Reality blinked.
One moment—a corridor. The next—a vast stairway unfurled before Sylarion, as if the world itself had exhaled, revealing a hidden layer. A pulse of shadow marked the end of the servant's teleportation—no flash, no sound. Just a smear in the air, dissolving like smoke.
They stood at the base of a staircase carved from dark stone, cold and damp beneath their feet. Overhead, the sky loomed, choked with clouds that swirled like a storm trapped beneath the skin of the world. Not even a whisper of sunlight pierced the gloom.
The servant didn't meet his gaze.
"Go ahead to the Grand Sunroom, Master. I must go now."
And just like that—he vanished. Gone, as though he'd never existed at all.
Sylarion was alone.
The silence was unnatural. No birds. No breeze. Not even the breath of moving air. Only the beat of his own heart, and the distant creak of cooling stone.
He looked up.
The staircase stretched before him like a ritual, each slab of stone slightly uneven—almost organic. As if they hadn't been built, but grown. He ascended. Each step echoed with a dull thud, swallowed whole by the heavy, unmoving air.
At the summit, the doors awaited.
Vast. Towering. Twice his height. Forged of a blackened metal that drank light rather than reflected it. Ornate patterns slithered across the surface—too faint to decipher, like memories etched into steel.
Then he saw them.
Two giants.
Nine feet tall. Motionless.
Draped in robes that clung like burial cloth, they stood on either side of the door. Their faces—hidden. Even their hands—wrapped in shadowed fabric—gripped monstrous spears taller than a man. They didn't move. They didn't breathe.
But they were watching.
The air between them felt compressed—like standing between cliffs that might collapse at the wrong breath.
Then—they moved.
No sound. No signal.
Just motion—perfectly mirrored.
The doors creaked open with a groan, the sound dragging across his bones like teeth on stone.
Darkness yawned beyond.
Waiting to swallow him whole.
Sylarion didn't speak.
He stepped forward.
The doors closed behind him.
As the weighty doors sealed shut with a thunderous boom, Sylarion stepped into a world that did not belong.
His breath caught in his throat.
Gone was the damp stone, the choking gloom, the lifeless silence of a land starved of light.
This… was something else.
The castle interior burst into brilliance—crafted entirely from gleaming white marble that shimmered like carved sunlight. Every surface glowed with golden hues, as if the walls themselves remembered a sun that no longer shone outside.
It wasn't warmth in temperature—but in presence. And it was unsettling.
The floor beneath his boots was polished to a mirror-like sheen, reflecting a warped image of himself. Grand pillars soared to a ceiling too distant to measure, each etched with blazing sun motifs. They pulsed faintly, glowing like sacred embers abandoned in an altar.
Above, the roof exploded with light and madness.
A mural stretched from end to end—an intricate panorama of solar deities, radiant beasts, and celestial wars locked in eternal motion. None of the figures were familiar, yet their faces stared down with expressions too vivid to be mere art. Some smiled. Some wept. One bled gold.
It wasn't just a painting.
It was a story.
One never told.
And still unfolding.
Chandeliers swung gently overhead—though no wind stirred. Forged from gold and glass, they hung like inverted suns, each crystal tongue burning steadily without flicker. The light they cast did not illuminate.
It observed.
Sylarion stood still.
He had left a graveyard—and entered a shrine of gold.
And somewhere within this radiant sanctum… something waited.
Something old.
As Sylarion stepped deeper into the sunlit hall, the echo of his boots faded into the ceiling above. The silence was no longer empty.
It watched.
And then he saw it.
At the far end of a long, impossible table, seated like a shadow caught in sunlight, was a man.
He sat in silence. Regal. Upright. One gloved hand resting lightly over a gilded chalice. He didn't command the room.
He loomed within it.
Sylarion froze.
He recognized him.
The same man who'd barged into his room days ago—uninvited, uncaring. Tearing through what little privacy he had left. The man who had spoken with venom and walked away without waiting for a reply.
One of the names from the diary.
One of his half-brothers.
He didn't know much—only that the bloodline was ancient, real. His "family," if it could be called that, was a trifecta: an elusive father cloaked in mystery, and two half-brothers of unknown age. The diary offered no warmth. No malice. Only facts. Cold and clinical.
He belonged to a grand clan.
But only these three bore the same blood as the boy whose life he now inhabited.
He knew their names. Not their natures.
And now, one of them sat beneath a mural of suns that didn't belong to this world.
Waiting.
Watching.
Still.
Sylarion drew a breath—and walked forward.
His boots echoed along the luminous marble as he passed the length of the endless table, eyes flicking between polished goldware and sunlit illusions cast by the chandeliers above.
He stopped at a seat. Far. Respectfully far.
He hadn't even touched the chair when a voice cut through the air.
Rough. Commanding. Icy.
"Where are you sitting, fool? Come and sit here."
It wasn't a request.
It was law.
Sylarion stiffened. Every instinct screamed at him. Run. Flee.
But he moved.
Like a dog caught beneath its master's gaze—he obeyed.
The chair beside the man slid outward on its own, smooth as silk, as if the castle itself welcomed the proximity.
Sylarion sat.
Up close, the brother's presence was suffocating.
He looked as though he'd stepped out of a book too old for mortal ink. The kind of vampire who didn't sparkle—but made the moon retreat. Skin like preserved ivory. Eyes too deep to read. A face carved to tempt angels and warn devils. His black ensemble was immaculate—no thread out of place.
Everything about him whispered old money. Older power.
And restraint.
The kind of restraint that said: I don't need to raise a hand to kill you. I already know how.
Sylarion remained silent.
The man sipped from his chalice.
The silence grew heavier.
Ten minutes later—everything changed.
Not with sound.
Not with movement.
But with existence itself, as if the world had just been rewritten.
The air froze.
The chandeliers began to shiver. The radiant, sun-kissed marble dulled like dying embers. Shadows bled from the corners—ancient, waiting.
Reality flinched.
A cold unlike any other seeped into Sylarion's bones—not the chill of temperature, but of time. Of origin.
The golden hall trembled.
The light… fled.
As though the sun itself had been shackled and cast down.
And from above—descending the grand staircase with dreadful slowness—came a man.
No.
A presence.
Sylarion didn't need to guess. His body knew. His soul screamed.
His limbs shook without permission.
This was the one from the diary.
The father.
Each step he took rang out like a funeral bell.
Robes of midnight clung to him, devouring light. Silence trailed behind him like a second skin. He didn't walk.
He reigned.
And as Sylarion dared look up, he caught a glimpse of a face older than blood.
This was no father.
This… was the origin.
Sylarion's heart nearly forgot to beat.
A true vampire.
Not the sulking romantics from mortal fiction. Not the charming monsters who drank wine and flirted with death.
This was something else.
Something ancient.
Something wrong.
No book had ever prepared him for this presence. None could. If one had tried, it would've been burned for blasphemy.
Even ghosts—beings without flesh—would've trembled beneath this gaze.
His eyes didn't look at you.
They emptied you.
Men would wet themselves. Kings would kneel. Gods might avert their gaze.
And this… was his father.
Sylarion's spine stiffened like a statue caught mid-scream. His instincts shrieked for escape, but even fear itself dared not move beneath this shadow.
This wasn't a being you met.
This was a phenomenon.
And he was walking straight toward them.
As the marble trembled beneath every footfall, Sylarion finally saw him fully—
Drekkh Vartalion. The Vampire Lord.