Far to the west, beyond the lands where Naro's name once carried fear and blood, there stood a kingdom people called The Oasis Crown.
It rose from the desert like a miracle that refused to fade.
Golden dunes stretched endlessly in every direction, yet here water flowed through carved marble canals, palm trees swayed in warm evening winds, and white stone homes reflected the setting sun in hues of gold and rose. Lanterns flickered to life one by one as daylight softened, casting the streets in a glow that felt gentle, almost dreamlike.
Merchants laughed as they packed their stalls. Musicians played slow melodies from open balconies. Children ran barefoot across cool stone roads, weaving between fountains shaped like blooming desert flowers.
It was not a powerful kingdom.
It was not feared.
It was simply… calm and happy.
And from behind the dark wooden window of a marble house overlooking the street, a man watched it all in silence.
His brows were thick, shadowing eyes too deep to belong in a place like this. A light beard framed his jaw, long dark hair resting over pale shoulders. His gaze did not match the warmth below.
It was Naro.
Eight years had passed since he obtained the Asrith Sacrifice Nyx.
…
The first two of those years had been nothing but distance.
Naro walked west with no other intention in mind. He crossed broken kingdoms, silent forests, nameless ports. He avoided attention, avoided conflict unless necessary.
Dracula's soul remained bound within him, at first expecting schemes or manipulation.
Instead, there were long roads and longer silences.
Sunsets over foreign seas. Nights beneath unfamiliar constellations. Markets where no one knew their names.
At first, Dracula mocked the quiet.
Then he started filling it.
They argued about history. About architecture. About whether humans had grown more foolish or simply more ambitious over the centuries. Sometimes they spoke for hours. Other times, days passed in silence that felt less like hatred and more like uneasy coexistence.
It wasn't friendship.
But it was no longer pure hostility either.
Eventually, they reached the Oasis Crown.
And Naro stopped walking.
…
In the Oasis kingdom; upon Naro's arrival he suppressed his cultivation to appear as a Rank 4 nyx user.
He took work guarding trade routes. Clearing monsters near roads. Escorting caravans.
Trouble seemed to follow the kingdom often in those years.
Bandits grew bolder. Desert beasts wandered closer than usual.
And every time, Naro was there.
Bleeding. Struggling. Winning by struggling hard.
The people began to whisper his name with admiration.
He refused rewards. Bowed humbly. Smiled gently.
Dracula watched with growing unease.
Naro was not living a normal knight's life, Dracula knew for a fact. That Naro was cultivating trust.
…
Ray was a princess within the kingdoms walls, different from the nobles Dracula remembered from older ages.
She laughed easily. Walked through markets without escorts. Knew the names of servants and asked about their families. She preferred tending to the palace gardens over attending court politics.
She fell in love with Naro for simple reasons.
He listened.
He never raised his voice.
He treated everyone the same, from kings to stable boys.
Dracula once muttered darkly,
"You are a masterpiece of deception."
Naro did not argue.
They married in spring.
The entire kingdom celebrated for seven days.
…
As the years passed, Naro and Ray had a child. Joseph.
Joseph had his mother's warmth and his father's eyes — though no one would ever notice the difference.
He ran through palace halls with wooden swords. Climbed furniture he wasn't supposed to. Brought insects inside like precious discoveries.
One evening he burst into the room shouting, "Papa! Mama! Look what I found!"
A cockroach sat cupped carefully in his hands.
Ray laughed. Dracula groaned in Naro's mind.
"I have watched empires rise and fall," Dracula muttered, "and this small creature unsettles me most."
Naro almost smiled decisively.
…
It was six Years of Sunshine
Festivals came and went.
Harvest feasts. Lantern nights. Music drifting through open windows.
Naro became a symbol of peace. A hero. A beloved son-in-law of the king. A devoted husband. A patient father.
Dracula endured it all in silence.
Because he knew.
The Asrith Sacrifice Mask fed not on blood alone, but on bonds. Trust. Love returned in equal measure.
Still, a question lingered in Dracula's thoughts, one he never voiced:
After all this… can he still do it? Can he really throw all this away for his goals?
…
Moonlight painted the courtyard with its light.
Ray knelt beside a stone basin, sleeves rolled, humming softly as she washed clothes.
Naro approached quietly.
She smiled without turning. "You're quiet tonight."
He released his Rank 5 aura.
The air turned heavy, suffocating.
Her smile faded.
The mask formed over his face — black, demonic, four narrow eye slits, red-purple tears already forming.
"N… Naro?"
A blood spike erupted from the ground that pierced her heart.
She died with confusion in her eyes.
The mask absorbed her essence.
And Naro staggered as waves of grief flooded his mind — the mask forcing him to feel the depth of what he destroyed.
Dracula whispered, horrified,
"You truly are… a demon reborn."
Joseph slept peacefully.
Naro sat beside him for a long time.
Held him.
Joseph stirred. "…Papa…"
Then—
Silence.
The mask drank again.
…
Naro went for five days of slaughter.
There was no battle.
No siege.
Just one man walking through a kingdom that once cheered his name.
The same streets he had walked for years were now silent except for footsteps and screams. The marble roads that once reflected lantern light now reflected blood.
Soldiers rushed at him first. Men who had trained under him, who had sparred with him in courtyards while laughing about the future. They charged with desperation, their loyalty to the kingdom stronger than their confusion.
They died the fastest.
Healers who had once treated his wounds fell next. Some tried to run. Some tried to reason with him.
"Sir Naro—please!"
"Tell us what is happening!"
Children who once waved at him from markets stared with wide, shaking eyes.
Some begged.
Some cried.
Some called his name in disbelief.
"Naro…?"
But the Asrith Sacrifice Mask did not care.
It wept.
Rivers of blood streamed from its narrow eye sockets as it clung to his face like a living curse.
"KILL. KILL. KILL."
Its whispers burrowed into his mind like blades.
And as the slaughter continued, something crueler happened.
The mask forced him to feel it.
Every life he ended.
Every voice that called his name.
Every person who had trusted him.
The mask pushed those emotions into him like poison flooding his veins. Grief, despair, guilt — feelings he would never have allowed himself to experience were dragged violently to the surface.
Tears streamed down his face.
But they were not ordinary tears.
They were blood.
Dark red lines ran from his eyes, trailing down his cheeks and dripping from his jaw as he walked through the streets.
Naro's body trembled slightly as the emotions clawed through him, but his hands never stopped moving.
He killed.
And the mask cried with him.
Blood tears fell endlessly from his eyes, marking every step of the massacre.
Dracula stopped speaking entirely.
Even he, who had seen centuries of cruelty, could only watch in silence as the kingdom that had trusted Naro with its safety was erased by the very man it had loved.
By the end of the fifth day, fountains ran red.
Lanterns still burned above the streets, their warm light illuminating a city of corpses.
The Oasis Crown was gone.
And the blood tears continued to stain Naro's face long after the killing ended.
Finally the mask cracked.
Light poured from within.
It shattered into radiance that fused into Naro's flesh.
He screamed as his existence transformed.
A pillar of red light tore through the sky.
Clouds split across realms.
Heaven shook.
Heaven sensed imbalance — a mortal forcing ascension again.
Lightning of law descended—
And expelled him.
Light overtook Naro's vision then—in an instant… He was in the Immortal Realm.
…
Wind brushed into endless dark red-velvet grass.
An alien sky stretched above.
Naro layed on his back, Rank 6 aura vast and eternal.
Two dark red tear marks engraved into his face forever.
Dracula exhaled slowly.
"You did not climb to immortality," he murmured.
"You paved a road with trust… and walked it alone."
Dracula stared at the endless horizon from within Naro's eyes.
"So this is the immortal realm…"
This was the quiet beginning of something far more terrifying than a mortal demon.