The shattering of the Grand Witch's staff had brought a momentary silence to the Obsidian Citadel, but as Andrea stood amidst the shards of Sun-Glass and corrupted crystal, she realized the air hadn't truly cleared.
The temperature remained unnaturally low, and the "victory" felt like a door being slammed shut while the monster was already inside the house.
Theroren gripped the arm of the Obsidian Throne, his knuckles white.
The Burning Heart in his chest was acting like a compass, spinning wildly.
"It's not gone," he rasped, his eyes scanning the shadows of the high rafters.
"The pressure... it hasn't lifted."
Andrea looked down at the Grand Witch. Duskevil's body was a shell, her eyes rolled back. But she wasn't dead.
Her lips were moving, chanting a name that wasn't Nixorath.
"Lumen the First Weaver the Stone is but a key"
"Theroren, look," Andrea whispered, pointing to the floor.
The black frost that had covered the obsidian was not melting.
Instead, it was flowing toward the center of the room, gathering in the cracks where the Aethel-Breaker had struck.
The "Hammer of the Void" had broken the vessel, but in doing so, it had released the concentrated essence of the spirit into the very foundations of the Citadel.
The ground groaned—a deep, tectonic sound that vibrated through the soles of Andrea's boots.
The Obsidian Citadel, built from the volcanic glass of a thousand-year-old eruption, began to pulse with a faint, oily purple light.
"The Citadel is the vessel," Andrea realized, her blood running cold.
"The entire mountain it's been prepared for centuries.
The archives, the wards, the blood spilled in the Sundering it was all a ritual to turn this fortress into a living Lumen Stone."
Theroren's face hardened. "Varas.
He didn't just let the Nixorath in;
he anchored it to the ley lines of Aetheria."
Suddenly, the doors to the Hall burst open again.
It wasn't the shadow-possessed Keeper, but Eva, Theroren's younger sister.
She was pale, her royal garments torn, her eyes wide with a terror that surpassed anything they had seen.
"Brother! The sky!" she cried.
Theroren and Andrea rushed to the balcony. Outside, the bruised sky had ripped open. Across the horizon, seven pillars of black light were erupting from the earth,
corresponding to the seven major lineages of the vampire world the Sanguine, the Nosferatu, the Dracul, and the rest.
"The Nixorath isn't just one spirit," Andrea whispered, her scholar's mind connecting the horrifying dots.
"It's a collective. A hive mind. And we just gave the signal for the Great Harvest to begin."
The realization was a crushing blow.
Their "victory" in the throne room was a localized skirmish in a continental invasion.
"We need the records," Andrea said, turning back to the ruins of the hall.
"The red book the Critical Analysis it mentioned a map. Not a map of lands, but a map of the Veins of the World. If the Nixorath is traveling through the ley lines, we have to find the source of the infection."
Theroren looked at his sister, then at the burning ruins of his legacy.
"Eva, take the remaining Wards. Secure the lower catacombs. If the mountain itself is turning, the catacombs are the only place shielded by the ancestral salt."
He turned to Andrea, his gaze fierce.
"And you. You'd better start now. We aren't just rebuilding a kingdom anymore. We are hunting a god across seven realms."