Chapter 181: Chapter 173: The Blood Baron

Following a merchant caravan, a gray-haired old man secretly arrived in Nasir Town.

He was once Baron Hovern who led troops to exterminate the jungle natives, but after witnessing the Mighty Bloody Demon, he survived alone and went mad after escaping.

Twenty-two years ago, he was a very handsome man, but today, Baron Hovern had become a down-and-out old man.

“I’ve finally arrived…”

Baron Hovern alighted from the merchant’s carriage and stepped onto the streets of Nasir Town, which were much more prosperous than they had been over twenty years ago, his face a picture of disbelief.

“I’ve finally returned. Is this really Nasir?”

This town, which had once belonged to him, had transformed into something unrecognizable; in the past, he disdainfully regarded its backwardness and poverty, choosing to live in Fein City and unwilling to come here often.

“How did it come to this? Why did I lose it, what on earth happened over these past years…”

He muttered to himself, but deep down, he knew the answer to his questions.

Baron Hovern knew that everything had been orchestrated by his wife and brother, those two despicable individuals who colluded with the Fischer family to betray what was rightfully his.

The Fischer family, those lowly beings who were merely commoners, were now pretending to be real nobility.

“It’s truly laughable. In just over a decade, people have actually started to worship the rise of the Fischer family?”

Baron Hovern’s face was filled with despair and sorrow.

On his way from Fein City to Nasir Town, he had heard multiple times from others that Earl Hovern had died and that both major churches were jointly investigating the affairs of the Hovern family.

He wandered the streets that were both familiar and strange, the unease, fear, and despair within him growing ever more pronounced.

“I should be the master of this town; everything should belong to me. Why has everything turned out this way?”

“Ah, ahhhh! My over ten years! Ahhhhh!”

He felt like he had been dreaming ever since that time over a decade ago.

An utterly terrifying nightmare where countless amounts of blood rose around him, continuously enveloping and entwining him, preventing his return to the real world.

It took Baron Hovern more than ten years to fully awaken from that dreadful dream, only to find the world had changed drastically.

His property had long been taken by his wife and brother, and the territory of Nasir Town had been encroached upon by the Fischer family. The Hovern family, his once reliable support, was on the verge of collapse…

He had just woken from a nightmare, only to find that he had nothing left!

“Could it be that I have never truly woken up?”

Baron Hovern suddenly couldn’t help but burst into maniacal laughter in the middle of the street, his body shaking violently, his eyes gradually showing a strong blood-red glow, and fresh blood even oozed from the seams of his skin.

“Hahaha! Hahahahahaha!”

The sudden laughter stunned the residents of Nasir Town, who looked at Baron Hovern in disbelief, with no one recognizing him as the lord of their town.

“Whose madman is that?”

“What’s wrong with that person? Are the patrolmen nearby?”

Just as people were about to approach and inquire, Baron Hovern looked around at everyone with a chilling gaze, exuding an inhuman aura that made everyone too afraid to move.

He then fled with astonishing speed, disappearing from the sight of the townspeople.

The people who had been staring at him stood dumbfounded, realizing that he was an Extraordinary Exponent, his gaze having seemingly frozen their blood.

That was not the look of a human!

Not long afterward, Vanessa, who had taken charge of the town’s patrol team, arrived with her subordinates.

“No one recognizes that Extraordinary Exponent. His identity is highly suspicious; we must find out who that old man is and where he went.”

After she issued her orders, the patrol team immediately began searching throughout the town, and Vanessa, using her “patrol” ability, was the first to discover traces of the old man.

“What’s going on here?”

She approached the location of the old man and quickly sensed that something was amiss.

It was a very secluded house, filled with the thick smell of blood, almost making one want to vomit.

Vanessa’s brow furrowed slightly as she cautiously approached the door.

She soon witnessed a shocking scene: two middle-aged people lay in a pool of bright red blood while the old man who had infiltrated the house was gripping an unconscious little girl, his body covered in writhing crimson blood and looking more like a blood-soaked monster than a human.

Vanessa quickly surmised that the old man holding the little girl appeared to be mentally unstable.

His clothes, though once opulent, were now old and shabby. He had no intention of fleeing, only staring coldly at her with bloodshot eyes.

Baron Hovern asked almost emotionlessly,

“Who are you?”

Vanessa, sensing the man’s mental instability and not wanting to provoke him, calmly replied, “I’m the head of the patrol team. And you?”

Baron Hovern instinctively tilted his head back. His previously icy demeanor suddenly erupted as he answered very loudly, “I am the master of this town!”

Vanessa gently shook her head, continuing, “The master of Nasir Town is my husband’s cousin, or you could say, my husband. It definitely isn’t you.”

Baron Hovern’s mouth suddenly twisted into a grin that reached his ears, and he began to shout almost madly,

“Hahaha! You mean Byrne Fischer, right? So you’re also from the Fischer family! Excellent, I must thank fate!”

He paused, his eyes brimming with endless resentment as he continued, “Do you know the surname ‘Hovern’?”

Vanessa’s face changed dramatically; more than a decade ago, she was well aware that the true lord of Nasir Town was in fact a baron from the Hovern family.

However, a dozen years had passed since the baron had made an appearance, and so everyone gradually forgot about this.

So it was him?

No wonder, with his disturbed mind, claiming Nasir City was his—the pieces fell into place within Vanessa’s mind.

Yet she still didn’t understand why he would want to kill the middle-aged couple.

At that moment, Baron Hovern’s throat emitted a strange noise, his body trembling slightly before he continued:

“Since this town is my domain, their lives, their flesh, and everything they have should also belong to me!”

“Blood is the magnificent substance that sustains life and soul; it is because the power of the soul permeates the blood that the power of bloodline can be passed on.”

“Their blood will become my sustenance, filling me.”

As he spoke, Baron Hovern’s voice became even stranger, heavy with a frightening rasp that exuded an even more unnatural, non-human aura.

Vanessa quickly witnessed a shocking scene—the plentiful blood on the ground began to tremble, boil, and then incredibly started to rise drop by drop, gradually merging into Baron Hovern’s body as if being ‘consumed’ in one gulp.

A look of intense pleasure spread across his face.

“Compared to my wife and brother, their blood is even sweeter…”

Mighty Bloody Demon!

Vanessa took a deep breath; as a spellcaster who had read many tomes on the arcane, she was fully aware of how wrong Baron Hovern’s condition was.

He had been gradually taken over by the body and soul by the mysterious entity known as the Mighty Bloody Demon; yet he was utterly unaware of the predicament he faced, slowly becoming a tragic and evil puppet.

Vanessa gazed at Baron Hovern, speaking slowly to stall for time:

“No wonder you were the only survivor in the campaign against the Bloody Cult all those years ago; it was that thing that slaughtered everyone else and then deliberately let you go…”

She saw that Baron Hovern paid no attention to her and was about to kill the little girl to draw her blood; she immediately stepped forward.

“Don’t kill her; if you must feed on blood, take mine instead!”

Baron Hovern was taken aback for a moment and asked, “Why?”

He couldn’t comprehend Vanessa’s motives.

“Is she also a member of the Fischer family, or perhaps a friend of yours?”

Vanessa shook her head and continued, “Neither; she’s just a stranger, an ordinary girl from Nasir Town.”

Baron Hovern, failing to understand, asked, “And yet you’re willing to take her place?”

“Yes.”

Vanessa nodded gently; although it was meant to buy time, she was truly willing to trade her own life for the little girl’s.

Baron Hovern sneered mockingly, “Do you think you are a Savior or a saint?”

“No,” she shook her head.

Over the years, she had saved many people and done many completely selfless deeds without expecting anything in return, but she never thought of herself as a good person.

Even though the Fischer family was regarded as ethical among many nobles, they had still committed their share of dark deeds, and her own husband, Chris, had killed many innocents.

Though she was not directly involved, Vanessa was clear that simply being an onlooker who turned a blind eye did not equate to justice, and she regarded all those actions as part of her own sins.

“You are a strange woman.”

Baron Hovern suddenly tossed the little girl away, then raised his hand and shot three blood arrows at Vanessa, who caught the girl without hesitation, her body gravely wounded by the blood arrows in the process.

She felt that she had thoroughly mastered the power of the 2nd Rank of the Path of World Order, but she hardly cared about such matters, only thinking of how to take the girl and escape, to buy time.

In a little while, people from the Fischer family would come to their aid!

Accustomed to the deceit and dark killings among the nobility, Baron Hovern was perplexed by the woman before him, feeling even irritated.

Just as he was about to deliver a killing blow, he suddenly found himself entangled by a vast number of butterflies, followed by a series of explosions that completely obscured his vision.

Vanessa seized the opportunity to flee with the little girl.

“Don’t run!”

Baron Hovern roared in fury, blood streaming down his body as he chased out of the house, manipulating a large volume of blood to float around him, preparing to attack Vanessa again.

However, just then, Baron Hovern felt an overwhelmingly intense and pure will to kill!

Chris, like an Angel, silently emerged from the shadows, his right hand wielding a delicate dagger, while his left held the Romann family’s “Black Blade”.

He traced two precise and sharp trajectories with his blades aimed straight at the heart and waist of Baron Hovern.

Baron Hovern was viciously stabbed by the Black Blade in the heart and waist, but showed no sign of losing any vitality; instead, he twisted his head around one hundred and eighty degrees, glaring malevolently at Chris, his throat emitting a roaring sound.

“Aargh!”

Gradually, he entirely lost his human form; some evil force that had been bound within him erupted uncontrollably from its deepest confines!