"Fuck, that scared the shit out of me!" Cecilia snapped, stumbling back as the surge of pressure faded like the aftershock of a gravity quake.
Her voice broke the stillness, but nobody laughed. No one even breathed. They were all too busy staring—eyes wide, lungs locked, brains refusing to process what stood ahead of them.
"Is that…" Seraphina's voice was low, but not out of calm. No, hers was the voice of someone watching a god rise from its grave. "The Vampire Monarch, Caladros von Noctis?"
A silence settled like a cold mist. Heavy. Suffocating.
They all knew that name. Everyone in the room had been raised on the stories, fed the legends of the one who nearly brought about humanity's extinction. The Vampire Monarch. The nightmare that bled daylight, second only to the Heavenly Demon himself in power and infamy.
He hadn't just ruled. He had waged war on an entire continent and nearly won. The Golden Age of the East had ended with his fangs buried in its throat.
