The mirror gave the young woman her image back with intensity.
Lígia d'Argêntea, platinum hair like living silver, violet eyes like a veiled eclipse, and red lipstick boldly marking her mouth. The tight black sportswear outlined her body like trained shadows, ready to follow her movements.
She took a deep breath, sucking in air.
The reflection blinked. The image did not.
Beside her, Vael bowed in a measured bow. "It's time, miss."
The voice was not just a statement, it was a calm, cutting sentence.
Lígia looked away from the mirror slowly. She nodded firmly, without saying anything.
Her steps were firm until the door opened with mathematical precision when the butler pulled her, stepping aside like a living portal.
As they walked, the corridors stretched on, each step echoing like a note in the prelude to the unknown. As they turned one of the corridors and passed one of the windows in the west wing, Ligia looked up and stopped.
"The moon... is it red?"
High in the sky, embedded like a burning wound in the starry tapestry, the Blood Moon hung silently. Its crimson glow dripped across the world like a forgotten whisper.
It was beautiful. It was absurd.
Ligia didn't know why, but she felt as if she were being watched.
"What does this mean, Vael?" her voice was gone before she realized it.
The butler stopped, still a step behind, his hands clasped in front of him.
"The ancients say it's a message from the Moon Goddess, Selunara, to her brother, Kaorlun... the God of Chaos."
She turned slowly, eyes fixed on the man. "I've never heard of it... can you continue?"
Vael nodded.
"A long, long time ago... before the cities, before the mana towers, before even the first empires... there was only the Stellar Heavens. Selunara and Kaorlun were divine siblings. Entities of order and imagination. She, the guardian of the Moon and cycles. He, the traveler of dreams and silence."
The story took shape in the corridors, as they continued on their way.
"They say they danced across the heavens. They created constellations. They shaped stars with their hands. There was no temple or altar, only eternity... and each other's company."
Lígia walked, slowly now, as if each step took them deeper into the legend.
"But something happened," Vael continued, his voice lower, as if the gods themselves could hear. " Something that did not survive the records. Kaorlun drifted away. Corrupted. That which he was... shattered. And where once stood a dream deity, the God of Chaos was born."
Distantly echoing whispers seemed to fill that moment. A cold wind blew through the closed windows.
" The Blood Moon marks the day Kaorlun fell. A reminder of Selunara's pain. A plea... perhaps a warning."
Ligia stopped, her eyes returning to the scarlet sky. The Moon seemed larger now. As if looking back.
The system purred in her mind, as if waking from a mystical nap.
"Too dramatic."
Ligia didn't answer. She just kept walking.
In silence.
Towards the destiny that awaited her.
Night fell like a ceremonial veil as Ligia descended the steps of the main entrance. Her silhouette, outlined by the moonlight, looked like a living shadow, about to take shape on the great stage of the ancients.
In front of the iron gates, a carriage awaited her.
Black as liquid obsidian, with red arabesques carved into runic spirals that pulsed subtly under the light of the blood moon. The horses, as dark as the starless night, had amber eyes, like torches lit in the void.
She paused for a moment. Her violet eyes stared at the carriage. Then, without hesitation, she entered, climbing the steps with a slight rustle of her clothes.
As she sat down, the cushion received her like soft arms. Lígia looked one last time through the small glass window at her family's mansion, its towers and windows seeming to watch in silence.
A sigh escaped. She leaned back and closed her eyes. But her mind, as always, would not rest.
"System?"
The interface appeared in front of him with the subtle sound of a magical bell.
[Status Tab]
[●Points: 18
●Influence Level: Mediocre
●Presence Aura: 3/100
●Charisma: … Improve that, for the love of the God of systems.]
[ System Note: You are boringly BORING. Work on it.]
Lígia opened one eye.
"Seriously? You literally gave me a trophy for surviving this dimension, but you still judge me for not knowing how to make conversation?"
The system licked its paw in the corner of the interface, its tail wagging disdainfully.
"Congratulations on not dying. But being antisocial in this world is almost as dangerous as a soul curse."
"Tsk… The old Lígia was a disaster. A walking, suicidal nervous breakdown to the extreme" she grumbled, crossing her arms and staring at the ceiling of the carriage. "How am I going to increase these points if everyone I've met so far has been my family"
The cat purred "Maybe… I don't know… smiling?"
She snorted, but even with the frown, she couldn't help but smile slightly at the corner of her lips. Opening her eyes, she looked out the window again.
The landscape was ethereal.
Fields bathed in crimson light, forests undulating under the scarlet glow. Ruined stone towers peered between hills, like ancient eyes watching the passage.
It was beautiful.
Tragic.
Almost… poetic.
"Vael" she said, without taking her eyes off the landscape. "What a strange place. It's all so… beautiful and at the same time kind of wrong."
Vael in front of her sighed, as if speaking to the past. "The north of the Empire is the place most prone to discrimination because of the House of Argent bloodline, Miss. For millennia, the people of the Empire have called us leeches."
Ligia arched an eyebrow and let out a short, dry laugh.
"And aren't we?"
Vael sighed softly, a sound that seemed to drag centuries of patience with him.
"Our bloodline does not need to consume blood to survive, Miss."
She turned her face to him, her eyes narrowed.
"I thought vampires needed blood?"
"We are not like the ordinary commoner vampires, Miss." Vael replied calmly. "We evolved into the noblest bloodline. Blood for us is a channel of mana, but it is not a biological necessity. It is a choice."
Ligia stared at the reflection of the moonlight on her fingers. They seemed paler today. Or maybe it was just the moon. "And what does that make me?"
Vael replied in a firm voice, "The heiress. The one who can become more than the sum of her ancestors."
The carriage stopped. Smoothly, as if the horses had trodden on silk.
Outside, an ancient stone path led ahead. The blood moon shone directly overhead, like a divine eye waiting for something or... someone.
Lígia sighed, straightening her back and opening the door.
The ritual awaited her.