BLACKSTEEL KNIGHT POV...
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[ 1 Resistance has been added]
From where I stood, the hill point lood like the spine of the world itself—the highest rise for several kiloters in every direction, jutting out of the barren land as if daring the heavens to acknowledge its existence. The land around it was harsh, cracked, and rcilessly empty, the kind of place where even the wind sounded tired of passing through. And yet, as my gaze swept across the desolation, I could feel it—lingering magical energies clinging stubbornly to the air, overlapping and twisting like invisible scars. This place was anything but ordinary.
This was it.
Our final destination.
The point where the Cursed children would be handed over.
Despite the endless wasteland stretching into oblivion, I stood there alone, my black whip resting calmly at my side, my presence steady and unmoving. The silence was oppressive, thick enough to weigh on the mind.
"Under the order of our Saint Majesty," I announced, my voice carrying effortlessly across the hilltop, "I have safely brought the children. There were… minor complications along the way, but nothing beyond control. You may co out now. There is no need for such excessive caution—you already know who we are."
My eyes lifted toward the summit of a nearby mountain as I spoke, almost as if I were conversing with the wind itself.
After a brief pause, I added with a faint chuckle, "Ah, forgive . I suppose there is no harm in being overly cautious."
The mont my words faded, the air itself seed to ripple.
A sound followed—soft, distorted, like fabric being torn by shadows—and then I saw it. A flickering silhouette erged, fluttering unnaturally before expanding, stretching, and finally solidifying into human form. Slowly, painfully slowly, it unveiled itself.
A young man stood before .
He looked no older than his early twenties, yet his face was pale and bleak, like a ghost that had forgotten how to haunt. A black suit clung to his fra, barely concealing his dark, deathly complexion. At first glance, his features were unremarkable—average height, average build, almost too ordinary—but that illusion shattered the mont the wind stirred his black hair and revealed his eyes.
Crimson.
Deep-set, blood-red eyes that glead in the darkness like twin lanterns soaked in sin.
I nodded slightly, acknowledging him. His black cape—or perhaps the ability he possessed—rged him so seamlessly with the surrounding darkness that, had he remained motionless, he might as well have ceased to exist. Only those eerie crimson eyes betrayed his presence, glowing defiantly against the night.
"Hmmm."
He ignored my appraisal and finally spoke, his voice cold, emotionless, yet strangely alluring, leaving a faint echo as it drifted through the air.
"Show your invitation."
Without hesitation, I raised my left palm. Resting upon it was a golden crown no larger than my hand. As I channeled mana into it, the runes bestowed upon a year ago by my superiors flared to life, erupting in brilliant golden fluorescence that pierced the darkness like divine judgnt.
The young man stepped closer, lifting his hand to observe the runes more carefully.
The instant he did, his body shuddered.
I noticed it imdiately.
He was an Ancient Vampire—cold ant nothing to him, and his cape rendered most elental energies aningless. And yet, against the suffocating pressure of that golden light, all his natural advantages were rendered useless. The power pressed down on him rcilessly.
After several tense seconds, he finally nodded and withdrew his hand.
Satisfied.
From a black ring on his finger, he retrieved a small mana crystal and placed it into a narrow hole in the ground near his polished black boot. The mont it settled, dozens of white fluorescent lights burst forth, illuminating the hilltop. Black sacred geotric circles unfolded in the air, forming intricate arrays before my eyes—and before Tobi, who stood nearby, half-drowsy yet wide-eyed with astonishnt.
Wait a mont… I thought as the formation stabilized.
The white light condensed into tiny skull-shaped characters etched along the ground, gently lifting into the air as if guided by unseen hands. I recognize those runes, I realized, a chill crawling up my spine. They're almost identical to the ones engraved in Saint Majesty's chamber.
I strained to recall them fully, but my mind offered nothing but dust and fragnted nonsense. Even if they were the sa, the complexity alone made morization impossible.
"Don't bother trying to rember this place," the vampire youth said suddenly, as if plucking the thought straight from my mind. Disdain coated his words. "It's beyond the comprehension of a re peasant like you—even if you were given a thousand years. Besides, the array will be destroyed once we leave. Human saints cannot be trusted."
The disgust in his final sentence was unmistakable.
As he spoke, the floating white skulls drifted toward the carriages, surrounding them in a slow, almost ceremonial orbit. Gradually, everything began to fade—the carriages, the vampire youth, even myself—until our silhouettes thinned and vanished entirely.
When sensation returned, I found myself standing in an entirely different world.
A mountain region enveloped by dense, pitch-black forest stretched endlessly around us. A mild wind whispered through the trees, carrying scents that felt alien and ancient. One by one, the carriages and figures materialized out of thin air, as though stepping through the veil of another dinsion.
The forest was… wrong.
Plants twisted into impossible shapes, massive mushrooms towered like grotesque monunts, and yellow moss clung to the ground like decaying flesh. Trees bristled with spiked thorns, their trunks contorted unnaturally, as if writhing in eternal agony.
The black forest encircled a vast, circular precipice—so deep and dark that even light seed afraid to descend. Below its edges churned thick black fog, tangled with enormous branches that reached upward like grasping claws.
Above us, the sky was veiled in an eerie majesty.
Eight silver moons hung low overhead.
The sight stole my breath.
This place was nothing like the Desert of Death—it felt like a self-contained galaxy, isolated from reality. One moon dwarfed the rest, dominating the heavens, while the remaining seven revolved around it as if bound by so invisible gravitational command. They shimred like clustered stars, hypnotic and dangerously enchanting.
This was the domain of the Ancient Vampires.
In the distance, towering structures rose from the darkness—eleven colossal castles crafted from dark stone marble that reflected the silver moonlight with haunting beauty. Their pale-black roofs supported slender spires, each crowned with a perfectly trimd mana crystal, glowing softly.
The castles were arranged in layered circles, forming an ominous symtry.
And among them all, one stood supre.
A towering dark-red castle—vast, domineering, and undeniably regal. It eclipsed the others in both size and presence, its spire piercing the clouds as if reaching for dominion over the heavens themselves.
I knew, without being told—
This was the heart of their world.
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