The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - Chapter 246

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 246. The Song of the Vister (1)
Sarpedon’s cry echoed across the battlefield.
With that cry, the Vister soldiers moved in perfect unison.
They formed new formations and clashed with the Immortal Legion.
“Take off their heads!”
A Vister soldier leaped forward.
The blade’s edge aimed at the vampire’s skull.
Schwick—!
A crimson arc traced through the air as the vampire’s skull shattered and burst apart.
Yet.
Blood erupted from the severed head.
The scattered droplets gathered together in midair.
The shattered skull knitted itself back together.
The vampire, now without a head, lifted its gaze as if nothing had happened.
It had transcended death itself.
Therefore, no fatal wounds existed.
Whether the head shattered or the heart broke, the vampire would not die.
And yet.
The Vister soldiers of Whitewolf Territory showed no panic.
“Keep them separated before they can coalesce!”
“Target the blood vessel connections!”
They responded with calm composure.
As though they already knew how to counter vampires.
“Impossible!!”
Dracula’s eyes widened in bewilderment.
Not only did they know the countermeasures, but their combat power was extraordinary.
Vampires had enhanced bodies.
Because their blood came from The Queen, they possessed strength, speed, and defense far superior to humans.
But the soldiers of Whitewolf Territory.
More precisely, the weapons and armor they wielded withstood that power head-on.
Equipment capable of bearing The Queen’s own strength.
Moreover.
‘What is that liquid?’
The liquid the Whitewolf Territory soldiers consumed.
That crimson liquid, like blood itself, healed wounds nearly as rapidly as the vampires themselves.
Thus, the soldiers of Whitewolf Territory sustained minimal casualties.
They maintained their formations with composure, prepared for the next assault.
“How dare you stand against The Queen’s army—!”
Dracula’s eyes blazed with fury.
Crimson mist swirled as a blood-woven magic circle inscribed itself in the void.
In that instant, Sarpedon cried out.
“It’s mind control magic!!”
And Dracula wavered in confusion.
He detected it…?
How?
Dracula wielded a power entirely different from his past abilities.
Yet how had he discerned it?
Could he have possibly uncovered The Queen’s secret?
“Aaaaaaaaaaa!!”
Dracula unleashed a roar.
It mattered not.
This was a power beyond countermeasure even if understood.
That was precisely why it was absolute authority.
“Bow before The Queen’s dominion!!!”
A crimson magic circle blazed into existence in the empty air.
From within the circle, threads of red mist unfurled and coiled around the soldiers of Whitewolf Territory.
A suffocating pressure crushed down upon their consciousness.
A chilling smile crossed Dracula’s lips.
In that moment—pop!
The soldiers’ minds snapped awake from the oppression.
Something had shattered the domination.
“A mental barrier…?!”
Dracula’s eyes trembled with shock.
This was utterly impossible.
What Dracula had just unleashed was blood dominion—a power that crushed all will and forced submission.
In other words, The Queen’s authority itself.
Therefore, their minds should have collapsed in an instant.
No human, however strong their spirit, could withstand it.
At minimum, they should have shown signs of wavering.
Yet there was nothing.
“They overcame The Queen’s authority?”
Mere humans?
Not just one or two, but all of them?
…It was impossible.
Dracula surveyed the battlefield with a pale face.
The Queen’s authority had clearly activated, yet not a single one knelt.
Rather, their formation had grown even more resolute.
The Vampire Legion was being pushed back.
Which meant the human defensive line that should have crumbled long ago remained steadfast!
“What in the-!”
It was at that very moment.
Sarpedon’s colossal axe came hurtling down like lightning.
Crash!
The blood curtain shattered under the tremendous impact.
Dracula swallowed hard and staggered backward several steps.
“You dare wound me!”
Dracula’s eyes blazed with fury.
Blood erupted from his fingertips like a fountain, taking the form of spears.
Dozens of blood-stained spears materialized in the air, aligning themselves behind Dracula’s back.
“I’ll pierce you all through!!”
The blood spears plunged toward Sarpedon.
Sarpedon swung his axe to deflect them, but it was insufficient.
The blood spears that embedded themselves in the earth exploded violently.
“Cough…!”
Sarpedon spat blood.
The other soldiers quickly moved to shield him.
“Pathetic!!”
Dracula spread both arms wide.
Blood whips writhed and lashed out, striking the soldiers’ shield wall.
Clang! Clang!
Yet it did not break through.
Those shields with their absurd defensive capabilities were formidable indeed.
‘I’ve expended too much power.’
Most of my strength had been consumed in subjugating five thousand vampires.
But it matters not.
The Queen’s power is infinite.
The power I’ve spent will simply be restored in time.
“Endure! Until you comprehend how insignificant your deaths truly are!!”
Dozens more blood spears materialized behind Dracula’s back.
* * *
The moment Sarpedon engaged Dracula, he understood.
‘I cannot win.’
He was not Dracula’s match.
The impact that pierced to the bone when receiving the blood spears.
It was far beyond Sarpedon’s level to contend with.
“…Ugh!”
Sarpedon’s body was sent flying backward.
The soldiers hastily formed a defensive formation to shield him.
“Futile!!”
Clang! Clang clang!
“What could you possibly protect with such a pittance of a life?!”
Dracula unleashed blood spears in indiscriminate torrents.
Each strike was more refined, sharper, and infused with greater madness than before.
The soldiers holding the formation trembled violently.
Sarpedon wiped the blood from his lips.
“Brother, are you alright?”
One of the soldiers approached Sarpedon.
Seeing his condition, the soldier handed over a regeneration potion from his reserves.
“Regeneration potion. How many do we have left?”
“…We’re nearly depleted.”
They’d been consuming them like water—what else could be expected?
Sarpedon slowly pushed himself to his knees.
“I don’t need it. You drink it.”
“But brother—!”
“That’s enough.”
Sarpedon cut him off and surveyed the battlefield.
The immortal soldiers—the vampires—hadn’t fallen.
Dracula continued his relentless assault.
When mental magic and domination proved ineffective, he’d abandoned command tactics for direct slaughter.
The situation had become desperately unfavorable.
They were holding on thanks only to Adrian’s equipment and regeneration potions.
But they were rapidly approaching their limits.
The vampires would not die.
Dracula was far too powerful.
Sarpedon now had only two orders he could give.
Retreat.
Or die here, all of them.
They had to retreat.
Vampires that endlessly resurrected.
Dracula, wielding overwhelming strength.
…There was nothing else to be done.
And yet.
‘The Arcanoheart is in danger.’
The Arcanoheart in Whitewolf Territory 2.
If I retreat now, I surrender the Arcanoheart to them.
I don’t know if Dracula is aware of the Arcanoheart’s existence, but the moment it falls into his hands, the situation becomes irretrievable.
‘Expecting reinforcements right now… that’s not feasible.’
Everyone else is fighting their own wars across the territory.
Therefore, I had to hold this position.
At minimum, I had to endure until word of this situation could reach the others.
But he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
To tell them to hold this position was the same as ordering them to die.
“….”
Sarpedon closed his eyes without a word.
From all directions came screams twisted with blood and agony.
As the regeneration potions ran dry, the soldiers could no longer hold back Dracula and the Vampire Legion, collapsing one by one.
Sarpedon’s hand trembled as he gripped his axe.
“Brother.”
Someone called out to Sarpedon.
When I opened my eyes, the Furry Soldier stood before me.
But he was missing one arm.
Yet his grinning face remained perfectly intact—as if he’d simply sold it off somewhere.
“…Your arm.”
“I just gave it to Dracula over there.”
When I turned my gaze, Dracula was seething with fury.
It seemed the price had been quite steep.
“Brother.”
“What.”
“Do you remember when we were at the Gambling District?”
The Black Grasp of the Gambling District.
The Crimson Soiree of the Red Pleasure House.
Two Vister factions that divided dominion over Violess.
Sarpedon was the patriarch of the Black Grasp.
The Furry Soldier before me and the other soldiers had once belonged to the Black Grasp as well.
“There were so many who ruined themselves gambling back then.”
“…Yes, there were.”
Truly varied in their desperation.
Those who wagered everything chasing one last fortune, only to have their wrists severed.
Those who lost their money, lost their names, and finally lost their very lives.
“Some even sold their wives and children to pay off their debts.”
There were countless who had gambled themselves into the depths of ruin.
“That wretch deserved death, yet you gave him a chance anyway.”
“I remember.”
“But he came crawling back anyway.”
“….”
“Whether from foolishness despite knowing what that world was like, or from genuine belief that his winning day would come.”
Sarpedon remained silent.
The soldiers’ formation wavered.
The disadvantageous battlefield was now drawing inexorably toward its end.
“So? What are you trying to say?”
Sarpedon asked.
The Furry Soldier answered.
“There was something you used to say back in that gambling district, hyung.”
-A gambler who reaches the realm of divinity is one who, when he’s eaten his fill, closes his eyes tight and rises from his seat.
“You bastard, you still remember that?”
“That’s the only thing I learned from you there, so how could I forget it?”
“…Damn it.”
“Leaving Violess like that, there have been so many things here in Whitewolf Territory.”
Military training, learning to ride horses.
How to form formations, how to follow the flag.
Even how to bow before nobility.
“You whined and cried about how hard it was.”
“It really was incredibly hard.”
The Furry Soldier laughed and shook his head.
“But hyung.”
“What.”
“Honestly, I was happy.”
Training felt like hell.
Every single day I felt like I was dying, covered in blood.
But the sound of snow falling heard from the barracks.
The smell of freshly baked bread.
A cool mug of night beer after finishing training.
Useless hours spent spouting crude jokes with my comrades through the night.
People waving their hands in gratitude.
Children looking up at me with admiration.
Women offering shy smiles.
“Every moment I spent in Whitewolf Territory was the happiest moment of my entire life.”
“….”
“It was an undeserved happiness that a cur like me could never have hoped to enjoy.”
“….”
“That happiness—I’ve eaten my fill of it until now.”
So then.
“I close my eyes tight and rise from this life.”
The Furry Soldier’s face was like a rag.
Soaked in blood, he looked like nothing but a beggar.
Yet his eyes shone clearer than anyone’s.
“This is a fight without hope of victory.”
“I know.”
“And yet you’ll fight?”
“Yes, hyung.”
“Do you truly intend to die here?”
“I’ve wagered my life, but I haven’t surrendered it.”
Sarpedon regarded him in silence.
The sound of vampires advancing thundered across the earth.
Dracula’s crimson mist consumed the surroundings.
Death was drawing near, inch by inch.
Yet not a single one of the Vister soldiers, including the Furry Soldier, showed any inclination to flee.
“…These damnable bastards.”
Sarpedon gripped his blood-stained axe.
“That’s a lie, you fool.”
A gambler who had reached the realm of divinity.
In truth, that wasn’t something that happened when one had eaten their fill and rose.
Rising after eating one’s fill?
Of course, it’s difficult.
But it can be done.
Because there’s nothing lost.
If nothing is lost, one can rise from the table satisfied with modest gains.
True divinity is the opposite.
A man who rises even after wagering his entire fortune.
A man who loses everything yet never returns to the gambling den again.
“A man who, having hit rock bottom and seen his entire life crumble, still summons the strength in his feet to close his eyes and rise.”
That is a true gambler who has reached the realm of divinity.
In that sense, Sarpedon was never such a gambler.
“I was merely a man who could not leave the table.”
Whenever everything was stripped away, I clawed my way back up with tenacity.
I crawled upward in the most shameful and relentless manner.
When I gained, I swept it away boldly.
When I lost, I gnashed my teeth and looked to the next hand.
Through this, I could reign as master of the gambling den.
People praised such a Sarpedon as a gambler who had reached the realm of divinity.
“How absurd.”
It was merely the repetition of obsession.
“A gambler who reached the realm of divinity? I’ve never attempted such a thing, nor did I ever intend to.”
That conviction remained unchanged even now.
* * *
Dracula wielded a whip of blood.
The whip tore across the earth like a vein of blood, erupting in a deafening roar.
In that instant.
Sarpedon, who had retreated, surged forward once more.
The Vister soldiers followed in his wake.
Dracula let out a hollow chuckle.
It was beneath his notice.
“These wretches still thrash about to the bitter end.”
The sheer stupidity of thinking such meager strength and power could stop the Vampire Legion and himself.
“Do they harbor delusions of becoming heroes?”
“Hardly.”
Sarpedon continued with a derisive snort.
“We harbor no such aspirations.”
Sarpedon did not stand here with dreams of heroism.
“We could never become heroes.”
How could criminals ever ascend to such heights?
“But if we flee this place, the people of Whitewolf Territory will die in our stead.”
That was all there was to it.
The reason these mere criminals did not turn their backs.
“With these wretched lives of ours, we must hold this breach. Only then will there be space for true heroes to stand.”
Upon the crimson Frozen Lands.
Sarpedon’s footsteps were heavy.
A battle with no victory in sight.
A battle that cannot be won.
Yet Sarpedon gripped his axe.
Following in his wake, the soldiers of Vister seized their weapons.
Those not born as heroes.
Those never chosen to be heroes.
“Forward! Come on, you bastards!!”
Sarpedon and the soldiers of Vister advanced without hesitation toward the Immortal Legion.
“You wretches!!”
Dracula’s crimson eyes blazed as he roared.
The blood-red mist churned violently.
The Vampire Legion surged forward with renewed ferocity in response to his wrath.
Yet Sarpedon and the soldiers of Vister did not retreat.
“We may never become heroes—!!”
Sarpedon’s cry pierced through the battlefield.
The roar of the soldiers of Vister that followed shook the very ground.
“It falls to us to endure until the heroes arrive!!”
They say heroes always arrive late.
Then what of those.
Who fought until the heroes came?
One thing is certain: they are third-rate gamblers who never left the gaming table until the very end.
Born in the cesspit city of Violess, they lived lives no better than beasts.
Days of theft, plunder, and begging without end.
There was no honor or glory to be found.
Only the desperate struggle to survive.
But in this moment.
“Come on!! You bastards!!!”
I stand here with a resolve more noble than anyone else’s.
Not merely to survive.
But to live—those who chose this path.
Even if there is no way to win, if only they refuse to abandon the fight, they prove that they need not taste defeat, though victory may elude them.
And so.
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
“Aaaaaaaa!!”
Thus are certain heroes born.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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