The Vampire Project

The chamber beneath Volton Hellgazer's headquarters stank of sterilized ambition and silent failure.

Gold-trimmed stone walls lined with relics of stolen history stared down at the man who once believed himself untouchable. His throne, overdesigned and ostentatious, creaked beneath his rigid frame as he sat motionless, the holographic war map bleeding into black.

One by one.

Safezone after safezone flickered red, then black.

Another.

Another.

Twelve zones down.

Black Knights.

Vampires.

Hunters.

All unified, under a Queen he hadn't accounted for.

The Ring had awakened.

The past had returned.

And his future was being erased in real time.

He gripped the arm of the throne. Metal bent beneath his fingers.

The doors opened.

Zevien entered first. No greetings. No grace. His eyes locked on the map as data scrolled across his wrist.

"Twelve regions lost. The spread has accelerated. Projected sweep: Global lockdown within five days if unopposed."

Volton didn't answer.

Vaelis stalked in behind, cracking her knuckles, heat pulsing off her like a furnace barely chained.

"Three of my elite zones gone without a scream. They're not defending anymore, they're erasing us."

A crash echoed as she slammed a dented vanpire mask onto the table.

Lurien emerged next, calm in appearance, though even her smile wavered as she took in the map.

"They're not chasing power. They're claiming home. You can't fracture that with brute force."

And then, Nereziel, silent as ever, but this time slower.

He placed a bloodstained report on the table and waited. It was thicker than the last. Too thick.

Volton stood.

The room went still.

His voice was quiet, but lethal.

"You let them rise."

Zevien looked up. "They were already rising. We just underestimated the speed---"

"You underestimated?" Volton turned, his tone venomous. "You, who sees ten steps ahead?"

Vaelis stepped forward. "We can still tear it back. Give me reinforcements----"

"Reinforcements?!" His voice cracked into a snarl. "You want to feed more soldiers into a funeral pyre?! That's not reclaiming power. That's painting the walls with our shame."

Lurien smirked, trying to calm the air. "Then let me---"

"Let you what?" he snapped. "Send whispers into ears already deaf to us? The world doesn't fear us anymore, Lurien. They're rising against us like an immune response."

He kicked the table, shattering one side of it.

The projection glitched. Zones blinked out.

But the reality burned brighter.

"I was supposed to be evolution. I gave them Reapers. I gave them silence. I gave them a world without bloodlines or monsters or curses."

His fists clenched.

"And now they gather under a crown I never knew existed. A vampire's crown. A myth."

"I will not be undone by ghosts."

He pointed to the screen.

"Send the Shadow Nets into infiltration. Start bleeding information, officers, captains, allies. I want names. Weaknesses. Children if they have them."

"If they stand with the Queen, they become collateral. Every alliance must cost them something."

He turned to Nereziel.

Voice low.

Final.

"Bring me a head. I don't care whose."

Then, colder than death:

"I want the Queen alone when her army crumbles. Not slain. Not broken.

Just alone."

The throne room stank of fury and rot. Volton stood stiff, watching the map bleed more black than red. The Queen's forces swept faster than he'd anticipated, than anyone could've.

His silence shattered.

"Enough of precision," he snarled. "Enough of pride."

He turned to the Reapers.

"If they won't break… then drown them."

Emergency Protocol: D-Alpha Sequence

Within hours, his private labs, forgotten chambers deep beneath the earth, whirred back to life.

Humans were dragged in by the dozen. Civilians. Homeless. Prisoners.

Anyone no one would miss.

They were injected.

Altered.

Forced into conversion.

They didn't become vampires.

They became… defectives.

Twisted. Incomplete. Hungry.

Their minds cracked.

Their blood rotted.

They didn't need to last.

They just needed to overwhelm.

Volton stood before the first wave, nearly five thousand trembling, snarling, freshly-made defectives chained in rows.

"Send them to the outer zones. Everywhere the Black Knights step, flood them."

Zevien looked at him, truly shaken. "They'll tear through civilians. Entire sectors---"

"Good," Volton hissed. "Let the Queen clean up corpses instead of planting flags."

But it didn't work.

The moment the defectives hit the ground, the Demonfire Clan was ready.

They'd seen it before, in the final attack of the Reapers. They knew the swarm's blind hunger.

They'd studied the patterns.

And they taught it to every ally.

Black Knights didn't just defend.

They anticipated.

Hunters used the defectives' madness against them, baiting, trapping, burning.

Sofie's forces moved like a machine, flawless, focused, unified.

And one by one, each wave fell.

In his throne room, Volton stared at his failing plan.

Zevien remained silent.

Vaelis paced like a caged animal.

Lurien didn't even smirk.

"I gave them war," Volton growled. "I gave them monsters."

A tremor cracked through his voice.

"And they turned it into a cleansing."

His fingers curled against the edge of his throne.

Volton didn't scream.

Didn't rage.

Didn't throw the throne across the room like Vaelis half-expected.

He simply… stood.

And smiled.

A thin, terrible smile.

The kind of smile only a man who built his empire on corpses could wear.

"So… it wasn't enough," he murmured. "Even with the Reapers. Even with the defectives. Even with the world under my boot… they still crawl out from beneath it."

Zevien said nothing.

Vaelis growled low in her throat. "If you're laughing now, then you've lost your mind."

"No," Lurien whispered, almost in awe. "He's remembering something."

Volton turned to her slowly.

"Not something."

"Someone."

He walked toward the far wall, one no one had touched in years.

Not even Nereziel moved as Volton slid his hand across the old carved surface. The wall cracked with age and resistance… then hissed open.

Behind it?

A sealed chamber.

Dark. Frozen.

Forgotten by everyone but him.

Inside was a single pod, humming with restrained chaos.

A name etched in rusted steel:

"Unit: KAIROS."

Lurien's eyes widened. "You locked it away. Said it was flawed."

"It was."

"But so am I."

He pressed a hand to the glass.

The figure inside stirred, pale, grotesque, armored in bone and sorrow.

Not a Reaper. Not a soldier.

Something worse.

Something divine in design, and demonic in purpose.

"I made gods once," Volton whispered. "This one I buried, because even I feared what it would become."

He smiled wider now.

"But now, I no longer care what I become."

The upper floors of the Obsidian Spire towered above the city like a throne sharpened into steel.

To the public, it was just a conglomerate HQ, sleek glass, corporate prestige.

To the Demonfire clan, it was command.

And above it all, the Sky Fortress, the operational core, defensive overwatch, and royal helm wrapped in chrome and silence.

> No wings. No engines. Just power built high enough to look down on war.

The breach hit just past twilight.

No explosion. No flash.

Just a precise implosion of reinforced glass, like someone had unstitched the corner of reality and slipped in.

Alarms stuttered.

Emergency seals activated.

Li was already on her feet, motioning the others back.

"West stairwell, clear it."

She moved like instinct sharpened to steel.

The figure that entered didn't rush.

It stepped into the Sky Fortress like it belonged there, tall, lean, metal-veined armor with reflective black plating and a mask devoid of humanity.

A Perfect Reaper.

Not one of the defectives.

Not here for slaughter.

This one came to steal.

Li didn't wait for it to make the first move.

Their clash cracked through the executive lounge.

Glass shattered as they tore past support pillars and vaulted over the reinforced meeting deck.

The Reaper moved like it had trained with her, anticipating patterns, learning even as it failed.

"It's mimicking me," she muttered between hits.

It lunged toward the server panel, slicing into a comms conduit. Trying to transmit.

She tackled it mid-hack, smashing them both through a digital display wall.

Cables sparked. Systems howled.

"You don't get to learn us."

They fought through corridors lined with surveillance screens and solar shields, a battle filmed by the very eyes Volton wanted to blind.

And then it reached for the inner data relay.

One final pulse away from sending something out.

Li hurled a magnetic disruptor.

It detonated mid-air, scrambling the signal.

Then she drove her blade through the Reaper's back, twisting until the metal spine snapped with a sound like shattering wires.

The Reaper slumped.

Its eyes flickered.

And then---

It spoke.

Not in Volton's voice.

But hers.

"You taught me this dance… remember?"

Li stepped back.

Eyes narrowing.

The voice modulation crackled again, mimicking her tone. Her war logs. Her old training footage.

"So cold… just like before…"

She didn't let it finish.

One clean slash ended it.

The corpse smoldered, its mimic systems still twitching.

Li stood over it, breath steady, jaw clenched.

"Send that message back, Volton," she muttered, wiping her blade on its shoulder plating.

"We don't hesitate anymore."