The Blood of Vampire: Chapter 10 - The Throne of Celestial Ash
The path to the Crystal Spire led through the Valley of the Celestial Ash—the fallout zone of an ancient, successful Vaelanar Siphon that had consumed an entire settlement. It was a desolate, silent plain of spiritual exhaustion.
Jatex and Ryn moved cautiously, but they were too late.
In the center of the valley, sitting on a natural outcrop of quartz that resembled a sinister throne, was Elder Kael.
He was waiting. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He simply focused his entire being—his life essence, his centuries of absolute spiritual purity—onto Jatex. It was a silent, overwhelming pressure aimed directly at Jatex's new spiritual anchor.
You contaminate your sister's memory with a human accessory, Jatex. You are a shame. Surrender to the **Stillness** I now provide, or I will use your body to execute the **Final Siphon**.
The telepathic command was absolute. Jatex felt his Shadow-Blood Weave seize up, the turbulence of his Grief instantly threatened by Kael's superior, pristine discipline. The Thirst recoiled in fear. Jatex couldn't move.
Ryn, seeing the absolute terror in Jatex's cold eyes, knew this wasn't a fight—it was a spiritual execution.
She acted on instinct. Ryn didn't have power, but she had knowledge. She threw her entire bag of seismic charges—Vorlag's captured explosives—directly at the Throne of Celestial Ash.
Kael scoffed. Human explosives meant nothing to a Vaelanar Elder. He didn't even twitch, letting the blast simply dissolve in his spiritual field.
But Ryn's target wasn't Kael. It was the quartz outcrop beneath him—the geomantic nexus Kael was using to amplify his power.
The explosion was minimal, but the shockwave fractured the highly unstable quartz. The Celestial Ash reacted instantly, the residual, starved Shadow-Aethyr in the valley rushing to consume the new crack in the geomantic flow.
Kael's flawless concentration was broken. The geomantic feedback was minimal, but it was enough.
Jatex seized the fractional opportunity. He performed a deep, massive Siphon of Grief, consuming the spiritual terror of the past few minutes. The raw energy slammed into Kael's broken focus.
Jatex grabbed Ryn and executed a full-power, instantaneous Shadow-Leap—a terrifying, short-range teleport fueled by explosive trauma.
They reappeared half a mile away, panting, the Crystal Spire towering before them.
Kael was untouched, but his silence was now laced with pure fury. The human, the accessory, had forced him to break his focus.
Jatex looked back at the cold, lonely figure sitting on the scorched Throne. He was alive, but the Shadowed Pact had just escalated. Kael was no longer playing. The hunt was now mortal.