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  [The {Desecrated Shadow King} admires the bloodshed.]

  [The Fate of the Damned has been brought by their very as, or inas.]

  [And so, when you die, there is nobody to bme but yourself.]

  [The {Desecrated Shadow King} presence has dissipated.]

  The Desecrated Shadow King’s words were always strange; he talked in some sort of riddle, always around what causes people’s curses and suffering.

  Uhe jokester and ical Unending Crimson, he seemed to be always serious, and it was quite clear seeing how he had eveed a cult of incredibly strong assassins to take over the Realms.

  Vd couldn’t quite figure out what his purpose was, aside from… quest? If he were a King, he guessed that might be one of such things.

  But involving criminals to do it felt strange; a King should have some honor as well.

  Or perhaps there was no actual pattern with these beings, and they were just as mysterious as they were nonsensical, inations of chaos.

  But without a doubt, they seemed to be a major antagonistic for the game’s "story,” as Paul thought, and they might only tinue involving themselves with everything as the world progresses.

  However, sihat Raid in the first days he started pying, the Unending Crimsoo be o be seen, and Vd was quite relieved.

  Perhaps he went to annoy or torment another Realm instead, which was better anyway.

  The Desecrated Shadow King didn’t seem particurly targeting this oher, as his cult was actually from Ennead.

  Meaning that he had already spread his influence greatly in that harsh Realm.

  “I suppose it would spread easily when that Realm is even harsher than Obscuritas,” thought Vd. “If its truly just a desertic world with few oases and ruins, then people must be always suffering. A perfect pce for an embodiment of curses and desecration to gain power and influence.”

  Evehat didn’t him anymore; he sighed in relief, gring at the corpse of the werewolf. Unfortunately, the bracelet he had merged with didn’t appear for him to loot and remained fused with the corpse’s body.

  “I wonder if I could get anything by eating it with Gluttony,” he sidered. “I’ll first store everything and the out of here; this pce seems to be about to colpse.”

  He noticed how much the ceiling had colpsed; he will probably fill all these underground caves with dirt and stone, so they won’t be used anymore by criminals.

  The sewage system was in another area, and it was sealed from anybody; he had checked it before, and the sewers were of bandits, surprisingly enough.

  “So this is the st one, right?” wondered Chris, flying to his side. “Are we finally over with the damn criminals?”

  "Yeah, I think so,” nodded Vd as he ti all the bodies. “We should probably go loot anything we first. And thehe hell out of here. I’m using Geomancy right now to hold everything from falling, but it is burning through my Ara rapidly.”

  “Oh shit! Alright, let’s hurry then!” Chris panicked. “Queenie! Hey Queenie! You ok?!”

  Chris flew towards Queenie, finding her looking traumatized and paralyzed, sitting over the floor while looking pletely grim.

  “Ahh… I don’t want to… I don’t want to fight anymore…”

  “e on, it’s a game! Just move your avatar!”

  “Queenie, I’ll carry you.”

  Camil gently enpassed Queenie on a bubble made of her telekiic powers and carried her in midair.

  Queenie gasped as she looked around, snapping out of it as she floated.

  “Uwaah! W-Wait, don’t carry me like this!”

  “It’s fine; if you’re tired, you should rest.”

  Camil was surprisingly reliable for her age; the girl protected those that she deemed valuable and useful after all.

  “Well, I fot to ask, but everyone’s ok?” wondered Vd. “You were attacked by dozens of specters, so I was worried.”

  “We’re fine,” shrugged Chris. “You think we ’t handle a bunobs? To be ho, if you weren’t so quick to kill that dog, I would’ve smacked it down myself!”

  “Hahaha! Okay, sure,” ughed Vd.

  “What are you ughing at?!” Chris got bothered. “I’m strong too! Don’t look down on me, nerd! I’ve saved your ass plenty of times already. You should respect me more!”

  “A-Ah… You might not be wrong there,” Paul nodded, feeling overwhelmed by Chris reprimands; it was as if his mother was reprimanding him. “Sorry, sorry…”

  “Ahh! I found something!” Chris flew ahead and quickly turned into the left corridor. "Oh, they got a bunch of boxes here full of stuff!”

  “Really!?”

  Vd ran ih Camil right behind him, as the group found a huge room full of wooden boxes with equipment, potions, and credit s everywhere.

  There were also two other rooms filled with the same things. So while the underground held on, they quickly took everything they could, st it ihe Pyers Iories, as Queenie whined, saying she wanted a part for herself, and then they quickly moved back to the surface.

  By spending a lot of Ara, Vd filled the underground with stones and dirt, finishing the job as he nodded, quickly taking down the abandoned house that had the entrao the underground.

  TRUUUM!

  “We’re finally done; let’s go bae for now,” he sighed in relief. “I guess that’s a job well done, eh?”

  “Yeah! A even more money and goodies,” smiled Chris. “With this, we’re done! Let’s go ze around now! I want to eat sweets!”

  “Hah…” Paul looked at Chris pletely carefree demeanor; it was as if he had given a plete ge from how grumpy he had acted seds ago.

  “Hey…”

  “Hey!”

  As Chris and Paul tinued chatting with Camil, occasionally talking with them too, they suddenly started hearing an annoying background noise.

  “HEY!”

  Eventually they gred where it came from.

  Queenie.

  “Did you just fet I exist?! You’re so cruel! Camil, please let me go already! I move on my own!”

  The pink-haired demon was quickly freed from Camil’s telekiic grasp, almost falling to the ground if it wasn’t because her wings helped her save herself from the humiliation.

  “Phew…” she sighed in relief. “Anyways, I’ve worked hard and helped you in that little… or not so little endeavor. It retty hard, you know? So I hope I’m accepted now? my Guild form an alliance?”

  “Sure,” Vd nodded. “You’re in.”

  “Uooohh!” Queenie gasped, celebrating. “Niceeee! You don’t mind if I do livestreams ierritory?!”

  “You , but as long as you’re not b the citizens…” Vd said. “Also don’t bother mother or ask her unreasohings; you’ll get hit again, and this time she might not go easy on you.”

  “W-Wait what? She went easy on me?!” gasped Queenie. “No way… She sent me flying to another damn region of the map!”

  “She should be capable of doing more than just that by now,” said Vd. “Anyways, we’re back.”

  Teressa and Ia walked out of the manor as they noticed their presences arriving, greeting them like two mothers would to their children ing back from school.

  But this school was actually sughtering dozens of monsters and a super evil assassin werewolf… thing.

  “Wele back, my son,” Teressa smiled. “How was everything? I could sense a lot of otion down below. Did you battle someone powerful? I was about to send Ia to help you.”

  “We’re fi was hard but not the hardest battle I’ve had,” said Vd. “Ia, what about the crops?”

  “Everything’s under trol and they’re growing nicely,” nodded Ia. “We also started addiilizer. The pnts are growing very fast as well! Usually pnts take weeks, months, or sometimes years to get anywhere, but these might only need a couple of days to give some proper food.”

  “Oh, that’s perfect then,” nodded Vd. “Alright, we brought a lot of stuff today as well. you help us out with everything, mother?”

  “Of course! Show me all the goods you’ve bought, my son!” Teressa was clearly growing greedier.

  Like that, Teressa helped out Vd and Chris calcute and assess all their gains, and of course, they ended up half of the earnings to the Territory, this time keeping more than before.

  Based on all valuable items that could be sold, Teressa was able to calcute roughly over thirty millios worth of s, so the duo kept fifteen million, which they further divided into seven million five huhousand credits.

  Queenie was left speechless; not evero Pyers out there whrinding monsters and selling anything they found every day had reached such absurd levels of money yet!

  “Alright then, I shall take this and then sell it to gain more money,” eressa. “With this, the funds for Elderbridge had improved siderably. I think we could i some into infrastructure and so on. I was also thinking of employing more meraries to protect the trade routes. Even though Argentia is here, he doesn’t go so far away from the walls.”

  “Hmm, not a bad idea; have there been attacks retly?” wondered Vd.

  "Yes, I often times get some notifications,” eressa. “It’s annoying, but the bandits are clearly targeting our roads because they uimate us… My familiars have detected that there’s rge bandit camps to the faraway mountains of the north, which are closer to your brother’s former territory, the Silver Moon Family’s Duchy.”

  “So they’re not even dealing with the bandits because they’re oher side of the mountains, huh?” Vd sighed. “Well, I could have guessed as much. As long as the bandits don’t attack them, they couldn’t care less. That’ll only make things more plicated ter. If they let their group grow se, eventually they would get pilged as well.”

  “Even more now, with the loss of their Duchess and their Prihey’re very weak against attacks, as usually members of the Royal Vampire Family are the protectors of each territory…” Teressa said. “We might have to dedicate some money and time to eliminate all the bandits over there before thie out of proportions. After all, that territory will be ao ours eventually, fufu.”

  “Hm, we ’t let some bandits take it,” nodded Vd, smiling. “Anyways, for now we’re done… I’ll go to my room.”

  “Ah yes, but you don’t want to have a meal first?” woeressa. “I made your favorite blood sausage stew!”

  “Hm…”

  At the end Vd went to eat anyways, and Chris joined, and then Camil, of course, and also Queenie, which made Teressa slightly mad after they expined she was noerma ally and member of the territory.

  “I do admit you’re a useful asset, so I’ll let this slide for now, but I hope you’ll behave from now on,” eressa. “ime, I will not go easy on disrespectful, lowly people like you.”

  “L-Lowly people…?” muttered Queenie.

  “Why yes, all those that aren’t members of the Vampire Family are obviously lowly people,” Teressa said. “Beh us, so you better behave with respect when you’re talking to me or my children, uood? We are more benevolent thaher members of our kind, but that doesn’t mean we’ll let others walk all over us.”

  “Ah, yes, I uand… sure,” nodded Queehinking Teressa was just insane.

  “Sorry about that; my mother is obsessed with these s,” said Vd. “Although Camil and I don’t really mind these things, right?”

  "Yeah, I don’t mind,” nodded Camil.

  “A-Ah! But my children, you should force others to respect you a bit better!” Teressa pined.

  She had beeier, but ultimately, things like these were still ingrained in her little head, unfortunately.

  Ohey were doing, however, Vd quickly went to his room, taking out the corpses of several of the mohey had sin and the werewolf, deg to use Gluttony to devour them all.

  At the end of the week, the Neburian King would free himself from the mountain having fallen over his kingdom, and he had to grow as strong as possible until then.

  A great war was slowly creeping in, and he feared it might be even bigger than the first attack…

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  Pach