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The Church of the God of Light was far from being all that pure. It was clear as water that they prioritized the safety of the aristocrats and would use their power to protect them as long as they… well, kept their donations high for them.
But after the news of Elderlight being killed by her and how he failed to protect the Duke of Benettina, things became more complicated. The aristocrats of the Duchies of the Albraun Kingdom became way too fearful and constantly asked for more protection.
…Especially all those that knew that they had helped in the destruction of the Fuentes Family.
They knew it. The guilty knew they were the ones behind it and feared the ghost woman the most. She had already shown them through actions that she wasn’t kidding and that she was an actual menace, fearless to do anything.
The church was also alarmed. It had been ages since such a powerful Undead had been born. Those that were present when she presented herself before all the people in the Benettina Duchy knew how powerful and aberrant she was. They had never seen a being that harbored this much hatred, this much dark energy, and evil thoughts within.
It was as if she was the very materialization of evil in the world!
Although many feared her, many others also saw her as their challenge. The trial they had been waiting for had finally shown. Many priests and fanatics thought she was the trial sent by the God of Light to prove their faith to finally showcase their hard work!
The Vampire Lord was fine with it. He didn’t have any intentions of stopping them in the end, even though he really wanted to kill Maria. If they were going at her, it was for the best… in the end, he had to care about his own things rather than an act of small revenge.
If she were to kill the priests coming at her? That was still better. He hated that faction and saw them as a nuisance. If they were to all die at her hands, it would also be completely okay, although that would also mean that she would grow stronger from it.
After all, it was well known all around the world of Yggdrasil that all living beings had Soul Books where they could see their own Status, their stats, skills, level, experience points, and more.
Killing so many powerful priests meant she would gain insane amounts of experience points… which would end up helping her rise to an even higher level of power, and god knows how much stronger she would grow…
She already showcased a level of threat around B Rank if she was able to kill Elderlight and the Priests, or perhaps A-Rank if she had indeed defeated Catarina… of course, the Vampire Lord had no knowledge of how it went at the end. He just knew they died and assumed that she had done it all, and not that Maria just waited around while both sides killed each other while she dragged their souls out of their bodies when they were on the verge of death to benefit the most out of it with almost no efforts at all…
But of course, that was something he might never know!
Evolution was certainly a troublesome thing. A ghost was a monster, an Undead Monster. Evolution was something natural that would happen to any monster that leveled up and reached the level cap. It was fairly normal for such monsters to grow into stronger versions of themselves, sometimes evolving into completely new species at that.
It was rather clear she had become a fearful new species of ghosts never seen before. Many of those that saw her had fallen unconscious out of pure horror. They said that her mere presence generated an aura of pure horror and fear as if she was the bringer of death and disaster. Still, not only that, her entire presence generated a strange aura that seemed to decompose things as if she were a bringer of famine.
After a long time, some of the people that had studied Undead monsters in detail ended up qualifying her as a Gorgon due to the many snakes that people saw coming out of her phantasmal aura. A Gorgon was an incredibly rare species of ghost that had only been seen twice in all of history, and these two times, they had threatened entire nations.
Could the Vampire Lord fight against such a being if it grew even further?
The future was rather uncertain, but it wasn’t as if he was standing in the middle of nowhere without any way for him to get some balance. He knew that there were ways for him to gain some support and regain his composure. He had many resources and servants, hundreds of Vampires were below his command, and the Vampire family would continue to grow more and more if he so desired.
And it wasn’t as if Catarina was the only “elite” he had. In fact, there were many like her within his family and even stronger Vampires too. Even a selected group of four powerful Vampires that were the strongest below him…
He planned to not chase her anymore and to only look around for clues about her and probably spy on her, if anything. At the moment, what he wanted was to regain the lost resources and investments he had lost and later on think about retaliation if even possible…
The projects of chimeras and black potion creation would soon be resumed by new teams he had gathered around other duchies, so he might be able to recover the money he lost there, and this time, if possible, he would get more definite results with the chimera project.
Black Potions were fairly easy to produce, so their production had already begun once more a few days ago. Large batches would be quickly sold to the duchies desperate for some form of item that could boost their military power.
It seems that Maria ended up creating a sense of desperation in the aristocrats, which the Vampire Lord could take advantage of…
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