"Fuck, that scared the shit out of !" Cecilia snapped, stumbling back as the surge of pressure faded like the aftershock of a gravity quake.
Her voice broke the stillness, but nobody laughed. No one even breathed. They were all too busy staring—eyes wide, lungs locked, brains refusing to process what stood ahead of them.
"Is that…" Seraphina's voice was low, but not out of calm. No, hers was the voice of soone watching a god rise from its grave. "The Vampire Monarch, Caladros von Noctis?"
A silence settled like a cold mist. Heavy. Suffocating.
They all knew that na. Everyone in the room had been raised on the stories, fed the legends of the one who nearly brought about humanity's extinction. The Vampire Monarch. The nightmare that bled daylight, second only to the Heavenly Demon himself in power and infamy.
He hadn't just ruled. He had waged war on an entire continent and nearly won. The Golden Age of the East had ended with his fangs buried in its throat.
Tiamat and the First Hero had stopped him. Barely. At a cost. He'd been killed. Erased.
So what the hell was he doing here?
"That's impossible," Seol-ah whispered, clutching her arm as if grounding herself. "He was killed. I read the accounts. They buried his body in consecrated steel and burned his na from every archive."
The figure ahead wasn't fully ford yet. Not entirely. He stood—no, hovered—slightly above the ground, as if gravity itself had yet to decide if it wanted to hold him down. His presence flickered like a half-broken transmitter, his aura warping the very air around him, bending it into sothing ancient and wrong. Cracks of dark light pulsed along his limbs like veins beneath glass.
His skin was pale, too pale, more marble than flesh. And his eyes—those flickering red eyes—looked too tired for soone who should have been dead.
Not tired like a man, though. Tired like a disaster waiting to wake up.
"He's not…" Deia swallowed, her voice shaking as the dots connected in her mind. "He's not whole."
They looked at her.
She took a step back, her face pale. "He's not fully healed. That aura—it's leaking. Incomplete. He shouldn't even be awake yet. He's supposed to be—my father…"
She stopped. Her voice cracked.
"My father used the Red Sun," she whispered. "He used it to heal him."
There was a long pause.
Then the panic ca.
Lucifer's hand drifted to his blade. Rachel's fingers twitched with barely restrained mana. Seol-ah's eyes glowed faintly, already calculating escape routes. And Seraphina… Seraphina looked like she'd just been betrayed by history itself.
The Monarch didn't move.
He didn't need to. His presence did all the speaking for him. It lood like a tidal wave waiting to collapse.
He wasn't back.
Not yet.
But he was waking up.
Rose was the first to recover, her analytical mind cutting through the paralysis of fear. "We need to leave. Now. Whatever is happening here is beyond our capacity to handle."
"Wait," Rachel whispered, her head snapping toward the entrance they'd used. "Sothing's—"
The warning died in her throat as the air temperature plumted. Frost crystallized across the black marble floor in intricate patterns, spreading from the doorway like a living thing. The ruby quartz walls dimd, as though sothing was drinking in their light.
A figure materialized at the chamber's entrance—tall, aristocratic, with white hair that seed to absorb rather than reflect the crimson glow. His eyes were the color of spilled blood, and when he smiled, the fangs that glead weren't for show.
"Visitors," he purred, his voice carrying both age and hunger in equal asure. "How... fortuitous."
Cecilia ignited her hands with crimson fla, the heat pushing back against the unnatural cold. "What the actual hell?"
"A vampire," Seraphina stated, her voice controlled despite the impossibility before them. "An elder, by the look of him."
"Perceptive," the vampire acknowledged with a slight bow that managed to be both courtly and mocking. "Elder Lazarus, at your service. Though I believe so of you require no introduction."
His gaze fixed on Rachel, recognition flickering in those inhuman eyes. "The healer from Redmond City. I rember you. You tended to that troubleso boy after his... disagreent with Bishop Vale."
Rachel stiffened, her fingers curling into defensive positions as her mana circuits flared to life beneath her skin. "You can't be real. Vampires were purged centuries ago."
"How disappointing. They teach you nothing of truth at that Academy of yours." Elder Lazarus took a step forward, his movents too fluid, too perfect. "We were never purged. rely... dormant. Waiting."
From the shadows behind him erged more figures—five robed priests in deep crimson, their faces hidden behind grotesque masks fashioned after screaming visages. Each carried a staff topped with a ruby that pulsed in ti with the walls around them.
And beside the vampire elder stepped a familiar face that made Rachel's blood run cold.
"Bishop Vale," she breathed.
The bishop's gaunt face twisted into a smile that never reached his eyes. His once immaculate robes were now trimd with crimson symbols that writhed like living things when looked at directly. "The faithful girl who healed the heretic. How lovely to see you again."
"You're working with vampires?" Lucifer's voice cut through the tension, his blade now drawn, golden light emanating from its edge. "You—a bishop of the Eastern Church?"
Vale laughed, the sound hollow and wrong. "Working with? No, boy. I serve. As all will serve, when the Monarch fully awakens."
The priests moved in practiced formation, spreading out to flank the group from different angles. The ruby crystals atop their staffs began to glow more intensely, feeding energy into the chamber.
"They're accelerating the awakening process," Seol-ah warned, her enhanced perception tracking the mana flows. "The Red Sun's energy—they're channeling it directly into the Monarch."
Rose's voice was tight. "Lucifer, Cecilia—combat formation three. Rachel, barrier protocol. Seraphina, with . Seol-ah, keep tracking the mana currents. Deia..." She hesitated, glancing at the princess who stood frozen in horror at her father's betrayal.
"I can fight," Deia said, surprising everyone as she stepped forward, golden light crackling between her fingers. "This is my ho. My responsibility."
Elder Lazarus's smile widened, revealing more teeth than should have been possible. "How adorable. The princess thinks she can stand against an Ascendant-rank vampire. And Bishop Vale here may not match my power, but even at low Ascendant, he's more than enough for children playing at war."
"We've faced worse," Cecilia snarled, though they all knew it was bravado.
"Have you?" the vampire elder asked softly, and then he moved.
One mont he was by the door, the next he was directly in front of Cecilia, his hand closing around her throat. Only her instinctive fla barrier saved her from having her neck snapped—the fire erupted between them, forcing the elder back with a hiss of annoyance rather than pain.
The battle erupted in a chaos of light and sound.
Bishop Vale chanted words that twisted the air itself, reality rippling around his gestures as he wove miasma spells. The priests moved in coordination, their staffs channeling blasts of crimson energy that sought targets with unnatural precision.
Lucifer engaged Vale directly, his blade trailing golden light as he executed a sequence of strikes that should have overwheld any normal opponent. But the Bishop moved with unnatural speed, miasma coating his hands as he parried and countered with strength that belied his gaunt fra.
Rachel maintained a barrier around the group, her healing abilities strained to the limit as she simultaneously reinforced their defenses and treated injuries that accumulated despite their best efforts. Sweat beaded on her forehead, her teeth gritted in concentration.
"We can't win this," she muttered to Rose, who fought beside her, protecting her from the priests' increasingly aggressive attacks. "Not here, not against them."
"We don't need to win," Rose replied, her voice tight with exertion. "We just need to survive long enough to escape."
Elder Lazarus seed to be toying with them, appearing and disappearing around the chamber, landing blows that were painful but deliberately non-lethal. His expression was one of amused contempt as he batted away Seraphina's most powerful attacks like they were child's play.
"Look how they struggle," he said to Vale, casually dodging Cecilia's most explosive assault. "It's almost endearing."
The chamber door exploded inward with such force that fragnts of crystal embedded themselves in the far wall. Everyone, even Elder Lazarus, paused at the sudden intrusion.
Arthur Nightingale stood in the shattered doorway, his face pale but his eyes burning with cold fury. His mana signature, still weakened from his deviation, nevertheless pulsed with deadly intent.
"Get away from them," he said, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of absolute threat.
He moved, not with the inhuman speed of the vampire but with the perfect efficiency that had made him a legend at the Academy. His first strike wasn't aid at any of their attackers but at the floor beneath his friends' feet.
"Down!" he shouted, and those who had fought alongside him didn't hesitate.
They dropped as one, Seol-ah pulling Deia down with her, as Arthur's blade slamd into the black marble floor. For a mont, nothing happened—then cracks spread outward in a perfect circle, mana energizing them, widening them.
"No!" Bishop Vale lunged forward, but too late.
The floor collapsed beneath them, sending Arthur and the others plumting into darkness. Elder Lazarus moved with blinding speed, reaching for Rachel's ankle as she fell, but Lucifer's blade flashed, forcing the vampire to pull back with a snarl of frustration.
They fell, tumbling through layers of ancient stone and crystal, Rachel's barrier expanding to cushion their descent. They crashed through multiple levels of the Palace's substructure before finally landing in a chamber so old that the dust of centuries billowed up around them.
Arthur, who had sohow managed to control his fall to land on his feet, imdiately moved to help the others. "Is everyone alright?"
"Define 'alright,'" Cecilia groaned, sitting up with a wince. "Because I think my definition just got drastically revised."
Rose was already on her feet, assessing their new surroundings. "Where are we?"
"Deeper," Deia said, her eyes scanning their surroundings. "Much deeper than the official Palace blueprints show."
A distant rumbling from above reminded them of the danger they'd temporarily escaped.
"They'll find a way down," Lucifer said, wiping blood from a cut on his cheek. "We don't have long."
Arthur nodded, his expression grim. "Then we need to find another way out. Or..." He glanced around the ancient chamber, at the symbols of power and sacrifice that adorned every surface. "Or we need to find sothing here that can help us fight back."
Rachel moved to his side, briefly touching his arm. "Arthur, how did you even find us? Last we knew, you were—"
"In a coma, yes," he finished for her. "It's... complicated. Soone helped ."
"Soone?" Seraphina asked sharply.
Before Arthur could explain, a tremor shook the chamber, dust and small fragnts of stone raining down from above. The rumbling grew louder, more insistent.
Reviews
All reviews (0)