Caspian's voice echoed through the spacious, sacred sanctuary like poisonous magic. Each word was a venomed nail precisely hammering Elian's most vulnerable soul.
"Disappointing?" He looked at Elian with eyes seven-parts similar yet filled with madness and divinity, showing almost pitying expression. "Yes, disappointing. I gave you three hundred years, Elian. I taught you to abandon all weakness, showed you how emotion brings destruction. I thought you would become my most perfect 'creation'—an absolutely rational, absolutely cold 'god' for the new world."
"But look at yourself now," he extended a finger contemptuously toward Rafe standing beside Elian. "You've bound yourself to a... short-lived, impulsive, sweat-reeking beast. Your noble, eternal bloodline is being 'polluted' by his vulgar, burning life force. If this isn't degradation, what is?"
"Shut up!" Rafe let out a beast-like growl, raising his axe in attack position. "You madman! You don't understand 'life' at all!"
"Of course I understand." Caspian smiled, elegant yet cruel. "Life exists to be burned. Hatred is the most efficient fuel. I made them hate each other, evolve through battle, becoming stronger and more cunning. These centuries have been the most 'glorious' era for our races! Yet your father, Rafe, and my foolish son wanted to extinguish this beautiful flame, bring ridiculous 'peace.' Peace only brings complacency and decay."
His voice carried seductive power, as if expounding universal truth.
"Elian, my child, it's not too late to return." He extended his hand toward Elian. "Kill that 'pet' beside you, prove your loyalty. Then stand by my side. When the 'Great Severance' ritual completes, this city—indeed, the entire world—will belong to us father and son. We shall become gods of the new world, eternal, sole rulers."
Elian listened quietly, his always statue-cold face showing no expression.
Only after Caspian finished the last word did he slowly raise his head.
Those gray-blue eyes had lost all confusion and fear. What remained was unprecedented, North-Star-cold yet bright... determination.
"You're wrong," he said softly, voice quiet yet clearly overpowering the altar's energy rumbling.
"In three hundred years, you taught me only one thing."
"That creatures like you are utterly... disgusting."
The instant those words fell, he moved.
Without warning.
His figure became black lightning invisible to naked eye, black obsidian blade tracing a transcendent arc straight for Caspian's heart!
"Now this is more like it."
Caspian nodded approvingly. He didn't even move—air before him suddenly rippled like water. Elian's certain strike slowed as if piercing viscous mud, finally stopping one centimeter from his chest.
"Spatial Deceleration." Caspian said casually. "Time and space are merely toys to beings of our level, my child. You're still far too lacking."
He flicked his finger. Invisible force slammed Elian's chest.
Elian flew backward like lightning-struck, crashing into a distant pillar with a dull thud.
"Elian!"
Rafe roared, charging like a cannonball with golden battle-aura blazing on his axe!
Caspian still didn't move. He merely glanced at Rafe.
Rafe's berserker strike capable of splitting mountains stopped eerily mid-air. He felt his body pierced by countless invisible needles, pinned immobile.
"Beast strength is indeed impressive." Caspian studied Rafe's pain-contorted muscles like appreciating art. "Pity it's ultimately... mere brute force."
He slowly raised his hand as if to crush an ant, ending Rafe's life.
Just then, a more violent, swift black shadow burst from his blind spot!
Elian again!
His frontal attack was a feint!
His true target was the altar's center—that moonstone madly absorbing energy!
"Naive."
Caspian shook his head, seemingly disappointed by Elian's lack of "progress."
He didn't even turn, just waved his hand. A massive palm of pure shadow energy appeared, slapping toward Elian.
However, just as the shadow hand was about to strike Elian, pinned Rafe suddenly let out an earth-shaking roar!
"ROAAARRR——!!!"
His blood vessels burst instantly, golden blood seeping through his skin. He used self-harm to forcibly activate Alpha blood within him, temporarily breaking Caspian's mental binding!
He hurled his axe with all remaining strength!
The axe became a golden meteor in the air, striking not Caspian but the shadow hand about to hit Elian.
"BOOM!"
The shadow hand exploded from the axe's "demon-breaking" werewolf power.
Elian seized this crucial moment, successfully reaching the altar.
"Well done, mutt!" Elian inwardly praised for the first time.
But he knew they couldn't defeat Caspian. As long as this ritual continued, Caspian could endlessly draw power from the moonstone and three elders. Here, he was invincible.
Unless...
Destroy the ritual!
Elian's eyes flashed with resolve.
Looking at that ominous red-glowing moonstone, he already had a plan. The moonstone was an energy "container" and "converter," now madly absorbing power. If he injected completely opposite energy filled with "death" and "silence" that didn't belong to this ritual, what would happen?
Only one result—energy collision, overload, then... explosion!
This was the only way.
But this energy must be pure and massive enough. In the entire hall, only one person could provide it.
Himself.
Using his vampire essence representing "eternal death" to detonate this bomb!
He would die.
But he didn't care.
Being able to personally destroy this man's lifelong "masterpiece," to see failure on that godlike cold face...
This was the best... revenge for his three centuries of manipulated life.
"Rafe!" He issued final orders through the comm channel at maximum speed. "When I count to three, save your father! Don't mind me! That's an order!"
Without waiting for Rafe's response, he gathered all his power in his right hand. His palm glowed with ghostly hellfire-like black light.
Then he resolutely pressed this hand toward the frantically spinning moonstone!
"No——!!!"
Rafe let out a soul-tearing cry. How could he not understand what Elian intended!
This damned, proud, bastard vampire! He wanted to shoulder everything alone! He wanted to die here so easily!
"I absolutely forbid it!"
Rafe's eyes turned blood-red instantly. He abandoned attacking Caspian, using even faster speed transcending limits to rush toward the altar!
Just as Elian's palm was about to touch the moonstone, a more burning, explosively powerful hand reached from the side, tightly covering his.
It was Rafe.
He had caught up.
"You... idiot!" Rafe gritted his teeth, each word squeezed from between them. "You think I spent so much effort dragging you from that turtle shell just to watch you seek death again?!"
"Let go! That's an order!" Elian growled, trying to break free but finding the other's strength surprisingly great.
"Screw your orders!" Rafe's face showed an uglier-than-crying smile. "You said you trusted me! Then trust me completely!"
He looked at Elian, those amber eyes burning with a flame Elian had never seen—mad enough to ignite the entire world.
"Death energy can detonate it," Rafe's voice trembled with excitement. "Then... can 'life' energy work too?!"
"If I inject my Alpha essence—the purest 'undying life' force—simultaneously?"
"One positive, one negative. One life, one death. Two completely opposite energies exploding at the same point..."
"That explosion would be... beautiful, wouldn't it?"
Elian was completely stunned.
Looking at Rafe, at this "beast" he once despised, at that mad yet brilliant smile—
He suddenly understood.
This was werewolf.
This was life.
Forever burning, forever mad, forever... facing death to embrace life.
"Madman," Elian cursed softly.
But his lips slowly curved in the first genuine smile in three centuries.
"Then... let's be mad together!"
He stopped struggling, instead actively grasping Rafe's hand.
Two hands clasped tightly together, then simultaneously pressed hard against the moonstone!
"BOOM——!!!!"
Two energies of completely opposite nature—terrifyingly powerful as the Big Bang—poured madly into the moonstone!
Black energy representing "eternal death."
Golden energy representing "undying life."
The energies collided within the moonstone with the most violent, primal force capable of annihilating everything!
The moonstone shrieked under unbearable strain. Cracks spread madly across its crystalline surface.
As energy "conduits," Elian and Rafe endured unimaginable agony. They felt their bodies being torn apart by these rampaging energies.
"...Hold steady!" Elian said with difficulty. "Energy... about to go critical..."
"I know..." Rafe spat blood through gritted teeth.
They needed a... "bridge."
Something to perfectly, temporarily "fuse" these opposite energies—a final "channel."
What in this world could be more perfect than two souls merging?
At the moment before explosion, Elian suddenly turned toward Rafe. As if telepathically connected, Rafe simultaneously turned to him.
Their eyes held no words.
Only absolute, mad... trust and love for each other.
Elian moved forward first.
Rafe met him without hesitation.
Under blood moon light, at the center of world-destroying energy storm, before their destined enemy—
Their lips pressed tightly together for the third and final time.
This kiss no longer held the first's forbidden anger.
Nor the second's exploration and release.
This kiss was sacred.
Pure.
Transcending death, race, everything—a covenant of souls.
Sealed with a kiss.
The instant their lips met, the rampaging energies found their ultimate destination, flowing through their bodies to form a perfect closed loop of life and death!
Then poured into the moonstone.
"NO——!!!"
Below the altar, Caspian's face showed terror and disbelief for the first time.
He tried to intervene, but it was... too late.
The moonstone reached critical mass.
Next second, indescribable pure, purifying white light exploded from the moonstone's core!
That light had no sound, no temperature.
Yet carried power to cleanse all world's sins and erase all existence.
The light consumed the altar.
Consumed Caspian's terrified face.
Consumed the entire cathedral.
Consumed... those two figures embracing at the storm's center, seemingly becoming one.
Consumed the entire world.