Overlord: Start from the Goblin Lair.

Chapter 329 Daughter, or Mother

"Reasonable explanation?" The Earl tilted his head slightly. "I am ready to hand over the entire territory to you, Miss Sylvia. What other explanation do you want?"

"If your wife and daughter are both dead, there is no need to explain," Ron looked at the Earl, "but now everyone can see that your daughter is still here. The reason you mentioned before, wanting to reunite with your family, is not valid. So why do you insist on continuing this ceremony?"

The Count looked at the creature he called Mary, as if he was looking at an animal rather than his own daughter. "What's wrong? Can't you see? My Mary will never come back to me. What's squatting here is just her body that hasn't died yet. Do you think a walking corpse can manage the territory in my place?"

The vampire had a mocking smile on his face: "Of course, after I left, there was a flood. What does it have to do with me? But after all, there is still a neighbor on the other side of the mountain. Do you really want to see my subjects become evil ghosts who only know how to wander around and attack the living?"

"Come on, Miss Sylvia, the ceremony must continue, for you, for me, and for your benefactor..."

Sylvia looked at Ron in confusion, but her benefactor's attention was now focused on the crazy woman squatting on the ground. The vampire wizard hesitated for a long time and finally took a step forward.

"Yes, that's it. Follow the steps we practiced..."

The vampire Count watched with satisfaction as Sylvia dripped blood into the bowl, then waved his hand. His daughter, who had been mad for hundreds of years in his memory, crawled over obediently like a pet and drank the blood in the jade bowl.

"This is a necessary process," the Count explained. "You are not a real vampire. Transferring my blood directly to you will only harm you. Although Mary has long been dead, her body still exists, and the power of her blood also remains in this empty shell."

"Using her body as a medium, I can allow you to smoothly become my offspring in the magical sense, rather than a tragic offspring."

"It's almost time," the Count looked up at the full moon above his head. Under the influence of his blood magic, the bright moonlight was being shrouded in a layer of blood. "Mary, return your bloodline!"

"After tonight, your soul and body will rest in peace! You will return to your mother's arms and fall into eternal sweet dreams! You——"

"Why aren't you moving?"

The Vampire Count was stunned for a moment. He was sure that there would be no mistakes in his training. After hundreds of years of repeated polishing, this body that once belonged to his daughter had long since turned into a living, moving spellcasting material. There would be no possibility that she would hesitate to his orders!
But tonight, at this most important moment! His order was ineffective?!

"Tsk, luckily I have a backup plan." Count Richthofen's face was dark. Although this change was definitely not what he wanted, how could he not have a backup plan? Thousands of blood-colored threads gushed out from his palms, connected to every joint and muscle of Mary with the blood of his family as the traction. Under his control, this body was pulled up like a puppet, staggering towards the predetermined position in the magic circle.

"No wonder my benefactor said that this magic circle seemed to be a redundant part," Sylvia looked at the location indicated by the count and murmured, "You didn't tell me there was this step."

"I wasn't sure whether this step was necessary before," the count gave Sylvia a reassuring look, "Don't worry, everything will be fine. You are about to become my daughter, how could I -"

The Earl's words were interrupted again by Mary's stagnation. The body ignored the Earl's spell and suddenly stopped in place. No matter how the Earl controlled it, it refused to move a single step. "My magic is mediated by blood. How could she resist this?!"

"Actually, you can," Ron, whose eyes had been on Mary, suddenly spoke up when the Earl was still trying to control himself awkwardly. "Mr. Earl, there have always been two people closest to you, and the bloodline of one of them has nothing to do with you."

"Two... Are you talking about my wife Hecate?!" The Earl was stunned for a moment, and then his blood-red eyes burst into fierce light, staring at Ron, "What do you know?! What have you done!"

"I didn't do anything." When the undead around him began to get agitated, the preface of the weaving method floated in front of Ron, the pages flipped, and his companions picked up their weapons and stood beside him. "You should ask what you did."

"I... I didn't mean it!" The count's expression changed again and again, "Hecate, that witch! She coveted the power that should have belonged to me, and even wanted to kill me! I just took the initiative!"

The vampire roared, "Mary, my beloved daughter! She actually stood on her mother's side and blocked my sword when I was about to kill the witch! She died just like that! Died in the conflict between her parents, and all this should be blamed on the cursed witch!"

Ron did not guide him further, but hundreds of years of guilt made Count Richthofen's spirit unable to withstand any test. In the fierce self-defense, he did not even notice that the body that should have been in his control actually raised its hand. As the long nails scratched, the blood-red thread broke, and the connection between the count and his daughter's body was completely severed.

"Is it my fault?" A voice familiar to Ron and the others, and even more familiar to the Earl, came from the crazy woman's mouth. She turned around with clear and bright eyes, "Blame it on your blood wrapped in gold foil! You have been blinded by power until today!"

"Hecate?!" The Count took several steps back in shock and looked at his "daughter" in disbelief. "No, this is impossible! How could you still be alive!"

"Is it strange? He wasn't completely killed by your magic sword that can devour souls?" The witch sneered and approached her husband. "Have you forgotten that the sword pierced a mother and a daughter at the same time? It pierced two people at the same time!"

"I just came to my senses a little bit in the past few days and finally figured out how this happened: it was our daughter who did it."

"Mary?"

"She is not only a member of the Richthofen family, but also a witch," Hecate, who was wearing the face of his daughter, said in a sad voice, "You bastard! Mary didn't have to die! She dedicated her soul to the sword and took me, who had lost my body, into her own body!"

"All this is because of you! If you hadn't insisted on contacting that damn lich, how could Mary - I would rather be killed by you completely!"

The witch suddenly stopped and said in a grim tone: "But it's all too late - Capen von Richthofen, my husband, welcome your fate that is hundreds of years late!"

(End of this chapter)