The white hall was vast and cold. Its marble floor polished so smoothly it reflected the towering pillars like ghostly spines.
The place smelled like of old incense and dried blood. Faint candlelight flickered along the walls, their flames bended whenever Karma moved his fingers through the air, manipulating thin sheets of parchment floating before him.
He was calm as always, reading some scripts, calculating it. Beside him, Xamin stood near the steps leading to the high throne, his silver hair falling over one sharp eye. Unlike Karma, he wasn't calm. His gaze was sharp, restless, filled with something like frustration disguised as reason.
"You're still going through those old prophecies?" Xamin asked, his tone crisp, echoing faintly across the hall.
Karma didn't look up. "Someone has to verify the cycles," he murmured. "Even prophecy fades with misuse."
"Forget the cycles," Xamin said, taking a few steps closer. His boots clicked against the marble. "You've seen what's happening down there in Durkan, haven't you? The energy signatures are unstable. That means someone's interfering with the Overseer's process."
Karma sighed softly, still not raising his eyes. "You're suggesting a war over a few insignificant survivors?"
"I'm suggesting the preparation, just." Xamin replied firmly. "You underestimate how far desperation can push humans. They have relics, Faces, systems, anything that can tilt the balance. We can't assume they're nothing."
Finally, Karma raised his gaze. His eyes were faintly golden, glinting like liquid sunlight. "What would you have me do, brother? Bring forth an army to crush the insects?"
"Yes," Xamin said without hesitation. "We should gather the vampire legions. Every unit under our room. If Durkan falls entirely under the Overseer's influence, even our immortality won't matter."
Karma leaned back in his seat. "You're afraid," he said softly. "That's not like you."
"I'm calculating," Xamin corrected. His tone was cool, controlled. "Fear is a byproduct of seeing too far ahead."
A small smile curved Karma's lips. "You are the smartest among us. Yet sometimes you think too much in terms of equations, not instinct."
"Instinct doesn't stop annihilation," Xamin countered. "neither does arrogance."
Then Karma set the papers aside, folded his hands, and looked up toward the high ceiling where cracks glimmered faintly like veins of gold.
"Very well," he said finally. "Summon them. The lesser houses first. If there is something coming, I'd rather it pierce into our blades than into our walls."
Xamin bowed slightly, satisfied. "What about the remaining humans?"
Karma closed his eyes. "Let them believe they still have hope."
Xamin smirked faintly, turning away. "How merciful of you."
"Mercy," Karma whispered, his tone quiet, almost haunting, "is only beautiful when it's temporary."
Azmaik stepped inside. His boots made no sound on the marble. The torches dimmed for a breath, their flames bending inward, drawn toward him as though the air itself feared to touch his cloak.
Xamin, standing near the center of the hall, turned immediately. "You're late," he said, voice low but edged with respect. Karma only looked up from his seat, one eyebrow raised, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth.
"I move when the truth does," Azmaik replied, his tone calm but carrying a cold gravity. His dark eyes were luminous with a faint silver ring swept across the hall, then fixed on the two vampires before him. "I've found it."
Xamin's expression tightened. "You mean what?"
"Yes," Azmaik interrupted. "The Overseer. We know what it is now."
The words sank into the air like lead. Even Karma's smirk faded, his posture straightening. The silence that followed wasn't of confusion but of realization, of dread quietly dawning behind still faces.
Azmaik continued, stepping closer to the throne where Karma sat. His voice was low, deliberate, each word measured. "It's not one of the usual ones. Xamin, then back to Azmaik. "You're certain?"
"I don't speak on uncertainty," Azmaik said. His coat swept slightly as he turned toward the vast windows, where faint streaks of crimson light still painted the clouds outside. "Preparations must begin immediately. If it descends fully, the balance will collapse before the fifth dawn."
Xamin frowned. "Preparations for what?"
Azmaik paused, then turned back to them. "For war," he said simply. "and for what follows after."
He stepped down from the dais, pacing slowly as he spoke. "I will go for the Bizarro Solace of Sun, the only structure capable of withstanding its descent. With that Solace lies the Fifth Vessel of Artorias. I believe it's time it was awakened."
Karma tilted his head slightly. "You speak as if you already know who this Overseer truly is."
Azmaik's lips twitched but not into a smile, but something mysterious. "I do," he said softly. "Once you know, you'll wish you didn't."
The words hung there, sinking into the hall's vast emptiness. The candles trembled; the marble veins beneath their feet glowed faintly as if reacting to his voice.
Xamin folded his arms, uneasy for the first time. "Then we're not fighting another creature," he muttered. "We're fighting ourselves."
Azmaik didn't deny it. He looked past them both, to the window where the dying light of the red sun fractured across the floor.
"History," he said quietly, "is merciless when it repeats itself."
Be turned toward the exit, his coat trailing like smoke, which spread through the vast chamber as he disappeared into the lightless corridor beyond.
"Begin the preparations."
Azmaik stood at the center, his hand raised. The floor beneath him blasted out from the command.
The marble tiles split apart like a door each side, revealing a depthless hell beneath, an ocean of darkness swirling with greenish light. From that hell, the first skeletal hand emerged.
One by one, they climbed upward. The skeletal figures clad in decayed black armor fused with nether-forged steel. Their bones shimmered from metallic gray, as though forged from the ash of forsaken gods. Each skull burned with faint crimson light inside the sockets, like tiny suns of oblivion.
Azmaik's voice was cold and strong, layered like a thousand ogres speaking in unison.
"Rise, remnants of the Hollow Dominion. Soldiers who died without graves. Feed on memory! Feed on as I command!"
The army obeyed. Wherever the wind from their presence touched, the air shimmered and vanished, devoured into nothingness. The marble floor aged centuries in a heartbeat, cracks spreading like veins. Even the torches' flames were eaten away, leaving behind the smell of absence.
In a distance afar, Xamin observed, muttering calculations under his breath. "These.… are not ordinary undead," he whispered. "They're absence-bound. Anything they touch is removed from the causal plane."
Azmaik didn't respond. He only extended his arm, letting a faint black sigil form beneath his feet, marking the Command Seal of Oblivion. The Skeleton Legion kneeled as one, a millions of bony figures bowing in perfect synchronization.
Unlike Azmaik's void-born silence, his power came with heat growing crimson waves that rippled through the air. His aura expanded outward like blood evaporating into mist, staining the walls red. The cracks in his skin began to glow faintly, veins burning with vampiric light.
Karma raised both hands slowly, whispering an invocation in the dead language of the Sanguine Crown.
That blood-red haze, countless figures began to rise. Vampires in ceremonial armor, blades sharp enough to cut continents. Their capes flowed like shadows turned into liquid. Eyes glowing in shades of garnet and gold.
One knelt before Karma, murmuring the ancient vow of allegiance,
"Through the darkness, through the will, through the hunger eternal."
The entire chamber trembled with overlapping energies as Azmaik's cold, devoured silence against Karma's burning bloodlust. The two forces didn't clash; they coexisted uneasily, like night and flame forced to share the same sky.
Xamin, standing between them, exhaled slowly. "So," he said with a faint grin, "the board's been set. Let's arrange the pieces."
Azmaik turned to him, his eyes glowing faintly through the shadow of his hood. "The board was never empty," he said. "It only needed players willing to die on it."
The sound of marching of bones and steels and blood filled the night outside the citadel.
The war hadn't begun yet, yes it had away ago.