The Tradition of the Crimson Feast
The High Castle of Oakhaven had always been a place of terror and opulence.
- 1、The Tradition of the Crimson Feast
- 2、The Queen’s Fatal Arrogance
- 3、The Extinguishing of the Flame
- 4、The True Hierarchy Revealed
- 5、The End of an Era
For five hundred years, Queen Seraphina had maintained the delicate balance of the night through fear and blood.
The silver-haired monarch was known for her theatrical displays of dominance, often selecting a human to humiliate before the entire court.
On this particular night, the air was thick with the scent of expensive wine and old stone.
The girl in the red velvet dress had been brought in chains, looking every bit the fragile prey the court expected.
Seraphina moved with a predatory grace that made even the oldest vampires look clumsy.
She wanted to show her subjects that despite the rumors of a rising rebellion, she was still the ultimate authority.
The Queen threw the girl against a massive granite pillar with a force that should have shattered human bones.
The sound echoed through the vaulted ceiling, drawing a collective gasp from the assembled nobility.
The Queen’s Fatal Arrogance
Seraphina leaned in close, her fangs elongated and her silver hair shimmering like moonlight against the dark stone.
"Kneel before your immortal Queen!" she snarled, her voice vibrating with supernatural power.
The court waited for the girl to collapse, for the sobbing to begin, and for the inevitable end.
But the girl stayed upright, her back pressed against the pillar as if she were leaning against a throne rather than a restraint.
She didn't look at the Queen with fear, but with a terrifying sense of pity.
It was a look that no human should be able to give to a high-born vampire.
In the back of the room, King Valerius, Seraphina’s consort and the architect of their military might, froze.
He wasn't looking at the Queen; he was staring at the girl’s hands, which remained perfectly still.
The tension in the room reached a breaking point as the girl began to raise her head.
The Extinguishing of the Flame
As the girl’s face came into the light, the world seemed to stop spinning.
Her eyes were no longer brown, but a deep, glowing crimson that radiated an ancient, suffocating power.
In that instant, every single candle in the massive gothic hall went out simultaneously.
It wasn't a draft or a trick of the light; it was an absolute erasure of fire.
In the sudden, oppressive darkness, only the girl’s eyes remained visible, two burning embers in the void.
A low, guttural sound broke the silence, coming from the direction of the King.
Valerius, the man who had conquered kingdoms in Seraphina’s name, dropped heavily to one knee.
His armor clattered against the floor, a sound of total surrender that shocked the court into paralysis.
"The First Queen," he whispered, his voice trembling with a reverence that bordered on horror.
The True Hierarchy Revealed
The silver-haired Queen scrambled backward, her heels clicking frantically against the marble.
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She wasn't the predator anymore; she was a child facing a storm.
Behind her, the hundreds of vampires who had just been cheering for her death began to sink to the floor.
One by one, they bowed their heads, their immortal instincts recognizing a predator far higher on the food chain than Seraphina.
The girl in the red dress stepped away from the pillar, her movements fluid and terrifyingly calm.
She looked at the cowering Seraphina and offered a small, chilling smile.
"You have played with my crown for long enough, little spark," the girl said, her voice echoing with the weight of millennia.
The rebellion wasn't coming from outside the castle walls; it had been sitting in the dungeon all along.
The prophecy of the Crimson Eclipse wasn't about the end of the world, but the return of its architect.
Seraphina tried to speak, to command her guards, but her throat had seized with a terror she hadn't felt in centuries.
The End of an Era
The King remained at the girl’s feet, his head bowed so low it nearly touched the cold stone.
He had known the truth for years, serving a false queen while waiting for the original bloodline to awaken.
The girl reached out and touched a stray strand of Seraphina’s silver hair with a mocking gentleness.
"Your reign ends tonight," she whispered, and the darkness in the room began to pulse like a heartbeat.
Outside, the wolves began to howl in a chorus that hadn't been heard since the dawn of the first age.
The vampires in the hall knew that by morning, the world would be forever changed.
The girl in the red dress wasn't a victim, and she wasn't a guest.
She was the owner of the house, and she had finally come home to collect the rent.
As the shadows swallowed the Queen's screams, the court realized that the age of silver was over.
The age of blood had just begun.
