The storm above York Empire had gone unnervingly still.
It was not the peace of a calm night, nor the quiet after rain. It was the kind of silence that came before a scream — a vast, watchful pause in which even the heavens seemed afraid to move. The clouds hung low and heavy, veined with faint crimson light, as though the moon itself were bleeding slowly behind them. Beneath that sky, York Empire glowed.
Golden lanterns lined every street, their light reflected on marble roads polished to a mirror sheen. Petals — white, red, and pale pink — drifted lazily through the air, carried by a perfumed breeze conjured by magic and careful intent. Towers blazed with banners bearing the sigil of the Lampire crown, and from the highest balconies came music: soft strings and low choral hums that threaded sorrow into celebration. It was beautiful. Painfully so.
Nyx had dressed the city as one dresses a wound — lavishly, lovingly, to disguise how deep it ran.
At the heart of the palace, in a chamber wrapped in moonstone and silk, Stacy sat before a tall mirror carved from a single slab of enchanted glass. Candles floated around her like obedient stars, their flames steady, unblinking. Jewels circled her wrists and throat, warm against her skin, humming faintly with Lampire magic. Yet her hands trembled as they rested in her lap.
She stared at her reflection and barely recognized the woman looking back.
Her face was pale, eyes dark and luminous, caught between awe and fear. The gown had not yet been placed upon her, but already destiny pressed on her shoulders like invisible chains. Tonight, she would become the bride of the Lampire Lord. Tonight, she would either be crowned eternal… or condemned.
"Breathe," she whispered to herself, though the word felt hollow.
Footsteps approached — slow, deliberate, unmistakable.
The chamber dimmed the moment Nyx crossed its threshold. It was not that the candles went out; rather, their light seemed to bend toward him, as if acknowledging a greater presence. His aura rolled through the room like a tide, ancient and controlled, carrying with it the faint scent of iron and night-blooming flowers.
"Stacy," Nyx said softly.
His voice was calm, deep, and impossibly steady — the voice of someone who had already accepted the shape of the future.
She rose at once, fingers tightening together. "You shouldn't see me yet," she said, a nervous smile tugging at her lips. "It's bad luck, they say."
Nyx stepped closer, his crimson eyes gentle, almost human. "Then I will not see you," he replied. "Not unless you wish it."
Before she could answer, he reached out — not to touch her, but to take the silken cloth draped over the chair beside her. With careful hands, he lifted it and paused, waiting. Stacy hesitated only a moment before nodding.
He tied the cloth over his eyes himself, the motion reverent, deliberate.
"There," he said quietly. "Now I am blind."
Relief loosened something in her chest. She laughed softly and stepped closer, fingers brushing his wrist. "Your gaze is too much tonight," she admitted. "It feels like you're looking straight through my soul."
Nyx smiled beneath the blindfold. "I would never harm what I love."
Then he raised his hands.
The air shifted.
Moonlight poured through the tall windows as if summoned, thickening into silver threads that wove themselves into fabric midair. Mist coiled and obeyed, frost kissing flame without extinguishing it. Stacy gasped as the gown formed around her — a dress born of magic and will, flowing like liquid starlight, its hem glowing faintly as though it remembered fire.
Nyx did not touch her, not once. He did not need to.
With a subtle gesture, her hair lifted and arranged itself, braiding and folding into a crown adorned with silver lilies — flowers that bloomed only under cursed moons. The jewels at her throat resonated, responding to the Lampire magic that shaped her into a queen.
When he lowered his hands, the room exhaled.
"Do you like it?" Nyx asked.
Stacy could not speak at first. Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded. "It's… beautiful."
Slowly, she reached up and untied the cloth from his eyes.
But before he could fully see her, she raised it again and gently wrapped it around his gaze.
"My turn," she said, voice trembling but firm.
Nyx did not protest. He stood still as she moved around him, her fingers brushing his shoulders, smoothing his dark cloak into place. It was not desire that guided her hands, but reverence — the careful touch of someone preparing an altar.
"You are choosing this," she whispered. "Not because you must. Because you want to."
"I am," Nyx replied. "And so are you."
They stood facing one another, blindfolded and bare of pretense, bound not yet by vows but by the weight of everything they had already lost. Outside, the city waited.
And far from that glowing empire, in a house that remembered older blood and older grief, preparations of a different kind were underway.
The Mare mansion breathed like a tomb that refused to forget.
Candles flickered along the stone walls, their flames bending as unseen spirits passed. The air smelled of damp earth, old parchment, and bloodlines that had never truly ended. Nia stood at the center of the hall, her posture rigid, her eyes sharp with exhaustion and resolve.
Morvain stepped forward and placed the Mare Dagger upon the altar.
The blade sang.
It was not sound so much as memory — a low, vibrating hum that carried the echo of screams, prayers, and betrayals etched into its steel. The dagger's surface glimmered faintly, reflecting faces long dead and wars long buried.
"This," Morvain said, his voice hoarse, "has slain gods and betrayed kings."
Nia reached out and took the dagger with care, as one might lift a sleeping serpent. Blue fire licked briefly along her fingers before settling.
"You will have it," she said to Ryko without looking at him, "when the moment demands it. Not before."
Ryko's lips curved into a sharp smile. His eyes, slit and serpent-bright, gleamed with disdain. "You underestimate me," he said. "Even without this relic, I can crush Nyx. I have faced him before. I know how he bleeds."
Carl stepped forward, his grip tightening around the edge of the altar. "You faced him before he became this," he said quietly. "He bears seven Blood Jewels now. Each one is a curse that grants him a power of its own."
Ryko turned slowly toward Nia. "Then show me," he demanded. "Show me the truth of the Book of Damned."
Nia's jaw tightened.
She raised her hands.
Blue fire erupted from her palms, swallowing the candlelight. The room darkened as if night itself had been dragged indoors. Torches bent backward, flames stretched thin toward a void that opened between her hands.
A vision unfurled.
Nyx stood within it — distant, towering — before a colossal tome bound in chains of crimson light. Runes crawled across its surface like living things, breathing, watching.
"This is it," Nia whispered, her voice strained. "Do not look too closely. The Book feels every gaze upon it."
But Ryko did not listen.
His pupils widened. His mind reached.
The instant his consciousness brushed the Book's seals, the world screamed.
Across the sky, Nyx's head snapped up. His eyes burned red-hot. The moon darkened, a shadow passing over its face like a lid slamming shut.
The vision shattered.
Nia staggered back, clutching her head. "You fool," she hissed. "He knows now."
Ryko straightened, unrepentant. "Good," he said coldly. "Let him come."
As they marched toward York Empire, the wind recoiled from them.
Carl walked beside Nia, carrying the weight of the dagger and his grief alike. Ryko loomed behind them, scales catching the dying light.
"The Lampire Lord will kneel tonight," Ryko said, his voice thick with anticipation. "And from his blood, I shall ascend."
Above them, the Blood Moon began to rise.
High above York Empire, in the tallest tower where the wind spoke only to kings and ghosts, Stacy stood beside Nyx as the final traces of her bridal magic settled into place.
The room glowed with a soft, living light. Moon-threads tightened and aligned along the seams of her gown, responding to the slow rhythm of her breath. The fabric shimmered — not loud, not radiant, but deep, as if it carried centuries within its weave. Jewels bloomed into existence at her throat and wrists, each one humming faintly, recognizing the path she was about to walk.
She looked breathtaking.
And unbearably distant.
Nyx watched her from only a step away. For all the power gathered beneath his skin, for all the empires bending under his name, his expression carried no triumph. There was no hunger in his gaze now, no cold certainty. Only a tired stillness — the kind that came from surviving too long under a curse that never loosened its grip.
"Are you ready?" he asked quietly.
It was not the question of a conqueror, nor even of a groom demanding reassurance. It was the question of someone who had already seen how this ended in a thousand different ways.
Stacy's fingers tightened around the edge of the balcony rail. The city below glimmered like a living constellation, and yet her chest felt unbearably heavy.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I'm afraid of forever."
Nyx turned fully toward her then. Slowly, deliberately, as if the moment itself were fragile.
"Forever ends," he said softly, "for those who lose faith." His lips curved, not in arrogance but in something gentler, almost sad. "For us, it begins."
He extended his hand.
Stacy stared at it for a heartbeat too long — at the hand that had destroyed worlds and built one anew, the hand that had once been human, that still trembled faintly when it touched her.
She placed her own within it.
Their fingers intertwined, sealing a choice neither could take back.
Together, they stepped forward, leaving the tower behind as the great doors opened and the grand staircase revealed itself — a cascade of marble and light descending into the heart of York Palace. Each step echoed like a tolling bell, announcing not just a wedding, but an ending.
And far from that brilliance, grief carved its own ritual in silence.
In a forgotten graveyard beyond the Empire's borders, rain fell in thin, cold sheets, streaking marble and stone like tears that would never dry. Rieta knelt beside two fresh mounds of earth, her hands trembling as she lit the final flame.
Ziess.
Raym.
Their names were not spoken aloud. They were breathed into the soil, pressed into the ground with trembling palms and whispered prayers that had no god left to answer.
Saya knelt beside her, face pale and rigid, eyes fixed on the flickering fire as though she could burn memory into the earth itself. Joey stood behind them, silent, his head bowed, rain soaking into his hair and collar until he no longer bothered to wipe it away.
Each flame carried a farewell.
Each flicker carried guilt.
The wind lifted, carrying the smoke toward the horizon — toward York Empire, where lanterns burned brighter than grief was allowed to be.
At the palace gates, unseen among the joyful crowds, the Huns returned.
Their forms were masked by human flesh, their eyes hidden beneath mortal illusion, but their attention missed nothing. They watched banners ripple, guards shift, enchantments pulse along the silver gates like veins beneath skin. Every chant, every cheer, every footstep was counted.
Inside, the palace waited.
Stacy stood once more before a mirror framed in living rose thorns, their petals white as bone and soft as breath. The gown clung to her now, complete, heavy with magic and meaning. Her reflection stared back — a queen shaped by choice and fear in equal measure.
She heard the distant chants of preparation. The low hum of power gathering beneath the palace floors.
Then Nyx's reflection appeared behind her.
His presence filled the chamber before his voice ever did — a quiet heat wrapped in stillness.
"Tonight," he murmured, "the Blood Moon will witness what the stars once feared."
She turned to him, searching his face. "And what is that?"
He met her gaze. "That love can survive even this."
The palace of York blazed as they entered the ceremonial hall.
Its towers rose like spears of light, wrapped in rivers of crimson silk and ghost-white blossoms that shimmered beneath the rising moon. The scent of moonflowers thickened the air, sweet and almost suffocating. Every surface reflected red — the walls, the floor, the vaulted ceiling where stained glass caught the lunar glow and fractured it into bleeding halos.
Nyx and Stacy descended the grand staircase together.
Every step echoed.
Ministers lined the hall, draped in jeweled robes, their faces a mixture of reverence and dread. At the altar stood a priest, hands shaking so badly that the staff he held rattled softly against the marble.
Before a single word could be spoken, Nyx raised his arm.
Silence fell like a blade.
"Who summoned this man?" Nyx asked.
His voice rolled through the hall, low and absolute.
The ministers exchanged uneasy glances. No one answered.
Nyx's eyes burned brighter, reflecting the Blood Moon now fully visible through the open ceiling above.
"Our union," he declared, "will not be bound by mortal prayers."
The priest staggered back a step.
"The Blood Moon itself shall bless us," Nyx continued. "By its blood, she will become mine — not by word, but by eternity."
A ripple of awe — and fear — passed through the court.
Stacy's heart thundered in her chest as Nyx turned slightly toward her, his voice dropping, intimate even in the vast hall.
"When the moon bleeds," he said, "I shall let my fangs drink from her. And she shall rise beside me — a queen of the endless night."
Murmurs spread like wildfire. Some bowed their heads. Others recoiled.
Yet before the ritual could begin, Nyx's expression softened.
"Before we become one," he asked quietly, "shall we dance once more?"
Music rose.
Slow. Haunting. Laden with sorrow.
Nyx drew Stacy close, his hand steady at her back. Her gown flowed like silver smoke as they moved, and around them, nobles and demons alike followed, their steps weaving light and shadow into a living ritual.
For a heartbeat, the hall felt human again.
Stacy rested her head briefly against Nyx's chest and saw — not the Lampire Lord, not the crowned tyrant — but the boy he had once been, smiling beneath a sunlit sky that no longer existed.
Then the heavens cracked.
The lights dimmed violently. A growl tore through the palace, so deep it shook the marble beneath their feet.
The ceiling exploded outward.
Stone and glass rained down as a monstrous silhouette descended through the storm — half man, half serpent, five massive heads rising from a body of black scales and molten veins.
The music died.
The crowd screamed.
"Nyx Gald!" the creature roared, its voice splitting the air. "Your reign ends tonight!"
It was Ryko — the Serpent King.
His central head exhaled fire as his massive coils wrapped around the grand staircase. In a blur of motion, claws slashed through power and air alike, closing around Nyx's throat.
The Blood Moon burned overhead.
And the war finally arrived.
Nyx did not resist.
Ryko's claws were still locked around his throat, crushing stone and air alike, yet Nyx simply laughed.
It was not loud at first. It began as a low vibration in his chest, a sound so cold and hollow that it froze the blood of everyone who heard it. The laughter spread through the hall like creeping frost, sinking into bones, silencing screams.
Nyx's lips curved slowly.
"Ah, Ryko," he said calmly, his voice carrying an ancient amusement.
"I wondered when your arrogance would finally catch up to you."
Without effort—without even the appearance of strain—Nyx lifted one hand and broke the serpent's grip. The force sent a shockwave through the palace, cracking marble and hurling debris across the hall. Nyx's feet rose from the ground as if gravity itself had forgotten him.
Black fire erupted behind him.
Wings unfurled—vast, burning, forged of shadow and flame. The air screamed as power flooded the space.
Nyx's voice deepened, resonating with centuries of fury.
"I am the Lampire Lord," he declared.
"The soul of darkness.
The will of eternity."
His crimson eyes locked onto Ryko.
"Nothing hides from my sight," Nyx continued.
"Not even your treachery."
Ryko roared in answer.
All five of his heads struck at once, unleashing venomous rays that tore through the hall. Marble scorched and melted. Pillars collapsed. The altar shattered into dust.
Nyx vanished.
One heartbeat he was there—
The next, he was mist.
The venom tore through empty air as Nyx reappeared behind Ryko, his fangs bared, claws already descending. One of the serpent's heads was severed cleanly, exploding into embers before it hit the ground.
Ryko's scream split the sky.
His massive tails whipped through the palace like living storms, shattering what little structure remained. The roof groaned, stone falling in violent rain.
Nyx rose higher, his wings beating once.
His form shifted.
Half man.
Half bat.
Shadow clung to his body like armor. His eyes burned brighter, reflecting the Blood Moon above. With a single motion, he dove.
The collision shook the heavens.
Claws met scales. Fire met shadow. Sparks and blood rained down upon the screaming crowd below. Each blow darkened the moon further, as if the celestial body itself fed on their fury.
Ryko was monstrous.
Each severed head regenerated, flesh crawling and reforming in seconds. Each roar pulled power from depths long forgotten. He caught Nyx mid-flight, wrapping his coils around him and slamming him into the palace floor.
The ground broke.
"You bleed, Lampire Lord!" Ryko bellowed.
"You fall like all kings before you!"
Dust and rubble filled the air.
Then Nyx stood.
He rose from the ruins slowly, fragments of stone falling from his shoulders. Blood streaked his chest—but his smile remained.
"Fall?" Nyx whispered.
A halo of red flame ignited around him.
"I rise," he said softly,
"from every death."
He surged forward.
Nyx dissolved into a storm of bats, the swarm tearing through Ryko's scales like blades. In the blink of an eye, he reformed behind the serpent, claws driving deep into Ryko's chest.
They struck the heart.
Ryko endured.
He unleashed a scream so powerful it shattered every remaining window across York Empire. Glass rained for miles. The sky itself seemed to recoil.
Their battle tore into the heavens—lampire and serpent colliding again and again, lightning and shadow devouring one another. Blood rained over the palace, staining banners, soaking the stones where nobles knelt in terror.
Then Ryko's strength wavered.
"Help me!" he roared, desperation breaking through his fury.
From the palace gates, Carl and Morvain emerged, powers flaring as they rushed forward.
They never reached him.
The air twisted.
Two figures materialized—Jewel Demons.
One glowed with venomous green light, eyes sharp and cruel. The other was wrapped in smoke and living shadow, its form shifting with every breath.
The Green Jewel Demon raised its hand.
Emerald chains erupted from the ground, coiling around Carl, crushing him to his knees.
The Black Jewel Demon moved without sound, engulfing Morvain in a storm of darkness that swallowed his screams whole.
Across the courtyard, lava cracked the stone.
The Volcanic Jewel Demon emerged, dragging three figures behind it.
Rieta.
Saya.
Joey.
Wounded. Shackled. Defeated.
Nyx hovered above them all, wings spread wide, casting an eclipse over the empire. The Blood Moon burned directly behind him.
"You came to end me," Nyx said quietly.
"But you've brought me your souls instead."
Ryko coughed, blood and fire spilling from his jaws.
Still, he laughed.
A broken, gurgling sound.
"You still lose, Lampire."
He spread his arms wide.
From miles away, something answered his call.
The Mare Dagger tore itself free from Nia's hidden grip, slicing through space itself, flying toward Ryko like a living thing. It landed perfectly in his palm.
"Your fate ends here!" Ryko roared.
He plunged the blade forward.
Straight into Nyx's chest.
The world stopped.
A collective gasp tore through the hall. The music died. Even the moon seemed to hesitate.
Nyx's eyes widened.
A cry—raw and torn from his soul—echoed as his body fell, crashing into the shattered floor.
Screams erupted.
Ryko grew.
His body twisted and expanded, scales burning, form rising into a colossal serpent crowned in fire. He lifted himself above the ruins, laughter shaking the sky.
"I am the Lord of the Universe now!" Ryko thundered.
"Bow to your new god!"
Then—
The air shifted.
A whisper moved through the wreckage, soft yet unmistakable.
"Look up."
The Huns, hidden among the crowd, raised their hands. Their disguises melted away as ancient words spilled from their lips. The chant was old—older than empires, older than gods.
The clouds split.
The Blood Moon opened.
From its heart descended a figure.
Immense. Radiant. Wrapped in black fire.
Nyx.
Reborn.
He descended slowly, holding the Mare Dagger in his hand. His wounds were gone. His presence crushed the air itself. Power poured from him in waves that drove everyone to their knees.
His eyes gleamed with divine wrath.
"You speak of gods," Nyx thundered.
"But I am the abyss they fear."
In a flash, he struck.
The dagger pierced Ryko's heart.
The serpent screamed as all five heads disintegrated into ash. His body collapsed inward, burning, imploding like a dying star until nothing remained but smoke.
Nyx stood amid the ruin.
He laughed.
A sound both victorious and unbearably tragic.
"My revenge," he said quietly,
"is complete."
Silence fell.
The Blood Moon wept crimson light over the broken palace.
Nyx turned toward the altar.
"The ritual will continue," he said coldly.
A veiled bride was brought forward, dressed in white and red.
Stacy, still among the fallen guests, looked up.
She was still human.
Untouched.
Her breath caught in horror.
Nyx raised the Mare Dagger and drove it upward—into the moon itself.
The celestial orb bled rivers of light, pouring into his cup. He drank, then turned and bit into his bride's neck.
The air screamed.
The moon sealed their union.
Carl's voice broke the silence, shaking.
"Who… who is this bride," he whispered,
"if Stacy is still here?"
Nyx stepped forward.
Slowly, sorrow filling his eyes, he lifted the veil.
The hall gasped.
It was Nia.
Her eyes glowed with joy and power. A devil's smile curved her lips.
The empire trembled.
The Blood Moon roared.
Nyx smiled faintly.
"The prophecy begins."