The Vampire Galaxy had always been ruled with fangs and fire. Its emperor, Drakul Bloodflame, reigned across sixty solar systems with crimson dominion, his dukes and Absolutes enforcing his tyranny through rivers of blood magic. To their neighbors, the vampires were a disease spreading fast, feeding faster, unbroken for millennia.
But empires fall not always to greater armies or grand wars. Sometimes, they fall to shadows.
It began with whispers across three solar systems. Commanders vanished mid-council, legions turned their blades upon themselves, and warships floated derelict in orbit as though their crews had abandoned hope. Within five days, Auro Purir had slipped his threads into every command chain, every stronghold, every soul that could be bound.
The vampires realized too late that they were not fighting an enemy of flesh and steel. They were fighting a puppeteer.
Auro's mastery was not loud. He did not march armies or proclaim conquest. His threads spread like veins of shadow across cities and stars, weaving unseen through minds and bodies. A general raised his sword to rally his troops, only to find his arm moving against his will. A duke commanded his fleet to advance, but the fleet turned its cannons upon him instead.
Even Absolutes beings who once considered themselves untouchable fell prey to his dominion. Their pride crumbled when they realized their own strength was being used as toys. They struck down comrades, laughed when ordered to, wept when commanded, their bodies no longer theirs. In Auro's grip, they were not warriors. They were marionettes.
The Vampire Galaxy had long thrived on fear, but now it was choking on a new terror the horror of being hollowed out, of feeling one's will cut away until nothing remained but strings.
And if Auro's threads enslaved, Linie Purir's wires executed.
Her Eternal Steel Wires were invisible until she chose to reveal them. By then, it was too late. Entire battlefields were already enclosed, her web spread like the skeleton of a cage across planets and void. No one passed her threads and lived.
One vampire Absolute, furious at the enslavement of his kin, charged into her domain, blood magic blazing in an eruption of crimson fire. He boasted that no steel could cut the blood of the ancients. A heartbeat later, his head slid from his neck, his body falling limp. None had seen the strike.
Linie did not gloat. She did not even raise her voice. She simply let the wires hum, her aura sharpening the Eternal Steel into death itself. To the vampires, she was not a woman. She was inevitability given form.
It was whispered among survivors that her wires were not merely weapons but a domain a prison that stretched across three entire solar systems. Cities, palaces, fleets every corner of those worlds existed within her reach. Within that web, resistance was folly. Even the strongest Absolutes lasted only seconds before being severed or bound.
They called her the String of Death.
And yet, while the Purirs brought terror, a third shadow lingered above the fray. Yuri Ardenis sat aboard his spacecraft, orbiting silently over the conquered systems. He did not rush into battle, nor stain his hands in the massacre. Instead, he disassembled his gun, polishing each piece with patient precision.
To most, his detachment would seem arrogance. But Yuri understood his role. The Purirs needed no help in dismantling Absolutes. His task was to remain the quiet blade, untouched, unspent waiting for the moment when desperation might drive the vampires to hurl fleets and warships in suicidal charge.
Only then would his pistol speak, and when it did, the galaxy would shatter further.
Until that day came, he hummed faintly, clicking the weapon back together piece by piece, while outside the stars dimmed in the shadow of wires.
---
At last, Emperor Drakul Bloodflame arrived. His name was legend, his dominion absolute. He ruled sixty solar systems with claws of blood and flame, and he had never known true defeat. When three systems fell silent, he did not come in fear. He came with fury, flanked by his two dukes, determined to punish whatever coward dared sow rebellion.
But the moment his fleet breached orbit, Linie's wires stirred. The stars themselves seemed to fracture as her domain unfolded, an unseen cage spanning entire planets.
Drakul and his dukes reacted instantly. Their blood magic erupted in crimson tides, flooding the void with storms of power. The air itself burned with their defiance. For thirty seconds, the galaxy watched its emperor fight the cage. Thirty seconds of roars, of flames colliding against wires too fine to see, too sharp to resist.
And then silence.
The Eternal Steel cut through blood magic as though it were smoke. Linie's wires coiled tighter, piercing defenses, binding bodies. Auro's threads slipped into their minds, freezing wills, shackling spirits. The great Emperor Drakul Bloodflame, his name whispered with dread across galaxies, fell to his knees, bound like prey. His dukes followed, their flames extinguished.
It was said later that their thirty seconds of resistance were admirable. But admiration did not change the truth they were puppets now, their reign ended not with war, but with strings and wires.
With the emperor bound, the galaxy itself crumbled. Linie's wires spread across system after system, strangling resistance before it sparked. Auro's threads slid into command chains, enslaving entire fleets without a shot fired. Armies surrendered not to mercy but to inevitability.
In seven days, what had once been the proud Vampire Galaxy was reduced to silence. Sixty solar systems, once a bastion of cruelty, bowed in shackles. Their emperor and dukes dangled like captured beasts, their Absolutes reduced to mindless puppets.
The galaxy had been conquered not by legions or grand sieges, but by a pair of shadows and the silent gunman who never needed to fire.
To the vampires, there was no solace in survival. They whispered in their prisons of the Purirs, monsters who could not be touched. To face Auro was to lose oneself. To face Linie was to lose one's body. To fight both was to admit the futility of existence.