Rotting flesh and thick ichor flooded the sub-level like a deluge. The murky stench rose like amniotic fluid, glug-glugging up past the waist and lungs. Not a speck of light—no way to see the path.
In the dark, Li Pan could hear them: the demon-gods and monstrosities split off from Monster.Shiranui and now wearing bodies—crunching, slurping blood and meat. This foul broth was a tonic to them. Just listening was like eavesdropping on hell.
Luckily, they were busy feeding and ignored Li Pan. He'd taken this route to the Dragon King's underground shrine twice already, so by memory and by sensing true-qi, he forced his way upstream—tearing through blood, rending meat-walls, clawing out of the mountain of flesh like a soul escaping a purgatory.
Even with a superhuman body and qi shielding, breaking out was near impossible. Every outward passage was crammed with slick, pulsing meat; one misstep and he'd slide back down like a chute. He ditched the hazmat suit, swallowed the jade plaque, clenched the Grail in his teeth, gathered Nine Yin power, and snaked his hips—wriggling up along the flesh like a serpent. At last, he heaved himself free.
"Boss! Boss is here!"
Before he could catch a breath, a hand hauled him from the gore—A-Qi, roped to Hovercar.18, who was winching people up. Ashiya Shigui and Yamazaki Ayato waited in the car; Yamazaki held a divination orb. Looked like they'd used silver keys to bail out, then came back for him.
They hauled Li aboard. He dumped the goo from his face into the Grail, shook it into clean water, and sloshed himself—again and again—washing off the clinging chunks.
"Boss—look…"
Li wiped his face and glanced down from the hovercar—at a flower in full bloom.
From above, the picture was clear. With Shiranui Kiriko dead—control gone, Grail and ley-line support gone—the towering floral abomination was collapsing fast.
Underground, roots and meat rotted, and the demon-gods seized bodies grown from the mass.
At the flower's crown, the embryo-like fruit split like a bursting blossom. In the blood and "amniotic" wash, a huge beast uncurled and woke. Bald, slick, rat-ugly now, but growing with each breath; and from the spined vertebrae fanning behind it, Li Pan could guess.
The nine-tailed fox.
So in the struggle over Shiranui's remains, the final winner would be the Nine-Tails.
A-Qi: "What now, boss?"
Li eyed the newborn fiend and took Shiranui's file.
"A-Qi, don't you ever feel like we're just pieces on a board? Duckweed on water—pushed by the current, nowhere to stand…
"Forget it. She wanted to die; let her. Wipe the record."
A-Qi nodded, juiced the battery, and thumbed the shredder. It hummed to life.
Ashiya flicked paper men like cards; they turned into white-paper crows and circled.
"Two, four, six, eight—damn it, too many new demons! Kōga really unleashed the whole village! Boss, have the company strike now! While they're newborn and weak enough to seal!"
The fox in the "flower" opened its eyes—oily green beast-pupils—staring straight at Li Pan.
He looked back, fed Shiranui's file into the shredder.
"Forget it. Purge the record and go…"
Ashiya balked. "If we let them go now, once they feed and regain strength, they'll be a nightmare to handle—"
He stopped. On the ground, light flashed; fire roared up.
The remains of project 0791035—what had been Shiranui—had self-ignited, a sea of flame. Demon-gods screamed and scattered like trapped beasts in a wildfire.
Even the Nine-Tails yelped, shot Li a venomous glare, and leapt through the flames into the city.
In mere breaths, the titanic mass—blood sea, meat mountain—burned to ash. A hot wind rolled it away. Erased.
Uncontrolled subject 0791035: deleted.
Yamazaki swallowed. "So that's… deletion…"
Ashiya fell silent, staring at the shredder; firelight painted his face grim.
"Mm. Temp's record deleted, monster cleared, Grail recovered—mission done. File your daily reports when we're back. If you want to do overtime, be my guest—just remember temps don't get overtime pay."
Li slumped into a seat. "Eighteen, the ship?"
Hovercar.18: "Jumped to Jupiter."
"What—Jupiter?"
He blinked. Eighteen brought up a star map.
"Callisto Base just reported a high-energy event inside Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Probably aliens testing something. The ship jumped to Jovian space. But that's deep in corporate private zones; I don't have enough sensors there. I've lost the track."
"…Jumped, huh."
Or was it… hooked.
Jupiter?
Li went quiet. He knew the proverb: see one spot, guess the leopard. Somewhere out of sight, a real game was on. The "It" from the tea room, the owner of that "big fish," and the head office—those were the players.
He, Li Pan, was just a corner-piece on a massive board.
Yeah… the kid brother was right: some things you don't tackle until your cultivation's done.
Enough brooding. Handle what's in front.
"Eighteen, get me Prince Cornelius."
The vampire prince didn't posture. He appeared on the channel. Younger now—no longer a brittle ghoul or wizened elder—blond, blue-eyed, vigorous middle age.
A lot of blood, then…
"Your Highness." Li raised the Grail.
"General Manager." The prince nodded politely.
Time to talk seriously.
"I read the proposal you sent through K. Shall we revisit it?"
The prince paused, measuring Li. "You should understand: I had no intention of cornering your firm. That draft was Parliament's final approved version.
"I ought to say there's nothing more to discuss. But given your show of strength—five companies withdrew in a single night—out of respect for power, if you have a more reasonable plan, I can bring it to Parliament again."
Li considered. K had said the Night Clan was serious. Cornelius's lease draft—¥500 trillion rent plus ¥100 trillion PR, total ¥600 trillion—was Vampire Parliament's floor.
Li's initial offer to House Julius—¥50 trillion rent plus ¥20 trillion PR, ¥70 trillion total—was TheM HQ's approved floor.
If the main belligerents could settle directly, there'd be no arbitration or bidding at all. But with a ¥530 trillion gap, talk alone wouldn't bridge it.
Bottom lines get broken by force. Fight, tally losses and costs, and the lines move.
After last night—Li alive, piles of aliens dead—the Night Clan would reassess TheM's teeth. Opening numbers were already shifting.
That's war: fight and talk; trade concessions.
"If we're meeting, let's do it in person," Li flipped the Grail. "You'll want to verify the merch anyway, right? They say it cures Blood Hunger—perfect timing to try it."
The prince understood. K was his family's chief knight; of course he'd welcome saving her.
"As soon as possible. Blood won't keep long. Delay in the beast state may put her beyond saving. I've sent coordinates. I can't speak for other bidders, but the Night Clan won't threaten envoys."
"Appreciate the trust. On my way."
Li fired off reports in the car, signed off to A-Qi, and sent the others home to finalize the mission.
To avoid tails, he suited in SBS armor, jumped mid-route, and went alone to the Cornelius base.
First: save K. Worst case, someone steals the Grail—you steal it back. At this scale it was company war; until HQ signed the final deal, the Grail fight wouldn't end.
Risk? Little. As he painted sacred sigils on himself, a lightness washed through—strength fully restored. The team must have reached HQ and reset his state.
A moment later his pocket sagged—seven keys.
The hell? Seven? He'd figured two—Shiranui resolved, Grail recovered. The extra five?
Ah—Prince Cornelius had said five companies withdrew. Rewards, then?
The company's stingy with keys; today they rained. What's to fear now?
With hacks loaded—"handkerchief," "sword-pill," the "Grail," and seven keys—and a reset state, Li felt invincible. Solo the Tower of Night? Easy. Go another full day? Sure.
Cornelius wasn't pushing either; everyone was fried—bounties, acid rain, nukes, biohazard. Even company hounds were exhausted. With the Chiyoda blaze scouring the field, factions pulled back to regroup; first wave of quitters appeared.
Round one of the bidding war: over.
No snipers, no assassins. He followed nav safely to the meet.
The site: Tokyo subcity, off surveillance. Li came through storm drains—blood, powder, wolf musk. From the bullet scars, K had cleaned this den out. Battle's over; vamps and wolves both gone—spent brass, bones, corpses left to rot.
Night Clan waited. Prince Cornelius, guarded by a dozen Night Knights, stood in the dark.
"Your Highness."
Li stepped out openly. The prince nodded and gestured to a coffin-like med pod.
"Let's skip the pleasantries. Time is short."
A knight popped the lid. K's beast face lay inside—drained to a husk, deathly pale, twisted, fanged, limbs pinned.
Li knew their rule: they seldom "wasted" the Grail on a lost Blood Hunger case. There were too many vampires across the worlds; one Grail per world. The elders first. Not the rank and file.
And Blood Hunger was a mind-sickness. A raging vamp wasn't "short on blood"—they were broken, like incurable cyberpsychosis. No matter how perfect the body, madness was madness.
Even with cross-world bodies and QVN transfer, if any one vessel went feral from Blood Hunger, the vampire's mind was lost—and every vessel they jumped into would be feral.
So such beasts—and surplus bodies—became bio-soldiers or "rebels" to sell.
Still, the well-placed and well-favored—like K—could get a last chance.
The knights prepped artificial blood and a silver frame to fix the Grail—a bathhouse mock-up: drip overflow down a guide and into K's mouth.
Li frowned. "Will that even work? Doesn't the Grail have to be self-administered?"
The prince pointed to a venous line. "We'll wake Catherine with a bit of blood. A waking beast is most ravenous; she'll crave blood above all. Then we purify her blood through the Grail.
"But—some crave the Grail for eternal youth. Others see endless return as torture and want only final sleep.
"So whether a feral returns depends on her choice."
"Her choice…"
Li fell silent—thinking of K's origins, and of Shiranui.
Why did the women around him want death so badly?
Or was it that… self-destructive women were exactly the kind that pulled him in?
"Begin."
The prince nodded. Blood flowed—slow. First drops from the Grail dripped into K's mouth, to keep her from reviving too fast and breaking free.
K stirred—howling, eyes madness-bright.
Li glanced at her. "K? Do you remember me? How long will this take?"
The prince looked once and said flatly, "It's over. She refuses."
Li blinked.
"You can tell from the first drop," the prince said. "She doesn't want to come back. No matter. Let's discuss business.
"The Arbiter has confirmed five of sixteen bidders withdrew. I'll give you a thirty percent discount—420 trillion—"
Li didn't hear. He stepped to the pod, rolled up his sleeve, slashed his wrist, and forced his own blood into K's mouth.
"Hey! Don't be in such a rush to die! The human world has delicious things, right? Wake up! Drink, damn you! Quit dying on me one after another!"
The prince paused, curious at Li's outburst. "You care for Catherine that much? I can clone you one—identical—and give her to you."
Li glared. "Aren't you her elder? You made her, didn't you? Isn't she your daughter by blood? Watching your daughter die, and you don't even flinch? Just 'clone' her? Is a cloned Catherine still Catherine!?"
The prince didn't bristle. He froze for a moment, walked to the other side, looked down.
"…You're right. A stand-in—even with the face—isn't Catherine."
He turned to leave—expressionless—before Li could flare again.
"Haa—! Cough—"
K screamed—a drowning soul breaking surface for air—gasping life, then choking on blood in her mouth.
"K!"
"Cough, cough!"
One drop—enough. Fire lit behind her eyes; her face eased back to itself; fangs receded.
Sometimes that's all it takes—someone who dreams of death catches a spark of life, and they can't let go.
The prince halted, voice cool. "Thank you. We can confirm the Blood Grail's authenticity. I'll forward a revised offer to your headquarters."
He didn't look back. He simply walked away.
.
.
.
⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
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