The thunderous chime echoed in Jade's mind, the words burning with cosmic finality.
LEVEL UP! Jade: Level 9 > Level 10
CLASS AWAKENED: [Void-Sovereign]
- A ruler whose presence brings stillness and whose will brings ruin.
> [Sovereign's Gaze] (Passive) - Acquired.
The Observer's Eye evolves. You now perceive the 'weight' of a target's will and 'cracks' in their spirit. Enemies with weak resolve suffer minor psychic damage and stat reduction upon meeting your gaze.
> [Throne of Frozen Malice] (Channeled) - Acquired.
Manifest a throne of jagged black ice and purple energy. While channeling, Mental stats are massively boosted and Nether-Flame passively burns nearby threats. [WARNING: Consumes 15% of max Mana per second. Movement is impossible.]
ELEMENT AWAKENED: [Nether-Flame] - Lv. 1
- A dark flame that chills the soul.
Basic Manifestation Unlocked.
A wave of power, cold and vast, crashed through him. He felt his perception sharpen impossibly , the Sovereign's Gaze activating without conscious thought. He could see the lingering terror in the eyes of the surviving ascendants as a visible, fraying aura.
Simultaneously, a new energy kindled in his core. Nether-Flame. Dark, silent tongues of black fire edged with purple flickered to life around his fists for a moment, sucking the warmth from the air around them before winking out.
Before he could process it further, the air shimmered. The Curator materialized. With a dismissive flick of his wrist, a wave of golden light washed over the chamber. The groaning injured, the blood staining the floor—all were restored in a silent, impossible reversal. The evidence of Jade's carnage was erased.
A flicker of a thought crossed Jade's mind: Some of those mages had Classes before me. He brushed it aside. It didn't matter.
Zero met his gaze. "I will rest. This power requires focus," he stated, and left.
Jade turned to follow, but a cold, firm hand closed around his wrist.
"You are not going anywhere," Seraphina's voice was a silken whip. She pulled him toward a section of the Sanctuary he had never seen. The pristine white walls gave way to arches of polished, black obsidian. The air grew cold and carried the faint, metallic scent of old blood and frost-kissed roses. This was the Vampire Dominion.
They passed through a grand hall where ancient figures moved with preternatural grace. Their heavy, sharp auras pressed against his new Sovereign's Gaze, acknowledging it with cold amusement.
Seraphina led him up a spiraling staircase into her private chambers. The room was opulent, ancient, and deadly—bathed in soft light, with crimson carpets and dark tapestries. The air was thick with the intoxicating perfume of night-blooming flowers and something primal. It was overwhelmingly, intimately feminine.
Jade stood rigid just inside the doorway. It was the first time he had ever been in a woman's private room. The sheer personal nature of the space felt like a profound invasion.
Seraphina closed the heavy door with a definitive thud. She turned, her crimson eyes blazing with raw, undisguised hunger.
"I cannot wait any longer," she breathed, gliding toward him. "The power you displayed… I am thirsty, Jade."
She was before him, her gaze tracing his jaw, his throat. "So perfectly made," she whispered, her cool fingertips brushing his hair. Her other hand rose, knuckles grazing his cheek.
"Just a taste," she purred.
Her lips met his. They were soft and cold. A sharp, piercing pleasure-pain erupted in his lower lip as her fangs broke his skin. The world dissolved into a vortex of sensations, the cold of her skin, the warmth of her mouth, the dizzying pull as she drank.
But then, the Void-Sovereign within him rebelled. This was theft.
His hands snapped up with a sovereign's command. He gripped her shoulders and pushed her back, breaking the contact.
"Enough," Jade stated, his voice steady. A single droplet of crimson welled on his lip.
Seraphina staggered back, her eyes wide and drunk, lips stained with his blood. "Jade... my Vessel..."
"You could have simply told me you required sustenance," he said, his tone analytical. "Attempting to incapacitate me through... biological manipulation was an inefficient strategy."
Seraphina blinked. "Biological manipula—? It was a kiss, you impossible block of ice!"
"A kiss is an unquantifiable variable that serves no tactical purpose beyond distraction," Jade countered, wiping the blood away. "And it is... disconcerting. Cease it."
He looked at her, the Sovereign's Gaze seeing the desperate need beneath her allure. "If you require my blood to maintain your strength and protection, state the terms. Frequency. Volume. We will establish a schedule. A logical agreement."
He stood there, treating the ancient vampire's most intimate act like a business transaction.
Seraphina's shocked expression melted away, replaced by a slow, devastatingly beautiful smile. The fury vanished from her eyes, replaced by a glimmer of what looked like genuine amusement and affection.
"Oh, you impossible, magnificent boy," she sighed, the tension draining from her shoulders. She took a step closer, but this time it was not a predator's stalk. It was intimate, conceding. "All that power, and you're trying to draft a treaty for your own veins."
She reached out, but this time her touch was different. Her fingers gently brushed the spot on his shoulder where her hand had been a moment before, a soothing, almost apologetic caress.
"Fine," she whispered, looking up at him through her silver eyelashes. "You win. No more... biological manipulation without your... tactical consent." She said the words with a soft, self-deprecating laugh, as if sharing a private joke with him.
She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "And I won't call you 'my Vessel' if you dislike it so. It is a cold title for someone who burns so brightly." Her crimson eyes softened. "From now on, in these chambers, you will be my Darling. Is that a more... efficient term of address?"
"Requirements," Jade stated, ignoring the new endearment. "One feeding per Sanctuary cycle. Duration: no more than ten seconds. Volume: no more than 300 milliliters. The location must be secure and private. No kissing."
Seraphina's smile was a masterpiece of amused indulgence. "So precise, my darling. As you wish." She agreed easily, as if humoring a child's whims.
Without another word, Jade turned and walked out of her chambers. He moved through the opulent, shadowed halls of the Crimson Palace, the Sovereign's Gaze making lesser vampires instinctively step aside from the cold authority radiating from him.
The moment he was gone, the atmosphere in Seraphina's chamber shifted. The silken tenderness evaporated from her face, replaced by an ancient, weary coldness.
A tall, aristocratic vampire male emerged from the deeper shadows, his expression a mask of disdain. "Seraphina," he hissed. "Have you lost your senses? To debase yourself so... negotiating with that human cattle as if he were your equal? You let him dictate terms to you? Our kind does not bargain with our sustenance."
Seraphina did not turn. She simply stood there, staring at the door where Jade had exited.
Then, she let it out.
It was not a shout, nor a wave of force. It was the release. The air in the room thickened into syrup, then into iron. The scent of frost and roses was violently overwritten by the coppery stench of a primordial blood-sea, the psychic scream of countless battlefields. It was pure, undiluted Bloodlust, a weight that crushed the will and stole the breath.
The aristocratic vampire choked, his eyes widening in primal terror as he dropped to one knee, claws scraping against the marble floor.
"He is MINE," Seraphina's voice was a whisper that carved itself into his soul. "My darling. My precedent. My key to a power that could unmake your entire lineage."
She finally turned her head, her eyes pools of liquid blood-red malice. "Spread this command. No one touches him. No one approaches him. No one even looks at him with anything but absolute deference. If any of you so much as gives him a reason to frown, I will personally tear the blood from your veins and leave your desiccated corpse as a warning."
She leaned closer to the trembling vampire, her voice dropping to a deadly, intimate pitch.
"Do you understand, my dear? Or shall I provide a... demonstration?"
The vampire could only manage a strangled, gurgling sound of assent.
Seraphina pulled her bloodlust back into herself as easily as one might take a breath. The room returned to normal.
"Good. Now get out."
As the vampire scrambled away, Seraphina turned back to the window, a true, unnerving smile touching her lips. Jade thought he was setting boundaries. He had no idea he had just made her claim over him absolute, and her protection more terrifying than any threat.