The moment the Silent Monks crashed through the shattered windows, thirteen rifles roared in unison.
Bullets slammed into the intruders—buckshot shredding through cloth and flesh alike. One monk's body was torn nearly in half, the bloody sigils on his wrappings unraveling as his mutilated form slumped forward, twitching grotesquely. But even as he crawled, dragging his ruined torso across the floor, the rest charged in unfazed.
They felt no pain. They felt no fear.
A second wave followed without hesitation, ignoring the bullets that punched holes through their bodies. Supernatural endurance drove them forward with terrifying momentum. The volley had thinned their ranks, but not their resolve.
Ivins fired the last round from his shotgun, muttered a curse, and tossed the empty weapon aside. He drew a long blade instead—the one gifted by Lord Arnold himself. Around him, the thirteen "Sons of Jacob" did the same, discarding firearms and raising their swords in unison.
No war cries, no shouting—just grim silence as steel met flesh.
The theater lobby exploded into close-quarters bloodshed. Limbs flew. Blood sprayed across faded red curtains and shattered chandeliers. But not a single scream echoed. The Silent Monks had no mouths to scream with. Their lips were sewn shut by ritual. Pain was meaningless to them.
And the Sons of Jacob? They were reborn monsters—vampiric converts with bloodline enhancements and a shared psyche carved by ritual and devotion. They didn't fear death. They didn't fear pain. They were made for this.
Gloria gritted her teeth as she locked blades with one of the monks. She had once been a low-level office worker—frail, overworked, invisible. Now, her arms trembled with unnatural power, the undead blood within her coursing like fire. But she lacked technique. She parried sloppily, her shoulder nearly dislocated as her enemy twisted into a lunge.
Only the "Blood Regeneration" granted by the vampire blood kept her on her feet.
Across the hall, the rest of the Sons were in similar straits. They weren't losing—but they weren't winning either. The monks fought like machines, trading blows without hesitation, aiming for fatal strikes with every movement.
Ivins, however, moved like a beast unleashed.
He cut down one monk with raw brute force, then pivoted, letting the next attacker's blade plunge into his shoulder. His enhanced muscles clamped down like a vice, locking the weapon in place. He wrenched the monk forward, then drove his claws into the man's throat.
A snap. A squelch.
The monk collapsed, eyes wide, still trying to breathe through a torn neck.
Ivins glanced down at the gash in his shoulder—already stitching itself together with pulsing white tendrils of flesh.
He muttered a silent prayer to his Lord. A hymn not of worship—but of gratitude for power.
Another monk lunged from the shadows—but before Ivins could react, a rifle cracked from above.
The balcony. A sniper?
No—just Constantine, shouting, "FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" as he leveled his revolver and took another shot. Behind him, a dozen mortal recruits—ordinary men and women—took cover and opened fire with outdated rifles, adding chaos to the melee.
"For the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!" they chanted, voices shaky, hands trembling.
It wasn't bravery—it was terror channeled into loyalty. They had seen the Vampire King descend. They had heard his voice in their dreams. They believed—or were learning to.
On the floor, Ivins rejoined two of his own and pressed in on the enemy commander—a taller monk, his wrappings darker, his movements sharper.
Constantine grinned from above, ducking behind the broken railing. "You're welcome, boss!"
Then—danger. A twitch in his spine. A cold spike of dread.
"Shit—another group," he muttered, diving aside just as another pack of monks emerged from a side corridor, blades raised.
These weren't fodder. They moved with purpose—elite fighters, perhaps even blessed by their god.
Constantine scrambled back, yelling over his shoulder, "I need backup, now!"
A wave of shadow spilled across the floor.
From the blackness emerged a woman in a crimson dress—eyes glowing like coals, face serene and terrible.
Marilyn.
Beside her, Michel strode forward—silent, watchful, his cloak billowing. The third-generation vampire flexed his arms, revealing a pair of inky-black tendrils growing from beneath his ribs.
The monks hesitated—but only for a moment.
Marilyn raised one hand. Blood sprayed upward from the corpses on the floor, crystallizing mid-air into jagged crimson shards. The cadavers twitched, their limbs twisting unnaturally, blades still in hand.
They began to climb the columns—monstrous puppets of flesh and steel.
The monks charged, hoping to break her concentration—but Constantine and the mortals opened fire again, laying down covering fire. One monk broke through, only to meet Michel face-to-face.
Two dark limbs intercepted his blade with a screech of metal on metal.
Then came the fist.
A single punch—brutal and direct—shattered the monk's face. The man staggered, but Michel wasn't done. He gripped the monk's collar, lifted him like a sack of meat, and pounded his skull into the floor again and again and again—
Bones cracked. Blood sprayed. The silence was broken by the sound of utter, gruesome annihilation.
Michel stepped back, his face calm, ignoring the viscera on his coat.
He looked at the next monk.
They hesitated.
Constantine beamed like a child at Christmas. "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"
From below, the chant rose again—stronger this time.
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
Meanwhile, behind the theater, a lone figure approached.
Tall. Hooded. Wrapped in blood-inscribed bandages that shimmered with black light.
The leader of the Wolfword Church.
His footsteps echoed, slow and deliberate.
He didn't speak—but his aura bled menace.
And waiting for him by the door… was another.
A man in a long clerical coat, holding a massive, iron-cornered book in one hand and a gleaming short-barreled pistol in the other.
Benson.
"Funny," Benson said, adjusting his glasses, "You people sent your entire cult, and now you're stuck fighting the guy who writes our damn pamphlets."
The Wolfword leader paused… then chuckled.
"You must be desperate, if even your bookkeepers fight."
Benson's eyes glinted behind his lenses.
"You'll find I'm not as soft as I look."
He raised the book in one hand like a shield and cocked the pistol with the other.
"Shall we?"