Dark drew a sharp breath.
All along, his thinking had revolved around the "replication of history," and it had never occurred to him that history itself could be "changed."
After all, history was something that had already happened; even if the replicated history were altered within the Ritual, the fate already fixed could not truly be changed.
But the appearance of the "Grand Prophecy" made him realize there might be room to work here after all.
Once he confirmed that Ophelia Brad had used the "Grand Prophecy," he could reason backward from the present result—"the Demon King is slain."
From that, he could deduce that what she had altered was a history in which "the Demon King was not slain."
Building on that, he pushed the reasoning further.
The "Demon King was not slain" history most closely tied to everyone present was, without doubt, the most recent one.
The "Demon King" had not been killed, but sealed.
The "Hero" Bright Gold had died valiantly in that battle.
The "War God" Alvit Holy One Demon had ascended to full godhood after that fight.
Also taking part in that final battle were the "Sun Warrior" Suna Montielfali, the "Holy Maiden Joan," and many other heroes.
Ignorant as Dark might be, he could not possibly know nothing of the final battle Alvit had taken part in personally.
And once this thought struck him, looking again at the cast assembled here, he saw that all the most central roles were already present!
The one playing the "Demon King": Ophelia Brad.
The one playing the "Hero": Virt Gold.
The one playing the "War God": Dark Demon.
…
There was no need to look at the rest of the players; just these three most central roles, their actors were uncannily close to the figures of that history.
Apart from them, no more fitting candidates could likely be found. "What Ophelia Brad was trying to change was an ending in which the 'Hero' ultimately died and the 'Demon King' was not killed."
"And the result she steered toward was the 'War God' slaying the 'Demon King'!"
"Though it was only a role played within the Ritual, with the power of the 'Grand Prophecy,' she might truly be able to interfere with reality through it."
"No—rather, if it couldn't be done, she would never have completed this Ritual at the cost of her own death."
Dark's gaze turned unusually grave.
On the surface, Ophelia Brad had no reason to do this.
But think deeper, and her motive became obvious.
Because the Demon King's death was not a good thing.
This generation's Demon King was a most troublesome foe.
He possessed a vast number of hidden vessels; once slain, he could be reborn within one of them.
In short, his death would help him escape the seal!
…
Given that Ophelia Brad had already been Embraced and undergone Corruption, her mind was inevitably controlled to some degree by the Demon King.
Even if she had kept her reason through the power of the Blood Clan, and had escaped domination because the Demon King was sealed—
the most fundamental "loyalty" had already taken root.
That contradiction and struggle—knowing rationally that she should not be loyal to the Demon King, yet by her very nature unable to be otherwise—led her at last to choose self-sacrifice as a way to help the Demon King break free.
While "fulfilling her loyalty," she also freed herself.
Once the Demon King escaped the seal, she would inevitably fall under his complete domination.
And then the reason she had struggled so hard to hold onto would likely no longer sustain her.
So she had to die.
…
By the most decisive means, she had freed herself entirely from the Demon King's control.
From her standpoint, she had done her utmost to have it "both ways."
…
Dark quickly realized his deduction was very likely the truth.
Gripping the "Grand Prophecy" card tightly, he let out the stale breath he had drawn in.
Perhaps because he had known from the start that the Demon King's escape was inevitable, Ophelia Brad's actions stirred little feeling in him.
Even if Ophelia Brad had not done this, the Demon King would surely have broken free some other way.
Whether rescued by the Heretical Order, or by the remnants of the Demon race, or through a traitor within the Holy Church—it made little difference.
For the most part, he watched all this as a detached spectator.
Now, he only felt a certain sorrow that a hero of his mother's era had come to such an end.
"Is there still any way to save this?"
He looked down at Virt, whose sobs had faded even as his grief grew heavier, his mind racing faster than ever before.
…
"Demon, what are you thinking?" Ryan Hacks asked with concern, watching Dark sink into thought.
But Dark had no intention of telling Ryan Hacks what his reasoning had yielded.
Ryan Hacks was not a qualified Magic Guide Master; in theoretical knowledge of Magic Guidance he probably fell short even of a first-year like Dark, and there was little point in discussing it with him.
Shutting out Ryan Hacks, Dark turned and walked a circuit of the area, his gaze coming to rest at last on the bottle floating above the magic array.
"Set aside for now the 'Grand Prophecy's' effect on reality, and focus only on the interior of the Ritual."
"Ophelia Brad still died in the role of the 'Demon King'—and the 'Demon King' she played was the one with countless vessels, who upon death could be reborn within a vessel!"
"And Vampire Vlad is one of that 'Demon King's' vessels."
In a flash, inspiration struck Dark.
The Ritual was not yet over; nothing was final.
The question now was how to have Ophelia Brad reborn within the vessel that was Vampire Vlad.
Head bowed, Dark thought furiously.
He sorely lacked knowledge in this area and could never fine-tune the Ritual's course the way Ophelia Brad had.
Under these circumstances, all he could think of was to go along with the Ritual's natural course and add Ophelia Brad into the Forging of the "Vampire Vlad" Magic Guide Card.
But the Forging of "Vampire Vlad" had not been activated.
And could Ophelia Brad really be Forged into a Magic Guide Spirit?
On the face of it, this was without question a taboo among taboos.
Even setting the taboo aside—
could Ophelia Brad really accept being Forged into a Magic Guide Spirit?
Ordinarily, in the process of being Forged into a Magic Guide Spirit, her consciousness would be ground away.
Unless…
"Magic Guide Scribe!"
The "Magic Guide Scribe" that had been floating at his side flew at once into his hand.
Dark took up the "Magic Guide Scribe" and flipped through it swiftly.
After Forging the "Magic Guide Scribe," he had used the "Auto-Scribe" ability to record a great deal of knowledge in this Magic Guide book.
It contained a vast store of early-education material, as well as the entire contents of "Blood Sacrifice," the book that formed the core of the "Magic Guide Scribe."
The so-called Blood Sacrifice technique used blood of every kind—animal blood, monster blood, human blood…—as energy, and through Blood Magic converted it into powerful force, then used it to cast spells, to summon… even to forge weapons.
It was originally a form of Blood Magic, but applied to Magic Guide techniques, it could serve as a sophisticated means of extracting materials.
The only problem was that "Blood Sacrifice" was, at its core, a taboo.
Because when the Blood Sacrifice technique was used on a living being, its soul was usually sacrificed along with it, and the blood-energy thus extracted was evil and defiled.
But it was precisely this effect that Dark wanted.
[Blood and corpse—which lies at journey's end?]
The opening declaration of "Blood Sacrifice" was enough to lay bare the nature of the book.
Dark turned the "Magic Guide Scribe" to the page he needed, skimmed it, then snapped his head up, his gaze locking onto the blood magic array beneath the glass bottle.
"The same—the exact same array!"
Though the outer ring of this blood magic array had far more complex circuitry, the array in its inner ring was identical to one recorded in the book.
Dark realized he had found the right path.
"Virt!"
…
Dark's sudden call made Virt lift his head from his grief, eyes red, cheeks streaked with tears.
"I have a way," Dark said quickly, "that might save your mother's life—but some complications will come with it."
The utterly abrupt words left Virt Gold at a loss.
"Really?" he said blankly.
Dark nodded solemnly. "Really."
Virt jolted to alertness.
Though he was utterly baffled that Dark, having killed Ophelia Brad, now meant to bring her back to life—
Virt had no room to dwell on that now.
He hastily wiped his tears and asked in a fluster, "What do I do?"
Dark pointed to the blood magic array beneath the glass bottle. "First, carry Ophelia Brad's body over here…"
In this world, an individual's life was made up of three parts: soul, body, and consciousness.
According to Professor Kazel—
both soul and body were vessels for consciousness.
What death truly meant was the extinction of consciousness.
We bury the body in the earth, and in the earth it decomposes.
We bury the soul's remains in the wind, and in the wind they dissolve.
Only the death of consciousness—the mind—is true death.
Ophelia Brad's "death" had taken place within the Ritual; under the Ritual's protection, her soul and consciousness had not perished.
"Through the Blood Sacrifice technique, I'll extract Ophelia Brad's soul by way of her blood, and use that as the trigger to steer the Ritual toward the 'Demon King's resurrection,' attempting to reactivate the Forging step that had already been set up."
"If all goes well, Vampire Vlad's soul and consciousness will be supplanted by Ophelia Brad's."
"Just as when the Demon King is reborn within a vessel, he completely replaces the vessel's original soul and consciousness."
"Once the Forging succeeds, Ophelia Brad's soul and consciousness will be stored, for the time being, within the Magic Guide Card."
"Of course, to keep her soul and consciousness from being worn away, I'll add certain necessary things during the Forging."
"After that, we need to preserve Ophelia Brad's body."
"With soul, consciousness, and body all intact, the possibility of a full resurrection remains."
Working as he spoke, Dark explained quickly, then asked, "Did you follow that?"
Virt Gold shook his head dumbly.
Dark was silent for a while, then turned to Bastemon. "Did you follow that?"
Bastemon smiled beguilingly. "A little."
"Good enough." Dark nodded. "Your remaining time is short. We have to finish the Blood Sacrifice steps before the Fusion lifts. Do as I say."
Bastemon inclined her head slightly.
Then Dark said to Virt, "Set the body down, then move back."
Carefully, Virt laid Ophelia Brad's body at the center of the blood magic array, then withdrew with reluctance.
The fluid coursing through the array gave off a red glow like blood.
Ophelia Brad's body lay flat at the array's center, her skin—paled by her transformation into a Vampire—looking all the more translucent under the red light.
Dark bent down, slipped a hand beneath the back of her head, gathered her hair up from the nape, bundled it into a strand, and laid it across her chest.
The peaks that stood firm even as she lay were veiled beneath the long, blood-red hair.
As Dark raised his head, he glanced at Ophelia Brad's face—that pale, bloodless face, exquisite and fine, held a wan, mournful beauty.
He drew a sharp breath. "Bastemon, hurry!"
…
At Dark's direction, Bastemon moved to the edge of the blood magic array.
The wound on Ophelia Brad's chest had long since been fully stanched under its control, but the bloodstained gash was still ghastly.
Bastemon pointed, tearing a small opening within the wound once more, then poured in mana, setting Ophelia Brad's blood circulating again.
The blood, gradually flowing, coaxed the heart back into beating; a thread of blood was drawn out through that small opening and, under Bastemon's control, ran into the blood magic array.
Holding the "Magic Guide Scribe," Dark explained in careful detail how to manipulate the array.
Bastemon, wholly focused, followed his instructions to the letter, guiding the blood into the circuitry of the blood magic array.
The array's circuitry gradually brightened, and threads of a plaintive, sorrowful chant suddenly rose.
Dark's expression eased, and he let out a breath.
The circuitry ringing the array's outer edge had indeed been laid out to initiate the Blood Sacrifice.
Now that the array was successfully activated, the outer ring began chanting the spell on its own.
The whole Blood Sacrifice technique was finally on track.
Next, they would rely on Bastemon's control of blood-energy to force "Ophelia Brad" into the Blood Sacrifice's list of materials.
This was not hard.
Not with Bastemon here!
But whether the whole Forging succeeded would take more factors to support it.
The most important of these was the fine-tuning of the Ritual's course.
Only by riding the Ritual's advance could the Forging's ultimate success be assured.
Here there was little Dark could do; he could only pin his hopes on the Ritual's natural progression, or on Professor Medea's improvisation.
…
In the vast hall, the golden-haired youth held his Magic Guide book, directing the Magic Guide Spirit through swift operations.
The others, watching his back, saw what looked like a Grand Magic Guide Master of remarkable presence.
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