"What? Rei is gone? Didn't I tell you to watch her?" In a magnificent manor, the black vampire, Altrouge, stood with her hands on her hips, radiating an imposing queenly aura as she glared at the white knight before her.

The White Knight, Brad, looked utterly awkward and guilt-ridden. To think that he, one of the renowned Twenty-Seven Ancestors, a peak Dead Apostle whose strength ranked among the top ten of the Ancestors, couldn't even keep an eye on a fragile little girl—she vanished right under his nose! He felt utterly disgraced before his mistress. However...

The White Knight prepared to defend himself, saying, "Princess, while this is my fault, I truly had no choice at the time. That boy named Obeshi PK K. Hideyoshi was genuinely the most beautiful young man I have ever seen in my life. I couldn't help myself... When I looked back, she was already gone..."

"You old f*ggot, just die!" Before the White Knight could finish, the Black Princess burst out in fury. After returning from the Millennium Castle, the journey home should have taken only a few days, but a slight incident on the way delayed them by a month. She had given explicit instructions when leaving, confident that with the White Knight watching, nothing would happen to Rei. She never expected this...

"Princess, my sin doesn't deserve death," the White Knight replied, his face drawn. While losing sight of the girl was indeed his failing, that girl wasn't ordinary either. She vanished from under the nose of an Ancestor in a mere blink; her skill at concealment was first-rate. Even he couldn't sense the slightest trace of her faint presence.

Smack.

The Black Princess suddenly produced a black leather whip out of nowhere, bringing it down hard onto the floor with a cold snarl, "Then I sentence you to one year of abstinence from homosexuality while you reflect in isolation!"

"...Princess, please just kill me instead." After three seconds of consideration, the White Knight stated.

"..." The Black Princess was instantly speechless.

"Sigh, forget it..." After a long pause, the Black Princess sighed helplessly. The deed was done; arguing over whose fault it was was useless now. She had to mobilize all her forces to search. Besides, she had only been missing for half a month. Given Rei's natural airheadedness, she probably hadn't even managed to leave Germany.

——————

The Millennium Castle had completely vanished from view. Lin Luo felt a pang of regret for not being able to bring Arcueid out, but as the saying went, a twisted melon is never sweet. Since she was determined to stay, he couldn't force her... Of course, forcing her would have been useless anyway; with his current strength, he couldn't possibly defeat the White Princess.

So, after a slight sigh, Lin Luo departed. He had more important matters to attend to—bringing Rei back to Fuyuki City for the Fourth Holy Grail War.

He didn't know how long he had stayed in the Millennium Castle, nor could he be certain whether Rei had been taken by the Black Princess or if she was wandering this world alone... Under either scenario, he currently had no way to pinpoint Rei's exact location.

Lin Luo had been worried, but after trekking through the mountains for half a day, he was suddenly overjoyed to discover he could sense a faint trace of Rei's presence.

How to put it? To be precise, it wasn't a scent, but a form of spiritual resonance. Firstly, the World Seed and the Book of Contracts shared an attractive pull originating from the 'Source'; even without actively searching, the two entities would eventually draw closer until they met. Secondly, Lin Luo and Rei had shared the experience of merging; the spiritual connection between them was hardly inferior to the contracts he shared with his contractor-bound allies.

Though Lin Luo didn't know the exact reason, he absolutely trusted this spiritual sense. It had been verified countless times in both the A Certain Magical Index world and the Nasuverse. After integrating the Book of Contracts, he had unconsciously developed an intuition akin to precognition.

"It's definitely Rei."

Thrilled and surprised, upon sensing Rei's proximity, Lin Luo immediately closed his eyes, calming his mind to intently perceive that spiritual connection... At this moment, his 'vision' was entirely darkness, yet one spot in the direction of his right hand was emitting a very faint light.

Seeing this, Lin Luo hesitated no longer, sprinting toward the right. After about ten minutes, the sensation in his heart grew stronger.

"It can't be wrong, Rei is right there." At this point, Lin Luo was one hundred percent certain.

"Beep."

Just then, a faint, dry sound echoed in the air. Lin Luo's expression changed, and a sudden sense of danger flared within him.

The power of Rules manifested, white mist swirling around him... Bang!

Lin Luo immediately heard a violent sound erupt behind him, accompanied by what seemed to be a beast's roar... A beast? Was some oblivious animal trying to make him its lunch?

Pausing momentarily, Lin Luo instinctively turned around, and there he saw an unknown creature perched atop a large rock not far in front of him... Completely black, its external form resembled a monkey, but unlike ordinary monkeys, its four limbs were like blades, and two sharp fangs jutted from its mouth. It looked ferocious, hunched over, seemingly ready to attack at any moment.

"Brother Monkey, are you from Mars?" Lin Luo couldn't help but marvel. This Nasuverse was truly interesting, boasting not only the black cat with wings and four tails, Kourin Ruri, but also such a bizarrely shaped monkey. Truly... But, wait, why did it look somewhat familiar?

"It is you, indeed. You carry a sacred aura."

At that moment, a man's voice spoke from nearby. Following the sound, Lin Luo saw a white man in a black suit slowly walking toward him.

"Who are you?" Lin Luo frowned instinctively, not out of fear, but because he sensed a latent hostility emanating from the man.

"Questioning me after stealing my sacred cargo? Truly an inferior Easterner." The white-suited man walked slowly to the bizarre monkey, gently stroking its head, then looked down at Lin Luo, his disgust and hostility completely unconcealed.

Hey, that one line insults over half the world's population. Do you want to be publicly ridiculed?

Lin Luo’s face immediately darkened. He finally remembered who this white man was... the high-ranking Magus he had encountered a short while ago when he broke into the German museum and stole Rei. Back then, Shirō couldn't defeat his Familiar, forcing Lin Luo to use an Unlocated Spatial Jump to escape the museum, and then...

Speaking of which, this guy was the ultimate instigator behind his encounters with the Dead Apostles, the Ancestors, and nearly losing his life!

If it weren't for him, Lin Luo wouldn't have been so unlucky! Lin Luo felt a slight gnashing of teeth internally.

"So, it's you, the Magus. It seems you're specifically looking for me. What do you want?" Lin Luo stared at the man calmly, his expression twisted. If it were before, he might have feared this Magus a little, but now that he had deciphered the power of Rules, few people short of the world's peak experts could pressure him.

"Return what you stole, and I might spare your life," the white Magus looked down at Lin Luo, his expression one of absolute certainty, showing no regard for him whatsoever.

Lin Luo spread his hands and shook his head regretfully. "No can do. That's not something that can be casually transferred."

"Is that so? Then..." With an expression of noncommittal dismissal, the white Magus suddenly raised his hand, "In the name of Magic, I grant you death!"

As the last word fell, the monkey Familiar beside him instantly transformed into a black streak of light, charging toward Lin Luo at an incredibly high speed.

Swish!

However, Lin Luo’s speed was even faster. He dodged the Familiar's attack as if teleporting, his figure flashing past the white Magus. The next moment, he was back in his original position, his back to the man, his right hand stained crimson with blood.

"I intended to play with you a bit longer, but I'm short on time. One last piece of advice: the tables turn eventually. You shouldn't underestimate others so easily. But... you'll have to learn that in the next life," Lin Luo said, flicking the blood off his hand and walking forward without looking back.

The white Magus remained frozen in place. His face was ashen, filled with terror and pain. He subconsciously lowered his head and saw a fist-sized hole where his heart should be—it had been pierced clean through.

"A... Dead Apostle?"

He simply could not believe that the low-level Magus who couldn't even stop his Familiar a mere month ago now possessed the strength to instantly kill him, and had become a Dead Apostle at that!

Why? Why had this happened?

Clinging to this question, the white Magus collapsed onto the ground, losing all consciousness. As he died, the monkey-like Familiar instantly vanished into nothingness.

Lin Luo was, of course, not a Dead Apostle. After being fed by the Black and White Princesses, he hadn't fully transformed, but he had absorbed the power of the Blood Pact, gaining partial abilities of the vampire race, such as enhanced physical resilience and instantaneous bursts of power... Lin Luo could also sense some other vampire abilities, though he couldn't utilize them at his current level.

As for the speed resembling instantaneous movement, that stemmed from his power of Rules. Simply put, he created a path belonging only to himself by manipulating points and lines... Stepping forward meant instantly reaching the target; it could be described as 'taking a shortcut.' On the surface, it resembled the spatial ability users from the A Certain Magical Index world, but the mechanism was vastly different.

Spatial ability users in the Index world utilized the differing distances between various dimensions to create shortcuts. Lin Luo, however, created 'paths' within reality itself... Theoretically, this method was superior to the Index ability users but inferior to the magic employed by the Jewel Old Man, which directly tore space open.

Therefore, this shortcut method was useless against experts on Arcueid's level, and certainly ineffective against top-tier Magicians like Lorelei or Touko Aozaki. However, it was more than sufficient against this particular Magus. While he was a high-ranking Magus, he was clearly far from being among the top echelon.

Eliminating this self-destructive Magus was as trivial to Lin Luo as waving a sleeve; currently, only experts at the Ancestor level or above could truly move him; all others were mere dust... Yes, that seemed about right.

...About an hour later, following his resonance with Rei, Lin Luo entered a snow-covered forest. All the surrounding trees were blanketed in thick snow, making the entire world appear dazzling white.

"Strange, why is there so much snow?"

Due to his constitution, Lin Luo didn't feel much cold, but the surrounding environment naturally raised a hint of confusion. Logically, it was only late November; there shouldn't be such heavy snowfall. Had the first snow of the year arrived unusually early?

"Tch..." Frowning slightly, Lin Luo eventually dismissed the thought. He could feel his connection to Rei growing stronger, only a few miles away now... His only remaining worry was what to do if Rei was still with the Black Princess; given that woman's malicious nature, she likely wouldn't let him leave easily.

There was no good solution right now; he had to find Rei first... With that in mind, Lin Luo strode into the depths of the snowfield and finally spotted Rei's figure on a flat expanse of snow. However, what surprised him was that besides Rei, there was another girl there—not the Black Princess, but a little girl who looked about seven or eight years old, dressed in a padded coat and hat.

Since he was far away, Lin Luo couldn't discern the girl's features, only the silver hair that shone brilliantly even against the white snow... The two seemed to be having a wonderful time, laughing and chatting while building a snowman together.

Who was that girl, to be getting along so well with Rei?

Lin Luo felt deeply puzzled. Rei wasn't an ordinary person; she naturally disliked humans. Even with the connection of the World Seed, it took him nearly losing his life to earn her acknowledgment. Yet, this little loli of unknown identity could play so happily with her... Lin Luo felt a slight imbalance.

Thankfully, the other party was a little loli and not a little shota... Well, he supposed that was the advantage of dealing with lolis; perhaps she would get along well with the few lolis he had back home.

Thinking this, Lin Luo stepped forward. Since he hadn't deliberately concealed himself, the sound of his footsteps crushing the snow immediately drew