Chapter 7: The Solar Scripture

Pushing open the window, she stepped outside the castle.

Charles quickly surveyed her surroundings, wanting to find landmarks as soon as possible to determine her location.

However, all she could see was murky fog—she couldn’t make out anything in the distance at all.

“Strange, the air is so thin, low pressure, low temperature… is this really a castle in the Tenorvaid region?”

Charles slowed her pace, cautiously exploring ahead. Gradually, she heard the sound of waves.

“A lake? No… this is!”

“The sea?”

Reaching the edge of the grassland, the scenery before her eyes left her utterly shocked.

This place wasn’t a city at all.

It was a vast ocean!

The clear, transparent seawater had no tides. Ripples stirred up by the wind exploded brilliantly like fireworks, with water droplets shooting upward against gravity into the sky.

Whenever droplets fell into the fog, the wind would grow stronger.

Gradually, the fog overhead dispersed, and a crimson, unsettling eyeball opened, coldly watching Charles.

Charles froze, blinking, only to realize it wasn’t an eyeball at all, but a red moon filling her entire field of vision, its flowing light filling the sky, with everything rotating around it.

Charles was deeply shaken!

A moon this enormous couldn’t be seen even from the highest point in the city.

Could it be…

As if guessing something, she looked down at the calm water surface. Deep below, colorful points of light seemed to shimmer and move.

If she wasn’t mistaken, those lights were the city’s night glow.

In other words, this was the sky—the Sky Sea directly above the city!

The Blood Princess had actually created a floating island in the sky and built a castle on it. Simply unbelievable!

“How did she even do this?”

The Sky Sea was an endless ocean suspended thousands of meters in the sky. Its depth was unknown. Living creatures could freely enter it, but dead matter could not.

Even if a meteorite dozens of kilometers across crashed into the Sky Sea, it would instantly dissolve into nothingness.

Under these circumstances, for the Blood Princess to move a castle from the ground to the Sky Sea…

Could there be a secret passage?

Charles turned back to look at the magnificent castle standing on the floating island.

It was simply too large!

To secretly explore it completely would take at least several more days, and she still might not find the hypothetical secret passage.

Though if she was patient enough, she would certainly investigate it thoroughly someday in the future.

But there wasn’t that much time to waste!

The vampires and dragons had suddenly formed an alliance—they could launch an attack at any time, and she feared the Demon Hunter Association would be caught off guard.

Charles paced back and forth. So this was why the Blood Princess said she couldn’t escape.

Even if she dove to the bottom of the Sky Sea, she couldn’t go down, and the Demon Hunter Association couldn’t come up.

Under these circumstances, aside from a secret passage, the only route left was to “fly,” wasn’t it?

Every vampire had a pair of wings on their back. Normally retracted between the shoulder blades and pelvis at the waist, they could be extended by skillfully channeling the peculiar power in vampire blood.

She was no longer human—perhaps she had grown wings too.

Charles closed her eyes, took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders, and felt the inhaled air sink into her abdomen.

After calming down, she focused her consciousness on her back.

Immediately, a strange itching sensation made her unable to resist reaching back to touch.

A pair of palm-sized flesh wings trembled weakly.

Soft and itchy.

Though still very small, they were unmistakably wings!

However, with these small wings, there was no way she could safely glide down.

What to do? Did she have to go back after all?

Charles furrowed her brow tightly, very unwilling to give up.

Just then, a flash of inspiration struck her mind.

“Void Sword, please give me some help here.”

Charles extended her right hand, and a peculiar wave of power rippled outward.

In the space at her palm, a crack slowly tore open.

Between her fingers, cold white mist overflowed, and some ice crystals fell through the air.

Charles waved her hand, directly freezing the sea surface within ten meters into thick ice!

Void Sword.

This was Charles’s exclusive blade, an extremely powerful artifact with an extremely high cost.

Each use would drain a large amount of her life force.

In her nineteen years as a hunter, she had used the Void Sword only twice.

Once to slay Kirupatra.

The other time to slay the Blood Princess, Sophie Tenorvaid.

However, the Blood Princess had been resurrected by the Elixir of Immortality, and through some unknown method, had turned her into a vampire thrall loli.

The power of the Void Sword had also been completely sealed by her.

And she had said something about absolutely, absolutely not being able to use a third strike, or she would never speak to her again… how absurd.

As for this cold air, it was just a characteristic of the sword itself and wouldn’t affect her.

Using the ice surface, Charles was able to advance.

The ice blocks behind her disappeared as soon as she moved forward.

Even ice formed from the Sky Sea was rapidly eroded.

After advancing about five hundred meters like this.

Suddenly, Charles crashed into some kind of hard barrier, and a numbing, stinging electric current instantly sent her flying.

After a mid-air tuck and backflip, Charles landed steadily.

Looking up, she saw a barrier of red lightning-shaped patterns had appeared where she had just been.

It was actually a barrier!

A trace of surprise flashed in Charles’s eyes.

With changing times, alchemists had become quite rare, and talent capable of setting up such a large-scale barrier was even scarcer.

Judging from its enormous energy flow, it had probably been set up no more than ten years ago, and being able to coexist with the Sky Sea, it should be a living barrier.

This would require at least ten experienced alchemists working together to construct!

Truly impressive!

“This barrier… seems to focus on magical defense and reflection, with physical defense and automatic repair as secondary features, plus dozens of other properties.”

Troublesome.

Charles silently observed the complex, changing properties on the barrier, then simply closed her eyes.

Breaking barriers was the work of professional personnel like mages and demon hunters. She was just a hunter who knew a little—she couldn’t solve this barrier at all.

Damn Blood Princess, just how many obstacles had she set up?

But the more obstacles she set, the more it proved this route was viable!

The Sky Sea couldn’t form an ecosystem and had no living creatures within it. This barrier must be meant to resist other enemies.

In other words, there must be a way outside that led directly to the city!

Charles rolled up her sleeve and without hesitation tore her arm with her fingernails, using blood to carve a sun symbol.

Although she didn’t know magic or spells, the Demon Hunter Association had countless types of weapons. There was always one suitable weapon that could solve difficult problems, such as—

The Solar Scripture!

“When the sun rises to the world’s highest point.”

“The all-seeing third eye shall project upon everyone’s forehead.”

“In the beginning, wisdom bestowed eloquent words…”

Charles had barely begun reciting the scripture when the air rapidly became dry, and scorching temperature enveloped the area.

In the castle living room.

Shia offered sobering tea: “Master, Master Charles is trying to escape.”

Sophie drunkenly accepted the teacup, took a small sip, her voice languid: “Escape? That’s impossible~ Not to mention the Sky Sea is the first obstacle, there’s also a barrier specifically designed for Charles behind it.”

“Master is such a yandere.” Shia muttered quietly.

Sophie showed a dangerous smile: “I am not… Shia, it seems you don’t want your vacation anymore.”

“I mean Master has taken such great pains for Master Charles’s sake.”

Sophie snorted lightly: “In any case, Charles can only come home right now. She has no means of breaking through the barrier…”

Before she finished speaking, the curtain behind Sophie suddenly flew up high, and a heat wave struck.

Sophie paused slightly. A pair of huge, featherless demon-like wings spread open, shielding Shia from the high temperature.

But the other maids outside the living room suffered, stamping their feet one by one, shouting about how hot it was.

“Thank you, Master…”

Shia opened her eyes, but before she could finish her thanks, she heard Sophie murmuring to herself.

“This is the dispelling scripture from the Solar Scripture? That idiot, this will hurt you too!”

This was the first time Shia had seen her master show such an anxious expression. For a moment, she was too surprised to speak.

Sophie hurriedly flapped her wings, turned and dove out the window, her body transforming into a crimson streak as she flew toward Charles at high speed.

Shia walked to the window, staring blankly at the barrier in the distance.

There, a surging heat wave was lifting seawater and stirring wind and clouds.

The barrier was becoming chaotic.

“I grant truth through my words,

Then all illusions shall disperse,

Finally revealing their true form,

In the name of the sun god Sol…”

“Don’t recite it!”

Just then, Sophie’s voice came from behind. Charles’s whole body trembled, and she quickly aimed the symbol on her arm at the barrier.

“Evil, disperse!”

As soon as the words fell, an incredibly blinding strong light flashed before her, illuminating nearly half the sky like daylight.

That small section of constantly flowing barrier suddenly stopped, cracking like glass with sharp sounds, turning into a pile of dust!

Charles’s face was pale, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, looking somewhat dispirited.

After becoming a vampire, the Solar Scripture affected her as well. Her skin felt the searing pain of being burned.

However, the opening formed was at least large enough for her to squeeze through.

Charles didn’t even have time to wipe the blood from her mouth. Enduring the discomfort, she ran toward the opening, only to see Sophie whoosh in front of the hole, hands on her hips, eyes suppressing anger.