The sky over the Carmilla Faction's capital had ceased to be a canopy of night as sunrise slowly creeping in.
But the crimson mist began to creep back in, slow and suffocating as the mounting bloodshed steadily turned the tide against the exorcists.
Below, the city was a masterpiece of gothic horror being systematically dismantled by holy fervor. The air hung heavy with crimson mist, layered with the sharp copper tang of blood and the acrid, burning stench of the Queen's corrosive rain.
Mirana Shatarova gasped for air, her lungs burning as if she were breathing crushed glass. Her black sister's habit was tattered and the fabric scorched while clinging to her skin where the crimson raindrops had bypassed her barrier magic.
She was backed against a jagged stone pillar, her silver holy sword trembling in her hand.
Before her, three vampire noblewomen moved with a predatory dash as their body emanating crimson aura. They were unaffected by the acid rain, on the other hand they seemed drunk on it.
Their skin glowed with a faint pulsing red light.
"Little bird," one of them hissed, her voice a melodic scratch. "Do you think your God hears you in this cellar of the world?"
"Gospod' pastyr' moy, ya ni v chom ne budu nuzhdat'sya. ( The Lord is my shepherd, i shall not prevail.)", Mirana whispered, though her voice lacked the iron of a seasoned exorcists.
The vampires laughed as they lunged simultaneously. Mirana parried the first strike, the holy silver of her blade singing as it met a claw of hardened blood, but she was too slow for the second. A kick to her ribs sent her sprawling across the wet cobblestones. She looked up, seeing the three of them closing in.
Their fangs bared, ready to feast on a vessel of consecrated blood.
The war was failing. Mirana could see it in the way the Church's vanguard was being pushed back into the bottleneck of the southern gates.
Are they even able to survive until sunrise?
At the center of the plaza near a giant fountain of blood, Griselda Quarta was a blur of golden light. She moved with a frantic desperation. Her holy sword carved through the air, leaving trails of golden light that momentarily parted the red mist as he slashed her enemies one by one. But even she could feel the tide shifting.
The vampires were becoming faster. They fought with a fiercer more desperate hunger, fueled by the sovereign aura that had settled over the city like a heavy shroud.
She had never known that the Queen of Carmilla possessed such blood magic. There were no records of it in the Vatican archives, not even rumors. Even the red mist itself was her creation.
Their strategy had been simple, draw the vampires outside, let the red mist dissipate using Zenith Tempest, then finish them at sunrise. It had failed completely. The Queen's technique overturned the battlefield on its own, rewriting the flow of the war and turning the tide against them.
"Fall back! Regroup at the archway!" Griselda screamed, her voice cracking over the roar of the battle.
Beside her, Diethelm Waldsemüller was no longer looking lazy. He was drenched in blood, though most of it not his own. His holy swords were chipped.
He slammed his palms together and do a praying, emitting a burst of healing light to stabilize a fallen exorcist, but the man was dead before the glow faded.
"Sister Griselda! The mist is getting denser!" Diethelm shouted. "The acid is eating through our barrier magic and slowly wearing down the squad. If Pastor Cristaldi and the rest of the charging unit do not break through now and stop the Queen from generating this acid rain, this will be the end of us!"
Griselda looked up, and for a moment, her heart sank. The red mist was thickening, even as the freezing snow of Zenith Tempest tried to erode it, condensing instead into a solid wall of sanguine energy. They were being pressed from all sides. They were being slaughtered in a forgotten corner of Romania, and no one would ever remember their names.
But as the despair began to take root, the sky did not turn red. It turned grey.
A low, vibrating hum began to resonate through the ground, a frequency so high it made the vampires' ears bleed. The swirling clouds above the main castle ceased their chaotic churning and formed a perfect, massive eye of the storm.
"Look up!" a soldier yelled.
From the heavens, a pillar of raw lightning descended. It was not the jagged yellow of natural storms, nor did it carry any trace of holy sanction. This was Zenith Tempest made manifest, a blinding surge of azure wrath shaped by absolute control. It struck the central courtyard with the precision of a falling spear, and in a single thunderous pulse, hundreds of vampire nobles were erased, their bodies reduced to vapor of burning flesh before they could even scream.
BOOM
The shockwave cleared the acid rain for a mile. Then, the thunder began to roar not as a series of claps, but as a continuous deafening hymn of destruction.
High atop the tallest spire of the Carmilla Castle, a figure stood silhouetted against the white sky. His blonde hair was whipped by the gales, and his green eyes were glowing with a terrifying celestial light.
Dulio Gesualdo raised his hand toward the firmament, and the world obeyed.
"Heaven Feels," Dulio's voice echoed, soft yet carrying over the entire city.
The sky growled in response. Hundreds of lightning strikes began to rain down, targeting anything that radiated a Vampire magical signature. The vampires who had been triumphantly basking in the acid rain were suddenly being incinerated by bolts of divine wrath. The red mist was shredded, replaced by a prison of thunderous heaven.
"For the Lord!" the exorcists roared, their spirits reignited. They surged forward, their blades glowing with renewed power as the trump cards of the Church, the Zenith Tempest turned the battlefield into a consecrated slaughterhouse.
The momentum was absolute. The Church moved like a scythe through wheat, bolstered by the lightning that fell like the very tears of God. But just as they reached the steps of the main citadel, a sound cut through the thunder.
It was a silky, ancient, and heavy voice mixed with a sorrow that felt older than the mountains.
"Enough."
The word was not shouted, yet it resonated in the mind of every living being in the city. The lightning strikes ceased mid-air, dissipated by a wave of sheer sovereign willpower. The storm remained, but the violence was frozen.
The grand balcony of the main castle, a structure of obsidian carved with black roses, was now occupied.
Standing at the railing was a woman of ethereal haunting beauty. Her skin was the color of moonlight on snow, and her hair was a waterfall of pale blonde, held in place by a crown of black rose thorns. She wore a dress of blood-red silk that seemed to flow like liquid around her feet.
Queen Carmilla.
But it was what stood behind her that made the Church's breath hitch. Two hulking vampire guards held a wooden cross upright. Nailed to it was a broken, bloodied figure in priest's vestments.
"Pastor Cristaldi..." Griselda whispered, her sword dipping toward the ground.
Ewald Cristaldi, the leader of the operation, was alive, but barely. His body was a map of lacerations and heavy iron nails were driven through his wrists and feet. His head hung low, blood dripping from his chin onto the black stone.
The battle stopped. The soldiers of the Church stared up in horror and fury at their crucified commander.
"O humans," Carmilla spoke, her gaze sweeping over the thousands of exorcists below. "Every one of your brothers who dared enter the inner sanctum of this castle has been annihilated. Your vanguard is gone. Your leader is a husk. Let us end this pointless bloodshed, for it will bring nothing but the silence of the grave to both our kinds."
She paused, her crimson eyes locking onto the blonde youth atop the spire.
"We have been deceived," she continued, her voice echoing with a regal wisdom. "You hunt a shadow that does not dwell within these walls."
"Liar!" an exorcist screamed from the ranks. "You filthy bitch!"
"Kill the blood-suckers! Burn them all!" the soldiers began to chant, their grief turning into a blind murderous rage.
Carmilla did not flinch. She looked directly at Dulio Gesualdo. "Zenith Tempest, bring this message to your Heavens. If you desire the death of your people, then we shall march toward that end together. The choice is yours. Justice or extinction?"
The declaration hung in the air, thick and suffocating. The silence that followed was more terrifying than the thunder. Dulio looked down at the crucified Cristaldi, his fingers twitching. He could level the castle, but he would kill his own people in the process.
Suddenly, the darkness of the morning was shattered.
A golden, brilliant light erupted from the center of the battlefield, forming a massive, intricate magic circle composed of holy runes that no human hand could ever draw. The light was so intense that the vampires shielded their eyes, hissing in pain.
From the heart of the radiance, two figures stepped forward.
They were winged beings of such staggering beauty and power that the very air seemed to purify itself in their presence. Each possessed twelve shimmering white wings that fanned out like the petals of a celestial flower.
The man in front had long, flowing blond hair and eyes the color of an emerald forest. His presence was a blend of absolute authority and boundless compassion. Behind him stood a woman of breathtaking grace, her curly blonde hair cascading over a voluptuous figure that radiated a maternal protective warmth.
Archangel Michael and Seraph Gabriel.
The exorcists, many of whom had spent their lives praying to these figures without ever expecting to see them, fell to their knees. A wave of sobbing and prayer broke out among the ranks as soldiers bowed their heads, unable to look directly at the radiance of the Heavens.
Queen Carmilla stood her ground, though her eyes narrowed. She looked at the two highest beings of the celestial hierarchy. Michael and Gabriel looked back at her, their expressions grave.
"Queen of the Shadows," Michael spoke, his voice like the resonance of a great bell. "You speak of deception."
"I do, Archangel," Carmilla replied, her voice calm and unyielding. "You are leading your people to their deaths for a prize I do not possess. The Sephiroth Graal is not here. It has never been here, and you know that. My halls are filled with the scent of human blood and the ashes of my own kin, and for what? To satisfy the whims of those who hide in the cracks of the world?"
Gabriel stepped forward, her gray-blue eyes softened by a sorrow that mirrored the devastation below.
"Your kind has slaughtered humanity for centuries, often for nothing more than indulgence."
Carmilla did not flinch. She took a single step back, not in retreat, but in restraint.
"So has yours, Lily of the Heavens," she replied evenly. "Humans have hunted us since the dawn of our existence. This cycle of opressed and opressor did not begin with us, and it will not end with us."
She raised her hand, gesturing toward the ruined city drowned in blood and lightning.
"All of your convictions have been laid by an enemy common to us both. The Tepes Faction has played us all. They lured your wrath here so they could perfect their goals. If this war continues, there will be nothing left of Romania for either Heaven or Carmilla to claim."
Michael's gaze lingered on the crucified Ewald Cristaldi, then drifted to the thousands of his Father's children kneeling in mud and blood. Their prayers were hoarse, their faith shaken, their ranks broken.
Slowly, he looked back to Carmilla.
"Then let us speak, Queen," Michael said, his white wings folding slightly. "For if the Grail lies elsewhere, then a far greater abomination is rising while we spill blood pointlessly."
Silence spread across the battlefield.
Blades lowered. Incantations died on trembling lips. The thunder that had ruled the heavens receded into a distant murmur, leaving only rain and the sound of the wounded breathing.
Thus, the battle for Carmilla Territory ended not with a final charge or a holy verdict, but with a fragile blood-soaked truce. Exorcists and vampires stood amid the ruin, uncertain, exhausted, but very much alive.
But peace, however hard-won was never allowed to linger.
As the angels and the Queen turned toward the shattered balconies of the castle, the clouds to the north began to twist.
The horizon above the Carpathians darkened unnaturally, and from beyond the mountains, a sickly violet glow bled into the night sky.
As the anthem of execution tolled on the far side of the mountain.
***
Meanwhile at the other side of the mountain.
At the heart of Tepes territory.
The great hall lay submerged in shadow, illuminated only by the faint tremor of candlelight. Tall pillars disappeared into darkness above, their carvings worn smooth by centuries of whispered prayers and blood-soaked rites. The air was cold, heavy with old magic and the lingering scent of iron.
At the center of the hall stood an altar carved from black stone.
Upon it lay a young woman.
Her short blonde hair spread like pale silk against the stone, her skin deathly still as her eyes closed indefinitely. She was alive but preserved in a state between existence and absence.
A hollow vessel for a power to costly to bear by such a frail body.
Before her stood a young man with a face too perfect to be real. His features were sharp and doll-like, his expression twisted by irritation rather than awe. He paced once, boots echoing softly across the marble floor, then stopped at the foot of the altar.
"Can we get this started already?" he said, his voice carrying a petulant edge.
"I am tired of waiting. I am going to turn this land into something that belongs to me and mine alone. I will trample the Church, grind the Carmillas into dust, and burn whatever crawls out of the ashes."
The candles flickered.
Then, from the far end of the hall, the darkness moved.
A presence emerged, unhurried and calm.
He stepped forward as though the shadows themselves parted to make room for him. A middle-aged man perhaps in his forties, with long dark-silver hair draped loosely behind his back and a neatly kept beard framing his face.
His hazel eyes were amused and his posture relaxed, as if he were merely strolling through a garden rather than standing at the heart of a world-altering ritual.
"Do not rush, boy," the man said softly. "Power is patience."
The younger man clicked his tongue in annoyance but did not turn around.
The man smiled.
Anyone unfamiliar with the supernatural world might have mistaken him for a harmless noble or a wandering scholar. That illusion was precisely why he had survived as long as he had. Beneath the light demeanor rested one of the most dangerous existences to ever walk the supernatural world.
He who outlived gods.
A devil through and through.
As one of the only three Super Devils in this world,
Rizevim Livan Lucifer is a man of many experience.