The stairs didn't end.
Lucifer walked. His boots echoed against stone, his scythe dragging beside him, still stained from the god-class vampire he'd dropped. He didn't look back. The deeper he went, the colder it got. Not temperature—just presence. Something older than blood waited below.
Floor V (a special floor for a vampire) opened like a cracked tomb.
The room was circular again, but this time the walls bled. Slowly. Black blood oozed from the stone. At the center stood a throne made of ribs—and seated upon it was a woman with no face, only a mouth. Long silver hair. Armor like shattered obsidian.
She rose when he entered.
No words.
She stepped forward, and the room responded. The blood on the walls hissed—boiled—then lifted. Floating, alive. She raised a finger.
Blood Needles.
Thousands.
Lucifer moved—Fold Step.
But the needles didn't target where he was. They targeted his aura.
They hit.
