Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint

A fallen comet. The greatest prodigy the Military State had ever produced—and its worst traitor.

Despite the grandiose titles, Erzebeth was bored.

For a simple reason:

She had never heard the name Lankart.

"An unfamiliar name. I assume he’s some regional figure of note? My apologies, but I don’t bother remembering the worthless."

A 'historic genius' from a nation barely thirty years old?

Compared to the centuries of human history Erzebeth had witnessed, it was a speck of dust.

Authority was built upon history, and a mere local celebrity was beneath her notice.

To Erzebeth, a name unrecorded in history books was no different from any nameless, fleeting magician.

Lankart didn’t seem angry.

Instead, he looked... exasperated.

"'Worthless?' You're talking about me?"

"Of course. Magicians always think themselves special. But in the end, you’re nothing more than another common sorcerer."

Her arrogance was well-founded.

As an Elder, she had every right to look down on lesser beings.

Erzebeth sneered at the mage’s self-importance.

But then, Lankart tilted his head.

"But in the end, you’re just another Right-Handed One, obediently following the flow."

Right-Handed One?

Erzebeth raised an eyebrow.

She had never heard the term before.

Strictly speaking, she was right-handed.

She even held her fan in her right hand at this very moment.

But it was obvious that Lankart wasn’t referring to physical handedness.

"What do you mean by 'Right-Handed'?"

"The tide. The current. The trend. Power. Call it whatever you want.

You’re on the 'following' side.

It doesn’t matter if you were born that way or forced into it."

Nonsense.

Mages were often delusional, drowning in their own twisted philosophies.

Erzebeth had no reason to understand, let alone entertain the words of an obsessed fool.

She decided she had heard enough.

Reaching forward, she extended her right hand, fan in grasp, to shatter his Unique Magic.

And in that moment—

A memory surfaced.

A memory from her human past.

Once, Erzebeth had been a noble.

And nobles were expected to master proper etiquette from childhood.

Strict teachers were hired to ensure flawless conduct.

"Erzebeth, you are perfect."

"There’s nothing left to teach you."

"If only my own children were even half as competent...."

Erzebeth had been a model student, praised by all.

Among those who admired her...

Were left-handed children.

"Stop using the wrong hand!"

"Do I have to tie your hand down?"

The left-handed—children who struggled to keep up.

Their existence was flawed from the start.

No one ate with their left hand—it would clash against right-handed diners at the table.

No one wrote with their left hand—it would smear ink across the page.

More than anything, being different was a flaw.

Thus, they were corrected.

One by one, left-handed children were retrained, reshaped, remade.

And in time, they vanished.

In their place—

Right-Handed Ones stood tall.

Erzebeth had spent years mastering the dominant way of life.

And from her high vantage point, she looked upon the left-handed with pity and disdain.

She had always been right-handed.

She had always ridden the tide, never fought against it.

And she reaped the benefits.

She had been proud of it.

"The world spins to the right, in ways you’ll never understand."

Lankart’s voice brought her back to the present.

"Whether it’s the unruly sage’s universe, the tree that bore the fruit of sin, or just the masses of humans using their right hands.

They all set a direction and force the world to follow.

Why do you think that is?"

He laughed.

"Because the right is superior? No, that’s ridiculous. Left and right are identical in # Nоvеlight # every way but direction."

"You cattle..."

Within Lankart’s Unique Magic, wind and blood churned together.

Erzebeth sent her bloodflow surging against him.

Her fan flicked—

And a torrent of crimson surged against the storm.

"But tell me—why is it that the left disappears while the right remains?"

Even as the Elder vampire bore down upon him, even as her blood tried to consume him—

Lankart did not waver.

"The answer is simple."

Erzebeth’s body slammed into the windmill’s wall.

Her own blood attack veered off-course, obliterating the side of the windmill instead.

The structure groaned under the sudden damage.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

The gears within it shifted out of alignment.

The entire building shuddered, threatening to collapse.

Yet—

Through it all, Lankart remained unmoved.

"Left and right destroy each other."

"They collide, over and over, until only one remains."

"And in the end..."

"...the Right-Handed Ones win."

"Why?"

"Because they are greater in number."

A cold, absolute truth.

Even nature, in all its grandeur, only passes down the rules that survived.

And survival itself was a matter of numbers.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

More of the windmill crumbled, pieces falling around him.

Yet none of it touched him.

The swirling force around him twisted the very path of destruction.

Neither from above nor below—

No attack, no falling debris could strike him.

At last, he clenched his right hand into a fist.

And looked down at Erzebeth.

"My Unique Magic, The World of the Right-Handed, follows that rule. It destroys and erases everything leftward. The vortex is merely the consequence.

In my world, I am God.

And someone like you, who merely follows the tide, will never so much as touch the hem of my coat."

Lankart and his Unique Magic ridiculed Erzebeth, branding her a coward who clung to power, bending to the strong.

The truth in his words stung.

Her pride seethed as she spread her blood power once more, her voice rising.

"You boast as if a single Unique Magic makes you invincible!

Let’s see if you can keep running your mouth when you’re drowning in your own blood!"

Erzebeth snapped her fan shut, gripping it with both hands and twisting.

Like wringing a soaked cloth, blood poured from the fan.

If her power could not reach him, then she would simply flood the entire space with blood itself.

Lankart clicked his tongue.

"Tch. I try to explain things properly, but Elders like you...

You’re outdated relics.

Not only do you refuse to understand, you don’t even try.

This is why fools like you are hopeless.

Even among Elders, you’re the worst kind of fool—one that refuses to die or evolve."

Fighting a mage with an absolute philosophy required one of two approaches:

Surprise attack or overwhelming power.

Historically, mages often died like insects to well-planned assassinations.

But Elders were among the few beings who could simply overpower a mage through sheer force.

Among vampires, Erzebeth—outside of Vladimir and Muri—was one of the most suited to killing a mage.

But...

Lankart wasn’t an ordinary mage.

"Unacceptable."

For the first time, Lankart moved.

A single step—light yet unbearably heavy—toward Erzebeth.

Lankart’s Unique Magic revolved around himself.

He was the eye of the storm.

A typhoon’s core should be still—slow, deliberate.

But this storm’s core was moving.

Toward her.

A mage who closed distance first?

How generous.

Erzebeth lunged.

She had trained in Blood Qi Arts.

If she could touch him, she could crush him.

If she could touch him.

Snap.

Her arm twisted unnaturally, bending at a grotesque angle.

Lankart’s vortex had caught her before she even realized it.

His eye of the storm was a force that could reject her entire existence.

"Talking to outdated losers is meaningless.

Why don’t you go fetch your Progenitor?

Since I’m here, I might as well see the face of the newly-born Demon God."

"You bastard—!"

Any attack aimed at Lankart would miss.

But when Lankart moved, he could force others to miss their marks.

Even if his opponent was an Elder.

Lankart never laid a finger on Erzebeth.

He merely made a throwing motion.

And his Unique Magic did the rest.

The air twisted.

The ground screamed.

The vortex devoured her balance.

"The Giant’s Right Arm."

The air snatched Erzebeth up and hurled her into the sky.

She was launched—

Not flying, but fired.

Like a red comet, she disappeared into the distance.

Lankart watched her vanish, now nothing more than a crimson speck on the horizon.

"It’ll take her a while to come back."

He dusted himself off and turned back toward the windmill.

His voice was calm.

"Now then...

Shall we have a little chat?"

He took a step closer.

His eyes, as cold as ever, locked onto Hilde.

"Where is Hughes?"