Chapter 26: [26] Eclipse of the Marquis
The cage of hard light shattered.
It didn’t fade. It didn’t flicker. It exploded outward as if a bomb had gone off inside it.
Kaelen’s final gift, the Federation’s prototype barrier, disintegrated into harmless sparks. The shockwave knocked Leon back, his boots skidding across the polished black floor.
Kaelen was gone. His body had turned into particles of light, the cost of activating the device.
The throne room darkened.
The air thickened, turning heavy and cold. It tasted of iron and ozone. Mana twisted around the dais like a living serpent, suffocating the remaining light from the crystals above.
From the fading dust of the explosion, a figure stepped out.
Marquis Valerius.
His velvet suit was torn, his skin smoking, but he was smiling. His crimson eyes glowed with an ancient, bottomless hunger. His presence alone warped the air, the sheer pressure flattening the loose stones on the floor.
Leon’s [ Analysis ] triggered automatically, the text turning a menacing red.
[ BOSS ARRIVES ]
Marquis Kain , Evernight Noble of Crimson Hunger
Level: 35 | Class: Progenitor Vampire | Title: Thousand-Year Butcher
Traits:
• Blood Reinforcement (physical power increases with spilled blood)
• Shadow Resistance (partial immunity to darkness-type attacks)
• Blur Movement (speed beyond human perception)
• Predator Instinct (evades fatal hits instinctively)
Special Ability:
Crimson Ascension — Multi-Stage Transformation
Level 35.
Leon felt a cold sweat break on his neck. He was Level 2. The gap wasn’t just wide; it was an ocean.
Leon tightened his fists around his daggers.
This one won’t fall easily.
Valerius vanished.
There was no sound of movement. He simply ceased to exist in one spot.
Leon’s eyes couldn’t track him. But his blood could.
[ BLOOD SENSE: WARNING ]
He felt the displacement—a sudden, violent spike in blood lust directly behind him.
"Shadow Glide!" Leon hissed.
He didn’t turn around. He dropped.
He sank into his own shadow just as Valerius appeared, a clawed hand swiping through the space where Leon’s heart had been a millisecond before. The wind from the swipe cracked the stone pillar next to them.
Leon surged out of the floor five meters away, spinning.
[ SHADOW MANIFESTATION: SPEAR ]
He didn’t have time to craft a perfect weapon. He pulled the darkness from the air, shaping it into a jagged, six-foot spear.
He spun it in a tight, violent rotation—a move he had seen in old war archives. The Fog-Hill style.
WHRRRRR-BOOM!!
The spinning shadows created a vortex that blasted outward. It caught Valerius off guard. The vampire slid back, his heels carving grooves into the obsidian floor.
"Fast," Valerius murmured, wiping a speck of dust from his cheek. "For a human."
Leon didn’t wait for a compliment. He lunged, thrusting the shadow spear like a lightning bolt.
CRACK!!
The spear tip struck.
But Valerius wasn’t there. The impact shattered the stone floor behind him as he dodged at impossible speed.
[ PREDATOR INSTINCT TRIGGERED ]
Valerius appeared in front of Leon in a blur. He was smiling.
"Too slow."
He swung a backhand.
Leon reacted on pure instinct.
[ SHADOW MANIFESTATION: BARRIER ]
A wall of solid darkness rose up to block the hit.
CLANG!!
The sound was like a church bell ringing inside a crypt.
The barrier didn’t break—it pulverized. The force of the blow traveled through the shadows and into Leon.
He was launched across the hall. He hit a pillar, bounced, and slammed into the wall.
CRACK.
Pain exploded in his chest.
[ DAMAGE TAKEN: SEVERE RIB IMPACT ]
[ HP: 65% ]
Leon groaned, tasting copper in his mouth. He slid down the wall, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
No regeneration, he reminded himself. No healing items. Kaelen is gone. Rhino is down. It’s just me.
He pushed himself to his feet. His legs shook, but he stood.
Valerius watched him from across the room. He clapped slowly.
"You survive well," the Marquis said. "But survival is boring. Let us escalate."
Valerius exhaled.
The entire hall contracted. The shadows lengthened, and the temperature dropped to freezing.
The blood from the dead Vampire Spawns on the floor began to move. It spiraled up around Valerius, forming glowing red runes in the air.
[ CRIMSON ASCENSION: FIRST FORM ]
BOOOOOOM!!!!
A shockwave of red energy erupted from the dais. It hurled Leon back into the wall he had just stood up from.
Valerius stepped from the red dust.
He was taller now. At least eight feet. His clothes were gone, replaced by an armor of hardened blood. His pale skin pulsed with glowing red veins. His fingers had lengthened into ten-inch talons.
[ ANALYSIS UPDATED ]
[ WARNING: VALERIUS STRENGTH +40% | SPEED +60% ]
He moved.
This time, Leon didn’t even sense it.
BAM.
Leon was in the air. Valerius had kicked him.
He crashed into the floor, skidding past the cowering hostages. Iron, his Shadow Servant, stepped in to intercept.
Valerius didn’t even look at the Shadow Knight. He swatted Iron with the back of his hand.
The servant dissipated into smoke, destabilized by the sheer force of the blow.
[ SERVANT ’IRON’ DESPAWNED. COOLDOWN: 5 MINUTES. ]
"My turn," Leon spat, blood filling his mouth.
He slammed his hand on the floor.
[ SHADOW MANIFESTATION: GRASP ]
A massive shadow arm erupted from the ground behind Valerius. It was the size of a tree trunk, fingers thick and heavy. It grabbed the vampire, squeezing tight, trying to crush him.
Valerius laughed.
He flexed his arms.
RIP.
He tore the shadow arm apart effortlessly, shredding Leon’s mana construct like it was made of paper.
"Is that all?" Valerius roared, his voice distorted now, deeper and more monstrous. "Where is the Monarch’s power? Where is the King?"
He charged.
Leon rolled, dodging a stomp that cracked the foundation of the cathedral.
He was faster now, fueled by adrenaline and desperation, but Valerius was a force of nature.
Leon slashed with his daggers.
[ VENOMOUS STRIKE ]
The blade connected with Valerius’s arm. It cut the skin.
Black toxin seeped into the wound.
Valerius looked at the cut. The skin sizzled for a second... and then healed. The blood pushed the toxin out.
[ RESISTANCE: HIGH ]
"Poison?" Valerius sneered. "I drank poison before your civilization was built."
He grabbed Leon by the head.
He lifted him up, staring into his eyes.
"You have potential," Valerius said. "But you lack scale. You fight like a man. I fight like a disaster."
He threw Leon.
Leon crashed onto the steps of the throne, right next to where Kaelen had died. He lay there, gasping, his vision swimming.
Valerius walked to the center of the room. He spread his arms wide.
The red moon outside the cathedral seemed to shine through the ceiling, bathing him in crimson light.
His smile widened, splitting his face.
"Let me show you true hunger."
Blood erupted from his body. Not a stream, but a geyser.
[ CRIMSON ASCENSION: SECOND FORM ]
The room shook. The pillars cracked.
Valerius began to grow.
Ten meters. Fifteen meters. Twenty meters.
His humanoid shape twisted. His spine elongated, bursting through his back in jagged spikes. His jaw unhinged, filling with rows of shark-like teeth. A lashing tail, thick as a subway train, sprouted from his base.
He wasn’t a vampire anymore. He was a Kaiju. A titan of blood and bone.
Crimson veins glowed like magma under his skin, illuminating the dark hall with a hellish light.
He towered over the room, his head scraping the vaulted ceiling.
[ ANALYSIS UPDATED ]
[ THREAT LEVEL: CATASTROPHIC ]
[ STATS: UNQUANTIFIABLE ]
The giant Valerius looked down at the tiny speck on the stairs. He roared, a sound that ruptured eardrums and shattered the remaining glass in the chandeliers.
His aura alone cracked the floor, sending debris flying.
Leon pushed himself up on one elbow. He looked at the monster. He looked at his daggers, which seemed like toothpicks now.
He wiped the blood from his lip.
He looked up at the twenty-meter tall god of hunger.
Leon whispered:
"...Shit."