt Margas knelt anxiously at the edge of the magic array, gently shaking the dazed figure at the center — Duke Sigismund, drooling from the corner of his mouth — and prayed desperately that His Grace hadn’t been utterly ruined.

“He shouldn’t be, right?”

Margas glanced around. The array was a slaughterhouse; crimson blood and grayish-white brain matter had nearly soaked every rune. Still, three sacrifices had survived.

It wasn’t mercy — the sacrifices had been consumed too quickly. To be safe, Margas had halted the ritual a little early so Sigismund wouldn’t risk confronting the Abyss directly.

But now…

“Could it be… mutual destruction after all?”

Just as Margas feared the worst, the vacant-eyed Sigismund suddenly jerked his head up and, summoning all his strength, howled, “1+1=3!”

It’s over! His brain really is broken! Margas felt his heart drop into an abyss.

But in the next instant, a flicker of painful clarity flashed across Sigismund’s crimson irises.

He clasped his skull with both hands and let out a bestial, agonized wail, then shook his head violently and staggered to his feet.

“Tha… that’s good, my lord! You… are you all right?” Margas probed, unsure.

Sigismund lunged forward, gripping Margas’s bony shoulders so hard his fingers dug in. His speech was still slurred, but his tone was urgent and coherent: “Quick! Quick! Sever the soul! Do it now!”

“Why? Lord, you’re still not fully clear — calm down!” Margas assumed the duke was still muddled and tried to soothe him.

“No time! The trap failed! He’s still in my head! I can’t hold on much longer — hurry!” Sigismund’s words were rapid but organized; only now did Margas truly believe these weren’t delirious ramblings.

But to start another Abyssal array right away…

Never mind whether Sigismund’s grievously damaged soul could withstand it — Margas himself was drained to the dregs and likely couldn’t survive the backlash of the ritual.

“Hurry! What are you waiting for?”

Margas steeled himself, dug two vials of viscous, ink-black, foul-smelling elixir from his breast, and downed them without hesitation. Then he nearly dragged Sigismund to the center of another array.

The instant black light flared across the circle, Margas emitted an unbearable scream.

His left eyeball and half his liver were, as if erased by an invisible force, wiped away simultaneously on the material and soul levels — vanishing as two wisps of black smoke. Even if he later used regeneration potions to regrow them, that portion of his soul was irretrievably gone.

At the center, Sigismund screamed as something began tearing his soul apart.

…

PAJJI—!

In the increasingly tattered, collapsing dreamscape, a massive Puji tentacle unrelentingly smacked Sigismund into a blurred pulp.

But not long after, that filthy smear struggled to reconstitute itself into the vampire duke’s likeness — though now his outline was even more insubstantial.

“You’ll never—”

SMACK—

This isn’t a real fight; Lin Jun is simply playing whack-a-mole.

The other’s will proved far tougher than expected; he still clung to existence. His reformation speed and the clarity of his body were steadily weakening, though.

Lin Jun wasn’t worried at all. A few more hits cost him nothing, and they vented the irritation left from that black void earlier.

Though it wasn’t truly dangerous, Lin Jun hated traps. If someone dared lay a trap for him, he’d dislike them intensely.

The Puji stamped the vampire flat again.

At that moment Lin Jun realized: after all that beating, he still only knew the enemy was a vampire — not his name, nor his identity. With so many tricks and that strange trap, he couldn’t be a mere nobody.

If he simply crushed him to nothing, Lin Jun wouldn’t even know what he’d gained. That wouldn’t sit right.

Maybe… pause and ask a few questions?

Suddenly the dream began to quake.

“What else have you got? Another trap?” Lin Jun wasn’t frightened — any trick should be used at the first meeting if it exists.

Most of them were just defensive, after all.

CRACK—

Accompanying the shattering, the “Otherdream” connection behind the Puji began to flake and collapse like a broken mirror, chunks falling away.

While Lin Jun was distracted by this change, the vampire — who had just partially reformed — leaned weakly against a fissured stone wall and panted: “Ha… ha… you win this time, mysterious one! But I will find you sooner or later! I will…”

“Huh?” Lin Jun blinked. “What do you mean? Sounds like the story’s about to wrap up?”

“How?” the vampire panted, a trace of scorn in his eyes. “You still intend to remain inside my head and die with me? You’d abandon your own body…?”

“Ah! That’s what you meant!” Seeing the connection about to snap, Lin Jun finally understood the vampire’s plan.

The vampire took this fragment for Lin Jun’s entire soul! He really did think like an ant sometimes — hard to get into that perspective.

Lin Jun didn’t rush to finish him. Judging by the vampire’s state, he won’t be easy to fully eliminate quickly.

Instead, the Puji casually took two steps forward, sat down beside him with a great thud, and even swung its stubby legs leisurely.

“You… are you insane?!” The forced calm and mockery melted from Sigismund’s face, replaced by disbelief; his voice changed tone.

…

The black light of the magic array faded. Margas — barely clinging to life — lifted his heavy head; his remaining eye scanned the duke at the center and prayed silently that the man wouldn’t become a homicidal lunatic who’d kill him on impulse.

Time seemed frozen.

Minutes passed before Sigismund’s body twitched. Like a marionette, he rose stiffly to his feet.

He looked around blankly, as if he no longer recognized the ritual chamber he knew intimately.

Then he lowered his head and stared fixedly at his trembling hands, as if checking something.

Under Margas’s horrified gaze—

“Ah! 123456789!” Sigismund suddenly spat out a string of numbers in a strange, infantile intonation.

He shot his head up, a near-maniacal joy blooming on his face: “This is… ha… ha ha… clear vocal cords! Fresh… not-so-fresh flesh! The feeling… kekekeke!”

Sigismund laughed like he’d gone completely mad, arms wide as if to embrace the world.

But then his voice snapped into a different register — furious and terrified: “You lunatic! Get out! Get out of my head!”

Immediately the jubilant tone slammed back into place: “What do you mean ‘your head’! It’s mine now! You’re the one who should get out!”