Naro looted Dracula's burnt corpse, his trembling hands steady despite the exhaustion carving into his bones. He had done it —he had killed Dracula, the king of vampires. The prize was no joke: the most powerful types of rank-5 blood-path Nyx within this realm, now pulsed in Naro's grasp, still warm from its master's essence.
His body was broken, his soul cracked like glass, but he kept moving — step after step through forests, mountains, and endless silence. He couldn't fight anymore, not even a mere beast, so Naro moved with stealth.
The last few weeks had been hell sculpted into reality — no mortal could've endured it. Yet Naro walked on.
He would keep breaking himself, shattering ceilings that no man could see.
For him, freedom was not a word — it was a hunger that devoured reason.
On Earth, control was currency — you bought freedom with wealth, begged for it with power, and still, you were chained by others will. But here, in this cruel world of blood and Nyx, power was law.
The stronger you become, the fewer chains could touch you.
The higher you climbed, the less the people could control you.
And Naro desired nothing more than to be untouchable.
To stand above kings, above heaven, above reason itself.
To tear through every limit, even if freedom came dressed in madness and pain.
He would be free — no matter the cost.
…
On a still night, as the moon sank behind black clouds, a voice slithered through his mind.
"You are no ordinary man…"
It was Dracula's voice. Distant— but unmistakable.
Naro froze. His pulse steadied. So the leech still lives.
"I never would've thought such a person could exist" Dracula murmured, his tone weary yet intrigued.
Naro ignored him, his eyes narrowing, calculating. I need to purge him — now.
"Worry not…" Dracula interrupted, as though reading his thoughts. "I don't plan to fight for your body again."
"Hmph. So you can hear my thoughts now" Naro said aloud, his voice cold. He didn't trust a word. He knew Dracula too well — a schemer who would manipulate anything as long as it served him.
The two souls fell silent.
Two predators caged within one body, smiling politely while sharpening their knives in secret.
When Naro finally reached his castle, he locked himself in the deepest chamber — a place no sound escaped. There, he sat cross-legged upon a stone slab, and used soul-strengthening stones. Their glow seeped into his veins, mending the fractures the Light Travel Nyx had carved into his soul.
But as his soul grew stronger, so did Dracula's.
Suddenly, Naro's body spasmed— veins flaring red, his breath hitching. Dracula struck.
"Now!" the ancient vampire snarled, surging forward in the mental abyss.
Naro's hand darted for his dagger. Without hesitation, he stabbed himself through the chest.
The pain ripped through both of them.
"Agh—! You—INSANE FOOL!" Dracula screamed, his voice echoing in the shared void.
Naro smirked, blood dripping from his mouth. "Know your place."
He twisted the dagger — not once, but twice. Then, with chilling calm, he began tearing at his own flesh.
Each slice, each strip of skin peeled away — Dracula howled, his voice writhing like fire.
They shared the same nerves, the same agony.
"ARE YOU A MASOCHIST OF SOME SORTS!?" Dracula bellowed.
"STOP THIS!"
Naro's eyes were dead, his tone colder than stone.
"For every time you try to take over my body…"
He drove the dagger down again, splitting through his own arm.
"…I will remind you who it belongs to."
"You—mad bastard! You think this will stop me!?" Dracula hissed, his voice trembling with fury and fear.
Naro didn't answer. He reached for his nerves — and pulled.
Even Naro's stoic face twitched, his vision flashing white from the raw agony. But he endured.
Dracula screamed like a beast being slaughtered alive. The sound of his torment filled the chamber and the soul realm both.
Finally, silence.
"I yield…" Dracula's voice cracked, a whisper of what it once was.
"Enough… you win."
Naro dropped the dagger, his breath ragged, his body drenched in blood and sweat.
He looked down at his trembling hands —then smiled faintly.
"Good…" he muttered. "Then stay quiet."
…
For the first time in what felt like ages, Naro allowed himself to rest.
His body still trembled faintly from the brutal self-inflicted torment that had silenced Dracula, and his soul was wrapped in thin, weary light — fragments of recovery after endless damage. He laid upon cold stone, eyes half-closed, listening to the faint heartbeat echoing through the empty halls of his castle. The silence was heavy, yet it was a silence he earned.
Days passed by like the withering of flowers. His wounds sealed, the bruises faded, and his mind grew sharp once more. When he finally opened his eyes, their glow had changed —They seemed a lot more calmer.
He stood. His aura stirred faintly, like the calm before a storm.
Upon the altar in front of him were blood-red crystals — each pulsating faintly with an ominous rhythm. They were the Nyx that belonged to Dracula, the highest-ranked blood-path artifacts in the entire realm. It radiated power so dense that the air around it distorted, as if reality itself was unwilling to contain it.
Naro stared at the relics quietly. His reflection shimmered in their surface — half-human, half-monster.
"With this…" he whispered, voice low and steady,
"I'll stand at the very peak of the mortal realm."
He could feel Dracula's fury pulse inside his soul like a restrained beast. The ancient vampire's presence stayed in silence — angry, humiliated — but afraid to speak.
"Don't glare at me like that," Naro murmured inwardly. "You lost. Accept it."
A dry, bitter chuckle echoed in the back of his mind, but Dracula remained silent.
Then the cultivation began.
Naro sat in the center of the grand chamber, legs crossed, the Nyx fragments orbiting around him like moons of blood. Runes on the ground flickered to life — complex patterns of red and gold, symbols of both the light path and blood path intertwined. The energy in the air became heavy, dense, vibrating like the hum of an approaching storm.
This rank — the fifth — was unlike any before.
It demanded perfection in form, spirit, and will. It wasn't merely about accumulating energy, but mastering identity itself.
And worse — the cultivation method of the blood path required him to balance between serenity and slaughter, to feel the essence of life and willingly destroy it inside his veins.
For mortals, it was madness.
For Naro, it was routine.
He closed his eyes. His breathing slowed, and the world faded away.
Within his inner realm, he stood in an ocean of blood. It stretched endlessly, rippling beneath a sky of fractured light.
Every breath he took drew in more of Dracula's nyx's energy, burning through his blood like molten iron. His body trembled; his soul screamed — yet he didn't move. He endured, every nerve alight, every cell melting, reforming, evolving.
At the edge of his consciousness, Dracula stirred.
"You'll destroy yourself, boy" the voice whispered. "These Nyx aren't meant for a body like yours…"
Naro ignored him completely.
He focused deeper, threading the blood essence with his own time-path fragments, weaving them into harmony.
The pain was indescribable — his bones creaked, veins bulged, his skin cracked open as streams of blood-light erupted outward. His aura began to twist violently, filling the chamber with waves of raw power that shattered the nearby furniture and split the marble floor.
Dracula's voice rose again, frustrated, almost panicked.
"You're forcing it! Do you want to erase yourself from existence!?"
Still no response.
Naro was in complete trance, body trembling yet mind as sharp as steel. His willpower carved through chaos like a sword through fog.
Days passed — though in his perception, it felt like weeks.
Each night, he fought off unconsciousness.
Each dawn, he felt his soul expand wider.
At one point, Dracula's presence tried to interfere — subtly, a whisper of energy meant to disturb the blood flow — but then he stopped. He remembered the consequences. He remembered the agony.
"Tch… damn you…" he muttered within. "Fine, kill yourself if you must."
On the seventh day, the chamber exploded in blinding light.
A vortex spiraled upward, reaching beyond the castle roof and piercing the heavens themselves. Every living creature within miles felt the pressure — birds fell from the sky, beasts knelt, and the clouds turned red.
Inside that storm sat Naro, eyes closed, completely still.
Then—
Boom.
A pulse of power erupted outward, rippling through the land like a shockwave. The air itself bowed to him.
Naro opened his eyes slowly. Their color had changed — now, within his abyssal eyes, faint streaks of light shimmered. His aura flowed with terrifying calm, dense and suffocating, yet elegant.
Dracula's voice whispered faintly:
"…Rank five! already…"
There was no anger this time. Only disbelief.
He had witnessed countless cultivators struggle for decades to reach this stage. And this man — this stranger from another world — achieved it in a week, on his first attempt.
"Ahh…" Naro exhaled softly, the chamber shaking from even that small sound.
"To stand this far already… I've surpassed the me from my past life by folds of time."
He flexed his fingers — and the air distorted. His body was filled with unrestrained vitality, his soul sharper than ever.
Naro looked toward the horizon through the cracked window. His eyes reflected the rising sun — not with warmth, but with hunger.
"Rank Five" he murmured. "The peak of the mortal world."
He clenched his fist, the aura around him tightening like a storm caught in human form.
"Now… it's time."
He turned, looking at the scattered scrolls, maps, and sealed containers on his table.
"The next one… the Asrith Sacrifice Immortal Nyx."
A faint smirk crossed his face.
"The key to breaking this cage completely… to stepping into Rank Six. The immortal realm."
Dracula's presence trembled faintly — a mixture of awe and fear.
"You truly intend to challenge that…? The Nyx that devours all…?"
Naro smiled faintly, his expression unreadable.
"I intend to do more than challenge it" he said, his tone, certain.
"I intend to claim it."
The light in his eyes flickered like a dying sun —
A sun that refused to fade.