Thunder cracked overhead — not in the sky, but beneath the earth.
A tremor rolled through Vharnyx Keep, shaking obsidian pillars, cracking bloodstone tiles. High above in the Citadel Tower, the Elders paused mid-conversation, their crimson goblets rattling with the vibration.
"What was that?" hissed Nyserra, her tongue tasting the shift.
Thorne stood slowly. "A promise… being kept."
Below their feet, far beneath the lowest levels of the Keep, something buried was waking.
Not a monster.
Not a god.
> The first vampire.
---
Jayden's Descent
Jayden didn't return to the Assembly.
Instead, guided by a pull he couldn't explain, he moved deeper — past restricted halls, past frozen crypts, past dead chambers no one dared enter.
Elira's voice buzzed through the rune-stone communicator strapped to his side. "Where are you? You're off the map."
Jayden didn't answer.
He followed the blood.
It dripped from the walls — glowing faintly — leading him like a trail of memory down into a sealed catacomb known in hushed tones as:
> The Red Womb.
---
Echoes of the First Night
Inside, murals decorated the walls: images of the first blood rite, of a king cursed by a god he defied, of a deal struck in flame and eternal hunger.
It told of Ashkar the Undying, the one who drank from the "Heart Chalice" and became something other.
Jayden stopped at the center of the tomb.
A coffin made of living bone pulsed gently before him.
His mark — the Godfragment fused into his chest — began to glow white-hot.
The coffin responded.
And opened.
---
The First Vampire
Ashkar rose — tall, unnaturally still, his skin carved with runes older than any language. His eyes weren't red. They were void. Not darkness — the absence of light entirely.
Jayden instinctively stepped back, but Ashkar raised a hand.
> "So… you are the rewrite."
His voice echoed like thunder read aloud from a dead scripture.
"You carry the blood of men… the strength of night… and the wound of prophecy."
Jayden stood firm. "You're Ashkar."
"I am. And soon… I will be everything again."
---
A Deal of Shadows
Ashkar stepped forward, studying Jayden like a riddle he half-remembered.
"They fear you because you are unclaimed," he said. "You challenge the design — the old Houses, the Shadow Thrones, the Archivist himself."
"You fought him once?" Jayden asked.
Ashkar smiled faintly. "No. I created him."
Jayden froze.
"The Archivist was my scribe," Ashkar continued. "He wrote my victories, my losses… until he decided to edit me out."
> "But I am not a story."
> "I am the origin."
---
Temptation
Ashkar walked around Jayden slowly.
"I know what you want. Balance. Peace. A future without blood chains."
"But peace will not come from prophecy. It comes from power."
He extended a hand.
"Join me. Let the Elders burn. Let the Outsiders scatter. Rule beside me. Rewrite the order of night."
Jayden's heart pounded. Every part of him wanted to scream no — but the Godfragment inside him pulsed…
…not in rejection, but conflict.
He said nothing.
Ashkar nodded slowly.
"You don't have to choose now. But you will. Because when the world divides again, there will be only two sides…"
> "Those who follow me."
> "And those who fade."
---
Meanwhile — Above
The Elders finally understood.
Mordax collapsed to his knees. "He's awake. After all these centuries."
Nyserra screamed. "Jayden opened the Vault. The prophecy was real!"
And Thorne… smiled.
> "Then perhaps it's time the world was rewritten again."
---
Final Scene
In Graveton, Elira looked to the skies.
The clouds parted.
And written across the moon in dark flame was a sigil not seen in millennia:
> The Mark of Ashkar.
The world trembled.
And the blood war…
was reborn.