Chapter 82: FALL OF DRACULA I
A single day had crawled by since those vile blood parasites had latched themselves onto Dracula’s flesh, embedding deep like iron nails driven by a wrathful cosmos. They were not mere creatures, but curses given form—each one gnawing, sucking, and siphoning his primordial lifeblood with a hunger that could unmake worlds. By every calculation, by every rule of vitality, he should have been a husk by now. A titan brought to its knees.
"They should’ve drained him to nothing already," said Seraphel, the seraphic sovereign whose wings shimmered like spears forged from starlight. Rising slowly from where he leaned against a pillar of crystal light, his voice carried a note of urgency that snapped through the chamber. "If they haven’t bled him dry, they’ve at least weakened him to the brink. This is the moment to strike. Let him have no chance to recover. We move now, while he’s bleeding, while he’s desperate."
Their war council chamber was no ordinary hall. It was a sanctuary hidden between dimensions, suspended in a rift where time bowed and sound carried like whispers from the edges of galaxies. Ethereal mists curled along the floor, glimmering with the light of unseen suns, while the far-off pulse of collapsing stars painted the walls in faint, dying colors. Around a circular dais sat the powers of countless realms.
Baal, the demon architect, did not rise. Reclined on a throne carved from solid void essence, his presence coiled like smoke and shadow, a storm barely contained. When he spoke, the chamber trembled. "No. We adhere to the plan."
The other sovereigns stirred. Lucifer tilted his head, his smile that of a fox contemplating a snare; Odin sat as if carved from ancient stone, his single eye glowing faintly; Mephistopheles tapped clawed fingers against his knee, restless and dangerous; Zeus radiated barely leashed power, lightning itching along his frame; the Primordial Dragon coiled, silent but vast, its scales reflecting entire constellations; Nexus, the mechanical overlord, stood motionless but alive with the hum of countless computations.
Baal’s voice resonated again, deep and certain. "Time is our greatest ally. Those parasites feast even now, draining the lord of night. Every moment he breathes, he bleeds. When he comes, he will not be whole. He will be cornered, rash, driven by pain. That is when we take him—not before." His gaze swept the ring of power. "And when he comes, the first blow belongs to Nexus. You hold no blood, no soul to tempt him. You’ll face him first, unyielding, a wall he cannot drink dry. Every second you survive will peel away more of his strength. When the moment comes, when he stands stripped of essence, we strike together. And he will fall."
A silence followed, heavy with the weight of inevitability. Lucifer finally let out a soft chuckle, leaning forward, the shadows of his wings dancing across the luminous walls. "Then all that remains is to find the prey. Odin—his lair. Show us where he hides."
The All-Father closed his eye, the runes beneath his brow igniting as threads of power extended outward, weaving through dimensions like an unseen web. Seconds stretched, long and tense. The chamber seemed to darken as his sight traveled far. When he opened his eye again, the calm had fractured, just slightly.
"He’s cloaked," Odin said grimly. "The void hides him. Whatever he’s done, it clouds even my vision. But I caught a shadow before he vanished—a flicker of him moving his bloodline. Noctra. He’s sent his sons into its vaults, sealing them deep. He is preparing."
Mephistopheles let out a guttural growl, pacing like a caged beast. Sparks hissed under his claws as they scraped against the floor. "Enough secrecy. Enough hiding. The longer we wait, the more he plots. Let us drag him into the light and crush him before he breathes another thought."
The air changed. A shiver ran through the sanctuary—a tremor not of earth but of reality itself. The walls vibrated with a frequency none could ignore. Odin’s eye flared wide.
"He’s moved," he said, his voice rising. "The parasites bite too deep. He seeks a cure. The world tree—he’s heading for it. To the elven domain. To rip life itself from its roots and heal."
Baal’s smirk was sharp enough to cut. His dark aura pulsed once, like a heartbeat. "Exactly where we wanted him." He stood, his shadow stretching across the chamber like a spear. "But he will find no forest, no salvation. Only ruin. Only steel. We stripped that world bare. Nexus’s children wait there—machines without blood, death without life. And the dead walk with them."
Around the circle, the sovereigns exchanged glances, and in their silence burned anticipation. The game had shifted from theory to action.
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Far across the void, Dracula did not waste a thought on them. His focus was narrow, honed to a single thread: survival. The parasites writhed beneath his pale skin, each pulse a theft of power. His blood—his essence—bled into them, and though his strength was vast, it was not infinite.
Before he turned to war, he turned to blood. Lucien and Kaelith, his sons, his heirs—he had carried them across veils of space, delivering them into the iron heart of Noctra. The ancestral stronghold of the Ripper clan was alive with wards: crimson sigils that bled light, labyrinths of protection woven from blood and bone. Layer upon layer he sealed around them, a father’s fortress in a universe sharpening its knives.
Only then did he leave them, the weight of centuries heavy on his back, and step toward the path of battle.
When Dracula appeared on the elven planet, he expected majesty. He expected the vast forests older than memory, the whispering green, the colossal world tree whose branches cradled the sky. Even wounded, even hunted, he imagined he could tear what he needed from its heart.
But what met him was ash.
The land was dead. The forests were gone, replaced by steel and shadow. The soil was a carcass, the air cold and thin. Great mechanical constructs stalked the wastelands—towering walkers that shook the ground with each step, swarms of winged drones cutting through the sky with surgical precision, glinting red optics scanning the horizon. Between them moved the silent dead: skeletal armies rising from the dirt, flesh hulks bound with iron, phantoms drifting like mist.
It was a trap. A world turned to a weapon.