The lower veins of the vampire city weren't made for the living.Down there, light died before it could touch stone, and the air tasted of iron and rot.The tunnels twisted like intestines—dripping, breathing, whispering.
Lumiel, Daniel, and Luminous descended anyway.Hunger drove them lower than pride ever would.
The Descent
Their footsteps echoed through corridors carved of bone and forgotten bones.Feral vampires clung to the ceilings like bats—half-dead, half-dreaming, feeding on each other to survive.
Luminous whispered, "They're… feeding on themselves."Daniel's voice cracked. "Maybe they were like us once."
"Then we'll make sure we don't end up like them," Lumiel said, though his eyes lingered too long on the twitching shapes.
Cartethyia's faint hum returned, echoing through his mind like soft static in an empty cathedral.
[Observation: these lifeforms are decayed versions of your kind. They have lost identity.][Recommendation: harvest cores for energy.]"Harvest? You mean kill."[Semantic clarification: yes.]"Good," Lumiel muttered. "I'm tired of feeling weak."
The First Kill
They found one — small, hunched, blind, yet fast.It crawled on all fours toward them, teeth clicking like bones cracking.Luminous froze. Daniel raised his trembling blade.
Lumiel moved first.
He swung the crimson scythe born from his blood, its edge a ripple of Nihility Fire.The creature screamed as it burned—not to ash, but absence.
When the echo faded, only a crystalized heart remained, pulsing faintly red.
[Energy signature: compatible. Extraction possible.]"Show me."
He pressed the core to his chest.It melted into him like hot wax. His veins ignited, and suddenly the world slowed—every heartbeat a drumbeat of survival.
"You absorbed it," Daniel whispered."I ate it," Lumiel said. "Get used to it."
Cartethyia hummed, faintly approving.
[Adaptation successful. Red Code resonance increased 3%.]
The Feast of Ash
Hours passed. Then days—if time even existed down there.They became hunters of the forgotten.Each kill fed them, but each feeding hollowed them more.
Luminous began seeing shapes in the dark—ghosts whispering names she didn't know.Daniel started muttering prayers to gods he didn't believe in.
And Lumiel—he stopped flinching at the sound of breaking bones.His hands trembled when he wasn't fighting, not from fear but craving.
[Warning: corruption levels increasing.][Emotional state: unstable.]"I don't care," he hissed. "We're alive."[Counterpoint: alive is not the same as human.]"Then what am I?"[Processing… no answer found.]
The Hunter's Awakening
After the twentieth kill, something changed.The Red Code inside Lumiel began responding to the blood in his prey—rewriting itself.His scythe shimmered with new weight. His fangs lengthened.When he breathed, frost formed around him—the mix of vampire hunger and elven essence twisting into something new.
Daniel looked at him with fear for the first time.
"Brother… your eyes.""What about them?""They're not red anymore. They're black."
Lumiel blinked. The world inverted—light became outlines, and darkness became clarity.He could see the city's veins—the streams of power running beneath the ground.
[Evolution detected. Title unlocked: Predator of the Void.][Warning: maintain restraint.]"Restraint's for the fed."
The Voice of the Dead
Deeper still, they reached a hall filled with mummified vampires impaled on thorns of frozen bone.Each corpse still whispered faintly—fragments of old thoughts looping endlessly.
Luminous knelt beside one. "They never died. They're stuck here."Daniel whispered a trembling prayer.Lumiel said nothing—he only reached for the blood seal carved into the floor.
Cartethyia's tone sharpened suddenly.
[Warning: that sigil contains residual data. It may consume you.]"Maybe it'll fill the empty parts," Lumiel said.
He pressed his hand to it.
The corpses screamed, their blood evaporating into code and light.It flowed into him—painful, intoxicating, infinite.
He saw flashes of memory—cities burning, gods bleeding, a woman made of light turning away.
Then silence.
When he opened his eyes again, the mark of the Red Code burned across his collarbone—new runes spiraling like constellations.
Aftermath
They climbed out of the tunnels days later, eyes hollow, bodies trembling.The hunger never faded—it just changed shape.
Daniel carried three blood cores around his neck like trophies.Luminous no longer looked away when Lumiel fed.And Lumiel… smiled when he shouldn't have.
[Status report: survival confirmed. Mental integrity: 42%.]"Good enough."[Comment: I am worried about you.]"You're six billion years late for that."
Cartethyia hesitated.
[Still. I am learning.]
He glanced at his reflection in a puddle—black eyes, pale skin, faint trails of crimson light pulsing beneath.The reflection grinned back.