Chapter 746: The Bitch and the Killer

Belicia's footsteps rang through the dungeon, drawing closer and closer to him.

The last time he had seen her was that rainy night.

Lausanne the Second's vision was somewhat blurry.

How many years ago had that been?

Where had it been? Eternal Star City? Jade City? In his remote and difficult-to-find killer's hut, or in Turnbull's chief's room, which was plain as a military outpost?

Lausanne the Second tightly closed his eyes.

The footsteps stopped beside him.

"What, surprised to see me?"

Her voice was sweet yet languid, making one think of warm winter sunlight.

"No," the vampire killer said hoarsely. "Catherine hinted that you would come."

The woman sighed softly.

"As expected of that blade bitch. She sold me out just like that. No old feelings at all."

Lausanne the Second did not open his eyes. He tried hard to keep his voice steady.

"Did they send you to persuade me to surrender?"

"More or less."

"That is im-"

"That is impossible," Belicia finished for him first, sighing softly. "We both know that."

Lausanne the Second opened his eyes.

Inch by inch, he turned his gaze toward the newcomer.

Toward the face he had once known better than almost any other.

"But you still came."

Belicia was different from before.

She was still delicate and charming, her smile moving. Perhaps even more moving than before.

But Lausanne the Second knew she was no longer the girl who used to giggle with him on the rooftop while watching the sunset.

Perhaps she never had been.

"You should see the formation those important people have set up outside," Belicia sighed, as if complaining to an old friend about life's troubles. "Do I have a choice?"

Lausanne the Second was silent for a few seconds.

"You do."

The killer said softly,

"You should have had a choice."

Everyone should have.

The girl who had once watched the sunset with him on the roof froze for a few seconds. Then she curled her lips and smiled.

"Did you kill your way up that tower?"

"Tower?"

Lausanne the Second's brows moved.

"Yes, the tower," Belicia said as if it did not matter. "The abandoned watchtower outside North Gate Bridge. Tall and sharp, old and broken. Did it not look like a person bending over and beckoning, asking: are you coming?"

The watchtower...

The killer's thoughts stirred.

He moved his gaze and looked again at the woman.

At the woman whose smile remained charming and beautiful.

The killer understood something.

"You. It was you."

His tone was certain.

Belicia smiled.

"Yes. Me."

She raised her brows and curved her lips.

"First use that blade bitch as bait, release the rumor, and lure you to North Gate Bridge..."

Belicia slowly paced behind him.

"Lead you to chase all the way to that watchtower, and tell you: yes, this is a hunting trap, and the blade bitch's backer is probably at the top of the tower."

Lausanne the Second's eyes froze.

"Most ordinary people might know when to retreat by then, but..."

But she understands me.

The vampire killer said silently.

"But I understand you."

Belicia's words were calm and confident. Her steps did not stop as she slowly approached the weak lamp in the corner.

"And with your pride and conceit, or rather, your extremity and obsession..."

As the woman drew closer to the lamp, the shadow she cast behind her grew wider and larger.

Until it completely enveloped Lausanne the Second.

"You would at least have to try."

Belicia spoke softly.

He would try to keep moving forward.

Belicia watched the tiny wavering flame before her, which still stubbornly burned.

Break through difficulty.

Struggle free of the trap.

Even when driven to the end of the road.

Even when covered in wounds.

Until he broke through the obstacles, even killed his way to the top of the tower.

To see what kind of scenery existed at that unreachable height.

As for why he had to do this...

Belicia drew a cigarette case from her clothes, gracefully took out a cigarette, pressed its end against the case, and flattened the tobacco.

"As old Turnbull said: only someone like you could use pain and self-destruction as the fulcrum to thoroughly break through yourself, thoroughly kill the meticulous, naive, upright knight apprentice you once were, and transform..."

In the deep darkness, Lausanne the Second did not say a word.

"...into that Lausanne the Second, covered in blood, stepping over countless corpses, charging into the Supreme class without changing expression, and frightening all who heard your name."

Belicia sighed.

"Once, targets marked by you could learn in advance and prepare. They could have walls of bronze and iron, bodyguards everywhere, even conceal their names and hide their traces, yet in the end they still could not escape death. Except Black Sword..."

Jingle.

The chains on the captive rang softly, interrupting the woman.

Of course. Except Black Sword.

Only Black Sword.

Before the lamp, Belicia turned back and looked at the captive covered by shadow. She smiled and continued.

"Of course, the blade bitch and the watchtower were only the beginning. As for how to bring you down inside the trap, especially how to prevent you from leaving once you saw something was wrong..."

In the firelight, Belicia lightly stretched her wrist and placed one end of the cigarette in the flame.

"'Head Wolf' Fisso paid to hire manpower. But at my suggestion, the bounty he posted was released in batches, and the information he spread was half true and half false."

The shadow cast beneath her grew thicker, nearly covering the entire dungeon.

"The first batch were cannon fodder who knew nothing, came to get rich overnight, and rushed here to die. But they had hot heads and large numbers, so they served as your warm-up."

The cigarette caught, blackened, and smoke rose.

Lausanne the Second's expression was blank, as if he heard nothing.

"Then came the experienced old hands. Mercenaries, adventurers, Brotherhood desperadoes, and tournament contestants. They had ability, and they knew the target was hard, so they would definitely prepare fully, forcing you to handle them carefully and wear yourself down again and again."

Amid the smoke, the tobacco inside the cigarette began to glow red.

The killer remained silent.

"Finally, only a tiny handful of people, for various reasons, noble or stubborn, rational or absurd, would insist on coming even after knowing your background. They would risk everything to kill you, even trading life for life."

Risk everything. Trade life for life.

If you cannot win, does that mean you do nothing?

Lausanne the Second, stone-like, remembered something, and his frozen expression finally moved.

The lamp flame was faint, yet irresistibly pierced layer after layer of tobacco.

"Only at the very end would the subordinates of that important kingdom figure appear. That unbelievably extravagant lineup. Those Supreme-class experts, each with a name and reputation, able to confront you directly. And they could not all be thrown in at once. After all, you are merely conceited, not stupid."

In case he retreated and escaped halfway, or had not yet been worn down enough and gathered strength to counterattack...

Belicia withdrew her wrist and gently took a drag.

For a moment the cigarette tip flared bright and burned rapidly.

"After all, Supreme-class experts are easy to kill, but hard to capture."

To catch one in the vast Jade City, or even the whole South Coast Territory, would only be harder.

Yes. To capture a Supreme-class killer alive required this much preparation.

Or perhaps, to capture a Supreme-class killer alive required only this much preparation.

Belicia lowered the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of thick smoke.

As she calmly explained, Lausanne the Second remained silent from start to finish.

So that was it.

He thought calmly.

No wonder, in that trap, he had discovered that his opponents were sometimes strong and sometimes weak, sometimes soft and sometimes hard. Some were respectable, some contemptible. They even suspected one another and fought among themselves. At times he cut through them like vegetables, breaking through with unstoppable momentum; at other times he was flustered and miserable. They forced him to keep adapting between dismissing small fry and dueling experts, exhausting his body, pulling at his energy, confusing his judgment. It was like, like...

"A mire," the killer said hoarsely. "That trap was like a mire."

He had stepped into it, fallen into a sticky and irritating struggle, yet always felt that the obstacles on the road could be shattered with a flick of the finger, that the trap before him was not unsolvable, that the tower before him was within reach...

Until he sank deeper and deeper.

Unable to move.

Belicia smiled. She closed her eyes, raised her head, and gently inhaled smoke.

"The blade bitch thought she knew your weakness, thought sprinkling a little fresh blood would restrain you. Fisso was frightened out of his wits, and other than throwing money at hired men, hid in a corner no one knew and did not even dare show his face. The important person sitting in Emerald Palace could do nothing about you dodging all over the place. I hear even the famed Royal Guards could not catch you..."

The vampire killer still stared at the black ceiling, unmoving.

"But only I. Only I knew your true color."

Belicia breathed out empty, insubstantial smoke.

"Lausanne the Second, you are a killer with temper, and also the killer with the most personality and style. That completely separates you from the mediocre peers who sell their lives for money, fame, or advancement. You are more dangerous, more proactive, and more unpredictable."

Belicia snorted lightly with disdain.

"So remember, my dear: the person who caught you was not Catherine, not Fisso, not that important kingdom figure who keeps his ten fingers clean of dirt, and certainly not their lackeys," Belicia said calmly. "It was me."

Her.

The girl whose eyes were always hollow, whose brows were knotted with gloom, whose smile was lonely and heavy, who would sit with him on the rooftop and quietly watch the sunset.

"So that is how it is."

Lausanne the Second lay calmly in the black shadow.

"That is how it has always been."

Belicia took another drag and added coldly.

But it was only that.

Whether back then or now.

She walked to his side and forced herself to look down at the captive from above, staring without blinking.

But she soon discovered that when this moment arrived, she did not feel the release, delight, or lightness she had expected.

On the contrary, when Lausanne the Second slowly looked at her, there was no anger, no resentment, no pain in his eyes.

Only a faint...

Sorrow.

Belicia's heart tightened.

"I remember that you did not smoke often," the killer said softly. "Unless something was troubling you."

Something very, very troubling.

"Is seeing you not troubling enough?"

Belicia abruptly turned her head away and no longer looked at him.

"Besides, this is not ordinary tobacco. It is a rare product specially supplied by Emerald Palace to high officials and nobles. Smooth into the lungs, with a full aftertaste."

Belicia closed her eyes and sighed amid curling smoke.

"You know, whether it is Turnbull, Fisso, or the blade bitch, I am beginning to understand their choices. After all, who would not want to be born enjoying such things?"

Lausanne the Second was silent for a second.

"But if you were born that way..."

The killer said in a low voice,

"How could you understand their choices?"

The dungeon was quiet.

Until Belicia snorted coldly.

"Tell me. Before you failed and were captured, did you finally kill your way up that tower and see the view from above?"

The woman threw the cigarette butt away, changing the subject.

"Is it true that as long as you stand there, everything below becomes incomparably small and insignificant?"

Only silence greeted her.

After quite a while, Lausanne the Second's voice sounded quietly, filled with deep exhaustion.

"Go back."

Belicia frowned.

"Go back where?"

"Leave this place and go back," the killer said without a ripple in his tone. "Do not involve yourself with any person or any matter here again."

Belicia was silent for a while.

"That's it? Nothing else?"

Lausanne the Second closed his eyes in the shadow.

"Yes. Go. After you leave this door, do not look back."

Belicia did not answer immediately.

Her breathing slowly quickened.

A few seconds later, the woman's footsteps sounded, drawing closer and closer to the killer.

"The chief culprit who ruined you is right in front of you," Belicia said coldly. "And this is your reaction? Telling me to go back?"

She moved farther and farther from the lamp, and the shadow she cast gradually disappeared.

The dungeon brightened again.

"As for the people outside the door," Lausanne the Second ignored her questioning, "no matter what they want you to do, what benefits they promised, what threats they made... you should not participate."

"You are this calm, this indifferent? You have not even a trace of unwillingness or resentment?"

Belicia stepped on the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it, her tone hurried.

"Even though back then, when we were still together, I poisoned your daily food and drink, causing you and old Gang Leader Turnbull to fall at Black Sword's hands without ever knowing why?"

Lausanne the Second's fingers tightened.

Perhaps... not without knowing why.

But...

"It is not important anymore."

The killer was expressionless.

At this point, none of it had meaning.

"Not important?"

Belicia asked in disbelief.

"Even though long before that, the two times you failed to encircle and kill Black Sword were also because I secretly warned him in advance, allowing him to prepare and escape pursuit?"

Lausanne the Second did not move at all.

"Even though, whether then or now, I am the bitch who betrayed and framed you, caused your utter defeat, dragged you into eternal ruin, and left you in this state?"

The woman walked to his side and, without realizing it, clenched her teeth.

"Can you truly put all of that down, my dear?"

"Put down everything unfair, unjust, and unfortunate that you have suffered, both in the past and now?"

Lausanne the Second's expression was cold.

"Are you willing to rot to death like this in this stinking cesspit?"

Belicia took a deep breath, slowly crouched, and leaned close before the killer's eyes.

"Even though now, you have a chance waiting outside the door, to repay everything from before-"

Crash!

Before Belicia could finish speaking, metal rang sharply, and the situation changed abruptly.

Bang!

"Ah! You-"

Amid Belicia's sudden cry of alarm, Lausanne the Second opened his eyes, his left arm flashed, and he clutched the woman's throat.

"You talk too much, my dear," Lausanne the Second said coldly, his fingers tightening more and more. "And you came too close."

Before his eyes, Belicia knelt on the ground, struggling to breathe. Her hands desperately clawed at the hard vampire fingers and talons around her neck, but it had little effect.

Lausanne the Second tightened his arm and pulled the powerless Belicia before him.

In the vampire's unique vision, her neck was long and pale, and the blood vessels beneath her skin pulsed slowly.

They gave off a fragrant temptation.

Blood...

Lausanne the Second struggled to suppress the desire inside him, but could not help swallowing.

Belicia could not shout. Her breathing became more and more difficult.

But after the first shock passed, she immediately calmed down.

"But if I... if I did not come close to you..."

The woman lowered her hands and stared fixedly at him.

"How could I understand you, defeat you..."

Lausanne the Second clenched his fangs.

His sharp talons lightly traced the skin at her throat.

The feeling in his fingertips told him: she was trembling.

Belicia gently touched his face, struggled to curl her lips, and spat out the final words.

"...capture you?"

In that instant, Lausanne the Second's pupils abruptly widened.

His talons loosened slightly, and Belicia gained space to breathe. She immediately gasped in great mouthfuls.

But Lausanne the Second stared fixedly at his own hand.

He suddenly discovered that the trembling one was not Belicia.

It was his fingertips.

Why?

"Do it, my dear. What are you still waiting for?"

Belicia finally recovered somewhat, but she did not resist. Instead, she looked at the hand gripping her neck and smiled miserably.

"Do you not want my blood?"

Blood.

Looking at her eyes, Lausanne the Second suddenly understood something.

In the next second, the killer completely released his talons, and his arm fell weakly to the ground.

Freed from restraint, Belicia sprawled on the ground, coughed several times, and then burst into laughter.

"I knew it!"

Her laughter was desolate and relieved. It echoed through the dungeon, making the lamp flame in the corner tremble frantically and the light and shadows on the walls flicker in chaos.

"The first time I saw you, my dear, I knew we were the same!"

Belicia sat sideways on the floor with her legs crooked and slowly raised her head.

"You and I, bitch and killer. We are vessels that were completely shattered, barely glued together with paste and clay, forced to keep being used.

"But the cracks inside cannot be glued.

"Broken, complicated, twisted, self-contradictory, cursed by the past."

Lausanne the Second's breath paused.

"That is why we could attract each other."

The woman's eyes reddened. The expression on her face became unbearably frightening.

"Even if we were destined to destroy each other."

Lausanne the Second froze.

If you want someone to love you deeply...

For some reason, watching Belicia laugh wildly as if mad, he suddenly remembered the words spoken by that filthy species with mental abilities:

...you must first entrust your true heart.

He stared blankly at the woman before him, knowing that she was still within reach of his arm.

If he wished, he could cut open her throat immediately.

Drink deeply of her blood.

But...

Lausanne the Second closed his eyes and completely suppressed his blood thirst.

"I know."

The killer spoke wearily, interrupting the woman's increasingly desolate laughter.

"I know you are a bitch."

Obviously.

"Then congratulations," Belicia paused and said sarcastically. "So many years, and somehow I never discovered it myself."

"But you are not my bitch, nor dead Bott's bitch."

Lausanne the Second slowly opened his mouth, his tone calm and indifferent.

"You are Turnbull's 'bitch.'"

His words fell.

Belicia's breathing stopped for a second.

"You... knew?"

"Yes. I knew."

Lausanne the Second closed his eyes again.

"Starting at some point, perhaps from the time when I no longer feared Supreme-class opponents and few of his subordinates could last ten exchanges against me, old Turnbull stopped trusting me wholeheartedly. Deep in the way he looked at me, there was fear."

But he had not cared.

Whether it was old Turnbull's twists and turns, or his deliberate choice to keep "Lausanne the Second" hidden behind the scenes, far away from the Blood Bottle Gang's affairs and interests, making him Turnbull's killer alone, he did not care.

He only needed to do the thing he was best at, the purest thing.

Draw his sword. Kill people.

That was enough.

"Until you were sent to my side to serve his endless interests. Probing, monitoring, guarding, striking, attacking enemies and dissidents. Just like 'Dogfang' Bott before, and perhaps many more."

Lausanne the Second opened his eyes and smiled indifferently.

"There is no question of whether you betrayed me. Just like me, you were only... doing your job."

A mission. A target.

That was all.

The dungeon was quiet for a long time.

"Did you know from the very beginning, or..."

"From the first day I saw you, I knew."

Lausanne the Second answered slowly.

"Before I came to the Blood Bottle Gang, I had been betrayed, and had betrayed others," the killer said without fluctuation. "So I knew."

Belicia sat beside him and froze for several seconds before taking a deep breath.

"Then you..."

"The drugs you put in my food and drink, sunlight or whatever else, I discovered them on the first day," Lausanne the Second revealed a smile that was both sarcastic and helpless. "I switched your goods. They never worked."

Belicia slowly turned her head, her eyes complicated.

"That is right. I was never poisoned, and I was cautious and vigilant around you at every moment."

The woman suddenly laughed.

"Enough! When Boss Bott went mad and died, and old Turnbull asked whether you were willing to take me in temporarily," Belicia laughed coldly, "did you not also refuse to object?"

The killer trapped in the shackles shifted his gaze and looked deeply at the woman.

Belicia's laughter gradually stopped.

"As a scout or spy, whether you wanted to harm me, whether Turnbull did not trust me, or whether you even betrayed Turnbull, I can understand all those possibilities."

The killer looked at the woman calmly.

"There is only one thing I could never understand no matter what."

Belicia's smile disappeared.

She calmly met the killer's gaze and gave the answer.

"That drop of blood."

Lausanne the Second was silent for a long time.

"Yes."

After an unknown span, he finally spoke.

"That disgusting drop of vampire source blood, which could heal all injuries and miraculously bring the dead back to life."

That drop of source blood filled with shame and sin, arrogance and malice, darkness and pain.

That drop said to be sacred medicine for healing wounds, but in truth only worsened pain.

That hope of survival that could drive countless people mad.

It came from his past.

Overshadowed his present.

Destroyed his future.

Lausanne the Second spoke softly.

"Long ago, even before I met you, I threw it away."

Who knew in which nameless gutter.

Waiting to be corroded, rotted, and shattered by time.

Buried forever.

Until...

"Until that rainy night in Eternal Star City. The night when old Turnbull and I went together to intercept and kill Black Sword in the abandoned house."

That rainy night that decided everything.

His final battle with Black Sword.

"Before I set out," the killer closed his eyes, "you returned that drop of blood to me."

Belicia smiled.

"Yes, I still remember your expression. There are not many things that can make the cold-blooded and cruel Lausanne the Second drop his jaw."

The woman took out another cigarette, but only stared at it quietly.

"You insisted that I bring it, 'just in case,' you said," Lausanne the Second clenched his remaining left hand, and the chains on him rang softly. "You also said that when I came back, you would explain everything."

Without realizing it, the killer clenched his teeth.

"Why, Belicia?"

"Where did you learn of it, and how did you find that drop of source blood again? Was it painstaking calculation? Or had it been planned long before?"

And...

"Why did you return it to me?"

Lausanne the Second's breathing quickened. The gaze with which he looked at her was unbearably complicated.

"If you meant to poison me, why give me medicine?"

"If you meant to harm me, why help me?"

If she wanted him dead,

why make him live?

Why make him die in the night, then wake in an even deeper night?

Why make him wake and continue living in this world that was like hell?

Driven mad by blood?

Why?

"Why?"

The echo of the killer's question drifted through the dungeon and did not fade for a long time.

Belicia was silent for a long time.

"But you never came back."

She spoke softly, avoiding his agitated questions.

"At least... not alive."

When her words fell, the dungeon returned to silence.

The captive's chains no longer rang.