Later that same night, Victor returned to the underground chamber where he had trained until he nearly collapsed just two hours earlier.
The corridor was too silent.
That door… Yes… that was it… How could he have forgotten?
But, thinking about it, it made sense. At that time, his mind was in ruins. He had just received the fatal diagnosis. Years of life reduced to a cruel countdown. The clan, politics, rivalries… none of that mattered when existence itself was doomed.
He didn't pay attention to the details… And that's exactly why he didn't realize the true trigger of the massacre.
The incident would happen in two years.
Exactly two years.
When the Blood Festival began.
The Blood Festival was the most sacred event of the Valentine clan. The celebration where the new generation received the ritual conducted by the Matriarch, Carmilla Valentine.
A single drop of the Matriarch's blood.
That was all.
But that drop carried centuries of refined power, pure bloodline, absolute authority. The ritual accelerated vampiric maturity, stabilized bloodline heritage, and practically guaranteed that the young would awaken their maximum potential.
It was called the Coming of Age Ritual.
A promise of the future.
A guarantee of supremacy.
And then…
A month before the festival.
The werewolves attacked.
It wasn't a battle.
It was a massacre.
They invaded the underground base when most of the high command was away on diplomatic negotiations. A rare opening. Planned. Surgical.
Among the absentees was, of course, Serafall Valentine.
She returned amidst the chaos.
Too late to save the clan.
Early enough to save Victor.
She emerged from the blood and screams, grabbed him before the claws reached him—and disappeared into the shadows.
That wind… Victor felt that same wind that night.
Cold. Unnatural. Alive. And with it… a laugh.
A demonic laugh that echoed before the flames consumed the entire Valentine residence. He remembered the sound burning in his ears as the world crumbled around him.
He knew it was something… or rather… someone… He just didn't know who.
"Let's see…" he murmured.
He approached the enormous steel door with a curious but attentive gaze. His own mother couldn't see that thing. Nor could Serafall.
That meant only one thing… It was unique… And if it was unique… It was important.
"Very well… that night, something awakened. Of that I am certain." He touched the cold metal with his fingertips. "Don't tell me you were behind that door this whole time…" Victor tilted his head slightly, thoughtful.
Silence.
"Fuck it." He finished, and he positioned both hands against the door and pushed.
But… nothing! Not a single creak or vibration, not a single excruciating sound… just… Nothing! Simply nothing!!
"Hm?" He frowned and forced harder. The muscles in his arms contracted. The veins bulged under his skin. The floor beneath his feet cracked slightly with the pressure.
"Damn it!!! This is fucking heavy!!" He growled through his teeth and pushed with all his might.
His blood circulated faster. The newly awakened power reacted to the effort.
Even so—
NO.
IT.
MOVED.
The door remained motionless… Untouchable… As if it were stuck not to the floor… But to reality itself.
Victor took a step back, breathing heavier, staring at the structure with growing irritation. "You're messing with me…"
Victor then thought… what would make this door open? No, what made her wake up… What are the chances of…
He remembered… "Blood." He spoke and looked at his own hand… thought for a moment and "Well, it's worth a try." He opened his mouth and with his fangs bit his hand, opening two small holes that bled a little until they closed quickly due to advanced regeneration.
The hand was still stained with blood afterward. "Let's try this." He said, placing his hand on the door, which changed completely.
For a moment… Nothing happened. Then—The metal vibrated.
Not physically… But conceptually… The opaque surface began to change.
Fine lines appeared under his palm, spreading like luminous veins. Ancient writings were drawn on the steel, symbols in silver and gold intertwining as if they were being written at that very moment.
They weren't just symbols… they told a story… there were battles, coronations, power, massacres, death, harvests of blood ending with kneeling figures. And in the center… A coffin… Imposing… Detailed… Embedded in the door itself as if it were the heart of that structure.
Victor slowly moved his hand away, his eyes scanning every detail. The two halves of the door vibrated.
A deep sound echoed through the underground corridor. Then, with a dry crack—
The structure split in two… The two plates slid to opposite sides… Whatever was behind… was strange.
He sighed, "Fuck it, I've already done all that." He said and pushed the door open, revealing nothing but an old stone floor and an overwhelming darkness.
He walked slowly through, the surroundings truly completely black, as if the environment sucked light away.
He walked, walked, and walked, the door behind him getting further and further away.
"Damn, this is pretty long, isn't it?" He said as he continued to walk… Until he finally saw something…
A foot… yes, a foot! Completely pale and dirty, motionless. It was bound by several chains.
"Shit…" He murmured, a little terrified, then slowed his pace, walking very slowly, while that black fog disappeared…
The chains were thick, black, wrapped in inscriptions similar to those on the door. They weren't just physical restraints.
They were seals.
The leg came next. Too thin. The skin clinging to the bone. Then the torso. And then he finally saw the whole body. It was a woman.
Suspended slightly above the ground, held in the air by chains fastened to her wrists and ankles.
She looked… dry. Not thin. Dry.
As if she hadn't ingested a single drop of blood for centuries. Perhaps millennia… Her lips were white… Her hair, long and completely white but dirty, fell like strands of dead snow over her shoulders.
She wore only white rags, torn by time.
Her skin, originally pale as the moon, now had a grayish, almost cadaverous tone.
But that face… Even in that condition… Even drained… Even imprisoned… It was unmistakable.
Victor felt his own heart tremble within his chest. "Matriarch…?"
The word escaped his lips like a forbidden whisper, almost a prayer forgotten by time.
There was no doubt.
There couldn't be.
Even drained. Even sealed. Even reduced to that miserable condition… her presence crushed the air around her. The perfect structure of her face, the aristocratic lines, the imposing presence that survived even in ruin… everything screamed ancestral authority.
That was not just a vampire.
It was the origin.
After all the paintings that adorned the clan's halls. After the colossal statues erected in her honor. After the stories repeated generation after generation as sacred dogmas… that face was etched in his memory.
He grew up seeing that face as a symbol of absolute power.
As a symbol of eternity.
And now she was there.
Chained.
The woman who married the First Vampire King, Vlad Dracula Tapes. The founder of House Valentine. The one whose blood defined the standard of purity for all future generations.
The Red Primordial.
The one whose name was whispered with reverence even by the elders.
The First Queen of All Vampires.
Carmilla Valentine.
"Holy shit…"
It wasn't elegant. It wasn't dignified. It wasn't noble.
But it was the only thing Victor could say in the face of it all.
The situation wasn't just serious—it was absurd. The true Matriarch of the vampires was sealed deep within the Valentine base while, above, the world continued spinning under a lie carefully sustained for centuries. The weight of this revelation pressed upon his mind, crushing any attempt at logical reasoning.
His gaze swept the surrounding environment, searching for any other presence, any mechanism, any visible explanation. There was nothing. Darkness dominated everything. A deep, absolute blackness that seemed to swallow even the notion of space. It wasn't just darkness—it was emptiness.
He looked at her again.
He approached slowly, each step echoing low in the sealed hall. Even drained, even imprisoned, there was something about her that made his instinct scream to keep his distance. Still, he advanced. She needed confirmation. She needed to feel. She needed to hear anything—a breath, a heartbeat, a whisper.
She got close enough to see the details of the grayish skin, the almost invisible fissures that resembled antique porcelain. The chains embedded in her wrists were covered in inscriptions that pulsed faintly, as if consuming what remained of her.
Victor swallowed hard and reached out.
His fingers touched her skin, near the point where the chain crossed her wrist.
In the instant of contact, there was no resistance.
There was no reaction.
The touched part simply crumbled.
It turned to dust.
Fine ashes slid between his fingers and fell silently to the ground, like remnants of something that had been consumed long before that moment.
Victor stood motionless for a few seconds, staring at the dust scattered at his feet.
What was once ancient flesh was now only ash.
He slowly raised his gaze to the body suspended by the chains. The image was disturbing. The founder of House Valentine, the Queen of all Vampires, reduced to that miserable condition—dry, drained, brittle.
"She's dead…" he murmured, more to himself than as a definitive conclusion.
But something bothered him.
If she was dead… why seal her away?
Why chains with active inscriptions? Why hide its existence in the depths of the base? Why a door that only reacted to his blood?
This wasn't a tomb.
It was a prison.
Victor ran a hand over his face, trying to organize his thoughts.
What should he do?
Leave and pretend he never saw it?
Warn someone? But who would believe him? And, more importantly… who could he trust?
His gaze returned to the suspended body.
A dangerous idea began to form.
"Is it worth a try…?" he whispered.
If the problem was a lack of blood… then perhaps…
He hesitated.
Giving blood to the primordial Matriarch herself was no small decision. If she was truly dead, it would be useless. If she was alive… he might be unleashing something the clan itself had decided to seal away.
Still, curiosity—and something deeper—pushed him forward.
Victor took a step forward.
"Are you dead… or just… empty?"
He slowly raised his hand and brought it to her torso. Her skin was cold. Too cold. Almost like ancient marble.
His palm slid to the center of her chest, over her left breast.
For a moment, nothing.
Then— He felt it.
It was weak, bordering on nonexistent, but it was there, a very slow beat, spaced 15 seconds apart, like the distant echo of a heart that refused to stop.
"...You're alive." Victor's eyes widened.