Lucian, now understood the stone tablet's nature, so he stared down at the vampire fang floating above his palm. Blackened at the base, curved and jagged like a claw.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the old air around him.
There was a time he'd used relics like weapons... casually, even arrogantly. Back when the world still had hope. Back when he still had a name people really feared. But those years were ash now, and every artifact he used only buried him deeper in what he once vowed to escape.
"How many years has it been since I dared to use one of these? These relics weren't forged… they were exhumed, remnants of a war no one remembers. I swore I'd never to this again…"
Was it the pain that scared him... or what he'd become again?
Without hesitation, he pressed the fang into his own palm.
"Shlick."
His flesh parted like silk. Blood oozed forth, sickly and thick, soaking the ancient fang in crimson.
His brows arched up, as he began to doubt the fangs power.
In that moment, it twitched.
Sudden like a starving beast, it burrowed into the slit in his palm.
"Ahh—!"
Lucian gritted his teeth as searing pain raced up his arm. The fang wasn't just embedding… it was moving, dragging itself deeper, worming through veins and muscle, carving a path through him.
He dropped to his knees, he body started spasming violently, his eyes rolled back, his chest even burned intensely.
"What the hell are you doing to me?!"
Inside his body… he saw change. His cells were mutating, shifting and stretching.
Darkening.
His blood thickened, glowing faintly red, his bone sharpened. Muscles coiled like steel wires, the ancient power, buried in the fang, was rewriting him.
"Trying to make me a vampire again…? The thirst... the madness… That curse turned kings into beasts. I burned my bloodline to rid myself of it!" He growled.
He remembered what it felt like... when blood was sweeter than wine, when hunger turned allies into prey
"…No! I won't go back. I won't become that again…"
He snarled, he drove his fist into the ground, easily cracking the stone beneath. His thoughts flicked to Sunny. To the promise he made. He couldn't afford to break.
"But I can't stop now. I need this power… for myself, for Sunny."
The fang surged again, he watched horrified and fascinated. As it slithering up toward his neck. Suddenly, he convulsed as a heat seared his jaw. His teeth twisted, warped. The left one extended… into a sleek, curved a fang.
Suddenly, Sunny voice whispered through the haze. "Noct…" His grip faltered for a moment.
Lucian's eyes snapped open… Glowing red, through the darkness around him.
He felt a powerful energy flowing through him. His senses exploded outward, he began to hear the whispers of the dead buried into the bones around him.
Smell the iron rot soaked deep in the earth. Every inch of his body buzzed with overwhelming energy.
"Huff"
"Your done… wait..."
In that moment, where he felt the power relaxed, he felt a sudden something wrong.
He dropped again, clutching his burning chest, his skin cracked filled with glowing red lines.
This ancient vampire power was… to much.
"I can't contain it…!"
The stone tablet inside him trembled, reacting to the overload. But it wasn't enough to destroy it.
"I'm… I'm going to be teared apart from the inside!"
His body convulsed as his vision flickered. He was about to die, even deep inside… something called to him, he knew about it.
Within his soul, was a door that began to tremble.
There's only one way to survive this… Only one way to anchor my soul…
Lucian's eyes cracked open, glowing faintly beneath his lashes.
At the same time he vanished.
His body twisted beneath the earth, navigating like a blade through water. His enhanced senses the vibrations of life made him have more clarity beyond a human… he could feel life above.
Two signatures, hunters maybe, or scavengers hoping to escape the Sky Reach before other noticed them.
What separates Lucian from the monsters he fights… intention, or restraint?
"I need new vessel."
With a thunderous burst, he erupted from the ground, stone and soil scattering like shrapnel. Red light began to leak from his cracked skin, with every step his unstable body blurred forward.
His felt his lungs burned, his flesh wasn't bulit for this power inside. This transformation wasn't stable.
I need a body strong enough to hold this… Even if I have to rip it from someone else.
He hated himself for even thinking it. But survival was a cold-blooded thing. Mercy had no place here. The world had already proven that a dozen times over.
But ahead, the two men turned, the man on the left he was crouched near the roots, fingers brushing through the soil, they startled by the sound of the pulse of power.
They froze up, eyes wide.
"Wh-what the hell is that?!"
Lucian didn't answer, his arm had a sudden blurr.
The man on the left didn't even have time to scream… His head tore clean from his shoulders, slamming into a tree.
The second man stumbled back, drawing out a long, gleaming blade from his side, however his knees trembled, showing his fear.
Lucian stood trembling, began blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. His body continued to flicker from the unstable energy.
"I don't want to do this," he whispered… almost to himself.
However, he still leapt.
"I offer myself… to bind this cursed power within me!"
In the hand, a dark glyphs ignited mid-air as a twisted spell bloomed from his palms… A soul-forcing sigil, slammed into the man's chest.
"AHHH!"
At the same time, the world in their eyes twisted.
As Lucian's soul dove inward, plunging through flesh, nerve, and bone… into the darkness.
Inside was a black void without end.
He stood now within the man's soulspace… an endless abyss, pierced by his ancient glyphs burning in a circle around a single figure.
The young man stood trembling at its center, he was confused, how this was happening and did he know him left him more terrified.
He turned and he suddenly face to face with Lucian. "Wh-who are you?!" he began to cry.
Lucian's crimson eyes glowed like twin campfires.
"I don't have time to explain. Your body's mine now. Surrender… or be erased."
"You can't do this! Don't you know who I am? I'm bonded to a Pact! My soul's protected!"
"Protected? No. Just marked. I've shattered stronger bindings than this before Ebon Hollow fell."
"No one's soul is untouchable anymore."
The young man turned to run… But there was nowhere to run.
As glyphs erupted around him, chaining his soul in place.
Burning sigils carved through his energy like blades. He screamed, twisting in agony as the chains tightened.
He didn't know this man with red eyes, but he knew one thing.
He was prey.
Every instinct screamed that something fundamental was about to be taken. And no one could stop it.
Lucian raised his right hand, his body warped… his soul suddenly shifted, unraveling into something darker, something consuming.
"Forgive me…" he murmured under his breath. His form warped… his soul shifting, unraveling into something darker, something consuming.
His mouth opened wide… unnaturally wide. In that moment, the young man soul was pulled toward Lucian, he instantly devoured their soul.
The young man scream echoed, before it was ripped apart… his energy unraveling, pulled into Lucian like smoke into a vortex.
Suddenly, arouns Lucian the void cracked. The sigils faded away, as the world shattered… He at the same time, didn't know what bad changes to the world.
Outside…
The man's body spasmed violently… His back arching, eyes fluttered.
A long moment passed.
His fingers twitched, his head slowly and unnaturally lifted.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open… Glowing crimson briefly, burning alive with power.
A pulse of raw energy exploded from him, tearing bark from trees, cracking stone, and sending birds screaming into the sky for miles.
Lucian stood tall now he was six feet… now one with this new body.
He looked down at his new hands. Stronger. Faster. But not his. Not really. The world would fear this new body. And maybe… it should. Because Lucian no longer knew where he ended... and the monster began.
His skin was whole still pale, was more strengthened than before, even no longer cracking from within. However, new glowing vein like markings spread across his temples, neck, and collarbone.
Dark-green eyes were encircled by white, thick flowing jet-black hair with streaks of glowing red and pink. His bangs even partially obscure one his left eye.
He had on a crimson and obsidian battle robe, woven with silk and heart-gem embroidery. A high collar framed his neck, and dark metallic pauldrons shaped like twisted heart valves rest on his shoulders.
A cape of living shadows trails behind him. It lining of the cape glowed faintly.
One vampire fang gleamed beneath his lip, sharp and perfect in the golden light piercing through the canopy. His transformation left a ripple in the fabric of the world, alerting higher powers, both divine and monstrous.
Suddenly, his body vanished like mist into the air.
"If Delias saw me now, he'd finish what he started… and I wouldn't blame him."