A eerie calm has fallen over the land.
All that remains are the smoldering remains of what has once been a thriving city and the giant logic defying castle with its towers and bridges that form this abstract architectural miracle.
No creature, be it animal, human or vampire remains in the area as they have either been slaughtered, become collateral damage or fled.
The bright morning sun shines down upon the aftermath of Juniper and Dracula's fierce battle, highlighting all the devastation they had caused.
In the meantime the two perpetrators evade its light inside the shadowy coffins of the castle.
The vampire king's broken and beaten form rests at the base of the stairs leading up to his former throne with a jagged silver spear impaling his chest and lodged into the stairs beneath, sealing him in a state of stasis, not quite dead yet but unconscious.
Meanwhile, the moth has made herself busy exploring ever nock and cranny of the giant structure.
In her travels through the large hallway's and twisting corridors she comes across libraries, studies, art rooms, workshops, laboratories, ritual chambers, storage halls, smithies, art exhibits, ballrooms, barracks, wine cellars, botanic gardens, animal pens, armouries and soooo much more.
During his long life Dracula has pursued many arts and crafts for which he then built and outfitted a dedicated room that would allow him to indulge in them at his leisure during his immortal life.
Now, all of that belongs to our moth who happily compiles a mental list of all the stuff she's finding along with the layout of the castle itself.
By the time she arrived at the very top and steps into the chamber filled with cogs, wheels, pistons and pipes, the sun had long set again and the moon shines brightly through the large window at the other end of the room.
'I kept this for last.' She thinks and lets her glowing green eyes wander over the steampunk style interior as she moves along the straight walkway without any railing.
Taking the few steps up to the platform in front of the giant floor to ceiling window, Juniper's gaze focuses on the apparatus floating above a thin pedestal and glowing white.
"Well~ aren't you a beauty." She whispers while inspecting the hovering icosahedron which is the core of the castles engine that allows it to teleport across the land.
"I have great plans for you my cutey~. If all goes well, you'll be able to not only travel the world, but the entire universe and even beyond!" The eager demoness says more to herself than to anyone-, or thing, else.
With no clue as of yet how the thing functions, she quickly left again after poking the many-faced dice like thing and made a bee-line for the closest bathroom.
Once there she operates the faucets to fill the large bath bordering on a pool with water and with a passing thought her clothes rustle and shift as they return to their original form of a pure white robe.
Taking off the [Shifting Robe] and throwing it into her inventory, the moth then proceeds the gruelling task of cleaning herself.
Months without bath or shower are already bad enough, but combined with the ash and sooth filled air in the abyss, near constant battle and brutal murder where blood and guts are forcefully liberated from other peoples insides, calling her filthy would be an underestimation.
The next hour is spent by her scrubbing and polishing every part of her body with different brushes as she did her best to get the gore, blood and bone fragments off her skin and chitin.
When she's finally done, Juniper gets into the large bath and just lets herself drift with her eyes closed.
'*Sigh~* So much progress. I almost miss the mindless grind when still in the abyss.' Filling her lungs with air, she then submerges herself completely underwater.
'No matter, I need to spend some time to organize my gains and get ready for the next part of my plan.' Feeling her lungs start to burn from the lack of air, the demoness emerges from the water.
After spending some more time in the the bathroom, she eventually gets out and puts her robe back on which promptly shifts into her desired clothes.
That being a oversized light green shirt and a mostly grey jacked with hood and green accents and shorts.
Giving herself a spin in front of the large mirror standing against a wall, the moth nods with a cheerful smile.
'As long as it's just me I can get as cozy as I want.' Skipping out of the room while humming a tune, Juniper thinks to herself.
'But when it comes to appearing in front of an audience I have a role to play.' The smile on her face grows a bit too large as her eyes flash with bright neon light.
For the next three day's the demoness takes it easy and works on digesting the massive amounts of knowledge now in her possession.
She sifted through multiple libraries, sorting out the practical stuff from the artistic or straight up stupid before making a nest in the biggest one to bunker down.
Thanks to [Focus] the moth worked herself through a large number of books in the span of a mere two days even if the ten minutes limit did make it so that she did not have it on the entire time.
On the third she pulled out the [Soul Prison Tome] and skimmed through the minds of both Alucard and Isaac.
The half-vampire offered a wealth of information about the castle and it's workings as well as a bunch of academic subjects along with martial training.
Isaac on the other hand only had one thing that drew the attention of Juniper.
A Forgemaster employs a fascinating combination of demonic summoning and necromancy to create minions with a great variety of appearances and abilities.
"Kekekekeke *clack* *clack* *clack* this is fucking neat." The demoness crackles while lying in the sea pillows from all over the castle that she has gathered and pooled together on the library floor.
'Summoning, flesh-crafting and necromancy. Three schools of magic that alone are already quite good and now they are combined into this abomination of pure heresy!' Excited she sits up and opens her system.
'Not to mention the fact that this worlds hell is just one massive treasure trove filled with souls. If I can master this magic, then exploiting it to bleed that dimension dry is an absolute must.' She thinks and grins.
'I wonder, should I get myself the materials and make a focus tool myself or do it through the system? Hm, I do have the knowledge from Isaac so I shouldn't have a problem with making myself a magic knife to shank people with...' As she ponders, another thought snuck into her head.
'While a knife or dagger would be neat, I personally think a hammer fit the whole theme better... ...hammer... Hector uses a hammer... Hector...FUCK!' The grin vanishes and she slaps her forehead.
Juniper quickly pulls out a transmission mirror from her inventory.
"Holy shit I completely forgot about that guy! He's still in the basement. Hope he didn't fuck off and died on me, would be a waste for him to just croak after I bothered to catch him." The surface of the mirror ripples as the scene it reflects changes.