Arianna sat back against the pillows, watching the monitor quietly pulse at her side. Her body felt light, and warm in a way she hadn't felt since before the ambush. Jin's blood was still working through her system, smoothing out every ache, every weakness.
The door opened gently.
Jin stepped in carrying a small bouquet of white blossoms from the medbay garden. Nothing fancy, but something that showed he tried. He closed the door behind him and walked over her.
"You're up," he said.
Arianna smiled a little. "I told you, I feel fine."
He set the flowers on the table beside her. "You shouldn't after what happened."
"But I do," she said, lifting her hand. "Your blood... it's changing me. I feel stronger. Sharper and more alert than ever. I feel barely any pain at all."
Jin sat at the edge of her bed. "Draconic blood doesn't heal halfway. It adapts and rebuilds. It'll push you past mortal limits, but it also puts attention on you. You're not invisible anymore to divinity."
Arianna looked at him, softer now. "Are you worried about me?"
"Yes," he answered without hesitation. "You almost died."
She lowered her eyes. "I thought I could handle the mission alone. But I—I came face to face with the Arcana... She is frighteningly strong." She shook her head. "What lies in the abyss of that witches soul is so dark. But I did see a glimpse of light in her. When she looked into my mind I saw a little bit into hers. If it's possible we might can get through to her by simply talking. It's a lot more than I expected."
"Don't be ridiculous. These people can't be reasoned with. And I don't wanna hear anything else about it. That woman tried to kill you."
"You might be right."
"I am."
"I think I'm in over my head."
Jin placed a hand over hers. "I know."
She blinked. "How?"
"I've been helping you from the start," he said. "You weren't alone on any mission despite you being with your own team."
Arianna frowned. "What do you mean?"
Jin leaned back slightly. "The Talmari Justice System's intel? The sudden breakthroughs? That wasn't luck. My people fed them everything. My father leads the Stryx." A short pause. "Balphomet."
Arianna stared at him, stunned. "You're serious?"
"Yes."
"So the one battling Dracula now—has been your dad this whole time?"
He nodded once.
She exhaled hard, trying to process it. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because knowing paints a bigger target on you."
Arianna opened her mouth to respond—
The door slid open.
Veyla stepped inside, helmet tucked under her arm, expression as controlled as always.
"Both of you need to hear this," she said, coming closer.
Arianna sat up straighter. "What's going on?"
"Balphomet's assault on Planet Noctis hit complications," Veyla said. "Severe ones."
Jin's eyes narrowed. "What happened?"
"All three of Dracula's sons are present."
Arianna felt her stomach drop. "All three? I thought the strike was built around Dracula—just him and the oldest brother Chance."
"It was," Veyla said. "But the other two arrived without warning. Their presence has changed the entire mission."
Jin sighs. "That wasn't in the projections."
"No," Veyla replied. "And Balphomet's forces are taking heavy losses because of it."
Arianna looked between them. "Is he in danger?"
Veyla didn't soften her voice. "If the brothers stay on Noctis, yes. The situation is going to turn against him. While I have faith in his strength he's heavily outmatched."
Arianna's fingers tightened around the sheets.
"Then we help him," she said quietly.
"He'll be fine." Jin adjusted his straps, readying to leave. The flowers he'd brought still sat on the table beside Arianna. His eyes stayed on her a moment longer. "I have to go back to Underworld," he said quietly. "Stay put until you're cleared."
Arianna nodded.
He leaned in, pressed his forehead to hers briefly, then pulled away and walked toward the door.
Once it shut behind him.
Arianna let out a slow breath.
Veyla didn't give her long.
"On your feet," she said. "We're not done."
Arianna stood carefully, testing her strength. "I seem to be good to go."
"Good you'll need to be," Veyla replied, leading her out of the medbay.
They moved through the corridor toward the armory. Veyla kept her tone even, but sharp enough that Arianna knew she wasn't sugarcoating anything.
"With the brothers gone, Babylon's homeland is vulnerable for the first time in decades," Veyla said. "Damian and Jeryko aren't just their strongest fighters. They're their wall. Without them, the entire power structure shifts."
Arianna walked beside her. "Meaning Babylon is exposed."
"Not quite." Veyla glanced at her. "Make no mistake — Liza and Nova aren't on the brothers level but they're catastrophic threats. Matching them one-on-one isn't an option. Do not engage alone."
Arianna swallowed. "So how are we doing this?"
"Teamwork. Coordination. Pressure." Veyla didn't slow. "We strike together, overwhelm them, and exploit whatever openings we can force."
Arianna nodded, steadier now. "Got it."
"With your new powers we might stand a chance," Veyla confirmed. "Dragons are strong and now that you are one we are going to take full advantage of your new adaptation abilities."
Arianna exhaled.
They entered the armory. Soldiers hurried around them, gearing up for immediate launch.
"Your equipment is already prepped," Veyla said. "Suit up."
Arianna stepped toward her gear, fingers brushing over the chest plate.
"When do we leave?"
"Ten minutes," Veyla answered. "Babylon doesn't get another opening like this."
Arianna glanced once toward the doorway Jin had walked through moments before.
Then she tightened her gloves.
"Alright," she said. "Let's go after them."
***PLANET NOCTIS***
The sky writhed with hellfire. Warships tore through clouds, wrapped in violet flame as lightning bled around them like serpents. Below, the fortress burned—Dracula's kingdom drowned in chaos as swarms of Stryx soldiers fell like locusts.
Below it Chance gave a directive, telling Damian he is not to engage. There are three entrances to Dracula's Court. He is to cover the right flank, Jeryko left, Chance middle. Should Balphomet try to reach the castle he'd have to pass one of them and he will surely be killed ending this war.
Damian rolls his eyes continuously killing every Stryx soldier in sight. He acknowledged the plan sticking to his sector.
Blood and gore filled the battlefield as Stryx mages began to rally avoiding Jeryko's range moving closer towards the middle and right side shifting all of their physically gifted fighters towards the left.
Jeryko sighs as they run towards him. He blitzes flanking their advances punching through one's body. He dodged another throwing purple pellets of energy needles into them. Upon contact they exploded absorbing there souls.
"Weaklings," Jeryko says stepping over corpses.
VROOSH!
A blinding streak of pink split through the clouds.
A heartbeat later—
BOOM!
The ground detonated as Lilly smashed into the battlefield. Shockwaves rippled outward in a perfect ring, dust and rubble hurled skyward. The crater buckled deep beneath her as vampires were launched back like debris.
As the haze thinned, a silhouette stood unmoved at the center.
Long blonde hair drifted in the heat. Her cape fluttered. Thin cracks of glowing energy ran across her arms and legs.
She rolled her neck once.
A metallic ting echoed as she flipped her dagger and caught it. The blade vibrated faintly, humming with stored force.
The vampires at the crater's edge snarled.
Lilly tilted her head. "So... who's first?"
A spark of energy burst beneath her feet.
Her cape flared like wings.
And with a flash faster than the eye could follow, she launched forward, straight into the chaos, leaving only a swirling cyclone of dust and pink light behind.
She cleaved through several vampires with her daggers stabbing each them in the heart.
Jeryko noticed a similarly in her attacks on the vampires. Damian. Chance. The weapons they have won't kill you unless they stab you in the heart. Any other damage will halt your regeneration. Remain vigilant. Do not let your guard down.
"I've been waiting to face you again!" Lilly shouted, blasting toward him.
She rebounded off broken stone, ricocheted midair, and came at him from behind—heel spinning with force.
Jeryko raised a hand.
The kick stopped against his palm.
No shockwave.
The stored force vanished.
Lilly froze—confused.
Jeryko flicked his wrist.
She was hurled backward, crashing through a pillar that disintegrated on impact. She slid down the rubble, coughing once—then laughed.
"Who are you again?" Jeryko said flatly.
"You don't remember. In the compound—I tested your strength."
Jeryko sighed. "You and everyone else here are as worthless to me as the ants I step on daily."
Lilly's grin turned into rage.
She slammed her dagger into the ground.
The battlefield shuddered.
Every impact scar, crater, and shattered structure around them flared pink—stored damage reactivating. The ground erupted in chained detonations, force rebounding upward in violent bursts aimed toward Jeryko.
He didn't step back.
The void pushed outward.
Each blast collapsed inward, devoured mid-release. The battlefield went silent as the energy was stripped away and absorbed.
Lilly clenched her jaw.
She blurred in, faster now, striking him directly—daggers flashing straight into his frame.
Jeryko frame-skipped reappearing behind her.
His elbow crushed into her spine.
She skidded across the ground, bounced once, rolled, then forced herself upright—blood leaking from her mouth.
Space collapsed.
Jeryko appeared inches from her face.
Lilly crossed her blades and released everything she had stored at once—force erupting outward in a violent implosion.
Jeryko leaned forward absorbing the blast. He cocked his fist back and buried it into her stomach.
Her body folded. Blood burst from her mouth as she was launched through two ruined walls before crashing to a stop.
She wiped her mouth, staring at the blood on her hand.
"That wasn't supposed to happen. The data said physical pressure could work..." Lilly breathed. "So why?!"
Jeryko walked toward her calmly with his hands in his pockets.
Lilly forced herself up and slammed her hands together—drawing in every remaining ounce of kinetic residue from the battlefield. Her body glowed brighter, cracks spreading across her arms.
When she charged every step detonated.
She struck him in a storm of redirected force trying to overload him through sheer output. There had to be a limit to his absorption. Though this proved false.
Jeryko walked through attacks effortlessly grabbing hold of her wrist.
CRACK!
Lilly screamed.
Jeryko twisted and redirected her momentum slamming her into the ground hard enough to crater it.
She tried to move but Jeryko stomped onto her chest smashing her ribs.
The pressure crushed the air from her lungs.
Lilly's power drained instantly—every stored force ripped from her body and swallowed.
She pushed against his ankle.
Nothing.
Her eyes widened with the realization that she was no match for the alpha vampire.
She looked up into his eyes—endless, cold, consuming. Jeryko's eyes glowed neon purple. It was as if she was starring into the abyss.
"You're in my way," he said quietly.
Lilly choked on her own blood.
She had fought angels and devils. All kinds of aliens. But nothing had ever made her feel this powerless.
Simultaneously as Jeryko's fight started the air split clean and reality peeled back by invisible nails. A ripple rolled across the battlefield. Even Damian and Chance felt it hit them from two different angles, a pressure that threaded itself through the multiverse at once.
A woman stepped through the tear.
She didn't walk out so much as fade from higher dimensions into the third. Curved, elegant, tan skin that carried a faint shimmer like stardust trapped under the surface. Long dark hair fell in weightless waves, drifting as if gravity was only allowed to touch her when she permitted it. Her attire was a mixture of old-world witchcraft and impossible cosmic geometry. Glowing sigils orbited her wrists, ankles, and temples, rotating in patterns.
Her eyes opened.
Both irises spun with entire starfields.
Chance didn't move, but he did raise a brow."Great... another one."
She smiled softly, unfazed by the destruction around her, the collapsing timelines flickering in the sky, or the two Skyfathers radiating pressure strong enough to suffocate universes.
"You're Chance Skyfather," she said, her voice layered like three versions of her were speaking at once, from three different timelines. "I've been waiting to meet you."
Chance tilted his head. "Yeah? You a fan?"
Her smile widened. "Not quite. But I am the witch they send when they've run out of lesser options."
She raised one hand. A circular pattern of astral magic spun into existence behind her.
Her soul flared outward like a supernova.
Chance's smirk faded, replaced by a focused look he rarely had to use. "Alright... you're interesting."
Her eyes glowed brighter. "My name is Solenne. High Witch of the Infinite Coven. Slayer of Eternal Titans. Keeper of the 13 Astral Roads."
She stepped forward and reality bent around her foot, refusing to solidify until she let it.
"And I'm here for you, Chance."
The battlefield seemed to pause—wind stopping, debris suspended—as her astral form split into six copies of herself, each one drifting into different timelines layered over this one, preparing a synchronized assault.
Chance's fingers twitched, sparks of his power crackling around his knuckles. "Good. I needed a warm-up."
She laughed softly, a melodic echo that vibrated across the battlefield. Then...
She vanished.
Chance met her halfway.
Their clash lit the sky
The first strike wasn't physical it was conceptual. Solenne's astral duplicates surged forward from six timelines, each version of her casting a different spell from a different world. One hurled a collapsing star condensed into a sphere the size of a coin. Another unleashed an astral chain meant to lock Chance's soul in every timeline at once. A third layered a curse that should've slowed his existence across the multiverse.
But Chance is a vampire. A singularity that can only exist in one place at a time. There is only one of him moving through one current timeline. Chance moved through her magic like he'd already seen the fight. A single step forward and his body blurred through dimensions, letting the star pass through a space his body abandoned a fraction of a second earlier. He flicked his fingers and the curse shattered—not because he dispelled it, but because he manipulated the Nature category so subtly that the concept the curse depended on simply didn't exist near him.
The astral chain wrapped around him from five angles at once. Chance looked down at the glowing links tightening around his torso.
"You're fast," he muttered. "But you're not seeing far enough."
His eyes dimmed, then brightened with shinpotik power. Every alpha vampire has a signature ability. A power no one mortal or divine can stop due to its shinpotik nature.
This was Dream Cast. Reality folded. The chain locked around him... but it also locked around a version of him that wasn't actually the one in front of her. In a single blink, the Chance she'd bound melted into smoke—an illusion rooted in cosmic psionics. The real Chance appeared behind her, tapping her shoulder.
"Round one," he said softly.
Solenne snapped her fingers. Her astral body inverted itself, turning inside-out through higher dimensions in a move only witches could do. She vanished and reappeared above him, firing a beam of pure Necromancy. A thread of death energy drawn from extinct universes. It didn't travel like light. It existed everywhere at once.
Chance raised his palm infused with daqui. Defense type magic.
A wall of energy shot upward, a barrier that told death it had no authority here. The beam split around him, carving holes in the landscape.
Solenne dropped behind him.
Chance smirked.
She flicked her wrist.
Her six copies merged back into her original body, condensing all their spells into one unified presence. A halo of rotating category sigils spun behind her as she tapped into Nature. A storm manifested around them, black lightning laced with cosmic particles, rain falling upward, sideways, and in spirals. She dragged whole planetary climates from alternate universes and forced them into a single battlefield.
Chance walked through the storm like it was background noise. Every raindrop bent away from him. Lightning curved to avoid his skin. Wind flattened against an invisible shell.
Amplification magic quietly pumped through his body, boosting his reflexes. His superhuman awareness stretched across several futures at once, reading her stance, her intent.
Solenne blurred, appearing behind him with a hand pressed to his spine.
Astral Sever.
The spell hit instantly intended to cut him from his past selves, his future selves, and every potential version of him. A move that should've crippled any multiversal being.
Chance didn't even turn around.
"You're aiming too shallow."
He reached back, two fingers tapping her wrist. A burst of Control Summoning magic pulled an entity from a different dimension—a faceless knight made of shifting geometry. It appeared for less than a second, just long enough to intercept the attack and tear her spell apart before vanishing.
Solenne grinned. "You're enjoying this."
"Maybe a little."
She waved her hand and the battlefield twisted. The ground split, rising into floating shards of earth suspended by her Daqui-infused gravity rules. She switched categories instantly—Lobiatos, Nature, Astral—mixing them in fast succession. She hurled a telekinetic blast that carried the weight of a dying galaxy behind it.
Chance didn't brace. He simply stepped inside the attack, letting it rush around him as he layered a micro-sphere of Daqui law around his body. The blast warped space around him but never touched him.
"Good pressure," he said. "But you're still thinking linear."
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, Solenne felt it—Chance's aura expanding outward, stretching past the battlefield, past the planet, past the multiverse. His magic aligned like a conductor guiding an orchestra. Control Summoning tightened. Lobiatos sharpened. Astral solidified. Nature calmed. Amplification surged. Necromancy coiled. Daqui hummed like a tuning fork.
He wasn't switching categories.
He was swapping between them so fast it appeared simultaneous.
He flicked his wrist.
A single, clean gesture.
Solenne was forced backward, her body dragged through ten overlapping timelines. Every spell she cast collided with a counterspell he prepared moments before she even formed the thought.
She hit the ground, landing gracefully, but her eyes widened.
"You're using the system like a witch."
Chance shrugged. "I just don't waste motion."
She laughed once—short, breathy.
"Then I'll stop holding back."
Solenne raised her hands and the sigils behind her expanded—seven rings turning into seven halos, each one representing a different across-timeline version of herself. Every copy of her across infinite universes pooled power into her core body.
The wind died. The sky turned white. Chance's hair lifted slightly.
She spoke one phrase. "Witch Queen State."
Her power tripled.
Chance's smile finally faded. "Aight... now you're cooking."
They moved at once.
Their clash eclipsed sound. Light folded around them. Magic burst across the battlefield in layered shockwaves, each one tearing open micro-universes before snapping shut. Chance weaved between her attacks with clipped elegance—every movement small, calculated, never rushed. She hammered him with curses, soul strikes, astral projection hits, gravitational crashes, and reality distortions.
Chance countered each: dissolving curses with Nature, shifting his soul with Astral techniques, nullifying gravity with Daqui adjustments, bending space around himself with Lobiatos, amplifying his body until his speed broke narrative continuity.
Their next moves would shatter the battlefield entirely.
While his brothers fought their opponents, Damian felt the shift before he saw it—a ripple in reality so precise it felt surgical, like the battlefield itself had been rewritten by an invisible hand. The air thickened, the sky bent, even the dust paused mid-fall. Not a barrier. Not exactly. Authority, refined to a blade's edge.
Damian turned slowly.
At the far edge of the shattered terrain, a man stood, serene, unassuming. No armor, no scars, hair tied back neatly, eyes sharp and piercing. Yet the space around him bent subtly, curving as if reality itself deferred to his presence. Every step he took corrected the battlefield, smoothing fractures, aligning jagged debris, ordering chaos with quiet insistence.
Damian looked disinterested. "Daqui."
The man moved his head slightly. "You knew simply by sensing my magic? Impressive."
Stryx soldiers surrounded him—and Damian flared his heat. Flames ripped outward, incinerating them mid-step.
"Your outfit looks different than the rest of the fodder." Damian crossed his arms, tilting his head. "You must be a named character in this story of vampires and devils."
"I am Aurin," the man said, voice calm. "Arbiter of the Outer Laws. Guardian of the sealed codes. Enforcer of—"
"Yawn! Boring." Damian crossed his arms. "You come up with that title yourself? Can't believe they sent you to stop me."
Aurin's expression remained serene.
Damian exhaled. "Well?"
Aurin lifted a hand. Time slowed to a crawl. Not just the battlefield—everything. Dust froze. Flames hung suspended. Even sound stretched and hesitated.
"You idiot, you stopped time," Damian said, smirking. "No care for your mortal allies?"
"It is for told your speed is infinite. While I may not have infinite speed of my own—I can freeze time simulating that speed for myself. I don't care about the others if it means I lose this fight."
"Infinite speed huh? I'm well beyond mathematical sequences." Damian laughed. "But you losing was gonna happen regardless. Been a while since I killed a daqui user."
Aurin stepped forward as if walking through still water, serene, unhurried.
"Daqui is not merely for defense," he said. "It is structure. Law. The metaphysical framework that predates creation itself. Every multiverse relies on it."
"And that means what for you?" Damian asked, tension coiling in his stance.
Aurin lifted one finger. "It means the laws of judgement will rain upon you."
Damian sighed, cracking his knuckles. "Aight, show me what you can do."
BOOM!!
Instantly they clashed. Wind tore across the shattered battlefield, hurling debris in every direction. Vampires and Stryx soldiers were blown back by hurricane wind like pressure.
"To be honest, between you and your brothers—" Aurin growled, pressing forward, blood already trickling from a split lip after Damian's first strike. "I was looking forward to fighting you the most."
"That's depressing. Why do you wanna die so badly?" Damian said, shrugging free of a restraining grip.
Aurin kicked his guard. "Arrogance will be your downfall!"
"People only call it arrogance—," Damian countered punching Aurin's face. Blood spurted from his nose and lip. "—when they can't do what you can do!"
Aurin spat blood onto the shattered stone. "Enough warm up then."
"Do what you want old man," Damian said, grinning, fists already humming with aura. "I'll let you entertain me for now."
Aurin pressed his palm forward. Magic rippled outward. The ground flattened. The sky corrected itself. Every particle aligned to perfect order. Damian felt an invisible hand clamp down on him—a pressure that wasn't weight, but obligation.
Damian laughed, unfazed. The pressure didn't slow him. He surged forward, body instinctively amplifying, overmatching the metaphysical constraint in an instant.
Aurin raised an eyebrow. "The rumors are true. Your resistance is impressive."
Damian smirked.
And with that, Aurin flicked his wrist. Thousands of magic runes spiraled into motion—each a fragment of pre-creation law, each poised to test him.
Damian yawned, ducking low, weaving through the lattice. Next punching runes, shredding them apart. His kicks sliced arcs of law like glass. Aurin tried to retreat, raising barriers, trying to reconstruct his lattice—but Damian's body adapted before the laws even fully formed. Every push, every attempt to crush him fueled his power, swelling his chi around his body.
Aurin's serene mask flickered as a thin trail of blood ran down his temple from the first strike.
"Impossible..." he whispered.
Damian closed the distance. He pivoted low, sliding under a burst of rune-fire, smashing into Aurin's gut with his fist. Aurin groaned, staggering pain etched across his face. Damian's knee caught his ribs, cracking them. Aurin coughed, blood spraying from his mouth.
A flurry of punches followed—left-right-left-right—breaking runes before they could react. Aurin tried to reset the battlefield, but every movement was read, mirrored, overpowered, tearing him further, leaving blood streaked across his jaw, chest, and hands.
Damian feinted left, spinning into a flame kick through Aurin's defenses. Runes shattered burning in midair. Arcs of law splintered with sparks. Aurin screamed, fear and pain written plainly on his bloodied face. It was getting harder to breathe now. He couldn't catch his breath.
Every fragment, every shard of failed law, every second of struggle fed Damian—fueling his strength, speed, and the flames that devoured the battlefield's energy. Aurin's absolute pre-creation laws were now useless served the one being beyond them.
Damian feinted left launching a kick that ripped through Aurin's defenses. Runes shattered, arcs of law dissolving midair.
Aurin's eyes widened. "You... you don't just resist. They were wrong. You adapt—evolving instantly."
Damian smirked, remaining silent. He moved before Aurin could react jabbing Aurin's jaw. His teeth cracked with a spurt of blood splattering across the courtyard stones. Damian's spinning backfist hit next, forcing Aurin to stagger, bleeding dripping from his split lip. Every time Aurin tried to manipulate reality to stop him, Damian was already one step ahead—his body evolving instinctively, his strikes perfectly calculated.
Aurin tried to lock the battlefield in frozen laws, twisting space to crush Damian mid-step. Damian tilted, rolled through the distortion, and landed, grinning as blood ran down Aurin's temple. "Cute," he said. He darted forward—elbow smashing into Aurin's ribs, knee smashing into the gut, making him cough up a spray of blood.
Aurin screamed as Damian's strikes carved him open, his attempts at defense failing miserably. The flurry of fists—left hook, right hook, palm strike—drove him to his knees. Damian was feeding off the battlefield's energy, each attack harvesting Aurin's pain and fear, turning it into raw strength.
Aurin's eyes widened in terror as Damian leapt upward, spinning midair, heel smashing into his jaw. Blood sprayed like rain. Every nerve in Aurin's body screamed, every strike sending searing pain through bones and organs. He tried to counter with a ripple of pre-creation law, a desperate attempt to trap Damian—but the laws crumbled mid-formation, broken before they could even touch him.
Finally, in a last act of desperation, Aurin conjured a colossal sphere of law—a crushing dome of absolute control meant to crush Damian entirely. Damian's grin widened.
"Oh, this is cute. You really thought you could control me?"
He stepped into the sphere. Laws tried to warp his body, crush him into nothing, but he absorbed them all, feeding the oppressive force into his fists. Flames erupted along his aura, wild and hungry.
He leapt forward, fist first. A flurry of punches—too fast to count—each strike detonating, shattering Aurin's sphere.
Left-right-left-right.
Downward hammerfist.
Rising uppercut.
Spinning backfist.
Every blow tore chunks of flesh, cracked bone, and spattered blood across the courtyard. Aurin's screams were raw, guttural, each one fueling Damian's dominance. He staggered, clutching broken ribs, blood running down his face, eyes wide with terror, but Damian didn't pause.
Damian landed lightly. Flames licking his aura, feeding off the destruction. He let Aurin scramble to his feet just to toy with him.
"You're still standing? I was hoping for more," he said, voice amused, cocky.
Two brutal punches—gut, face—dropped Aurin to his knees. Blood streaked down his chest, his eyes wide with pain and fear. Damian pivoted, spinning full-body, flame-coated kick snapping across Aurin's jaw, sending him sliding across the stones, leaving a trail of blood.
Aurin tried to stand, weak, trembling, but Damian advanced. Knee to the chest, elbow to the throat, spinning back kick across his side. Each strike tore at him, leaving him panting, choking on his own blood, terror flooding his gaze. Damian's aura roared, feeding on every shred of fear and pain.
Finally, Damian crouched before him. Aurin barely raised his head, trembling, bloodied, broken. Damian's grin widened. He placed a hand on Aurin's shoulder, tilting him back.
"I'm disappointed," Damian said gripping him up by the shirt. He then ripped into his flesh with his fangs. Blood gushed from Aurin's neck as he screamed, then went hollow. Damian consumed every drop of life and every ounce of his soul. The aura around Damian swelled, glowing brighter, feeding on the fear, pain, and essence of Aurin. Once he was done he tore his head off roaring loudly. All Stryx soldiers around him cowered in fear at their commanders death.
When he finally pulled back, Aurin was nothing more than an empty husk, his body lifeless, his soul devoured. Damian wiped a trace of blood from his lips and straightened, flames of aura radiating outward.
Above in the sky, Balphomet watched his army clash and fall under the vampire legions.
He stood at the prow of the lead vessel, boots sizzling against molten steel. His jagged pink hair blew in the storm winds. Twin blades hung at his sides, runes crawling along their chained edges, pulsing with red energy.
"An unfortunate miscalculation," he murmured. "But their as strong as I thought. No turning back now."
He stepped off the ship and suppressed his power so the brothers couldn't detect him.
The wind tore past him as the chain snapped taut, pulling him downward. He hit the fortress spire like a meteor. Obsidian exploded. Vampires were ripped from the tower, their screams lost in the shockwave.
Balphomet crouched in the crater and brushed dust from his gloves. His blade-chains coiled and scraped against the stone.
The first wave appeared—shadows forming into bodies. Their spells filled the air: spears, war cries, crushing bursts of sound.
Balphomet moved through them like smoke.
One sweep of his chains took three heads off. A flick of his wrist wrapped a chain around another vampire's torso; he pulled, folding the body in half and slamming it into the stone.
He wasn't using a fraction of his true strength.
A vampire teleported behind him—Balphomet twisted, deflected, ducked, and answered with an upward slash so fast it left an afterimage. Blood hissed when it touched his heat.
Another attacked with a spear of sanctified lightning. Balphomet sidestepped and flicked his wrist. The chain curved and cut the vampire from shoulder to hip.
Every strike was clean. No wasted motion.
The vampires thought he was toying with them. Only the aftermath told the truth—spells fading, bodies dropping before they realized they'd died.
Balphomet was untouchable.
One tried. A shining blade came for his ribs. Balphomet caught it in his chain ripping it from the vampire's hands. Next kicking the vampire off the spire. The impact below burst into red mist.
The rest froze.
Balphomet rolled hips shoulders, embers crawling under his skin. His gaze shifted to the fortress gates, where thousands more poured in.
He flared his aura.
The ground cracked. Chains lifted, glowing red as runes ignited. Pressure erupted outward and the nearest vampires disintegrated.
When the light faded, Balphomet stood alone in the molten ruin.
He exhaled. "Now," he whispered, "we can start."
He vanished reappearing above a battalion. His chains snapped outwards, cleaving through hundreds in one sweep and carving a straight path toward Dracula's throne.
He avoided the three brothers. Even Balphomet knew better. Fighting all three before reaching their father meant certain doom.
He kept moving.
Behind him, only silence remained.
***
The walls trembled in Dracula's Court.
Dracula stood upon the upper balcony of his grand throne hall, claws gripping the stone rail as the fortress shuddered beneath him. Fires raged across towers that had never known defeat, the meteor's eternal night lit by burning bodies and violet flame.
Blood and ash wafted into the air.
His empire—his legacy—was being defiled.
Below him, armies of loyal vampires clashed with the Stryx incursion. Screams and metal echoed throughout the halls. The ground itself pulsed with the energy of death.
Yet Dracula did not move immediately.
He listened.
The ancient bond tying him to every vampire in his domain vibrated like severed nerves. One after another... the deaths slammed into him. Disconnection. Silence. Whole battalions of his children snuffed out like candles.
That had never happened in a battle.
Not once in a thousand millennia.
A low growl rumbled from his chest.
The obsidian throne room behind him remained untouched for now. Crimson banners bearing the sigil of the Skyfather lineage waving in the heat, chandeliers dripping with the blood of ancient sacrifices. Statues of himself adorned the chamber, carved by civilizations long dead, praising an unbroken rule.
His rule.
His gaze narrowed as he spotted something below. A trail of corpses, fragmented armor, vampiric ichor splashed across the courtyard in deliberate strokes.
A path carved straight toward him.
"Who dares?!"
But then a deeper horror pierced his focus.
His sons maybe.
He felt the his sons auras erupt. It was clear of there combat status. But they were controlling the battlefield like always. Nothing short of his or their own expectations. After all—they were the strongest.
And yet... something was coming.
Something that was enough to challenge a Skyfather.
Dracula clenched his fist, and the stone railing beneath him cracked into dust.
Stryx soldiers.
Birds with delusions of supremacy.
Pawns of something far more dangerous.
And then he felt it closer.
A presence entering his domain like a roar of heat across his spine—a spiritual burn that refused to fade.
His immortal blood recoiled.
Dracula's features hardened. His wings unfurled from his back in a cascade of leather and shadow, enormous enough to eclipse the railing behind him. Fangs extended, black and ancient as carved onyx.
He dropped from the balcony.
He fell like a black meteor, wings tucked tight, cape snapping behind him. When he landed upon the war-broken courtyard, the shockwave caved the stone downward vampire defenders collapsing from the force.
He rose amid his children.
Their eyes found their king and power sparked back into their limbs.
Dracula did not speak to them.
Words were beneath this moment.
His aura erupted, cold and royal.
An atmosphere that bent gravity and slowed time at its edges.
The wind howled as if commanded to kneel.
Every surviving vampire stared in awe, unified by his simple presence.
Then—
A distant, metallic rattle echoed.
Chains... scraping stone.
Dracula looked to the far archway.
Bodies lay shredded like discarded parchment.
Blood ran in rivers through the cracks.
More of his children fell, their deaths screaming.
Something was walking toward him.
Slowly.
Casually.
As though savoring the path carved in corpses.
Dracula stepped forward. "Enough."
The battlefield froze—just for a breath.
He continued: "Whoever commands this violation... will be made to choke on their own mortality."
He walked, cape dragging through blood. Eyes burning with hell's authority.
Dracula, the First Fang, was ready.
And the devil coming for him was growing closer with every step.
Chains rattled again.
A slow, swaggering rhythm that mocked the silence it crossed.
Dracula watched the figure emerge from the smoke — jagged pink hair glowing like a neon omen in the void. Chains dragged behind him, stained in the dissolving remains of noble blood.
Balphomet.
He lifted his head, eyes filled with murderous joy.
Dracula's lip curled. "Hunter."
Balphomet smirked. "King."
No bow.
No fear.
Just hunger.
Darkness surged around Dracula, shadows spiraling like star-black wings preparing to carve existence.
"You stand in my domain," Dracula growled, flaring his aura. "You managed to escape me once. It won't happen this time."
Balphomet rolled his shoulders, tightening his grip on his Dragon-Fangs. "You won't live to see another day, Old Blood."