Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 304: Grimoire Sacrifice

Wanete’s Grimoire was anything but ordinary.

For one, it was an artifact far more powerful than she was, containing magic reserves dozens of times greater than what her current self could even fathom.

Each page held an astonishing concentration of magic power, sustaining hundreds of inscribed runes that allowed for near-instant activation.

However, the Grimoire’s power output was limited by Wanete’s current level, meaning she could only properly harness it when she reached a certain threshold of strength.

With it, Wanete possessed a three-in-one trump card that she could unleash in moments of peril: Grimoire Sacrifice.

This technique required her to sacrifice parts of the Grimoire to bypass laws, causality, and restrictions, directly manifesting her will into reality.

For the sacrifice to work, the pages had to be marked with her blood, a condition Wanete had met by marking every single page of her Grimoire.

It was called a three-in-one trump card because it allowed her to unleash three different abilities in times of crisis.

Absolute Attack Absolute Defence Absolute Escape

Of course, just like the concept of infinity, the term absolute was relative.

If the gap between her and her opponent was too vast, even her Grimoire’s power wouldn’t be enough to save her.

Fortunately, Orikar had only restrained her using magic power for basic telekinesis rather than an Authority, so Absolute Escape was successful.

Each trump card required the sacrifice of a third of her Grimoire’s pages.

Using all three would leave her with just one page, and she would need years to regain the magic required to restore the lost pages.

Her Grimoire contained exactly 1,000 pages.

For this instance of Absolute Escape, she sacrificed 333 pages, returning herself to a location she had previously marked.

Or rather, not a place—but a person: her best friend, Davina Evangelista.

Normally, her designated return point was Jamie. Ever since she had left Estea, he had always been the mark for her return location, and while Jamie had noticed this, he had never commented on it.

But this time, things were a bit different.

Jamie was in the middle of the summoning tournament, inside the arena’s reinforced barrier. If she had tried teleporting to him, the spell could have rebounded off the barrier, failed completely, or even worse—the spatial tunnel could have collapsed, yeeting her to a random location across spacetime.

Realizing the risk, she had temporarily switched her return marker to Davina, who was safely watching the tournament from a private booth alongside her brother.

◇　◇　◇

The moment Absolute Escape activated, Wanete was flung through space and collapsed right into Davina’s lap.

"What the?!"

Wanete’s condition was dire.

Her skin was deathly pale, dried and cracked as if every drop of moisture had been drained from her body. Her energy reserves were critically depleted, so much so that fractures had begun to spread across her energy core.

Lastly, she was completely unconscious.

The twins immediately went on high alert at Wanete’s sudden appearance, and within seconds, they realized she was suffering from extreme energy deficiency.

Without hesitation, Davina snatched a table knife and slashed her wrist, then pried Wanete’s mouth open, pressing her bleeding wrist against her lips.

Panic flooded Davina as she overcut, spilling blood everywhere, but David quickly intervened, holding her to calm her down so she could properly feed Wanete.

With her brother’s help, she steadied herself and properly forced Wanete to drink.

Vampires consumed blood not just for sustenance but to replenish their energy by absorbing the magic power within it.

Davina felt lethargic and lightheaded as Wanete unconsciously sucked in her magic via her blood, but she didn’t stop until Wanete’s skin regained its natural colour.

However, this brought on a new issue.

Wanete’s amethyst eyes suddenly lit up, but they lacked any trace of reason.

The realisation that Wanete had entered a bloodlust state hit Davin instantly, but before she could react, Wanete shoved her down and sank her fangs into Davina’s neck.

The speed at which she drained Davina’s blood was terrifying, and within moments, Davina was nearly on the verge of anaemia.

As Davina struggled to push Wanete away, David grabbed Wanete by the neck and pulled her off his sister.

In her frenzy, Wanete lunged at him, but he swiftly dodged, landing a powerful punch to her forehead that knocked her out cold, giving her a concussion in the process.

Turning his attention back to Davina, David helped her up, but as his gaze fell on Wanete’s scorched grimoire lying on the floor, his expression darkened.

"Just what the hell happened to her?"

It was a question neither of them could answer.

Panting heavily, Davina pointed to her phone on the floor and said to David.

"We need to inform Lord Jamie."

◇　◇　◇

Meanwhile, ’Lord Jamie’, was busy taking a selfie outside the return area for the tournament contestants.

The Free-for-All round had concluded, and all remaining contestants had been teleported out of the arena battlefield.

A sizable crowd had gathered in front of the area, consisting of reporters, tournament officials, and even representatives of the Royal Family.

All had gathered for one person.

The one who had single-handedly eliminated half the thousands of participants, rendering the second and third tournament stages unnecessary and slashing the number of remaining contestants to 32.

Naturally, it was Jamie.

Jamie moved through the crowd seeking him out, using his Spatial Intangibility and Selective Imperceptibility to stay unnoticed. No one could see or touch him, despite him being right in front of them.

Pausing, he held up his phone and took a selfie, capturing the clueless crowd in the background before posting it on his rapidly growing social media account—just to troll them.

Upon seeing the photo, the crowd was left baffled, wondering how they had missed him.

Meanwhile, the tournament officials who had come with the intent of taking Jamie into custody due to irregularities in his registration were visibly annoyed.

A quick reminder: Jamie had registered for the tournament with just the name ’Jay’, and had left all the other required fields of the registration form blank. He’d compelled the registrar to submit the form like that, and due to the sheer number of registrations, it had gone unnoticed until now.

The officials were itching to disqualify him, but there was no rule explicitly stating that a contestant could be disqualified for registering with only their name.

Disqualifying him without cause would only spark a backlash from the masses watching the tournament, especially the millions of new fans Jamie had gained.

Just as Jamie was about to take another selfie, his phone rang. He double-pressed the side button to answer, and Davina’s voice came through.

[Lord Jamie, there’s a problem. Something happened to Wanete and her condition is critical.]

Jamie could hear the tremble in Davina’s voice, despite her attempt to sound calm. Reflexively, he was about to ask where they were, but then he remembered he had recently recovered to the High Tier Deity Realm.

His perspective shifted, and he looked down at the planet from a higher-dimensional vantage point.

From this elevated perspective, he simply panned across space, located them within seconds, and then snapped his fingers, teleporting directly to them.

When he arrived and saw Wanete, blood on her lips and the floor around her, his brow raised in mild surprise.

The scent of burnt paper caught his attention, and he turned to see her grimoire lying on the ground.

His gaze shifted to David, who was feeding Davina a blood pack, and upon noticing the two unhealed puncture wounds on Davina’s neck, he quickly pieced together what had transpired.

The man used his thumbnail to pierce his index finger, then extended it towards Davina.

"Here."

A single drop of blood wobbled at the tip of his finger, and Davina’s body reacted instinctively to it, a deep craving stirring within her.

"It’d do much more than that pack you’re drinking."

Davina hesitated for a moment before slowly parting her lips. Jamie let the drop fall onto her tongue, then turned to Wanete and repeated the same action.

Instantly, Wanete’s internal wounds healed, the cracks in her energy core disappeared, and with a sharp inhale, she snapped awake.

She blinked a few times, groggy and disoriented, before she propped herself up, looking around. As her vision focused, she heard a familiar voice ring out in her ears.

"Sacrifice Magic? That’s a rather dangerous game you’re playing, young woman."

Wanete whipped her head around at the sound, her eyes locking onto Jamie. He stood nearby, holding up her damaged grimoire, lazily poking at the charred remnants of its pages.

"So, what caused you to burn up your grimoire and end up in a near-death state? So much that you almost sucked your best friend dry?"

Wanete’s eyes widened at his words, and she looked around in a panic, seeking Davina.

When she spotted her—blood on her clothes and neck—her heart sank. Her expression darkened as the reality of what she had done began to sink in.

She didn’t remember it all clearly, but Wanete was certain she was the one responsible.

Her voice came out soft, laden with guilt.

"Davina... I—"

But before she could form a proper apology, Davina shook her head, cutting her off with a reassuring look.

"It’s all right."

Despite Davina’s attempt at reassurance, Wanete still felt a pang in her chest.

The room fell into an awkward silence, but that awkwardness was quickly shattered when Jamie, ever the master of getting straight to the point, tapped a nearby table to draw their attention.

His gaze turned back to Wanete, his expression now more serious.

"Young woman, start talking."

Wanete nodded, taking a deep breath, and began to recount everything she had seen and heard, starting from the scene at the registration centre.