Volume 1, Chapter 46 – Good Sisters

‘Why is something like this happening?’

‘My blood… has betrayed me?’

‘No, absolutely impossible.’

The scene unfolding before her left Cheryl’s mind completely blank.

There had to be a reasonable explanation.

‘Had Stella somehow wrested control of my blood away using threads of magical power?’

‘No, impossible!’

If Stella possessed such extraordinarily precise control, she could easily defeat Cheryl, then ravage and trample upon her pride and glory.

“Ravage… trample…” Cheryl murmured to herself.

She clenched her right hand tightly, suppressing the impulse rising within her and forcing her attention back to the present.

Now was absolutely not the time to think about such things.

Could Stella be deliberately toying with her, using this method to mock how dull and boring Cheryl’s greatest specialty, blood manipulation, seemed in her eyes, before ravaging her afterward?

Cheryl stared at Stella with a complicated expression.

There was bewilderment at witnessing something unheard of, along with awe born from that bewilderment. The two emotions intertwined on her face, making her expression seem somewhat affected and exaggerated.

However, at this moment, Cheryl was not the only one lost in thought.

‘Hmm…’

‘What is going on here?’

Stella looked helplessly at the blood spikes floating directly in front of her.

The reversed blood spikes had not completely solidified. Cheryl’s blood was still flowing faintly within them, surging upward and even retaining its warmth.

Stella curiously reached out and touched one.

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Hot, hot, hot.

The blood spike was almost scorching to Stella, making her palm burn for a moment.

Stella could not help shaking her hand.

“You… don’t tell me you’re going to…”

Cheryl noticed Stella’s tiny movement. She stopped thinking and almost instantly understood what Stella intended to do.

‘She is going to counterattack!’

“Me? What?” Stella tilted her head.

For some reason, she could clearly see alarm and suspicion in Cheryl’s eyes.

The next moment, the blood spikes that had been frozen in place shot forward like arrows, transforming into a rain of crimson projectiles that filled the sky and nearly occupied Cheryl’s entire field of vision, leaving her nowhere to escape.

The red rain came pouring down.

“Using my own blood against me?” Cheryl said softly.

She raised a hand, her five fingers curling around empty air.

‘Submit to me.’

She silently recited the command in her heart, invoking the innate connection within her bloodline.

Her blood should obey her command and transform into blades that pierced through her enemy’s heart.

Yet the blood spikes suspended in midair did not move in the slightest. It was as though they had completely submitted to Stella, ignoring the summons of their former master.

Cheryl lowered her eyes and looked at her own palm.

The blood vessels beneath her skin pulsed faintly. The blood within them surged and roared, yet she remained utterly powerless to command the blood outside her body.

‘Damn it…’

Cheryl retreated, her steps light as she dodged most of the blood spikes. Yet from a blind spot in her vision, one blood spike still silently pierced through her sleeve. Warm liquid slid down her arm and soaked the delicate lace edging at her cuff.

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Cheryl stopped and lowered her head, staring at the patch of red spreading across her white shirt.

Blood trickled downward like tiny insects crawling over her skin, leaving behind an unbearably itchy sensation.

This feeling of being injured… this feedback of actually experiencing pain…

“Cheryl… are you okay?” Stella asked weakly, cold sweat pouring from her.

She really had only wanted to shake the heat off her hand. Who could have known those blood spikes would shoot out like obedient throwing darts?

And… Cheryl was bleeding.

‘The Young Lady of Valentine wouldn’t come demanding compensation from me afterward, would she…’

“Well done, Stella,” Cheryl said.

“…?”

With Cheryl’s lowered eyelids obscuring her expression, Stella could not make out what she was thinking. She only found Cheryl utterly baffling. She had been injured, yet she was praising Stella for doing well. Just what was going through her head?

Cheryl moistened her pink lips and felt a sweet trace of pain sweep through the depths of her body.

She repeatedly savored the pain and the unmistakable reality it brought, certain that this was an excitement she had not felt in a very long time, like ripe berries bursting inside her mind and spilling their sweet juice everywhere.

‘How wonderful…’

‘From pain emerged beauty…’

There was no need for any more speculation. Cheryl was already certain.

This was no mere form of magical power manipulation. It was clearly blood manipulation, exactly like her own.

Even exquisitely precise magical control could never overturn her authority over blood, much less command her own blood to attack her.

Unless the other party also possessed the same blood manipulation as she did.

Cheryl instinctively wanted to reject that possibility.

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Leaving aside a lowly demon of unknown bloodline, the racial talents of Abyssal demons were as vast and varied as the stars themselves. There were shadow demons capable of burying their bodies deep within shadows, plague demons whose breath alone could unleash pestilence capable of destroying entire nations…

There were far, far too many exceptional demons. Yet although their abilities came in every imaginable form and their strengths differed enormously, no case of identical bloodline talents had ever been recorded in the literature to this day.

Bloodline talents possessed absolute exclusivity.

And blood manipulation was undoubtedly her unique talent, an ability engraved into her bloodline. It was not merely a technique she had learned through training. It was an instinct inherited through blood, refined through experience, and sharpened through countless battles.

But how could this be?

It shouldn’t be possible…

But…

Cheryl studied Stella, watching the silver-white ends of her hair merge with the moonlight as they swayed in the wind.

At this moment, Cheryl finally noticed that there was a very faint trace of crimson at the tips of Stella’s hair.

“Could it be…”

An absurd conjecture gradually took shape in her mind.

Only blood purer than that of the legitimate line could command the blood of Valentine.

Stella Darkfallen.

Darkfallen.

Cheryl remembered a saying:

There will always be bastards in this world who grow up fighting in the mud, drinking the blood of monsters, more vicious than you and more ruthless than you.

So that was it.

Now everything made sense.

Why had Stella always responded to Cheryl’s provocations with cold indifference?

Because on the chessboard of the family’s internal struggle, the legitimate heir baring her fangs and claws was nothing more than a sheltered flower throwing a tantrum in the eyes of an illegitimate daughter.

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Why did Stella possess SSS+ potential?

Because she was the monster of the Valentine family who had been cast outside and grown up fighting in the mud, with the family’s talent and blood flowing through her veins.

Cheryl raised her head, her eyes completely clear.

No wonder Stella had always clashed with her head-on, never giving her the slightest face…

No wonder Stella’s talent was so astonishing, even reaching the level of SSS+…

No wonder Stella showed no fear whatsoever toward her reputation and had taken the initiative to challenge her to this duel…

The truth was now clear.

Cheryl suddenly realized that Stella really did have Valentine blood flowing through her veins, along with that vicious and cunning instinct unique to the family.

“So all this time…” Cheryl took a step forward.

With her slender fingertips, she gathered her own blood into her palm as though bestowing a blessing, then smiled and said.

“You’ve been my…”

“My good sister.”

“???” Stella blankly tilted her head.

Translator Note

Is this truly the effect of the potion + medical bath?

I feel like Stella is really from the Valentine family… Or maybe one of her parents is a higher-rank demon, even higher than Valentine?