Lucian Vale withdrew his hand from Lauma’s pale shoulder, and the teasing ease in his expression faded.
“Lauma, you used your own blood again.”
There was a faint note of reproach in his voice.
He shook his head, unable to hide his frustration.
When they had first met, Lauma’s condition had been far worse than she allowed others to see.
Years of eating little more than plants, combined with repeated blood loss, had left her weak and dangerously pale.
Lucian had spent considerable effort restoring her body, and only recently had her health begun to stabilize.
He had just replenished the blood she had lost, but treatment meant little if she continued sacrificing herself whenever he turned his back.
“I’ve restored what you lost this time,” Lucian said.
“But while I’m away, you need to take care of yourself.
No more reckless bleeding.”
“I’m sorry…”
Lauma lowered her head in genuine guilt.
Thanks to her figure, the movement did not help her see her feet in the slightest.
The Frostmoon Scions worshiped the Frost Moon, yet the kuuvahki flowing through their bodies occasionally fell into disorder.
As their Moonchanter, Lauma bore the responsibility of maintaining the faith and spiritual stability of her people.
When their blessings became unstable, she used her own silver blood to calm them, sacrificing her health so the congregation would not lose hope.
Until the Moon Goddess returned—or until Lauma’s suspicions regarding the missing deity could be confirmed—the Frostmoon Scions’ faith could not be allowed to collapse.
If it did, their already-fragile hope of welcoming their goddess home might vanish forever.
Lucian understood all of that without her explaining it.
He fell silent for a moment, considering another possibility.
As a Descender, perhaps he did not need to wait for history to unfold naturally.
Maybe he could simply force the main story to begin ahead of schedule.
“How about this?” he proposed.
“If one of the Fatui Harbingers truly is the Moon Goddess your people worship, I’ll kidnap her and bring her back.”
Lauma stared at him.
He looked completely serious.
Her eyes widened, and she immediately waved both hands.
“No!
Absolutely not!”
She shook her head so quickly that the glow around her antler-crown seemed to sway with her.
“Our goddess left because she had been disappointed for far too long.
If you use violence to drag her back against her will, it may only deepen that disappointment.
The result could be the exact opposite of what we want.”
Notably, Lauma did not question whether Lucian could abduct a goddess.
Despite his youthful appearance—he looked no older than seventeen or eighteen—she had long since stopped judging his capabilities by his face.
Her only concern was what might happen after he succeeded.
“Fine,” Lucian said reluctantly.
“No kidnapping the Moon Goddess.”
For now, he abandoned the idea of stuffing Columbina into a sack and carrying her back to Nod-Krai.
Besides, Signora and The Balladeer were still active Fatui Harbingers in this era.
If those two lunatics were drawn to Nod-Krai because of him, the situation could become troublesome in entirely new ways.
Still, there was another project he could advance before leaving.
“By the way, Lauma, what happened to the material I asked you to collect?”
Lauma’s expression turned apologetic.
“I found some, but not very much.
The piece is only about the size of a fist.”
She seemed genuinely disappointed in herself.
Lucian’s request had sounded simple, yet she had been unable to gather more.
Most remnants of the ancient moons still lay beyond the False Sky.
Very few lunar fragments could be found anywhere in Nod-Krai, and those that remained had fallen in distant ages.
Locating even one intact piece was difficult.
“The size of a fist…” Lucian murmured.
“That should be enough.”
He had wanted to test whether the lunar material of this world was compatible with Pillar Man blood.
More specifically, he wanted to know whether it could be used to create a Stone Mask.
After retrieving the fist-sized lunar fragment from the Frostmoon Scions, Lucian prepared to depart immediately.
Every extra hour he remained in Nod-Krai was another hour Diluc Ragnvindr spent in danger within Snezhnaya.
Lucian might have treated work as an inconvenience, but once he accepted a commission, he preferred not to let the target die before he could collect his payment.
He opened an oil-paper umbrella he had purchased in Liyue and rested it over one shoulder.
Before leaving, he cast one final glance toward the towering statue of the Moon Goddess.
Lauma stood nearby, watching him in silence.
Dark clouds gathered overhead.
A moment later, heavy rain swept across the land, drumming against roofs, leaves, and stone.
Lucian stepped onto a falling raindrop.
Instead of plunging through it, his foot found purchase upon the water as though it were solid ground.
He rose with the rain, ascending higher and higher until he pierced the black clouds and shot toward Snezhnaya.
Weather Report and Catch the Rainbow.
By now, Lucian had become extraordinarily proficient at switching between Stand abilities and combining their lingering effects.
His Stand had awakened when the beetle-marked Stand Arrow pierced him.
From the moment of its birth, its fundamental power had been comparable to exceptional Stands such as Requiem-class evolutions.
He had named it Earth Song.
Before being transported into the world of JoJo, Lucian’s favorite singer on Earth had been Michael Jackson.
Choosing the name had required almost no thought at all.
Earth Song’s parameters were absurd: five As and an infinite rating in development potential.
Its destructive power, speed, range, stamina, and precision were all ranked A only because A was the highest category the scale could display.
Its potential was marked as infinite because no lesser description was accurate.
Earth Song possessed an ability as simple to state as it was outrageous in practice.
It could reproduce every Stand ability Lucian knew about, whether he had personally witnessed that Stand or merely possessed knowledge of it.
Switching abilities did not reduce Earth Song’s physical parameters, nor did it force the Stand to inherit the weaknesses of the original user.
If a Stand had been born from a master’s extraordinary technique, using that Stand could even grant Lucian the related skill and experience.
There was, however, one important limitation: Earth Song could normally employ only one Stand ability at a time.
Weather Report offered a useful exception.
Once Lucian created a storm, the rain did not vanish the instant he stopped actively controlling the weather.
The lingering rainfall remained long enough for him to switch to Catch the Rainbow, allowing him to walk through the storm and ride its raindrops across the sky.
As for Gold Experience Requiem and Chariot Requiem, their power could not be invoked so casually.
To reproduce those abilities, Lucian first had to stimulate the beetle-marked arrow pattern on the back of his right hand, and even then he could sustain them only briefly.
That limitation was hardly enough to make him feel weak.
While flying above the rain clouds, Lucian altered his body.
Two additional arms emerged smoothly from beneath his ribs, giving him four hands with which to work.
He took out the lunar fragment and began experimenting.
First, he crushed the ancient material into fine powder between his fingers.
Then he drew rainwater from the air, mixed it through the powder, and compressed the resulting substance until it formed the rough shape of a mask.
Creating Stone Masks was not new to him.
In his previous world, Lucian had remained at Kars’s side long enough to gradually learn the construction method.
The process required a special type of stone—one that had been exposed to sunlight for an extraordinarily long period.
Kars and the other Pillar Men had understood how to use the material, but not why it worked.
They had never identified the stone’s true origin.
Lucian had.
The material was lunar rock.
The answer made perfect sense.
With no atmosphere to shield its surface, the moon endured direct solar radiation for immeasurable ages.
Lunar stone therefore possessed an exceptional affinity for solar energy, making it ideal for conducting the force needed to trigger biological evolution through a Stone Mask.
Once the mask’s basic shape was complete, Lucian sliced open one finger.
A drop of his blood fell onto its surface.
Ordinarily, the stone should have absorbed the blood.
Once that happened, the mask would be nearly complete.
Instead, the instant his blood touched it, blue energy erupted across the mask.
The glow surged like cold fire, pushing against the crimson droplet and refusing to let it sink into the stone.
Lucian narrowed his eyes.
Kuuvahki still lingered within the lunar fragment—and for some reason, it was actively rejecting his Pillar Man blood.
Why?
Was the Moon Goddess so stingy that she would not let him borrow one fist-sized piece of abandoned moon rock?
“If you refuse to cooperate,” Lucian muttered, “I’ll use you anyway.”
He pressed his bleeding palm firmly against the unfinished Stone Mask.
The blue radiance flared violently, illuminating the rain around him.
Kuuvahki struggled to repel his blood, but it could not move his hand, much less overpower the body of an Ultimate Life Form.
The resistance lasted only a few moments.
Then the blue light weakened.
It flickered once, twice, and finally receded into the mask.
It had run out of tricks.
Lucian’s irritation disappeared, replaced by open excitement.
The blood of an ordinary Pillar Man could complete an ordinary Stone Mask.
What, then, would happen when the blood came from an Ultimate Life Form like him?
His blood seeped into the lunar material.
Red light burst from the mask’s hollow eyes.
Sharp fangs pushed out from between its sealed lips, giving it the unmistakable appearance of a vampire’s face.
So far, the transformation resembled that of a normal Stone Mask.
Then thin crimson lines appeared.
They crawled across the surface like living veins, twisting and writhing over the mask.
Its formerly calm expression contorted into agony.
The mouth split open wider and wider until the entire object resembled a savage ritual mask.
As the crimson veins faded, the transformation came to an end.
The pale Stone Mask was gone.
In its place rested a dark-red demon mask, its surface the color of congealed blood.
A powerful aura of malice clung to it.
Its gaping mouth seemed to inhale and exhale, and with every imagined breath, the mask gave the disturbing impression of possessing a beating heart.
Lucian lifted it in all four hands and examined it carefully.
Calling it a Stone Mask no longer felt appropriate.
A Blood Demon Mask suited it far better.
The new mask appeared to have abandoned the original Stone Mask’s method of stimulating hidden biological potential through needles driven into the brain.
Now, merely wearing it might be enough to transform an ordinary human into a vampire—or perhaps into something even higher.
Could it directly create a Pillar Man?
Lucian was not certain.
He was not particularly concerned, either.
What mattered was that the Blood Demon Mask could grant eternal life to an ordinary person.
Even if that immortality came with a fatal weakness to sunlight, countless people would still fight, betray, and kill for the opportunity to possess it.
Purely in terms of appearance, the mask was magnificent.
Its sinister beauty did not lose to the Yaksha mask worn by Xiao of Liyue.
If anything, the dark-red surface gave it an additional, wicked allure.
There was only one disappointment.
The hollow once used to embed the Red Stone of Aja had vanished during the transformation.
Without that slot, the mask probably could not be upgraded into a device capable of creating another Ultimate Life Form.
Perhaps that was for the best.
With no hesitation whatsoever, Lucian placed the newly born Blood Demon Mask over his face.
Then he drew the extra arms back into his body and resumed his ordinary human appearance.
Rain streamed around him as he accelerated northward.
Wrapped in storm clouds and carrying a power that could tempt mortals with eternal life, Lucian continued toward Snezhnaya.