After sealing the planetary spirit into a black, soul-bound marble, the demon dark mage hovered above the withering land like a god admiring his collection. Within his subspace—a warped dimension where time and matter obeyed only his will—floated a grotesque display: a mountain of orbs, each holding the dying soul of a stolen world. Now, another one had joined their ranks.
He smiled.
It was not the smile of a man, nor that of any sane being. It was toothy, wide, crooked. Even with gaps where fangs once were, it radiated menace. His skin, pale as parrot bone, sagged in folds across his hunched form. Pimples bubbled like curses on his cheeks, and a dark, tattered cloak draped across his shoulders like night devouring a corpse. A long, hook-nose protruded from his face like a witch's curse, and his eyes—those eyes—were abysses. Looking into them was like staring into the gates of darkness itself.
When he laughed, the space around him trembled.
The very ground below cracked like an egg on the verge of hatching something unholy.
This was not a demon who destroyed because he needed to. This was a demon who destroyed because he could.
Dracula had been strong—titanic, even. If raw power alone were the measure, Dracula might have rivaled him. The king of vampires had the strength to decimate worlds.
But this wasn't just about strength.
It was about mastery. Efficiency. Arrogance forged by aeons of victories.
What this demon dark mage accomplished was not brute domination—it was an art. A horrific, soul-throttling art.
And with the planetary spirit now gone, Vladara was like a body without a soul. It would not die quickly. No, it would suffer. Slowly. Surely. Cosmic radiation would begin to gnaw at its surface, tectonic harmony would unravel, and the planet would eventually drift into the void—just another asteroid lost beneath the blood-red sun.
Dracula, the Queen, the High Generals, the Royal Guard—they were all dead.
What remained were civilians. Weak, trembling nations. Survivors huddling like shadows under falling skies.
And the demon? He didn't even glance at them. To him, they were beneath bacteria. Not even worth a second thought.
Dracula's power and this planet's rich energy had drawn him here. He came. He saw. He liked. And what he liked—he took.
Meanwhile, across the continent, monsters ran wild. Hulking brutes with multiple heads and venomous fangs tore through cities, crossing borders like wildfire. But the demon stood in the center of it all and whispered.
A single incantation in an ancient tongue, one no scholar had ever recorded.
From his lips poured black runes, twisted glyphs soaked in eldritch magic. The words became visible, each character pulsing with malevolence. Like drills made of shadow, they tore through the fabric of reality, digging into space as if it were soft, wet sand.
Reality began to rip.
And amid that monstrous tide, there was a small group. Cloaked figures standing still in the heart of chaos.
Five souls—veiled in desperation and wrapped in layers of cloaking magic that shimmered like oil on water.
Princess Riona.
The only daughter of Dracula.
Beside her stood two mages—one a dark sorcerer, the other a flame-wielding spellcaster—and two small children, clutching each other, eyes red from silent tears.
The group had layered themselves in hundreds of thousands of spells. Magic woven by the combined efforts of both surviving mages. And over it all, a final veil—the legendary cloaking spell of Dracula himself, sealed with a royal artifact that could shroud even gods.
And still... it wasn't enough.
Because the demon turned.
His laughter faded, and slowly, methodically, he turned his head toward the horde of monsters.
But his eyes—those terrible, ancient eyes—locked not on the beasts, but on them.
Riona's heart froze.
Though wrapped in layers of sorcery and illusion, they were as exposed as children playing hide-and-seek behind glass. To the demon, their cloaking was transparent. Dracula's spell, the artifact—mere tricks to a being who had devoured spirits of a hundred worlds.
He didn't like what he saw.
And that was all that mattered.
Riona bit her lip, hard. Her fangs dug into soft flesh until blood spilled freely down her chin.
"We're too weak," she thought, "Too weak. But one day… One day, I'll have my revenge."
A silent vow, carved not into stone but into her very soul.
She had seen her father fall—watched helplessly as that monster played with him like a child torturing an ant. She had seen her mother obliterated in a flash of demonic light.
And now… the demon laughed.
Her sorrow became rage. Pure, burning, all-consuming.
Yet she didn't break the cloaking.
Not yet.
They had to survive. If they died here, the Sunblood Vampire race would go extinct. Everything—her fury, her grief—had to be buried beneath one primal instinct.
Survive.
The monsters around them roared and howled, but not one sensed the cloaked group. They stood amid chaos like a ship in the eye of a storm.
Until—
The demon lifted one hand and chanted again.
Black runes flowed from his tongue, darker than night, slicing through the air and tearing open space once more.
This time, the rift that formed wasn't just a tear.
It was a portal.
Like ink spilled on parchment, it bled into reality, swirling into an obsidian vortex that radiated power. But there was no preview, no visible destination beyond. Just a whisper—a call—from the other side.
As the portal widened, it began to pulse like a heartbeat. The surrounding monsters stopped rampaging. Their bodies stiffened, but not in fear.
In joy.
The pull began slowly, then escalated. A gravitational force erupted from the rift, and the monsters were dragged forward like dust in a tornado. Howling with delight, they didn't resist. They wanted to enter.
And the cloaked five?
They were caught in the current.
Sucked between the crashing waves of beast and magic, they had no choice. Their footing gave out. Their spells strained.
And then, like leaves in a cosmic windstorm…
They were pulled into the rift.
Whether by fate or force, they vanished into the unknown.
And the demon… merely smiled.