Chapter 88: The Subterranean Discovery
Lucifer stood at the edge of the massive hole in the center of the ten-mile-wide crater. Below him, the ancient Vampire City sprawled in the dark.
"I do," Lucifer repeated smoothly, his voice echoing down the shaft.
The vampire on the shattered balcony below glared up at him. She was incredibly pale, her raven-black hair coated in a thick layer of gray ash from the vaporized mountain above.
Her crimson silk dress was scorched, the fabric clinging to her small frame.
She bared her fangs. Her blood-red eyes burned with a mixture of absolute fury and deep exhaustion.
[System: Entity Scanned.]
[Name: Princess Vexia]
[Class: Royal Blood Sorceress (Level 65 - Epic)]
[Status: Critically Wounded. Health: 1% (1 HP remaining). Severe Mana Depletion.]
[Warning: Target is highly volatile. Approaching terminal limits.]
Lucifer read the system interface. His eyes narrowed.
A Level 65 Epic entity. She was ten levels higher than the Lich Lord Vorthos and only ten levels lower than the Heart of the World-Eater.
She was royalty in a dimension of monsters. And she was currently holding onto her life by a single thread.
The Star-Shatter Cannon’s blast hadn’t hit her directly, but the shockwave from vaporizing the mountain above her city shattered her defensive wards and drained her health bar.
"You did this?" Vexia shrieked. Her voice cracked, lacking the deep, commanding resonance of a Level 65 boss.
She clutched a shattered piece of black marble railing to keep herself upright. "You dropped a star on the Sanguine Court? Do you have any idea what you have done, you arrogant, sun-worshipping insect?!"
Lucifer didn’t activate his Warlord aura to crush her. He didn’t need to. The gravity of his presence alone was enough to make her flinch.
He stepped off the edge of the crater.
Lucifer plummeted down the massive shaft, falling hundreds of feet into the subterranean cavern. He didn’t use Zephyr’s Grace. He waited until he was fifty feet above the highest spire of the vampire cathedral.
"Void Step," Lucifer commanded quietly.
He vanished from the air and materialized flawlessly onto the cracked, ash-covered balcony, landing a mere five feet away from the furious Princess.
The heavy thud of his iron boots shook the weakened structure.
Vexia stumbled backward, her red eyes widening in shock. She had expected him to splatter on the pavement, not teleport through the anti-gravity dimension.
"Stay back!" Vexia hissed, raising her soot-stained, pale hands.
She tried to cast a spell. Her fingertips glowed with a faint, sickly crimson light. She intended to boil the blood in Lucifer’s veins.
The magic sputtered.
Instead of a lethal blood curse, Vexia coughed. A thick cloud of gray ash and a few drops of black blood sprayed from her lips.
The spell fizzled out completely, leaving her hands trembling and empty. She had absolutely zero mana left to pull from the environment.
Lucifer crossed his arms over his dark breastplate. He looked down at the coughing vampire.
"Oops," Lucifer said softly. A cold, unapologetic smirk touched his lips. "My hand slipped."
Vexia wiped the black blood from her chin, her fangs clicking together in frustration. She glared at his dark armor and the ruby-red Carnage Core resting on his hip. She felt the massive, compressed density of his Level 50 Archmage core.
"You didn’t slip," Vexia spat, her voice a ragged whisper. "You used a Precursor weapon. You breached the Umbral Ridge to kill the Heart. But you didn’t know we were down here, did you?"
"I didn’t care," Lucifer corrected her smoothly. "I cleared the zone. If your city was in the blast radius of my artillery, that is a tactical error on your part for building under a boss spawn."
Vexia’s eyes flared with fresh rage, but she was too weak to stand straight. She slumped against the broken stone railing, her crimson dress pooling around her boots.
"It was our shield, you fool," Vexia explained, her breath coming in short, painful gasps. "The Sanguine Court was trapped here during the First Convergence.
We survived the Umbra by hiding beneath the World-Eater. Its massive Void signature masked our blood magic from the lesser swarms. You just blew the roof off our sanctuary."
"And your people?" Lucifer asked, looking past her into the dark, silent streets of the gothic city below.
"Dead," Vexia stated flatly. The fury in her red eyes was momentarily replaced by a deep, ancient sorrow. "The shockwave shattered the hibernation vaults. The entire Court was crushed in their sleep. I was the only one awake in the upper spires maintaining the wards."
She looked back at Lucifer.
"I am the last," Vexia whispered. "And you killed me."
Lucifer didn’t offer an apology. The Warlord did not deal in regret. He dealt in assets.
In his past life, vampire royalty were incredibly rare and terrifyingly powerful. They did not use standard elemental magic.
They used Blood Sorcery, a unique branch of magic that bypassed physical armor and manipulated the life force of allies and enemies simultaneously.
A Level 65 Blood Sorceress could turn an entire battlefield into a weaponized slaughterhouse.
He had an army of Titans, Dragoons, and Dragons. He had the holy light of the Dawn Saintess. He had the spatial mastery of the Void.
But he did not have a blood mage.
Lucifer walked slowly toward her. His boots crunched on the gray ash covering the balcony.
Vexia tried to back away, but her spine hit the solid stone wall. She was trapped. She looked up at the Warlord, expecting the killing blow. She closed her eyes, waiting for the dark blade to end her existence.
Lucifer did not draw his sword.
He stopped directly in front of her. He unhooked a small, crystal vial from his belt.
It was a high-tier health potion he had looted from the Cathedral’s vault in the capital. The glowing green liquid inside swirled with concentrated, pure healing magic.
"I am not going to kill you, Princess," Lucifer said, his voice dropping to a low, resonant rumble. "I am going to offer you a contract."
Vexia opened her eyes. She stared at the glowing green vial, then up at Lucifer’s void-swirling irises.
"A contract?" Vexia scoffed, though she couldn’t hide the desperate hunger in her gaze as she looked at the healing magic. "You destroy my kingdom, slaughter my court, and then offer me a job? I am royalty, mortal. I do not serve."
"You are at one hit point," Lucifer observed coldly. "You have no kingdom. You have no court. In exactly five minutes, the ambient Void magic of this dimension is going to finish eating through your shattered wards, and you are going to dissolve into dust."
He held the crystal vial out, pinching the cork between his armored fingers.
"You have two choices, Vexia," Lucifer dictated, his tone absolute. "You can die here on this ash-covered balcony, and your lineage ends in the dark.
Or, you can swear fealty to me. You become an asset of Obsidian. I heal you, I pull you out of this dead city, and I give you a new kingdom to rebuild your court."
Vexia stared at the Warlord.
She hated him. He was the architect of her destruction. He was arrogant, ruthless, and wielded magic that terrified her ancient soul.
But she also recognized the reality of the Umbra. The Warlord had just vaporized a Level 75 Epic Boss with a single shot and hadn’t even broken a sweat. He was a localized god of war.
She was a vampire. Survival was her oldest instinct.
"A new kingdom," Vexia repeated softly, her fangs scraping against her bottom lip. "You would give a Blood Sorceress a place in the sun?"
"I am building a city in the sky," Lucifer stated smoothly. "It will need an architect for its magical defense grid.
Someone who understands how to weave wards from blood and Void. You are uniquely qualified for the position."
Vexia looked at the glowing vial again. Her pride screamed at her to reject the mortal’s offer. But the burning agony in her shattered core demanded the healing magic.
"You are a monster," Vexia whispered, her red eyes flashing with reluctant, bitter acceptance.
"I am a Warlord," Lucifer corrected her. "Do we have a deal?"
Vexia swallowed hard. She didn’t have the strength to stand. She slumped against the wall, slipping down to her knees on the ash-covered floor.
"I accept your contract, Lord of Obsidian," Vexia vowed, her voice raw and exhausted. She bowed her head, her raven-black hair falling over her pale shoulders. "My blood is yours. My magic is yours. Save me."
[System: Entity Subjugated.]
[Name: Princess Vexia, Sanguine Court.]
[Class: Royal Blood Sorceress (Level 65 - Epic)]
[Status: Bound Vassal. Loyalty Level: Moderate (Pragmatic Survival).]
Lucifer smiled. A cold, satisfied smirk. The integration was perfect.
He didn’t hand her the vial. He popped the cork with his thumb.
Lucifer knelt in front of the dying vampire. He gently tilted her chin up with his iron gauntlet and poured the entire contents of the high-tier healing potion directly into her mouth.
Vexia gasped.
The concentrated healing magic hit her shattered core like a lightning bolt. The glowing green liquid bypassed her digestive system, flooding instantly into her depleted mana veins.
The deep, agonizing burns on her pale skin vanished in a matter of seconds. Her torn crimson dress didn’t repair itself, but the flesh underneath knit together flawlessly.
She coughed, expelling the last of the black blood and gray ash from her lungs.
The blood-red color returned fully to her eyes, burning with a fierce, restored intensity. The faint, sickly crimson light of her magical aura flared brightly, pushing back the shadows on the balcony.
Vexia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked up at Lucifer, her fangs fully extended.
She was incredibly beautiful, but she was a predator. And she was extremely annoyed.
"You didn’t have to pour it down my throat like a dog," Vexia snapped, her tsundere nature immediately resurfacing now that she was no longer dying.
She pushed herself off the floor, brushing the ash off her ruined dress. "I have hands. I could have drank it myself."
"You were at one percent, Princess," Lucifer replied smoothly, standing back up. He crossed his arms over his dark armor. "I don’t take chances with my investments."
"Fine," Vexia huffed, crossing her own pale arms over her chest. "I am healed. I am your Vassal. Now, get me out of this filthy crater before the Void Beasts smell my restored mana."
Lucifer didn’t move. He looked past her, into the dark interior of the black marble cathedral.
"We are not leaving yet," Lucifer stated.
Vexia frowned, following his gaze. "There is nothing left in there. The hibernation vaults are crushed."
"You are a Royal Blood Sorceress," Lucifer said, his void-swirling eyes locking onto the massive, shattered stained-glass windows depicting crimson moons.
"You don’t sleep in a standard vault. You have a private armory. And I want to see what a Level 65 Epic Boss hides in her basement."
Vexia’s eyes widened. She realized the Warlord wasn’t just here to recruit her. He was here to loot her kingdom.
"You are going to rob my house?" Vexia asked, her voice tight with indignant disbelief.
"I am going to secure my assets," Lucifer corrected her coldly. He gestured toward the dark cathedral entrance. "Lead the way, Architect. We have a floating city to build."