Chapter 101 – The Truth Wound Deep
The air inside the throne room had not yet recovered from the silence.
The containment field shimmered faintly behind Alex, its radiant blue edges humming with captured fury. Inside it, Vlad paced like a lion — but his blows had slowed. His threats had quieted. And now, he watched them both with a predator's patience.
But neither Alex nor Mircella looked at him.
They were facing each other.
Alex stood with arms at his sides, calm as ever, his expression unreadable — but not cold. Just still.
Mircella, by contrast, looked like a storm that had been contained too long. Her shoulders were rigid. Her breath trembled. And her crimson eyes, for once, weren't glowing.
They were tired.
"I didn't want you to see this," she said at last.
Her voice was soft. Not fragile — but pulled tight, like it might unravel if one more word were spoken too harshly.
Alex didn't interrupt.
He waited.
Mircella's gaze lowered.
"I've always known what was inside her. Not the full shape. Not the details. But enough."
She took a step toward the fallen throne, her hand briefly brushing the base as if grounding herself.
"For as long as I can remember… I've felt him. Watching through her. Like a thread in the tapestry of our blood, pulling tighter every century."
Her hands clenched at her sides.
"He was her twin. Her opposite. And when she destroyed him two thousand years ago, he wasn't content to die. He… implanted himself into her — a sliver of soul sealed in blood, a curse so patient it might as well have been a god."
Alex's eyes narrowed slightly.
"She told you?"
Mircella nodded slowly. "She told me everything this morning. She's kept it sealed for centuries — with rituals, willpower, raw force. But she's getting tired. He's getting stronger. And this time…"
She looked up at him.
"He's breaking through."
Alex's gaze shifted slightly toward the shimmering field. Inside, Vlad tilted his head with a faint smirk.
"She asked me to kill her," Mircella said quietly.
The words hung in the air like a bell that no one wanted to ring.
"I refused."
Her voice cracked then, just once. Just enough to betray what was coiled underneath.
"I couldn't. I won't."
"She's my mother. She's the reason our bloodline still has meaning. She held off that monster for longer than most nations last. She taught me how to walk in shadow and light."
"She doesn't deserve to die as a vessel."
Mircella stepped forward, closer to Alex now, her voice gaining strength with every word.
"There has to be a way to remove him. To cut him out without destroying her. I don't care how impossible it is. I'll search every ruined temple, unseal every lost archive, shatter every cursed chain — if there's even a chance, I'll take it."
Alex studied her for a long moment.
Then he asked, gently:
"And if there's not?"
Her lips parted.
But no sound came.
Because she didn't have an answer for that.
Or rather — she had one, but couldn't speak it.
Not yet.
Silence returned between them.
Until Mircella finally said:
"I don't expect you to understand."
Alex looked at her.
And then, with that same unshakable calm, he said:
"I do."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"I had parents too," he added. "People who kept secrets to protect me. People who carried burdens in silence."
He turned his gaze toward the containment field — toward Vlad, who now watched with a look not of curiosity, but calculation.
"I won't decide for you."
His voice didn't rise.
But it anchored the room.
"I'll protect you while you choose."
Mircella stared at him for a long time, chest rising and falling too fast.
Then—
Without meaning to, without planning to—
She stepped forward.
And hugged him.
Tightly.
No frills. No royal posture. No vampire elegance.
Just a girl who had been carrying too much, for too long.
Alex didn't move for a moment.
Then — slowly — he placed a hand gently on her back.
Behind them, the force field pulsed.
Inside it, Vlad's smirk faded.
And his eyes narrowed.
Because for the first time in centuries…
He wasn't the one pulling the strings.
Chapter 102 – The Blood That Should Not Separate
The air shifted.
Alex felt it before it happened — a faint tremor in the fabric of the world, like a breath drawn in by something older than the room itself.
Footsteps hadn't landed yet. Wards hadn't flared. But they were coming.
He turned slightly, his gaze narrowing toward the far corner of the throne chamber — toward nothing. Yet.
Not for long.
They were fast, whoever they were. Multiple individuals. One with spiritual pressure like coiled lightning. Others cold and deliberate, with bloodlines that made the very stone tense in reverence.
Then there was the other — a presence he couldn't quantify. Magic older than blood. Logic folded into myth. It brushed against time and left no trace.
Alex didn't know his name.
But he knew his kind.
And Alex didn't want to be known.
Not yet.
Without a word, his hoodie shimmered — a wave of data-light ran down his sleeves. Circuit traces flickered across his back and chest. In an instant, the fabric unfolded and reshaped, wrapping tightly to his body.
Black armor replaced the hoodie.
Sleek. Silent. Built not for show — but function.
The weave bore fine glowing blue circuits, crawling like living sigils. A mask closed over his face, flat and expressionless, with a soft pulse at the center. His aura faded, dampened, hidden.
When the chamber doors opened with a boom that echoed like the closing of an era—
He was ready.
Twelve vampire lords entered first — figures of grace, menace, and undeniable age. Cloaks trailed behind them like shrouds of legacy. Their eyes scanned the room with thousand-year instincts sharpened for threat, and many stopped dead upon seeing the Queen.
But it was the thirteenth figure who drew breath from the room.
A man in a dark cloak, carrying no visible weapon, glowing with quiet power that bent the light around him like it was listening.
He stepped slowly into the center of the chamber, gaze sweeping across the stone, across the force field...
...and rested on Alex.
Or rather — the figure in high-tech armor standing in front of the containment.
No one could see his face.
No one could read his aura.
But they felt the weight of his stillness.
Vlad still hovered inside the force field, snarling faintly, watching everyone like a chained god waiting for a mistake.
"...Who did this?" one of the vampire lords finally whispered.
No one answered.
But all eyes turned to Alex.
Even Merlin's.
"We felt his awakening," said Lord Kaelis, stepping forward. "The last time Vlad stirred, half a city collapsed into blood. We had no choice but to act."
His voice was cold, but not cruel.
"We came to seal him. Permanently. And if that means sealing the Queen's body along with him… so be it."
Mircella stepped forward sharply.
"No."
Her voice echoed.
"I told you, I won't let you bury her alive just to trap him again."
Another lord — Lady Valtesa — stepped in, her tone heavy.
"Mircella… he cannot be separated. We've tried. For centuries. His blood is not inside her. It has become part of her."
"She may be your mother… but she is also his anchor."
Mircella's fists clenched.
"No."
"She held him back for two thousand years. If there's any chance we can—"
"There isn't," Kaelis said gently.
"And if you wait… he'll devour what's left of her."
All eyes turned to the black-armored figure.
Still silent.
Still unmoving.
Then — slowly — Alex stepped forward.
The containment field behind him pulsed once in acknowledgment.
He said nothing.
He simply reached out his hand toward the Queen's throne.
One of the lords stepped forward in alarm. "What are you—?!"
But Merlin lifted a hand.
"Wait."
Alex's hand hovered over the Queen's chest — not touching, not intruding — and he focused.
And in his mind, everything came into view.
He didn't see blood.
He saw systems.
Atomic bonds.
Molecular structures.
A living architecture built on magic and biology. Dozens of layers of intertwined identities.
And somewhere, within the Queen's body — strands of tainted blood, pulsing with a different signature. Older. Wrong. Like a parasite wired directly into her essence.
Alex didn't blink.
He didn't flinch.
He calculated.
And cast a spell of his own design.
A whisper of code.
A molecular separation directive.
A command to unbind.
In silence, the blood began to move.
From her chest, faint red wisps began to spiral upward — not violently, not torn, but lifted. Extracted with surgical precision that not even magic should allow.
The blood pulsed in the air.
And gathered in his hand.
It twisted.
Clotted.
Solidified — into a sphere of ancient, corrupted blood, still shuddering with embedded will.
Vlad's blood.
And it was out.
Completely.
The chamber was dead silent.
Even Vlad — inside the field — froze.
The lords stared, eyes wide.
Merlin's expression didn't change.
But his fingers tightened slightly at his side.
Mircella gasped, stepping closer to the Queen — who now breathed evenly, no longer trembling, her aura stabilizing.
Alex held the blood in his hand, the sphere of pulsing red hovering just above his palm.
He turned slightly, his voice calm through the modulated armor.
"It wasn't impossible."
He looked at them all.
"You just couldn't do it."
Chapter 103 – The Ones Who Stared Too Long
For a long, terrible second, no one spoke.
The throne room — steeped in legacy, sealed by magic, carved from centuries of fear and law — was now a place of uncertainty.
Because floating just above Alex's armored palm…
...was the impossible.
A pulsing sphere of Vlad's blood, completely extracted, separated at the molecular level, still vibrating with embedded spite and malignant will — and yet no longer bound to the Queen.
There was no damage to her.
No curse backlash.
No soul collapse.
It had been done with surgical silence, like a dream rewritten mid-sentence.
The Vampire Lords
Lord Kaelis, the eldest, stood motionless — his hand hovering near the hilt of a ceremonial dagger he no longer remembered drawing. His eyes, red as garnet, stared not at the blood…
…but at the man.
Or rather, the thing in black armor, with no visible aura, no known bloodline, and a presence that made his instincts scream caution.
"He separated it," Kaelis said at last, voice low.
"He removed it…"
Lady Valtesa took a half-step forward, then stopped. Her lips parted, but no words came. For a moment, she looked at Mircella, then back at the floating blood, and then to the armored figure — as if trying to decide which part of the scene was least believable.
"This… can't be magic," muttered Lord Solmir. "At least, not as we understand it. That's not a ritual. That's not bloodweaving. That's…"
He looked at the cube-like emitter floating silently near the containment field — still humming faintly.
"…technology?"
"No," Kaelis whispered. "It's both."
Mircella Draculesti
Mircella couldn't move.
She stood near the throne, her hands shaking faintly — not from fear, but from something that felt dangerously close to relief.
She looked at her mother — Queen Ileana — whose breath was calm now, whose aura no longer felt compromised.
Then she looked at the sphere in Alex's hand.
Then at him.
And her heart almost refused to process what it saw.
He didn't just protect her.
He saved her.
He did what no one else in the world — no one in the court, no mage, no legend — ever could.
Her lips parted softly, eyes wide.
"Alex…"
But the name caught behind her breath.
Because the person standing there wasn't "Alex" anymore.
He was still him — but veiled, masked, enclosed in armor that gave no clue to who he truly was.
And yet, when he glanced toward her, even through the mask—
She knew.
It was still him.
And her heart nearly broke with gratitude.
Merlin
The figure in the cloak — the thirteenth to enter, the one none of the lords dared interrupt — stood absolutely still.
But inside?
Merlin was reeling.
That's not possible.
The thought came first.
But then came the others — cascading, violent, undeniable.
No recorded spell can identify and isolate embedded soul-blood this precisely.
There was no chant. No catalyst. No mana flare. No leyline activation.
He didn't even use a name of power.
It was silent. It was clean.
He had seen miracles.
He had caused some.
He had rewritten laws of spellcraft under three different gods.
But this?
This felt post-magical.
Like watching a child rearrange the stars and call it weather.
His expression barely twitched — only the barest lift of a brow — but his fingers under the robe were clenched so tightly they ached.
He watched the armored figure without blinking.
Who are you?
What did you learn that we forgot?
What are you hiding from us?
For the first time in centuries, Merlin felt irrelevant.
The throne room remained breathless.
Even Vlad, sealed behind the shimmering containment field, had grown silent — his smirk faded, replaced with something colder.
Watching.
Calculating.
Alex turned slightly, his voice flat through the modulated mask.
"She's safe now."
He let the sphere of blood float upward, his hand releasing it to hover in a stasis field beside the containment shell.
"I've removed the anchor."
Then, without waiting for praise or permission, he stepped back from the throne — standing once again in silence near the wall, as if he hadn't just redefined what the vampire world believed possible.
The armor pulsed faintly with blue light.
And Alex said nothing more.
The sphere of blood hovered in the air — dark, crimson-black, swirling with sluggish malice. It pulsed faintly, like a still-beating heart sealed in a stasis loop.
To most, it was silent.
Lifeless.
Contained.
But inside the sphere…
Vlad raged.
How?
The thought echoed through the cursed blood like a scream in a sealed tomb.
How did he find the pattern?
How did he reach inside — through ritual, lineage, identity — and simply extract me?
He had waited two thousand years, surviving in slivers of thought and memory, curled like a whisper beneath the Queen's heart.
He had endured pain, suppression, exile, and silence.
He had almost returned.
And now?
He was floating, bound by no coffin or seal — but by something clean, logical, and utterly alien to him.
He reached out with blood-sense. Tried to whisper into nearby minds. Tried to burrow.
But every vector was sealed.
Not by brute force.
Not by runes.
But by a flawless structure — a prison without cruelty, without gaps. Not designed to torture.
Designed to contain.
And that terrified him more.
What is that boy?
That thing?
That isn't human magic. That's something else. That's—
The sphere pulsed once.
Then silenced.
In the room, all eyes remained fixed on the blood.
And then Alex's voice — calm, flat, precise — cut through the stillness like a scalpel:
"What do you want me to do with it?"
He gestured toward the floating sphere.
The question wasn't casual.
It wasn't boastful.
It was honest.
He was holding the blood of the greatest vampire threat in history — and he could disintegrate it, preserve it, study it, or seal it forever…
And he didn't particularly care which.
He was giving them the choice.
Which somehow made it worse.
The court stayed silent.
Because no one, not even Merlin, had an answer yet.
Chapter 104 – Behind the Mask, Beside the Throne
The air still hadn't moved.
Twelve vampire lords stood like statues. Merlin remained silent, his gaze sharp behind ancient eyes. Even Queen Ileana, slowly regaining herself, had not yet spoken — not out of weakness, but wonder.
All of them were watching him.
The black-armored figure whose voice cut like thought itself.
The boy — if he was a boy — who had undone an ancient curse without flinching.
Alex looked down at the floating clot of blood — the pulsing, bound fragment of Vlad Dracula, now harmless, helpless, and inert.
Then, without ceremony or hesitation, he flicked his wrist.
The blood sphere floated across the room — slow, smooth, perfectly stable — until it hovered above the hands of Lord Kaelis.
Kaelis instinctively took a step back.
Alex spoke, voice low and flat through the helmet:
"Deal with it."
He paused.
"He won't wake up again."
That single sentence hit harder than any spell.
It was not a boast.
It was a conclusion.
Then he turned away.
Before any of the lords could react — before Merlin could speak, before Valtesa could step forward with a dozen questions — Mircella moved.
She stepped between them and Alex with all the grace of royalty and the force of a declaration.
"He comes with me."
No one dared argue.
Not even Merlin.
They moved quickly down the side corridor, the heavy doors of the throne chamber closing behind them with a low, booming finality.
The hall was dim — lit only by old flame orbs floating above velvet walls, their glow soft and amber. Footsteps echoed gently on polished obsidian stone.
For several seconds, neither of them said anything.
Then they stopped in an alcove beside a tall window of stained red glass. The glass depicted the Queen — not as a ruler, but as a protector, holding the world beneath her hands.
Mircella turned.
Looked up at him.
"You didn't have to do that."
Her voice was quiet, but different than before — not tired, not shaken.
Raw.
Alex didn't respond.
The armor hid his face. His aura was still veiled. His presence unreadable.
But he was listening.
Mircella stepped closer.
"I was ready to fight the whole court to protect her. To protect what little time I had left."
She looked down at her hands, then at him.
"And then you… just took the impossible and made it boring."
Her voice trembled slightly — part laugh, part disbelief.
"I didn't even say goodbye."
She clenched her fists. Then quickly unclenched them.
"You saved her. You saved me."
Her eyes rose again.
"I don't know what you are. I don't know how you did it. And right now, I don't care."
She reached up.
Her hand touched the side of his helmet, fingers brushing the smooth, matte surface.
"You were him," she whispered. "Even with the armor on. I knew it was still you."
Her thumb hovered where his cheek would be.
"Thank you."
A long silence passed.
Then Alex finally spoke, his voice low — not modulated anymore, just him.
"You're welcome."
Mircella didn't smile.
Not yet.
But her body finally relaxed — as if something that had been curled tight for centuries had finally let go.
Mircella stood close, her crimson eyes reflecting the flickering amber light from the corridor's flame orbs. Her fingers still rested against the smooth surface of his helmet, her presence steady but unreadable now — like still water that ran too deep for certainty.
Then, softly—
"Bend down."
Alex blinked.
He didn't question it.
There was no hesitation, no resistance — just that same quiet clarity with which he faced everything else.
He leaned forward.
Lowered his head slightly toward her.
She reached up again — carefully, gently — and placed both her hands along the sides of his armored neck.
And then, without warning…
She kissed him.
Her lips touched his — soft, brief, and impossibly warm against the cold matte of his mask. And yet…
The helmet had opened.
Silently, subtly, the mouthplate had retracted just before contact, as if the armor itself understood that resistance here would be a mistake.
She stood on her toes — all 137 centimeters of royal vampire absurdity, dressed in velvet and defiance — reaching just far enough to meet him.
The kiss was not long.
It wasn't fierce.
But it was real.
Strange.
Unmistakably hers.
When she stepped back, her face betrayed no embarrassment — only the faintest smile curling at the corner of her lips.
"I owed you that," she said simply.
Then, with impeccable dignity and the poise of someone who'd just stolen a kingdom's worth of surprise from a boy who could bend atoms, she added:
"Don't overthink it."
And turned to walk calmly down the hallway — her boots clicking softly against the obsidian tile, each step like a heartbeat in an echo chamber.
Alex remained where he was, slightly bent forward, helmet half-open, expression unreadable.
And for once in his life…
He wasn't sure what just happened.
Chapter 105 – The Queen Without Chains
The throne room was quieter now.
The vampire lords had stepped back, murmuring among themselves in small, tight circles of disbelief. Merlin had left the chamber with a blank expression and a dozen burning questions behind his eyes. The blood clot containing Vlad had been sealed within five separate containers, each more terrified of the sphere than the last.
But at the heart of the silence, seated on her throne of obsidian roses and immortal dignity…
Queen Ileana Draculesti opened her eyes.
They were no longer dim.
No longer strained by the constant internal resistance of an ancient enemy.
Her gaze — ageless, regal, heavy with centuries of burden — now shimmered with something strange and almost childlike.
Relief.
Her hands moved gently, unfurling from her lap as if testing the air.
"I can't feel him," she whispered. "I can't feel him anymore."
The last trace of Vlad — the thread that had shadowed her heartbeat for two thousand years — was gone.
It was like remembering how to breathe after living in smoke.
She exhaled slowly.
And then, with sharp precision, she turned her head.
"Mircella."
Her daughter stepped forward instantly, barely able to suppress the tears in her eyes. "Mother…"
Ileana smiled faintly. "Come closer, little one. I haven't seen you in peace for… far too long."
Mircella moved to her side — they exchanged no more words at first. Just the press of foreheads and the silence that came from surviving something together that no one else could understand.
Then the Queen whispered something.
Mircella looked back over her shoulder.
And nodded.
Moments Later – Private Audience Chamber
Alex stood still, his armor partially retracted now, face exposed but unreadable. He remained near the far end of the chamber, gazing out through a stained glass window that shimmered with bloodlight.
The door opened.
And Queen Ileana entered.
She did not glide. She did not float. She walked — tall, deliberate, with the full force of someone who had died in every way that mattered and returned clean.
"You must be the one," she said softly.
Alex turned to face her.
"I was the one nearby."
A flicker of amusement touched her lips.
"I see she gets her talent for understatement from you."
She approached slowly, not like a queen appraising a knight — but like a mother trying to understand the gravity of a miracle.
"I remember you… briefly," she said, tilting her head. "Through the haze. You stood in front of him. You were a wall."
"You didn't just break his grip."
"You erased him."
Alex didn't respond. Not right away.
Then:
"I didn't like what he was doing to your daughter."
The Queen stopped.
Her crimson eyes met his.
And she smiled — not the smile of a monarch, but of a woman who had seen all things, lost all things, and finally found something new.
"You didn't just save me," she said. "You saved her. Because if she had killed me… she would never have recovered."
Another silence stretched.
Then she said, casually, as if asking whether he preferred tea or wine:
"Would you like to marry us?"
Alex blinked.
"…What?"
She clasped her hands behind her back.
"My daughter, obviously," she clarified. "But I am also unwed. And I do believe in practical contracts."
"…You're asking me to marry your daughter."
"And potentially me."
He stared at her.
She was serious.
Perfect posture. Calm tone. Regal expression.
Utter sincerity.
"I believe in rewarding saviors properly," she added. "And I'm told you're remarkably durable."
Alex looked at her. Then past her — toward the door she came through.
"…Did Mircella put you up to this?"
"No," the Queen said. "But she did kiss you."
Alex went quiet again.
Then finally, with absolute deadpan delivery, he said:
"That explains the ambient weirdness."
Queen Ileana smiled, wider this time.
"Oh, child," she said softly. "You have no idea how weird it could get."
Alex remained still after her proposal. Unblinking. Neutral.
And Queen Ileana — centuries-old sovereign, ruler of the Crimson Court, legend among legends — simply smiled in return. Perfect posture. Impeccable tone. No tremble in her voice, no hint of emotion.
On the surface, she was grace incarnate.
But inside her mind?
A storm.
Inside Queen Ileana's Thoughts
He didn't flinch. Not once.
Not when he touched the curse.
Not when he held my soul in balance.
Not when he faced twelve vampire lords and the weight of my throne like it was a hallway breeze.
I've lived through empires, extinctions, and resurrection.
I've seen men bend mountains to reach me.
I've turned kings into shadows for speaking too boldly.
But this one…
This one walks like the world obeys him, and yet he doesn't demand it to.
She watched his expression — unreadable, steady, unshaken even in the face of her most absurd offer.
And he's modest, too. Silent when others would boast.
Controlled when most would scream.
And that mind… gods, that mind. I could feel the precision in his magic — it wasn't cast, it was engineered. He didn't use power. He used understanding.
He looked at a curse that broke archmages and said: "I'll take that apart."
I like him.
No, I want him.
Her fingers curled slightly behind her back.
Mircella saw it first, didn't she? Clever child. I'd tease her for kissing him so soon… but truthfully? I'm only annoyed I didn't think of it first.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, just a breath of expression sharpening at the corners.
He may walk away. He may bow politely and disappear into the fog like a man who never existed.
But I won't let him go.
He broke the laws I built this court on… and made me thank him for it.
And if I have to marry him into the bloodline to keep him here…
So be it.
Let the world gossip.
Let the court whisper.
He's mine now.
And on the outside, as all these thoughts rolled like lightning beneath the surface, Queen Ileana simply tilted her head…
…and smiled.
Alex remained standing, calm but visibly uncomfortable under the weight of the Queen's proposal. His face — exposed now with the helmet retracted — was just as unreadable as ever… except for the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
A hesitation.
A flicker of boyish awkwardness.
Then he spoke.
"…I appreciate the offer," he said slowly, his voice steady but quieter than before, "but… I'm still seventeen."
Queen Ileana blinked.
Just once.
Then smiled again — a touch smaller this time, a hint of amused disappointment hidden behind ancient grace.
"Ah," she said lightly. "A detail."
She took a soft breath, nodded like a sovereign who'd just been informed her wine would arrive slightly late.
"Then I shall refrain… for now."
She turned slightly, folding her hands behind her back with practiced elegance. But as she walked away from him, her expression changed ever so slightly.
Inside Queen Ileana's Thoughts
Seventeen, he says.
He thinks that matters to me.
I've waited through dynasties. I've slept through ice ages and watched bloodlines fade to dust.
What is one year to me?
A breath. A blink. A moment I can spend arranging the wedding flowers in advance.
Her lips curled faintly as she walked.
Seventeen today.
Eighteen tomorrow.
And tomorrow... I'll ask again.
And this time, I won't ask alone.
She cast a single glance over her shoulder.
Alex was still standing there, faintly flushed, pretending not to look flustered.
He really is adorable.
Mine.
Silence still hung over the council chamber after Alex spoke:
"I can erase it."
The words echoed through obsidian and spell-sealed stone. A few vampire lords exchanged glances — skeptical, unsure. Merlin leaned forward, eyes narrowing not in doubt, but in study.
But Alex?
He wasn't thinking about them.
He was thinking about something else.
Inside Alex's Thoughts
The ion missile.
He remembered the moment vividly — back in World Frontier, standing at the edge of the final corrupted zone, watching as a mountain-sized structure of rot and malice swallowed forests and worlds like breath.
He had built the ion missile not as a weapon…
…but as a solution.
A spell-forged device, part magical, part engineered, created to strip everything from existence — atoms, energy, concepts, even mana patterns.
He had launched it into the center of the Corruption's root heart.
And watched it erase a hundred kilometers of space.
Clean.
Silent.
Absolute.
The ground hadn't just been destroyed — it had been reverted to blank substrate. No memory, no echo, no data trace. Not even divination could find what had once been there.
And now I'll make it smaller, he thought.
Much smaller.
Not a missile.
Not even a projectile.
Just a core.
Encased. Scaled. Focused.
A compression-tier detonation device no larger than a gemstone.
Enough to erase the clot, and only the clot.
Not a single molecule would remain.
Not even Vlad's hate.
Alex raised his eyes again to the floating sphere of blood.
And for the first time since entering the room…
His voice changed.
Not louder.
Not colder.
Just final.
"I have something I've used before."
"I'll rebuild it. Shrink it. Target it to this."
"When it activates, there won't be blood."
"There won't be anything."
The room was silent again.
But now the silence was different.
Not fear.
Not reverence.
Not confusion.
It was the silence of people watching a new kind of power being quietly uncoiled in front of them — and knowing they were no longer the ones who got to decide what was possible.
Chapter 107–108 – What Cannot Be Reborn
No one spoke when Alex moved.
He stepped forward from the far end of the chamber, the black armor shifting around him with soft mechanical clicks and arcane pulses of light. His helmet remained fully sealed, smooth and expressionless, veiling his face in polished black matte.
There was no reveal. No dramatic removal.
His face was already hidden. And he had no intention of letting anyone see it.
Not here.
Not now.
He was not afraid of recognition — only of what that recognition might pull toward him.
A soft ring of blue light shimmered in the air above his palm — a dimensional access weave. But even this looked different from any summoning or storage magic the vampire lords had seen before. The structure of the ring spun with layered symbols that weren't runes — they moved with precision, folding and unfolding like gears of light.
From it, Alex drew components.
Small at first. Inert. Fragments of material that meant nothing to anyone watching.
Until he began assembling them.
And then… the silence deepened.
What he touched, none of them recognized.
The casing alloy was not steel, not silver, not dragonbone or adamantite. It looked like starlight frozen in obsidian — dark and soft-edged, but thrumming beneath the surface.
The core was translucent, crystalline — suspended in the center was a spiral of sigils, but none of them belonged to any language the court had ever cataloged.
There was no wand.
No chant.
No magic circle.
Just motion — clean, deliberate, efficient. The type of motion that only came from absolute understanding.
And then came the markings.
Carved not with a chisel, but with a penlike device glowing with white-blue light, Alex began etching what looked like runes — except they weren't runes.
They were magic circuits.
Curved and angular patterns with microscopic branches, like veins running across a living map. They didn't just store power. They conducted it, synchronized it, manipulated it with precision not seen even in high-elven spell architecture.
Some of the vampire lords leaned forward in their chairs without realizing it.
Others said nothing — because they didn't understand enough to speak.
Even Merlin, for all his centuries, remained silent. Watching. Learning.
This isn't spellcasting, he thought.
This is something before spellcasting. Or after it. Something we skipped.
Within minutes, Alex was finished.
Hovering above his palm was a black device, no larger than a fruit pit — oval, dense, with glowing circuits along its surface. It hummed faintly, not like mana, but like calculation. A contained silence, ready to detonate with decision.
And then came the worst silence of all.
The one that wasn't outside.
It was inside the clot.
Inside the Blood – Vlad's Final Fragment
He had no eyes. No mouth. No bones. No throne.
But he was still there.
Flickering.
Thinking.
Waiting.
Until now.
What is he doing?
There was no soul tether to crawl through.
No spellline to corrupt.
No sentient connection to pull on.
What is that?
The pressure built — not heat, not force — but a hum. Something that resonated at a level even blood could fear.
That's not magic.
That's not a curse.
That's not a seal.
And then…
He's going to erase me.
Not destroy.
Not contain.
Erase.
I won't return this time.
There will be no regrowth. No followers to rebind me. No ashes to echo from.
This time… there will be nothing.
The clot shuddered.
Faintly.
But Alex saw it.
He looked at the blood.
And for a moment, the two stood in silence.
One man.
One parasite.
No more words between them.
Alex turned to the table, the council, the Queen, the Princess, and Merlin.
The device hovered.
His voice was steady, flat, final:
"It's ready."
There were no last words.
No pleading.
No bargains.
Just a small object hovering in a still, sealed chamber — pulsing quietly like a mechanical heart that had never learned to beat with fear.
The micro-ion core.
Black as midnight, lined with glowing blue magic circuits, alive with unfathomable purpose.
It floated above Alex's gloved palm, humming softly as though anticipating the moment it had been built for.
At the center of the room — suspended in a spell-stabilized stasis field — the blood clot containing the last vestige of Vlad Dracula still pulsed.
But even that pulse was faltering now.
It knows, Alex thought.
Behind him, the chamber was silent.
Twelve vampire lords.
Queen Ileana.
Princess Mircella.
And Merlin, who said nothing at all.
None of them moved.
Because they understood — consciously or not — that they were about to witness something absolute.
Alex raised his other hand.
The ion core responded — lifting, rotating slightly in the air.
He adjusted the angle.
Checked the harmonics.
Refined the density compression matrix inside the containment shell — all without speaking.
No spell words. No gestures. Just thought.
He calibrated the device down to the molecular annihilation level — ensuring the blast would target only the clot. Nothing else.
Not the Queen.
Not the room.
Not the world.
Only Vlad.
Only him.
Then, softly:
"Execute."
The ion core chirped — one soft, high-pitched tone, like a memory breaking.
It floated forward.
Entered the stasis field.
Pressed gently against the surface of the blood clot.
The magic circuits ignited, flashing in rapid cascading rings, rotating inward.
And then—
It detonated.
But there was no sound.
No fire.
No explosion.
Just…
absence.
The blood clot didn't burn.
It didn't dissolve.
It simply ceased.
One moment it was there — an ancient terror, a legacy of death, a curse that had haunted the world for two millennia.
And the next, there was nothing.
No particles.
No aura.
No soul resonance.
Not even the stasis field remained.
The device had erased it on a level that went beyond destruction.
It had unwritten it.
The chamber remained still.
Alex lowered his hand.
The ion core, now dark and inert, folded in on itself — vanishing into a small pulse of blue light, then disappearing entirely.
He exhaled once.
Only once.
And turned away.
Behind him, silence lingered.
Mircella was the first to breathe.
Queen Ileana blinked once, slowly, like someone waking from a longer sleep than expected.
Lord Kaelis sat back in his chair without realizing it.
And Merlin…
Merlin simply stared.
Still.
Not with fear.
Not even awe.
But with respect.
Deep. Old. Reluctant.
But real.
Because Vlad Dracula — the nightmare, the founder, the shadow stitched into the spine of vampire history — was gone.
Truly gone.
And the one who erased him?
Didn't even seem impressed by it.
Chapter 109 – The Year She Would Wait
Word spread like blood through veins.
By the time Alex left the sealed chamber, the entire upper court had already begun whispering — and those whispers were cracking into something louder. Not hysteria. Not reverence. Something far more dangerous:
Uncertainty.
In the Upper Halls of the Crimson Court
Nobles gathered in carved stone corridors lined with flame-crystal sconces and bloodwoven tapestries. Their voices — usually calm and formal — now ran with disbelief.
"He erased Vlad."
"I heard he didn't cast a single spell."
"Not even the Queen could do that—"
"What was that device?"
"Was he a mage? A god? A weapon?"
"And he's gone now? Just like that?"
The lords and ladies of the blood-born elite couldn't process it.
Because for millennia, Vlad Dracula had been the unkillable threat — a buried shadow beneath every treaty, every war, every coronation.
To them, his presence was history itself.
And now?
He was gone.
Not sealed.
Not banished.
Erased.
No chant. No divine ritual. No council vote.
Just one figure in black armor.
And silence.
Some were relieved.
Others were afraid.
A few were furious.
But none dared act.
Because Queen Ileana had spoken.
And when the Queen spoke, the world rearranged itself.
In the Queen's Private Garden – One Hour Later
The garden was quiet — open to the moonlight, surrounded by black-marble arches and sapphire blossoms that only bloomed under starlight.
Alex stood at the far end, overlooking the pond.
Still armored. Still faceless. Still unreadable.
Queen Ileana walked beside him, long hair trailing behind her like dark silk. Beside her was Mircella, dressed in soft crimson, her hands gently clasped.
There were no guards.
No nobles.
No pretense.
Just them.
And the future.
"It's strange," Ileana said at last, her voice calm and elegant as ever. "How something so large… can end so quietly."
She turned to him.
"But maybe that's the way it should be."
Alex didn't respond.
Mircella smiled gently.
"You didn't even ask for anything," she said. "No reward. No recognition."
Alex shrugged lightly. "I didn't do it for that."
"No," Ileana said. "You did it for us."
Her voice dropped a register.
"Which is why I'll only say this once."
She took a breath.
Her smile returned — regal, amused, but unmistakably sincere.
"We'll wait."
Alex blinked.
She met his gaze — or the smooth, mirrored surface of his helmet — and said it again, more clearly:
"One year. For your eighteenth birthday."
"And then we'll discuss the wedding."
Mircella nodded beside her mother, eyes shining. "You won't get away from us forever."
She looked up at him, that mischievous tilt returning to her lips.
"And don't think the kiss doesn't count."
Alex, still silent, looked between them.
He didn't deny it.
He didn't object.
And somehow… that said more than any promise.
Elsewhere in the Court
Merlin stood atop a balcony overlooking the gardens, robes fluttering slightly in the night breeze.
He said nothing.
But in his hand, he held a small folded note — something Alex had left behind when the core vanished.
Just three words, written in perfect, engineered script:
"Don't follow me."
Merlin smiled.
A slow, amused, frustrated smile.
Too late, boy.
I already am.
Chapter 110 – Of Taste and Temptation
Peace, it turned out, had a strange sound.
It wasn't silence.
It was laughter behind closed doors, soft footsteps on old stone, the rustle of night-scented trees swaying over immortal gardens. It was the absence of weight — and in its place, something gentler. Something warm.
It was three people sharing a room that had once held a thousand years of tension — and now only smelled faintly of cinnamon and sizzling garlic.
Alex had removed the armor.
The black plating was gone, folded back into dimensional storage. No one in the castle recognized him now — not in his plain black hoodie and casual demeanor. He walked unnoticed through the halls, invisible in the way that only someone anonymous could be.
But in a private corner of the royal residential wing, he was not invisible.
He stood by the stove, sleeves rolled up, focused.
Chopping.
Simmering.
Tasting.
And behind him, at a small round table, Queen Ileana Draculesti sat with crossed legs and a thoughtful look in her eye.
She was watching him.
Openly.
And intensely.
He wasn't saying much. He never did.
But the kitchen's warmth, the rhythm of cooking, the subtle clatter of utensils — it settled something inside her.
He doesn't act like a man who erased a god, she thought.
He acts like a boy trying to make the perfect breakfast.
It disarmed her.
And then she really looked at him.
Not the armor.
Not the mystery.
Him.
His posture. His hands. The sharp lines of his jaw. The way his hoodie clung slightly to his shoulders as he reached for a spice jar with thoughtless ease.
And slowly, a smile curled at the corner of her mouth.
He's handsome, she admitted.
Very.
My type, actually.
Dangerous on the inside. Calm on the outside. Deadly with silence.
And he can cook.
She narrowed her eyes, intrigued.
I'm in trouble.
When the food was ready, he served it without flourish.
Just three simple plates — golden rice, seared vegetables, and perfectly grilled meat glazed in something sweet and savory. A touch of herb oil. A side of crisp bread still warm from a conjured oven. Steam drifted upward like incense.
Mircella was the first to take a bite.
She paused.
Closed her eyes.
Chewed slowly.
And let out the softest sigh she had ever made in front of another human being.
"Okay," she said. "That's not fair."
Queen Ileana raised a brow and took her first bite.
Then stopped.
Her lips parted slightly. She blinked once.
"...What is this?" she asked, genuinely stunned.
"Food," Alex said simply.
"No," she corrected. "This is… something else."
She took another bite.
Then another.
Her fork clinked softly against the plate. "This is better than anything my chefs have ever made."
"And one of them cooked for three emperors."
Mircella was already reaching for seconds.
Alex said nothing.
But the corner of his mouth twitched — almost, but not quite, a smile.
They ate quietly, comfortably.
A vampire queen, her daughter, and the boy who had erased Vlad from existence, all seated around a kitchen table that no one else would ever see.
And when the plates were empty, and the dishes were cleared with casual magic, Queen Ileana stood.
She walked to Alex.
Slowly.
Gracefully.
Until she stood just before him — close, but not imposing.
Her eyes gleamed like wine under moonlight.
And her voice, when it came, was velvet and velvet alone:
"...I wonder."
He looked at her.
She tilted her head.
"If your food tastes this good…"
She leaned in — just enough that her breath touched his collarbone.
"...what must your blood taste like?"
The room went very, very quiet.
Mircella didn't object.
She just blinked. Curiously.
Alex?
He didn't answer.
But his eyes met hers — calm, steady, and unreadable.
And that silence was not a refusal.
The room had grown very still after Queen Ileana's question:
"...What must your blood taste like?"
She didn't ask with hunger.
She asked with curiosity.
Admiration.
Maybe even something a little more dangerous.
She didn't reach for him.
Didn't press.
She simply stood in front of him, expression calm but eyes glowing like tempered flame.
Then, softly:
"May I taste it?"
The question was so quiet it might have been mistaken for a breath.
Alex didn't answer at first.
He stood perfectly still.
Mircella tilted her head slightly but didn't interrupt. She was watching too — closely, but not possessively. Like someone who already knew the outcome.
Alex exhaled slowly through his nose.
Then nodded.
Only once.
And turned slightly to the side.
He lifted one hand — his right — and held it in front of him. Then, with his other hand, he pulled a slender needle from a conjured drawer nearby. Precise. Clean. Surgical.
Before it touched him, he softened his skin — adjusting his END stat control to allow for penetration.
A tiny prick.
A drop of blood rose from the tip of his finger.
Dark red.
Glowing faintly.
Thick with something beyond mana.
Ileana watched the droplet bead like it was a royal jewel.
Then, gracefully, she reached forward — not with hands, but with her lips.
And took his finger into her mouth.
Just the tip.
Alex froze slightly, shoulders tensing. Not from fear.
But from sheer, unfamiliar awkwardness.
His ears were faintly pink.
He didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Her mouth was soft. Warm. Her lips closed gently around his finger.
And then—
She drank.
Not greedily.
But with slow, exquisite focus.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
She tasted him the way a sommelier might taste the last bottle of a forbidden vintage.
And when she pulled back, lips parting with a soft, quiet sound, she sighed — slow and deep.
"…That," she whispered, "is the best blood I have ever tasted."
She looked up at him, her voice low.
"Better than angels."
"Better than fae."
"Better than the blessed."
Another breath.
"You," she said, "are the finest flavor on this earth."
Alex looked away slightly.
Still quiet.
Still pink.
Still completely lost on how to respond.
Mircella, at the table, calmly picked up her tea and sipped — and said nothing.
But her smile betrayed everything.