As the oak barrels in the wine cellar oozed blood, Alyssa's canine teeth were stuck in the gap between Kane's wrist bones. The spikes of the dark iron wrist guard scratched her lower lip, and the saliva mixed with the blood of the two dripped into the cracks in the floor tiles, instantly awakening the sleeping blood-feeding altar.
"A mad dog's move." Kane's sneer shook the iron hoop of the barrel. Alyssa raised her head in a biting posture, and the moonlight shone in from the air vent, illuminating the thorn pattern on the lord's neck - those vine-like black lines were climbing up the cheekbones along the blood vessels, exactly the same as the curse totem on his scepter.
There was a roar of chains breaking from the ground. Alyssa's thorn tattoo suddenly grew longer, and the vines crawled along her spine to the back of her neck. She used the action of turning over to avoid the secret room and stuffed the key she had just touched into her bun - the key's teeth perfectly matched the silver ring left by her mother.
"Brother, you're going to catch even the rats in the cellar yourself?" Lucien's emerald ring flickered at the stairs. Alyssa's taming whip wrapped around the chandelier chain, and her boot heel kicked open a bloody wine barrel. The old blood plasma splashed on Cain's chain mail, and the blue-black armor suddenly burst into spikes, forcing her back to the center of the Wailing Wall formation.
Right now.
Alyssa pretended to stumble and fall, and her neck hit the stone pillar engraved with silver wolf runes. The remaining resentment of the blood feeding gushed out from the weeping human face relief, and the blood drops wrapped around her and Cain seeped into the cracks in the ground. The entire wine cellar began to tilt, oak barrels exploded one after another, and blood wine flowed into the center of the suddenly cracked altar.
"You've already discovered it." The tip of Cain's scepter pressed against her collarbone, and the thorn pattern twisted into a crown shape in the moonlight. Alyssa's eclipse flame ignited in her palm, but was extinguished by the black blood flowing from his wrist - the blood was filled with microscopic thorns, drilling into her meridians through the wound.
Lucien's claws suddenly pierced Cain's shoulder armor. The young lord was as excited as a hyena smelling carrion: "What a wonderful brotherly feud!" His emerald ring burst into green light, illuminating the bronze coffin rising from the bottom of the altar - the thorny vines wrapped around the coffin were exactly the same as the patterns of Alyssa's tattoo.
Alyssa's canines pierced Kane's wrist again. This time she tasted something other than rust - some ancient vibration that resonated deep in her blood. Kane's pupils suddenly expanded into a dark mirror, reflecting the crown of thorns floating in the coffin, the spikes of the crown dripping with the same blue blood as her birthmark.
The frequency of the ground vibration suddenly changed. Alyssa's thorn pattern broke through her skin and grew wildly into a wall of thorny vines in the pool of blood. Kane tore open the chain mail, revealing his left chest - where his heart should be, a bunch of dark thorns were expanding and contracting with his pulse.
"Three hundred years is long enough." His scepter suddenly turned and shattered Lucien's emerald ring. The flying emerald fragments condensed into a miniature wailing wall formation in mid-air, temporarily trapping the young lord in a sonic cage.
Alyssa took the opportunity to pounce on the bronze coffin. When her bloody hand touched the crown, the Eclipse Flame suddenly lost control and ran wild, and the dark blue flames licked the inscription inside the coffin - it was a warning written in the blood of the silver wolf fetus: **Only the killing of the twins can end the reincarnation**.
The thorns in Kane's heart suddenly grew and pierced Alyssa's right shoulder. In the flashbacks of memory in the severe pain, she saw the thorn headband that her mother was forced to wear when she was giving birth, and the crown birthmark that was carved on Lucien's collarbone when he was a baby...
"Do you understand now?" Kane pinched her bleeding jaw, "You and I are both parasites cultivated by the crown." His black blood and her blue blood merged in the altar groove, activating the blood-feeding mechanism deeper inside. The entire castle began to tilt, and the human-face reliefs of the Wailing Wall formation wept blood at the same time.
The moment Lucien broke free of the sonic cage, Alyssa broke the silver chain around her neck, and the engagement bell left by her mother fell into the pool of blood. The bronze coffin suddenly closed, sealing the crown of thorns again. She took advantage of Cain's distraction to pierce the silver ring hidden in her hair into the root of the thorns in his heart.
The vibration of the earth veins stopped abruptly. The darkness in Kane's pupils faded, revealing for the first time a look of pain that belonged to a human. Alyssa's tattoo retreated below her collarbone, but the image floating in the eclipse flame on her palm was clear and terrifying - Lucien was taking out a spare replica of the Crown of Thorns from the altar's secret compartment, and the emerald ring was flashing on his charred fingertips.
Before the dome of the wine cellar collapsed, Alyssa heard the silver wolf language from three hundred years ago whispering in her blood. Her canine teeth were stained with Cain's black blood, and the taste was exactly the same as the poison her mother drank on the night of her difficult labor. When the last stone slab hit the bronze coffin, she saw the family emblem imprinted on the bottom of the coffin: a crown of thorns entwined with twins, with the birth rune of her and Lucien engraved in the center of the crown.
At the moment when the moonlight was obscured by dust, someone grabbed her bloody braid and dragged her into the secret passage. Alyssa clenched the silver ring in a daze, and the protrusion on the ring pierced her palm - it was half a miniature key, and the tooth marks were exactly the same as the keyhole of the secret room in the wine cellar.
From deep in the secret passage came the cry of a newborn baby, mixed with the rustling of growing thorns. Alyssa's tattoo began to twitch again, this time the lines spread directly to her temple, as if thorny roots were slowly taking root in her skull.