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Chapter 86: The Theatrical Bullshit Again
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This wasn't working. They were too resilient, too coordinated. This human, this Cypher, could read his every move as if his soul were an open book.
How? It didn't matter. It made him a threat that transcended the Daywalker, a threat that had to be erased from existence.
With a final, titanic effort, Dracula twisted, snapping the silver whip and backhanding Blade so hard the dhampir flew away, his sword ripping free from the vampire's side in a gout of black blood.
Dracula didn't pursue. He planted his feet, threw his head back, and spread his arms wide.
"ENOUGH!" He bellowed, and his voice was no longer his own. It was the voice of the mountain, of the deep earth, of the ancient, hateful dark that predated man.
"You seek to trap me with the dawn? I WILL BRING YOU AN ETERNAL NIGHT!"
Power, dark and apocalyptic, erupted from him. It was not the vampiric control of blood, but a wider, more terrible manipulation.
He was calling upon the fundamental melancholy of the land, the despair in the soil, the cold hatred of the stones.
The faint grey light on the eastern horizon didn't just stall.
It died.
Thick, bruise-purple clouds boiled out of nowhere, racing across the sky with supernatural speed, smothering the stars, blotting out the coming sun.
The temperature plummeted. Hoarfrost crackled across the scorched earth and the splintered trees.
A bitter, freezing wind howled through the clearing, carrying the smell of grave dirt and forgotten tombs.
The world was plunged into a deep, oppressive twilight.
Alice's analysis came through right away. "Atmospheric manipulation on a macro scale. Energy signature catastrophic. This aligns with known profiles of… Storm."
Dracula stood at the center of the self-made storm, his form seeming to grow, silhouetted against the unnatural dark.
The effort was immense; veins stood out like black cords on his temples and neck, his breath came in ragged, steaming gasps.
Using such elemental power in his poisoned, cursed state was an act of desperation.
But the pressure this artificial night exerted was palpable, a physical and psychic weight meant to crush their hope and their bones.
Indeed, Dracula is capable of Atmokinesis. He has considerable control over the elements and weather.
However, he is severely weakened for an extended period of time after unleashing such power.
"No sun to save you now, worms," Dracula rasped, his voice strained but triumphant. "Only the endless dark. And in the dark… I am king."
He took a step forward, intent on ending the battle in this, his realm of shadows.
Then he stopped.
A violent, wracking spasm doubled him over. He clutched his stomach, his eyes widening in something beyond pain; in utter, incomprehensible shock.
He coughed, a wet, tearing sound, and a stream of pure black, viscous blood, far darker than before, splattered onto the frost-covered ground.
His veins, already prominent, bulged horribly, turning a sickening charcoal grey against his alabaster skin, pulsing and squirming as if something alive were moving within them.
He stared at his own trembling, blackened hands, then his horrified gaze shot up to lock with Adam.
The fury, the pride, the dark majesty; all of it was gone, replaced by a look of primal, uncomprehending terror.
The artificial night continued to churn overhead, but its master stood frozen, a statue of agony and shock, his grand culmination broken by a silent, internal catastrophe.
[That was majestic. Dracula is so fucking cool.]
[Unfortunate, he met the menace.]
[Wait… why did he stop? What happened?]
[What's happening to him?! What did Adam DO?!]
[...Adam said he put viruses and STDs in the poison. Is that it?]
[But Dracula was handling that like a champ. What changed?]
[I bet it's one of Adam's tricks again. Look at that fucking grin.]
[Oh, I bet it's something fucking insane!]
[Adam, com'on! Tell us! Entertain us!]
Time stretched, thin and brittle as ice over an abyss. The only sounds were the howl of the unnatural wind, the creak of frosted trees, and the wet, ragged hacking coming from the Lord of Vampires.
Dracula was bent double, his regal form reduced to a trembling, convulsing wreck.
Each cough brought up more of the oily, obsidian blood, sizzling where it hit the hoarfrost.
The charcoal-black veins pulsed and writhed across his skin like parasitic worms, spreading from his core towards his extremities.
His body emitted a faint, sickly cracking sound, as if fine porcelain were being stressed to its limit.
Blade slowly picked himself up from the impact with the boulder, his body a symphony of fresh and old pain.
He watched the dying vampire king with the cold eyes of a hunter, but his grip on his sword was not relaxed.
He shot a glance at Adam, who hovered a dozen feet away, stabilized by four of his mechanical arms, the other two hanging ready.
Behind the helmet's visor, Blade could just make out the faint curve of a grin.
It was answer enough. Whatever this was, Cypher had orchestrated it.
They did not approach.
A wounded, cornered beast was always at its most deadly, and this beast had just summoned a permanent midnight over the Carpathians.
The oppressive, chilling darkness was a tangible weight, a testament to the staggering power Dracula still commanded, even as he unraveled from within.
Let the poison and the suicidal effort of atmokinesis do the work. Let him bleed out his power onto the frozen ground.
Dracula finally managed to straighten, though it was a painful, jerky motion.
He wiped the black blood from his lips with the back of a trembling hand, his burning eyes now dimmed, clouded with agony and a dawning, horrific understanding.
He fixed his gaze on Adam.
"What…" He rasped, the cultured baritone shredded into a ruin of sound. "What have you… done?"
Adam let the question hang in the frigid air. He had all the time in the world now. A storyteller relishing his climax.
"A tale," Adam began, his voice amplified and distorted just so by his helmet into a theatrical, echoing timbre. "An old, old tale. Of a garden. A serpent. A piece of fruit."
He hovered a little closer, one mechanical arm gesturing grandly. "The first man, offered knowledge by the great deceiver. He partook. He gained… perspective."
"But the fruit was forbidden. A blasphemy against divine order." Adam's helmet tilted. "To consume it was to invite divine punishment."
He let the silence build again, the wind hissing through the clearing.
"My name," Adam said, the grin audible in his voice, "is not an accident. I am Adam. Of that tale. And you…" He pointed a claw-tipped mechanical finger at Dracula.
"You dared to drink my blood. You dared to feast upon my flesh. That, Vlad Tepes, is the highest blasphemy. And the punishment… is divinity's own wrath, burning you from the inside out."
"Tell me, is it any surprise that the great exquisite unique being that is I; Has such a fascinating backstory. Lovely, is it not?"
[HE'S DOING THE THING! THE THEATRICAL BULLSHIT THING!]
[He's just fucking with him and I am LIVING for it.]
[Dracula's face is a mixture of agony and "Is this asshole for real?"]
[I bet some religious individuals would take his word for truth and worship him even more.]
[I think this just sparked another religion debate. The anti-Adam people who believe he's the anti-Christ are coming out of the woodwork.]
For a moment, even through the soul-crushing pain, Dracula looked genuinely perplexed, as if unsure if his mind was failing along with his body.
Then, intellect found him again, though fogged by Stupefy, Slow, and poison, it fought through the grandiose lie.
It was nonsense. Blasphemy? Divine punishment? This was a mortal's trick. Bullshit, shameless nonsense.
His eyes, clouded as they were, dropped to the frost-blackened ground where the remnants of Adam's severed arm had been discarded.
The arm.
"The… Arm," Dracula muttered, the pieces clicking together with dreadful clarity. He had consumed it. The blood within, the marrow, the flesh.
The vector was not the air, not the initial poison. It was the final, intimate act of violation he himself had chosen. The ultimate hubris, turned into the delivery system. "What… was in it?"
He began to reason through the fire in his veins. Garlic? No, his resistance was too high for this systemic collapse.
Silver? Possible, but this felt different, more… cellular, more active. It felt like his very essence was being unmade.
His legendary regeneration, the dark gift that had sustained him for centuries, was not just failing; it was turning against him, burning through his reserves at a catastrophic rate.
It was as if his regeneration was trying to heal damage that was somehow part of the damage itself.
"Sunlight," He croaked, latching onto the only weakness profound enough. "You… laced your blood with… concentrated light. A cancer of the sun."
Adam's theatrical posture relaxed. The pretense of divinity dropped, replaced by a more familiar, chilling amusement...
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