Third Person POV
The ruins of Târgoviște still smoldered as three figures approached from the east.
Adrian Tepes, who now went by the name Alucard- led the way through the scorched remains of what had once been a thriving town.
Behind him followed Trevor Belmont, last of the legendary vampire hunting family, and Sypha Belnades, a Speaker magician whose curiosity often exceeded her caution. They were allies Alucard met on his journey to seek help.
They had traveled for days to reach this place, driven by desperation. Alucard needed to stop his father before Dracula's grief consumed all of Wallachia. Trevor wanted to prove his family's legacy meant something. Sypha sought to protect innocent people caught between monsters and madmen.
But as they walked through the devastation, something felt profoundly wrong.
"Where are most of the bodies?" Trevor asked, kicking aside a piece of charred timber. His hand rested instinctively on the Vampire Killer whip coiled at his hip.
Sypha knelt beside what appeared to be the remains of a night creature—one of those twisted monsters the Forgemasters created from human corpses. "These burns... this is extremely powerful holy magic."
She traced a finger over the scorched ground. "But the precision is remarkable. Look—the buildings are intact. The wells aren't poisoned. Someone targeted only the supernatural creatures. People from the Church ?"
"The church doesn't have executioner this strong," Trevor said flatly. "Hell, most of them these days can barely remember which end of a cross points up. This is something else."
Alucard stood motionless in the center of the town square, his golden eyes scanning the destruction with an unreadable expression. He could still sense the residual holy power lingering in the air like a fading perfume. It made his skin prickle uncomfortably.
"Every vampire in the region," he said quietly. "Every night creature. Every Forgemaster. All reduced to ash."
He turned to look at his companions. "Yet my father remains untouched. Someone powerful enough to annihilate an army chose to spare him."
Trevor frowned, walking over to examine a particularly large scorch mark on the ground. The ash was still warm. "Why? If you have the power to do all this, why leave the biggest threat alive? That's just stupid strategy."
"Maybe they weren't trying to kill him," Sypha suggested, standing up and brushing ash from her robes. "Maybe they were trying to... I don't know, clear the field? Remove his army before he could use it to cause harm?"
"Or maybe," Alucard said softly, his voice taking on a strange tone, "they wanted him to face judgment from someone specific. Someone who had the right to deliver it."
Trevor looked at him sharply. "You mean you."
"I mean anyone who could stop him without it being an execution." Alucard's jaw tightened.
"My father... before my mother's death, he would have considered this massacre an atrocity. He would have hunted down whoever did it and punished them. He protected these humans once. Fought for them. Bled for them."
"And then they burned his pregnant wife alive," Trevor said bluntly. "Can't really blame him for changing his perspective after that."
Sypha shot him a look. "Trevor! Show some sensitivity!"
"What? I'm being honest! Look, I think Dracula's a monster who needs to be stopped, but I'm not going to pretend those people didn't bring this on themselves."
Trevor gestured at the ruined town around them. "They murdered an innocent woman. They killed an unborn child. Actions have consequences."
"That doesn't justify genocide," Sypha argued.
"Didn't say it did. I said I understand why he snapped." Trevor kicked at the ground. "If someone burned the woman I loved alive while she begged for mercy, I'd probably burn the world down too."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the group.
Finally, Alucard spoke. "We should keep moving. The castle isn't far, and we're wasting daylight."
They continued through the town, passing the remains of what had once been a church. The building stood intact, but the bishop's residence beside it had been completely destroyed.
Sypha noticed something odd and went to investigate.
"There's... a cross here," she said, puzzled. "A large one. With someone nailed to it."
Trevor and Alucard joined her.
The cross stood in what had been the bishop's private garden.
Nailed to it was the desiccated corpse of a grossly obese man in tattered clerical robes.
His face was frozen in a silent scream, his lips sealed shut with what looked like melted flesh .
"That's the bishop who ordered the burning," Alucard said, his voice completely neutral. "I recognize him from my mother's trial. Father showed me using the stones."
Trevor examined the crucifixion with a professional eye. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing. The nails are placed perfectly to maximize pain while preventing quick death. He probably lasted hours like this."
He paused. "Also, someone removed his mouth. That's new."
"Why?" Sypha looked disturbed. "Why go to all this effort?"
"I think it was Symbolic," Alucard suggested. "He used his mouth to condemn my mother. To call for her death. So someone took that away before killing him."
Trevor looked at the sealed mouth more closely. "This wasn't done with ordinary magic. This was done with overwhelming power that literally fused his flesh together."
He stepped back. "Whatever did this could have just killed him instantly. This was deliberate. Personal."
"An person with a grudge," Sypha muttered. "Wonderful."
They left the crucified bishop behind and made their way out of the town.
As night fell, they made camp in a small clearing about halfway to Dracula's castle.
The forest around them was dark and twisted. Dracula's grief had corrupted the very land itself, warping trees and poisoning streams.
Trevor sat by the fire, methodically sharpening one of his many knives. Sypha reviewed her spell notes, occasionally practicing hand gestures.
Alucard stood apart from them both, staring into the darkness with an expression that might have been longing or might have been dread.
After a long silence, Trevor spoke without looking up from his knife. "Your father. What was he really like? Before all this nightmare started?"
Alucard didn't turn around. For a moment, Trevor thought he wouldn't answer at all.
Then, quietly: "Kind. Gentle. He didn't speak too much or or laughed often, but I could feel how much he cared for us. He loved my mother more than anything in this world or any other."
Alucard's voice softened with memory. "I remember when I was very young, maybe five or six, I asked him why he had given up being a warlord. Why he chose to live peacefully in a castle instead of ruling kingdoms."
"What did he say?" Sypha asked, setting aside her notes.
"He said that power without purpose is just destruction. That he had spent decades taking and destroying and conquering, and all it brought him was loneliness.
Then he met my mother, and she taught him that there were better ways to be strong."
Alucard's hands clenched. "She made him remember what it meant to care about something other than himself. She made him human again, even though he wasn't one anymore."
Trevor paused his sharpening. "Must've been one hell of a woman."
"She was." Alucard's voice was barely above a whisper. "She was brilliant and brave and so impossibly kind. She saw the best in everyone, even people who didn't deserve it."
"Like the townspeople," Sypha said softly.
"She wanted to help them. To teach them medicine, to show them that my father wasn't the monster the church claimed."
Alucard turned to face them, and there were tears on his face. "She went to Târgoviște to defend him. To tell them the truth. And they tied her to a stake and burned her alive while she begged them to spare the child in her womb. My unborn little sibling."
Sypha looked stricken. "Alucard, I'm so—"
"They cheered," Alucard continued, his voice hollow. "I could hear it even now. The crowd cheering as my mother burned. Celebrating. Making jokes about the 'demon's whore' and her 'hell-spawn baby.'"
He wiped at his eyes angrily. "My father arrived just in time to see her turn to ash. To see them dancing in her ashes."
Trevor set down his knife. "What did he do?"
"He gave them a warning. One year to make peace with their god before he returned. He said it was his final mercy to his people."
Alucard laughed bitterly. "Do you know what they did with that year? They planned a festival. A celebration of the day they murdered my mother. They were going to burn an effigy of my father for entertainment."
"Jesus Christ," Trevor breathed.
"He doesn't live here anymore," Alucard said flatly. "This land is forsaken. By god, by mercy, by everything decent."
He looked at them both. "But my father... he's still my father. Underneath the rage and grief, he's still the man who taught me to read, who showed me how to fight, who told me stories about the world before I was born. I can't just let him destroy himself like this."
Sypha stood and walked over to him, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "We'll stop him together. And maybe... maybe we can save him too. Bring him back from this darkness."
"Or maybe I'll have to kill my own father to save people who would probably burn me too if they knew what I was."
Alucard pulled away from her touch. "Don't mistake me for a hero, Sypha. I'm doing this because someone has to. Not because I believe humanity deserves saving."
"Fair enough," Trevor said, going back to his knife. "I'm mostly here because I'm too stubborn to die quietly, and vampire hunting is the only thing I'm good at. We all have our reasons."
Sypha looked between them and sighed. "You're both terrible. I'm here because it's the right thing to do, and someone needs to have actual morals in this group."
"Morals don't kill vampires," Trevor said.
"Neither does excessive drinking, but that doesn't stop you from trying," Sypha shot back.
Despite everything, Alucard smiled slightly. "She has you there, Trevor."
"Oi! I'm a functional drunk, thank you very much. I can fight perfectly well while intoxicated."
"You can fight barely acceptably while intoxicated," Sypha corrected. "There's a difference."
Trevor opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. He drew the sign of the cross over his chest instead, a prayer for strength and patience.
Sypha noticed and chuckled. "Prayers won't help you win arguments, Trevor."
"Old habits," he muttered. "My father always said a Belmont should—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
The large cross dagger hanging around his neck, a family heirloom passed down through generations—had begun to glow.
It started as a faint shimmer, barely visible against his chest. But within seconds, it blazed with brilliant golden light.
The gem at its center, a strange bluish-black stone, pulsed with holy power that pushed back the darkness around their camp.
"What in the—" Trevor grabbed the cross, half expecting it to burn. It didn't. The light simply intensified, warm and steady against his palm.
Sypha jumped to her feet, her hands already forming defensive gestures. "Trevor! What's happening? What is that thing doing?"
Trevor stared at the cross with wide eyes, his mind racing. "I... this has never happened before.
My father said this cross was given to our ancestor Leon Belmont by an archangel centuries ago. It's supposed to be blessed by him, but it's always just been an ornament weapon for killing stronger vampires. It's never actually done anything."
"Until now," Alucard observed, his eyes narrowing at the holy light. It made his skin itch uncomfortably, a reminder of his vampiric heritage.
Trevor looked around the clearing, suddenly very aware of how dark and quiet the forest had become. Even the usual night sounds had stopped.
"My father also said... he said it only glows like this when an angel is nearby. When someone truly holy is close."
Sypha snorted, though her eyes betrayed her nervousness. "If angels are the ones who killed all those humans back in Târgoviște, then I'm not sure 'holy' means what we think it means. What kind of divine being slaughters an entire town and crucifies bishops?"
"The vengeful kind, apparently," Trevor muttered, still staring at the glowing cross.
Alucard said nothing. His thoughts were complicated. The humans in Târgoviște had murdered his mother. They had burned a pregnant woman alive while she screamed for mercy. If angels had killed them, if divine judgment had fallen on that cursed town...
He found he couldn't mourn them. Couldn't even feel sympathy for them.
They had made their choice. They had faced the consequences.
But he kept those thoughts to himself. Trevor and Sypha were good people, idealistic in ways Alucard no longer could be. They wouldn't understand. They hadn't watched their mother burn.
"We should rest," Alucard said finally. "The castle is still hours away, and we'll need our strength."
Trevor tucked the still-glowing cross back under his shirt, though the light continued to shine through the fabric. "Right. Sleep. With a mysterious angel lurking somewhere nearby and my necklace acting like a lighthouse. This should be relaxing."
"I'll take first watch," Sypha offered. "You two get some rest."
Neither of them slept well.
Dawn was breaking when they finally reached Dracula's castle.
It loomed against the sky like a monument to despair—massive, imposing, a Gothic nightmare of towers and battlements. Dark magic swirled around it in visible currents, making the air feel thick and oppressive.
The main gates opened with a creaking noise.
"Well, that's not ominous at all," Trevor said dryly.
"He knows we're coming," Alucard said. "He probably knew the moment we entered Wallachia. He's waiting for us."
Sypha studied the castle's defenses. "I'm not seeing any traps. No magical wards, no defensive enchantments. It's like he wants us to walk right in."
"He does," Alucard said quietly. "My father... I don't think he wants to win this fight. I think he wants it to end."
Trevor gripped his whip. "Then let's not disappoint him."
They entered together, weapons ready.
The castle's interior was both beautiful and terrible—grand halls filled with priceless artifacts, libraries containing forbidden knowledge, laboratories where dark experiments had been conducted.
Everywhere, the weight of Dracula's grief pressed down on them like a physical thing.
They found him in the main hall, standing before an enormous portrait.
It showed a family—Lisa, beautiful and smiling, holding a baby Adrian. Dracula stood beside them, his hand on Lisa's shoulder, and he was smiling too. Open and genuine in a way that seemed impossible for the Lord of Vampires.
Dracula stood motionless before the painting, his back to them. He wore his old battle armor, his sword at his side, but he didn't turn as they entered.
The silence stretched.
Finally, Alucard spoke: "Father."
"My son." Dracula's voice was hollow, emptied of everything except exhaustion. "You've come to end me."
"I've come to save you from yourself."
"Is there a difference?" Dracula finally turned to face them.
The change was horrifying. This wasn't the powerful vampire lord who had terrorized Europe for centuries. This was a corpse that refused to lie down.
His face was gaunt, eyes sunken, skin pale even by vampire standards. He looked like he hadn't fed in weeks, like he'd been slowly starving himself.
"You look terrible, Father." Alucard winced.
"I feel terrible. Funny how that works."
Dracula's eyes moved to Trevor and Sypha. "A Belmont and a Speaker. How... traditional. Tell me, Belmont, which one are you? You have the look of the main bloodline."
Trevor stepped forward, meeting Dracula's gaze without flinching. "Trevor. Trevor Belmont."
"Hmm. Your ancestor Leon was a remarkable warrior—elegant, precise, graceful. He could have been a dancer if he hadn't devoted himself to killing my kind."
Dracula's lip curled slightly. "You, on the other hand, look like a drunk who wandered into a weapons shop ."
Trevor's eye twitched. "You know what? I was going to feel slightly bad about beating the shit out of you. Not anymore."
"You're welcome to try. I could use the entertainment before I die." Dracula smiled.
Sypha raised her hands, flames already flickering between her fingers. "Count Vlad, please. Listen to me. This isn't what your wife would have wanted. She believed in humanity. She died still believing in their capacity for good—"
The temperature in the room plummeted.
"DON'T." Dracula's voice shook the castle foundations. "Don't you DARE tell me what she would have wanted."
His power exploded outward in a wave of dark energy that sent them all stumbling backward. "You didn't watch her burn. You didn't feel her terror through our bond. You didn't hear her begging those animals to spare our unborn child while they LAUGHED and CHEERED."
He advanced on them, and for the first time, they saw the true extent of his rage. "She was the best of your miserable species. Kind and brilliant and brave. And they tied her to a stake and burned her alive because a false bishop wanted my lands and wealth."
"My wife died screaming my name. Died begging me to save her, to save our baby. And I wasn't there. I was away gathering rare herbs for her pregnancy, and when I returned, all that remained was ash and the sound of celebration."
Tears of blood ran down Dracula's face. "So don't you DARE tell me what she would have wanted. You have no right. NONE OF YOU."
Alucard stepped between his father and his companions, his hand going to his sword. "Mother wouldn't want you to become the monster they claimed you were. She wouldn't want you to prove them right."
"Your mother is DEAD, Adrian! Dead because I failed to protect her! She died because I believed humans could change, could be better!"
Dracula's laugh was bitter and broken. "She had faith in them right until the end. Even as the flames consumed her, she didn't curse them. She just kept begging for our child's life."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "And they burned her anyway. Burned them both."
"So now I'll kill every last human in Wallachia. I'll drown this land in blood. I'll make them understand what they took from me. And when I'm done, when there's nothing left but ash and corpses, maybe then I can finally die and see her again."
"Then you'll have to go through me," Alucard said, drawing his sword.
Dracula looked at his son, his only remaining connection to this world, and something shattered in his eyes.
"So be it."
The battle began without any more words.
Dracula moved first, faster than human eyes could follow. His fist crashed into Alucard's guard, sending the dhampir flying backward through a stone pillar.
Trevor's whip lashed out, the blessed leather wrapping around Dracula's arm. Holy energy seared vampiric flesh, and Dracula hissed in pain.
But he didn't slow down.
He grabbed the whip and yanked, pulling Trevor toward him. The hunter barely managed to release the whip before Dracula's fist would have caved in his skull.
Sypha unleashed a torrent of flame. Dracula raised his hand and the fire bent around him, redirected by sheer force of will.
"Parlor tricks," he snarled, and backhanded her across the room.
Alucard recovered and attacked from behind, his sword aimed at his father's heart. Dracula spun and caught the blade with his bare hand, blood dripping from his palm.
"You're holding back," Dracula observed coldly. "You still love your father too much to kill him it seems. Stop holding back, or you won't win."
"I don't want to kill you," Alucard admitted, his voice strained. "I want to save you."
"I don't want to be saved." Dracula twisted the sword and kicked Alucard in the chest, sending him crashing into Trevor.
The battle intensified.
They fought through multiple rooms, destroying priceless artifacts and ancient architecture.
Trevor's whip struck again and again, burning Dracula wherever it touched. Sypha hurled ice and fire in carefully coordinated attacks.
Alucard matched his father blow for blow, their swords clashing in a deadly dance.
But Dracula had centuries of combat experience. He wielded dark magic and raw physical power in equal measure, and his grief-fueled rage made him relentless. Still he didn't use his strongest weapon.
"You've learned well, my son," Dracula said as he deflected a thrust aimed at his heart. They stood face to face, swords locked. "Your mother would be proud. She always said you had my strength and her wisdom."
"Then honor her memory," Alucard pleaded. "Stop this. Please."
"I'm honoring her memory by making those animals pay for what they did."
"You're spitting on her memory by becoming exactly what she died trying to prevent!"
Dracula's eyes flashed. "How dare you—"
Alucard headbutted him.
It was the kind of dirty fighting move that Lisa would have disapproved of, but it worked. Dracula stumbled back, momentarily stunned.
Trevor saw his opening and struck, his whip wrapping around Dracula's sword arm. Sypha immediately followed up, encasing his legs in thick ice.
For just a moment, Dracula was immobilized.
Alucard raised his sword for a killing blow, and hesitated.
That single moment of hesitation cost them everything.
Dracula shattered the ice with a pulse of dark energy that cracked the floor beneath them. He grabbed Trevor by the throat with his free hand, lifting the hunter off the ground.
"Pathetic," Dracula hissed. "Leon Belmont would be ashamed to see what his bloodline has become. A drunk playing at being a hero."
Trevor choked, struggling. His face was turning red. His hands scrabbled uselessly at Dracula's iron grip.
"Father, stop!" Alucard shouted.
"Why? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't crush this insect's throat and be done with it."
"Because..." Trevor gasped, barely able to speak. His hand fumbled at his chest, fingers closing around the glowing cross beneath his shirt. "Because... you're not... a monster..."
"I'm not?" Dracula's grip tightened. "I'm the King of Vampires. I've killed thousands. I'm planning to commit genocide. What part of that isn't monstrous?"
"The part... that's still... grieving..." Trevor's vision was fading, black spots dancing at the edges. "Monsters... don't mourn..."
With his last bit of strength, Trevor ripped the cross free from his neck. The chain snapped, and the holy relic blazed with brilliant light.
"Alucard!" he gasped. "CATCH!"
He threw the cross.
Time seemed to slow.
The cross spun through the air, holy light trailing behind it like a comet. Sypha screamed a warning. Dracula's eyes widened as he realized what was happening.
Alucard caught it.
The instant his fingers closed around the blessed metal, agony exploded through his hand. He was part vampire—holy items burned him, damaged him, rejected his very existence. The cross seared his flesh, smoke rising from his palm as the blessed metal charred his skin.
But he didn't let go. This was the only way to end it.
Dracula released Trevor, turning toward his son. He saw the cross, saw Alucard's hand burning, and something flickered in his dead eyes.
"Adrian, don't—"
Alucard moved.
Faster than he'd ever moved in his life, driven by desperation and love and grief all tangled together into one desperate strike.
He drove the burning cross straight into his father's heart, burying it deep in vampiric flesh.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
Holy light exploded from the point of impact, spreading through Dracula's body like cracks in breaking glass.
He gasped, staggering backward, his hand going to the cross embedded in his chest.
The dark magic sustaining him shattered. The corruption poisoning the land began to fade. The weight of his presence lifted like morning fog.
Alucard released the cross and stumbled back, cradling his ruined hand. The flesh was blackened, charred, the bones visible in places.
Tears streamed down his face, whether from physical pain or emotional agony, he couldn't tell.
Probably both.
Dracula fell to his knees.
All the power, all the rage, all the terrible grief that had animated him for a year—it drained away like water from a broken vessel. What remained was just a tired old man who had lost everything that mattered.
He looked up at his son and smiled.
It was genuine—soft and sad and filled with more love than Alucard had seen since his mother's death.
"My son," Dracula whispered, reaching up with one trembling hand to caress Alucard's cheek. "My kind and gentle boy. Look how strong you've become."
"Father, I—" Alucard's voice broke completely.
" It's alright, son." Dracula's thumb wiped away one of his son's tears, even as his own blood tears fell freely. "You did the right thing. Your mother would be so proud of you."
"I killed you."
"You freed me." Dracula's hand was already beginning to fall, his strength fading. "I've been dead inside since the moment I watched her burn. You just... made it real."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. Never apologize for doing what's right, even when it hurts." Dracula's breathing was labored now, each word an effort. "I'm going ahead to see your mother. I'll tell her how brave you were. How much you've grown."
His hand finally fell away, landing limply at his side.
"I don't blame you, Adrian. I could never blame you. There was... nothing left for me to live for anyway. Not without her."
As Dracula's eyes closed for the final time, his consciousness fading into darkness, something miraculous happened.
He saw her.
Lisa stood in a field of flowers bathed in warm sunlight. She wore the simple dress she'd always favored, and her smile was radiant—unmarred by flames, untouched by death.
She extended her hand toward him.
"Vlad. About time you showed up. I've been waiting."
Dracula's spirit rose from his body, staring at his hands in wonder. They were whole again. Young again. The way they'd been when he first met her.
"Lisa? Is this... am I really—"
"You're really dead, yes. Took you long enough." Her smile was teasing but warm. "Come on. Let's go home."
"I don't deserve this. After everything I've done, after what I became—"
"You were grieving. You made terrible choices because you couldn't bear the thought of living without me."
Lisa took his hand, pulling him into an embrace. "But grief is proof of love, Vlad. Monsters don't mourn. They don't break when they lose someone precious. You were always more human than you believed."
"The things I did—"
"Are over now. It's time to rest." She kissed him gently. "Our son will be fine. He's strong. He has your courage and my compassion. He'll do great things."
Together, they walked into the light, leaving behind a world that had never truly understood either of them.