Under the pale moonlight, a bat soared through the night sky, gazing far below at the situation near the Highfort Stronghold.
No signs of large-scale troop movement — it seemed Duke Alamar had finally decided to take a few days’ rest.
Gliding back toward the shrouded lands of the Black Veil, Sigismund landed gracefully upon the outer balcony of the Crimson Spire. His adjutant was already waiting there, bowing respectfully as he offered a familiar-looking flask.
“My lord, you really need not perform reconnaissance personally every day. Such tasks can easily be delegated to your subordinates.”
“A large shipment of supplies will be arriving soon. I can’t afford to give Alamar any chance to interfere.”
“My lord is ever so wise.”
Sigismund took a sip of the bloodwine inside the flask, savoring it briefly before replacing the lid with visible reluctance.
“Next time—don’t add sugar.”
“Eh? But last time, my lord, you said—”
“For this hour of the day, no sugar,” Sigismund cut in flatly.
The adjutant bowed his head again. “Understood.”
Once alone in his chamber, Sigismund pulled aside his robe and pinched at the new folds of flesh around his midsection, silently cursing Lin Jun’s ancestors eighteen generations back.
All that talk about “caution” and “firsthand intelligence gathering” was nonsense — his reconnaissance flights were just an excuse.
The real reason he flew those circles every night was because of that guy inside him!
Every time it was Lin Jun’s turn to “take control,” the man gorged himself shamelessly — adding sugar even to the blood he drank!
As a result, Sigismund’s body had visibly grown rounder.
Normally, vampires couldn’t even digest mortal food, let alone gain weight. Even those who were plump before turning would quickly slim down once transformed.
But Sigismund? He had managed the impossible — a fat vampire.
At first, he hadn’t realized how serious it was.
Then, during what should’ve been a routine duel with Alamar last week, his sluggish, overweight body had almost cost him the fight.
Now he was forced to spend part of every day exercising just to burn off the excess energy. Even so, the fattening trend had only slowed, not stopped.
Asking that gluttonous parasite inside him to practice moderation? Impossible.
Sigismund could already foresee the miserable future awaiting his physique.
Over the past two months, he had tried numerous methods to expel the foreign soul within him — all in vain.
Fortunately, there was still a glimmer of hope.
Recently, he’d sensed it: the other soul’s strength had weakened, if only slightly.
This was, after all, Sigismund’s body. Lin Jun’s spirit was merely a squatter — rootless, constantly draining away.
Though the decline was slow, stretched over time, it would inevitably fade.
Sigismund had already made the calculation: the complete dissipation of Lin Jun’s soul — two years.
Not short, but not long either.
As long as there was hope, Sigismund could endure.
He had once endured six whole years of servitude before slaying his former master. Compared to that, two years was nothing — a mere footnote in his eternal life.
Comforting himself with that thought, Sigismund grabbed a jar of sugar from the table and hurled it across the room with force.
Just then, a messenger arrived with news from the rear lines.
“My lord, Duchess Veyralis has departed the eastern front. She’s heading here to reinforce the Crimson Spire and is expected to arrive within ten days.”
“Oh? At last.” Sigismund snatched the sealed letter.
He and Eleanora shared few opinions, but when it came to Veyralis, both agreed — the woman was utterly mad and dangerous.
Still, if she helped him crush his archrival Alamar, then madness was a small price to pay.
His eyes scanned the report swiftly:
The Elemental Lord sealed within the Moltenfire Dungeon had broken free, unleashing an unprecedented magical catastrophe. The dwarves’ Goldenflame Fortress had fallen. Two entire legions were all but annihilated, and the remaining forces in the mountains were being redirected to contain the chaos.
Sigismund chuckled darkly.
“Those greedy, arrogant dwarves — they should’ve seen this coming the day they chose to imprison an Elemental Lord rather than destroy it. Still… Prince Visarius really outdid himself this time.”
No dwarf would have tampered with that seal lightly. Whatever method the vampire prince had used to make this happen, it was terrifyingly subtle.
Sigismund’s wariness of the elder bloods deepened.
Then came a voice inside his head — Lin Jun’s.
“What’s an Elemental Lord?”
Sigismund’s smile stiffened. He wanted to ignore him outright, but remembering the two-year timeline, he forced himself to sound civil. He had to play along — lull the intruder into complacency.
“The so-called Elemental Lords are simply the oldest and strongest of the elementals,” he explained. “There’s no real difference in kind — only in scale. Elementals have strict hierarchies; the strong rule the weak. The dwarves once used trickery to seal one such Lord, enslaving all lesser elementals of the dungeon. Now, they’re paying the price.”
“And what kind of trick was that?”
“They say the dwarves made a wager with it — and cheated.” Sigismund shrugged, unwilling to elaborate further.
“I see…”
When Lin Jun fell silent, Sigismund relaxed.
After all, what connection could this intrusive mushroom spirit possibly have to dwarves or elementals? They were both stuck in the Crimson Spire — two souls sharing one body, under constant surveillance of each other.
…
Meanwhile, in the Stonekeep Dungeon, the situation was anything but calm.
Outside the newly formed spatial rift, Lin Jun’s forces had established a triple-layer defensive perimeter.
If there had been more space, he would’ve stationed even more troops.
Fire Elementals emerging from the rift froze to death on their own, but Earth Elementals merely slowed down, and Wind Elementals weren’t affected at all.
Still, none of these were the true reason for his heavy guard.
The real issue came when he’d sent a scout puji through earlier — and the creature had sensed an overwhelming surge of mana in the air.
That terrifying energy reminded Lin Jun of his early days back in Mushroom Garden No. 1, when he’d once felt the power of a raging Balrog from afar.
Now, it seemed he’d been right to be wary.
Lin Jun immediately ordered several pujis to collapse the passage leading to the rift’s chamber with explosives.
There was no way he’d challenge an Elemental Lord — a being that could destroy a fortress city and required the combined might of the dwarves to contain.
Even opportunistic scavenging would have to wait for another day.
If this had been within his own Puji Dungeon, he could’ve simply sealed the rift or adjusted its size at will. Unfortunately, the Stonekeep Dungeon he’d conquered wasn’t under full control yet.
All he could do was bury the tunnel and pray the other side wouldn’t notice.
And as for another matter…
Watching Gray["Little Black"], the small creature who’d just betrayed him by shielding the two dwarves from his minions, Lin Jun made up his mind:
For the next few days, she wouldn’t be getting a single bite of delicious puji.