The moment Kraven yelled, Mark had a momentary illusion that he was hearing an old song.
Looking at Kraven’s face—filled with grief, outrage, pain, and disbelief—Mark understood.
This guy was just a simping dog hanging around Selene.
Sure enough, after his initial breakdown, Kraven quickly pulled himself together and ordered his men to surround Mark and Selene.
Only after securing the perimeter did Kraven speak, his face twisted in bitterness.
“Selene, why would you choose a piece of food?
Was I not good enough for you?
Why are you doing this?
Why?!”
That single sentence was packed with information.
For a moment, even the Death Dealers—who otherwise looked thoroughly professional and elite—turned to stare at Kraven with deeply gossipy eyes.
Kraven cleared his throat with a dry cough.
“I mean…
why did you betray the Grand Duke?
Grand Duke Viktor treated you like his own daughter!”
The squad of vampire Death Dealers had already entered the room.
At this point, Selene was actually no longer that nervous.
Resting in Mark’s arms, she glanced up at his near-perfect side profile and, on a sudden whim, planted a gentle kiss on his cheek.
*Crack!*
Everyone in the room seemed to hear the sound of a fragile heart shattering.
Vampire though he was, Kraven’s face flushed bright red with pure fury.
The members of his squad marveled quietly at the sight.
Only then did Selene pull back slightly from Mark’s embrace.
Her eyes turned ice-cold as she looked at Kraven.
“Kraven, do you really believe Viktor was good to me?”
“Was he not?” Kraven snapped.
“The Grand Duke adopted you as his daughter—”
“So that gave him the right to murder my parents when I was a child, slaughter my hometown, seal my memories, and force me to be his lapdog for the rest of my life?” Selene countered coldly.
“That was…
because…”
Selene sneered.
“Because his own daughter, Sonja, fell in love with a Lycan, so Viktor burned her to death with sunlight with his own hands, didn’t he?”
Kraven: “…”
The Death Dealers: “…”
This tea was unexpectedly spicy.
But was this really something lower-ranking minions like them were supposed to hear?
While the vampire squad members were standing there stunned, Kraven’s mind raced, and he blurted out, “Grand Duke Viktor’s family affairs aren’t ours to judge!” Get faster updates on g.com.
“Without the Grand Duke, could you have lived for a thousand years?”
“Besides, humans are low-level creatures—nothing more than food to us!
How could you debase yourself like this with a human…”
“I don’t even have the words for it.
You disappoint me too much!”
By the end of his rant, Kraven’s voice was choking up.
Fourteen hundred years—from the sixth century all the way to the present day.
Did anyone know how heavy a burden fourteen centuries of unrequited love was?
Kraven’s words sounded so inexplicably sorrowful that even the tense, weapon-drawn atmosphere in the room softened.
Selene and these vampires had known each other for centuries at minimum.
Moreover, Selene was the top combatant among the Death Dealers, as well as their instructor, comrade-in-arms, and friend.
Unless absolutely forced, none of the vampires present actually wanted to cross blades with her.
Just as the mood was veering off in an increasingly bizarre direction, Mark gave a soft cough and said, “Captain Kraven, was it?
Allow me to interrupt.
As a matter of fact, humanity has dominated the Earth ever since the Renaissance.”
“The only reason your vampire species managed to survive on this planet is thanks to the protection of the ancient purebloods.”
“Also, barging into my room like this…
don’t you think it’s a bit rude?”
At the sound of Mark’s voice, everyone’s attention shifted back to him.
Kraven’s face instantly flipped.
Sweeping away his earlier grief, he turned utterly menacing.
“You damned bastard!
If you hadn’t spoken, I almost forgot about you!”
“You arrogant fool!
Just because you’ve heard a few scattered ancient legends, you think you can play the scholar?”
“Rude?
Heh, I’ll teach you what real manners look like!”
Kraven sneered, baring his fangs.
Mark looked at him with mild amusement.
“So, you want to duel me one-on-one?”
Kraven slowly raised the firearm in his hands, laughing with wild arrogance.
“You really are a fool.”
“Do you think I can’t feel the powerful life energy inside your body?”
“A human grandmaster of martial arts, right?
Duel one-on-one?”
Wake up!”
“This is the twenty-first century!
If you don’t know how to use a gun, how can you call yourself a grandmaster?”
Looking at Kraven’s arrogant posture, Mark was momentarily speechless, unsure how to counter.
A supernatural creature choosing to shoot a human instead of engaging in close-quarters combat…
Those were literally his own usual talking points.
Talk about turning the world upside down.
Mark felt a wave of annoyance and lost all interest in continuing the conversation.
Immediately after, crimson runes and array seals began spreading rapidly across the room.
At the same time, the eight Mecha Dao Soldiers previously hidden by the array emerged into everyone’s view.
Each soldier held an extraordinarily sci-fi, oversized bone machine gun.
Beside Mark, two Asura Hounds manifested their terrifying hellhound forms.
All of this had originally been prepared for the vampire elders—or even the likes of Viktor and Marcus.
Mark had simply overestimated the vampires’ caution, never expecting them to send only a minor pawn like Kraven with a single Death Dealer squad.
The Array of Myriad Blood Attunement hadn’t even been fully activated yet—it was merely powered on.
Yet even so, Kraven’s arrogance vanished in an instant, his face draining of color.
Next, Kraven dropped his gun with seamless, practiced grace.
Trying desperately to maintain the last shred of his dignity, he declared, “Then again, I haven’t seen a human martial arts grandmaster in centuries.”
“Grandmaster, I respect you.”
“Let us return to the primitive—throw away our weapons and duel one-on-one!”
Kraven’s sheer, unabashed shamelessness left everyone stunned.
Selene and the other Death Dealers couldn’t help but facepalm and turn their heads away.
This bastard single-handedly lowered the moral baseline for all Death Dealers.
Faced with Kraven’s shameless posture, Mark’s expression darkened slightly.
Clenching his Five Fingers from across the room, five dragon-like ribbons of crimson light shot out from the Array of Myriad Blood Attunement and coiled tightly around Kraven.
Instantly, every drop of blood in Kraven’s body was locked down under absolute control.
If it had been an ordinary human with sufficient willpower, they might still have managed a slight struggle.
But for a vampire like Kraven, having his blood controlled meant he couldn’t struggle at all—not even a little.
Not just Kraven; the other fifteen Death Dealer team members were similarly restrained.
In reality, with the Array of Myriad Blood Attunement deployed, the moment these vampires stepped into Mark’s room, their lives no longer belonged to them.
Furthermore, the Golden Court Clan sending only a single squad made Mark feel thoroughly looked down upon.
*Whatever.
I’ll just slaughter them all.*
Just as threads of killing intent began to rise within Mark, Selene, beside him, immediately sensed it.
“Mark!
Don’t!”