The ruins of Greywick stank of burnt flesh and the sickly-sweet scent of holy fire.
Blaze staggered through the broken streets, his cloak clinging to him in tatters, the once-black fabric scorched gray from divine flame. Each step left streaks of blood across the stones, crimson dripping steadily from wounds that refused to close. His spawn followed in silence, their eyes flicking nervously between the darkened sky and their master's swaying figure.
Asha padded closest, the wolf-blooded woman's nostrils flaring as though she could scent his pain. "You need to stop," she said, her voice tight with forced control. "Even you can't keep bleeding like this."
Blaze ignored her. His gaze stayed fixed on the shattered archway ahead, the remains of the temple desecrated in his battle against Kaelen. The holy warrior had burned him, yes—but he had bled, too. Blaze clung to that memory like a talisman: the sound of Kaelen's breath faltering, the flicker of doubt in his blazing eyes.
"Rest," Ronan urged from his other side. The grizzled mercenary-turned-vampire looked almost human still, but his eyes glowed faintly with raw hunger. "You've won the night. You need to recover before the Church regroups."
"I haven't won," Blaze rasped. His voice was low, cracked with strain, but the iron beneath it was unyielding. "Not yet."
The cursed ring pulsed against his finger, hot and alive. A whisper slithered through his thoughts, smoother than silk, colder than death. You bleed like prey, little king. But you need not crawl. Feed, and rise.
He clenched his hand, feeling the jagged band bite into his flesh. "Silence," he hissed under his breath.
None of his spawn dared ask who he spoke to. They knew.
The ruins opened into a charred square. Corpses lay everywhere: paladins in half-melted armor, priests whose holy charms had failed them, and beasts summoned and then consumed by fire. The air shimmered with heat from still-smoldering stone. It reeked of ash and blood—so much blood.
Blaze sank to one knee. His body trembled, his healing sluggish, the bite of Kaelen's holy flame still burning through his veins. He could barely keep upright.
Ledo, the gang boss who had bent knee to him out of terror, hovered at the edge of the group. His hands wrung together nervously. "M-my lord, perhaps… perhaps we should withdraw. Hide, rebuild strength. The Church will return in force. This place—"
Blaze's eyes flicked toward him, and the weight of that single look silenced Ledo's trembling voice. The gang boss shut his mouth with an audible click.
Blaze turned his gaze back to the field of corpses. His tongue dragged across his teeth, his hunger gnawing deep, sharp, insistent.
Feed, the ring urged again, its voice a low thrumming. Do you smell them? The knights blessed by gods, the priests washed in light. Their blood burns, but it strengthens. Take it. Consume it.
His stomach clenched with a pain deeper than any wound. The thought of holy-touched blood made his skin crawl even as his body screamed for it.
Asha crouched beside him, her amber eyes wary. "You're… thinking of drinking them, aren't you?"
He met her gaze without answering.
"You'll kill yourself," she said, her tone sharp with fear. "Light doesn't belong in us. It'll tear you apart from the inside."
Blaze's lips curled into a grim shadow of a smile. "Then I'll tear it back."
He pressed a hand to the ground, dragging himself forward until his fingers curled into the blackened hair of a fallen paladin. The man's chest was split open by Ronan's axe, blood pooled thick around him.
Blaze lowered his head, his fangs lengthening, the hunger overtaking all hesitation. He bit deep.
The first rush of holy-tainted blood hit him like fire poured straight into his veins. He convulsed, gagging, his body writhing against the scorch of it. His flesh sizzled where the blood touched, steam rising from his lips.
Ronan swore and moved forward, but Asha caught his arm. "Don't. He chose this."
Blaze's vision blurred red and gold. His heart hammered like it would burst. The blood seared, but beneath the pain was something else—a raw strength, vast and luminous, fighting to fuse with the darkness inside him.
He drank deeper.
The corpse shuddered under him as if resisting. He forced it down, snarling, refusing to let go. His wounds flared with agony, and then—faintly—they began to close. The smell of burnt flesh faded as blackened skin knit over.
More. He needed more.
Blaze dragged himself to the next body, a priest still clutching his charred holy symbol. He sank his fangs into the man's throat, ignoring the bitter tang of sanctified blood. Again, fire seared him from the inside. Again, the ring pulsed hotter, faster, like a heart in his hand.
Yes, it crooned. Yes. Break yourself. Break the light. Only then will you rise above both.
His spawn stood frozen, watching him devour the battlefield. Some looked horrified, some enthralled. Even Garrick, who had once been a proud adventurer, shifted uncomfortably.
"Is this strength," he muttered, "or madness?"
No one answered.
Blaze fed until his stomach was a pit of boiling fire and his veins were lightning. Every nerve screamed, every muscle spasmed. He dropped to the ground, writhing, clutching his chest as shadows poured out of him, thick and writhing like snakes.
The ring burned so brightly it seemed molten, fusing with his flesh.
The last thing Blaze saw before darkness swallowed him was the horrified faces of his court—Asha's wide amber eyes, Ronan's grim frown, Garrick's trembling fists, Ledo's barely restrained panic.
And then—nothing but blood and shadow.
Darkness.
Not the comforting dark of night, nor the silent calm of shadow. This was raw, suffocating void, a pressure that crushed from every direction, a drowning silence where even thought seemed to echo.
Blaze opened his eyes—or thought he did. He floated in a crimson abyss, the ground beneath him liquid, shifting, thick as blood. Above stretched no sky, only a roiling canopy of scarlet mist. Every ragged breath tasted of iron.
So this is what it feels like to die, he thought bitterly.
Then a voice rumbled through the void, vast and ancient, deep enough to make the air vibrate.
Not death… awakening.
A throne materialized ahead, jagged and towering, carved from bones fused with crystal veins of frozen blood. Upon it sat a figure blurred by shadow, its form indistinct—man and monster both. Two eyes glowed, cold as the moon, burning with a hunger eternal.
Blaze's jaw clenched. "The Vampire King."
The figure chuckled, though the sound was more like the cracking of ice. A title I wore. A name the world cursed. But I am not a ghost clinging to memory—I am the hunger that built kingdoms, the shadow that even gods feared to face. And now, you stand where none should.
Blaze glanced down at himself. His body flickered between flesh and shadow, seams splitting along his arms and chest, light seeping out like cracks in brittle stone. Every beat of his heart tore him further apart.
He staggered, forcing himself upright against the liquid ground. "You want me to kneel."
The figure leaned forward, its smile cruel and ancient. You already carry my legacy. The ring burns your flesh, yet you refuse to cast it aside. Do not play at defiance, child—you hunger as I once did. The only difference is whether you accept it, or break beneath it.
Blaze bared his teeth, though his knees shook violently. "I won't serve you. Not you, not gods, not kings. Not anymore."
The shadow's laughter rolled like thunder. Arrogant insect. Even now, your body unravels. That blood you stole will consume you, unless I show you how to bend it.
The crimson void surged around him, waves of blood rising, pulling him under. He sank, choking on liquid fire, his lungs screaming. The figure's voice thundered in his skull.
Submit, and I grant you eternity. Defy me, and you drown here, forgotten.
Blaze clawed upward through the blood, every motion agony. His flesh dissolved and reformed, bones cracking, veins bursting and knitting again. He thought of Kaelen's sneer, of his classmates' laughter in the throne room, of priests declaring, "The gods have rejected you."
Rejected. Cast aside. Left to die.
He snarled through the blood filling his throat. "I said… I kneel… to no one!"
The crimson sea exploded outward.
The shadow on the throne stilled, its smile fading into cold calculation. Then rise, pretender. Rise on your will alone, if you can.
Blaze's body shattered. Skin tore into ribbons, muscles burst, black mist pouring from his wounds. For a heartbeat he thought he was truly dead—only shadow, only hunger.
Then the pieces knit together. Not cleanly. Not like before. The shadows stitched him, weaving through torn veins, reinforcing bone with threads of darkness. The holy blood he had consumed boiled through him, no longer fire but molten iron, binding itself to the shadows that remade him.
His screams tore through the void, then twisted into laughter—hoarse, savage, triumphant.
When the crimson tide receded, Blaze stood taller, his form sharper, every movement radiating unnatural grace. His skin was pale, almost luminous, veins faintly glowing with crimson. His eyes burned brighter, a deep scarlet ringed with black.
He raised a hand and willed it—and the blood dripping from his fingers stretched outward, forming into a long, curved blade. It pulsed as though alive, an extension of his will.
A second thought, and his form dissolved into mist, reforming several paces away. The shift left the air cold, damp, heavy with dread.
The throne-bound figure regarded him in silence, unreadable.
Blaze stared back, his chest heaving, his lips curling into a sharp grin. "Not your pawn. Not your heir. I'll carve my own throne."
The shadow's chuckle returned, softer now, but still edged with menace. Then carve. But know this—every step you take leads you closer to me. No matter how far you run, the hunger is mine, and through it, so are you.
The crimson void cracked like glass.
Blaze's body jolted awake on the ruined stones of Greywick, his spawn flinching back as crimson mist bled from his form. His eyes snapped open—brighter, harsher, radiant with inhuman power.
The cursed ring blazed like molten metal, now seemingly fused into his skin.
Ronan muttered a curse, shielding his face from the oppressive aura. Asha dropped to one knee without meaning to, her instincts bowing before the predator now before her. Ledo trembled, sweat pouring, and Garrick whispered, almost in reverence:
"…Stage Three."
Blaze rose, shadows trailing him like smoke, blood still dripping from his fingertips. For the first time since his summoning, his every movement carried the weight of something monstrous, inevitable, unstoppable.
And deep within the ring, faint but insistent, the Vampire King laughed.
The ruins trembled under a silence heavier than stone.
Blaze stood in the square where he had collapsed, his cloak in tatters, his body no longer that of a man clinging to survival. Crimson mist curled around him in lazy coils, drifting like smoke but pulsing with his heartbeat. Shadows clung to him as if unwilling to let go.
He flexed his fingers. Blood still dripped sluggishly from a half-sealed gash in his palm, but instead of falling, it lifted. The drops hovered in the air, quivering, then snapped into a thin blade of crimson that glistened sharp as glass. Blaze turned his wrist and the weapon bent with it, reshaping into a spear, then unraveling back into mist before reforming into a whip that cracked against the stone.
The sound made Ledo yelp and stumble back. His knees buckled, but fear, cold and iron-hot, glued him to the ground.
Blaze smiled faintly—not warm, not mocking, but sharp as a knife blade. "Fear sharpens loyalty."
Ronan, scarred and iron-willed, did not kneel, but his jaw clenched. He had seen commanders, warlords, tyrants. None of them radiated the suffocating aura Blaze carried now. His hand drifted toward his axe but stopped halfway, his instincts screaming that steel would shatter uselessly against this creature.
Asha dropped to one knee, her head bowed. The wolf-blooded woman's ears pressed flat against her skull, her body trembling—not out of terror, but raw instinct. Every drop of her beastfolk blood recognized the alpha predator before her. "You… smell like night itself," she whispered, her voice a low vibration. "Like something the world can't fight."
Garrick didn't kneel, didn't move at all. He stared with hollow eyes, as if watching a god claw its way into flesh. "This… this is what we were meant to be," he muttered, his voice cracked with awe. "Not hunted, not cursed—lords."
Blaze stepped forward. The mist swirled at his ankles, his form dissolving into vapor for a heartbeat, reappearing a pace away with no sound. He tested it again—vanishing, reappearing behind Ronan before the mercenary even twitched. The old warrior turned with a curse, sweat beading his temple.
Mist form. Blood weapons. Shadows that bent at his will.
And beneath it all, the hunger—deeper, sharper, but steady now, not the frantic need of earlier stages. Controlled. Directed.
Blaze lifted his hand again, and with a thought, the blood from half a dozen paladin corpses rose from the ground. It coiled into a circle of floating blades, crimson points spinning lazily around him. Their reflection painted his eyes a deeper scarlet.
"Do you see now?" Blaze asked, his voice low but cutting through the air like a blade. "What kneeling bought me? Nothing. What defiance brings? Everything."
His court remained silent. Their silence was louder than any cheer.
Blaze's gaze swept over them—Asha kneeling, Ronan standing taut, Garrick trembling with reverence, Ledo quivering like a beaten dog. Four lieutenants, four mirrors of the power he had gathered, and through them, the foundations of something greater.
"I name this moment the Crimson Dawn," Blaze declared, his voice carrying through the ruined square, echoing against broken walls as if the city itself bore witness. "The age of hiding ends. The age of fear begins."
The ring pulsed hotly at his finger, a hiss of satisfaction curling in his skull. Yes. Claim them. Build what I lost. Take the throne the gods denied you.
Blaze ignored it. His grin was his own. His will, his own.
He strode to the center of the square and raised his blood-forged spear high. With a flick, it burst apart into a rain of crimson droplets that hissed as they struck the ground. Where they fell, tiny crimson blossoms sprouted and withered instantly, leaving stains darker than blood.
"From Greywick," he continued, "our shadow spreads. To the Church, to the kingdoms, to the gods themselves. They cast me aside. They spat on me, mocked me, sentenced me to die." His voice deepened, thrumming with power. "I will not die. I will not kneel. I will drag their light into the abyss and make them choke on night."
The air thickened, heavy with an aura that crushed the chest, slowed the heart, froze the breath. His spawn bowed lower, not by choice but by necessity, their bodies unable to resist the weight of his presence.
Even Ledo, sweating and stammering, forced himself to the ground, pressing his forehead to the stone. "My lord," he whimpered. "My Crimson Lord."
Blaze's smile widened. He said nothing, but the title hung in the air like a prophecy.
Above, the night sky broke apart as storm clouds gathered unnaturally, red lightning crawling across their bellies. The world itself seemed to react to his transformation. Somewhere beyond the horizon, eyes of priests and seers turned toward Greywick in terror, whispers spreading faster than fire: The Nameless Vampire Lord has grown stronger.
Blaze dismissed the blood blades, letting them splatter back into the earth. His form flickered into mist again, and he reappeared upon the blackened archway of the ruined temple, overlooking his court from above. His cloak whipped around him in the sudden storm wind, a silhouette framed by lightning.
"Rise," he commanded.
They did. Trembling, awed, terrified—they rose.
Blaze looked down upon them, upon the city, upon the world beyond. And for the first time since the summoning, he felt not hunted, not cursed, not rejected. He felt inevitable.
The Crimson Dawn had come.