Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 116: The Vampire Tournament (8)

Chapter 116: The Vampire Tournament (8)

I vanished.

Without a sound. Without hesitation. Like a breath withdrawn from the world.

My body faded into the shadows with absolute ease, carried by my concealment ability, until it became nothing. No more footsteps. No more breath. No more form. There was only silence, and in that silence... me.

Invisible.

And in that perfect void, I returned.

In a heartbeat, I reappeared behind her.

Precise. Calculated. Sharp.

The ground reacted instantly.

A barely perceptible tremor preceded the explosion. In a narrow radius around Orphéa, fire erupted — brutal, rippling, surging in unpredictable waves, like a wounded beast. A living, instinctive shield, triggered more by reflex than by will. An elemental defense, tight, almost intimate, rising from the stone itself.

I leapt back, spinning mid-air to avoid the storm’s heart. My coat was grazed, flames licking the fabric with a sharp hiss, too close to ignore.

A breath of intuition passed through me.

— A fire mage...

The thought imprinted itself effortlessly, calm, ordered, as my feet touched the ground again. And already, I was no longer there.

I had vanished once more.

And in that withdrawal, she understood.

Orphéa didn’t turn. Didn’t raise her arms. Didn’t try to guess where I was.

She understood.

She understood that if I hadn’t ended the fight in a second — as I could have, as I had done elsewhere — it wasn’t out of error, or hesitation.

It was a choice.

A trial.

I was seeking more than raw power.

I was seeking control.

Awareness.

I was testing her.

And she, upright, motionless, her silhouette still strict in her mage-maid attire, accepted.

Not out of arrogance. Not out of defiance.

But with that chilling lucidity of those who know the trial is part of the pact. That some opponents don’t kill because they can’t... but because they wait. They observe. And they choose.

She entered this dance without trying to control it.

And somewhere, in that burning silence, I knew she had passed the first threshold.

She didn’t retreat.She didn’t try to dodge or protect herself.

She grounded herself.

Her feet anchored into the earth like invisible pillars, and her whole silhouette became a monument — upright, calm, unshakable. Her eyelids closed slowly, as if the outside world no longer had the right to witness what was coming.

And her lips... began to move.

It wasn’t a whisper.

It was an ancient tongue, solemn, carrying resonances that seemed to vibrate down to the arena’s foundations. A deep incantation, almost painful, where each word bore the weight of centuries of transmission, forbidden rituals, forgotten pacts. The tone was low, but each syllable struck the air like a distant drum — not shouted, but felt, in the pit of the stomach.

Her grimoire opened without her touching it. The silver chains unfastened themselves, sliding into the void without a sound, as if apologizing for being in the way. The pages blossomed in a fluid, living motion, and burning runes immediately escaped, emerging in wisps, then spirals, like shards of soul freed from their cage.

They danced around her.

Not chaotically. In formation.

A swarm of incandescent arcana swirled in the air, each tracing precise trajectories, almost musical, as if space itself was organizing around a sacred geometry only she could comprehend.

And then... the wind shifted.

The invisible recoiled.

The ashes on the ground, still warm from the previous clash, began to stir, then were gently drawn toward her — not violently, but with a respectful slowness, as if even gravity bowed.

Around her, the world seemed to slow.

Her body remained motionless, perfectly stable. But the universe, it turned. Subtly. Slowly. As if it recognized a center older than stone itself.

And from that invisible axis, a dark red aura, marbled with black, began to rise.

It did not explode.

It rose.

Like a silent prayer.

Like an offering.

The magic didn’t respond out of submission.

It responded... out of respect.

She was a priestess. Not a spear. Not a sword. An incarnation. A vessel.

And her altar was this arena.

Her sanctuary.

I reappeared at the other end of the circle.

Without a sound.

Without provocation.

I waited.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

Maybe thirty.

And then suddenly...

A low rumble, from the bowels of the world, rose slowly, deep, visceral — a primal vibration, as if the earth itself hesitated to keep turning.

Then... the sky screamed.

Not a high-pitched cry. A cavernous roar, vast, like a divine moan held back too long, now freed without restraint.

The atmosphere cracked.

And a storm of fire, vertical, inexorable, descended upon me.

It didn’t fall.

It crashed.

In one stroke.

Like a celestial hammer sent to punish, judge, abolish.

The fire was no longer a weapon.

It was a verdict.

A naked sentence, etched in letters of ember.

The air itself turned to coal. Every breath became an act of mutilation. The ground beneath my feet liquefied in places, oozed pale lava. The stones... melted. Like wax. As if even the rock accepted this heat could not be resisted.

And I... stood there.

At the heart of the furnace.

Frozen for a moment, my gaze lifted to that divine column of fire consuming me, I watched, I felt, I burned — and I knew.

Since arriving in this world, I had never seen a magic so vast, so absolute, so pure in its judgment.

And in that infernal light...

I was conquered.

She didn’t simply deserve to survive.

She had to join us.

I wanted her.

So I stepped forward.

Step by step.

Each stride was a trial. My body, scalded, charred, blackened by the flames, cracked under the heat, like a hollow trunk standing only by pride. Each step cost me blood. Each breath tore my throat.

I was nothing but a specter. A smoking shadow, the remnant of a man death refused to claim.

But I walked.

And I regenerated.

My blood, black as ancient night, thick, almost metallic, began to flow again in my veins like a cursed river refusing to dry. My flesh, crushed, began to vibrate anew. And my kimono, living, reactive, slowly repaired itself, weaving its fibers around me like a second skin reborn.

I resurrected.

And suddenly, in a flash of movement, I was there.

In front of her.

Facing her.

She had no time.

No word.

No spell.

I seized her arm, without violence, but with the certainty that does not allow refusal.

And I bit.

The moment froze.

Her blood burst into my mouth.

Dense. Powerful. Irresistible.

A blazing blood, saturated with elemental magic, but also with discipline, with faith, with a grandeur so ancient it made me tremble. It was no ordinary blood. It was a pact. A secret poured drop by drop, like a sacred chant I devoured.

And the instant it flowed into me...

My wounds sealed all at once.

As if her essence completed mine.

As if this fire had been ignited not to destroy me — but to welcome me.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her.

Ornée had risen.

True to herself, upright, impassive, her gaze clear, ready to declare what everyone already believed sealed. Her voice, I knew, waited only for the next breath to strike the air.

But I raised my arms.

Slowly.

Not to fight.

Not to summon.

But in that ancient, solemn, almost ritual gesture, I lifted them to chest height, palms open, offered, as one renounces a blade, a burden, an expectation.

And I spoke.

With a bare voice, calm, without regret.

— I forfeit.

It was like a rift in the world.

The word crossed the arena.

And silence fell.

Heavy. Absolute. Laden.

A sacrilegious silence.

No murmur. No reaction. Even the stones seemed to stop vibrating. In that space, though burned, marked, witness to so much violence, a single truth had just been laid down. A truth no one had foreseen. That no one yet understood.

I had won.

And yet...

I withdrew.

Not out of weakness.

But because I had seen what I needed to see.

And chosen what I needed to choose.

And then...

I laughed.

First a breath. A spark.

Then, without restraint, without artifice, without mask, I laughed with all my voice.

A frank laugh, wide, uncontrollable. A laugh that burst forth like a new fire, not to hide pain, but to celebrate a truth. A mad laugh, free, insolent — arrogant in its excess, indecent in its sincerity.

A laugh hotter than the storm she had summoned.

Sharper than the fire she had pulled from the sky.

A laugh saturated with Lust.

Not the kind one hides. Not the kind reduced to a sigh beneath silk.

No.

Raw Lust. Naked Lust. The kind that devours expectations, transgresses dogmas, revels in its own excess as a sacred triumph.

Around me, the nobles stood.

Some screamed.

Others said nothing, but their eyes blazed with cold fury, with severe judgment, with visceral incomprehension. Their hands trembled, clenched on armrests too precious to hold indignation. Their rage was old, fed by years of habit, by centuries of etiquette, by a world that hates being circumvented without its permission.

A few voices, barely audible, rose like sharp blades:

— A disgrace...

— A betrayal...

— A masquerade...

But they all knew.

All.

I had not lost.

I had never lost.

I had chosen.

And that choice was not diplomatic, nor strategic. It was absolute, instinctive, clear. I had just recruited Orphéa. Before them. By biting her. By bowing before her magic as one welcomes an equal, a sister, a weapon.

And in their eyes, filled with anger, judgment, suspicion, but above all — above all — jealousy...

I saw everything I loved.

Everything I wanted to overturn.

They loved order.

Grace.

Loyalty.

I bore something else.

Vertigo.

Rupture.

Possession.

And I laughed again.

Because that day, in that arena, before their century-laden eyes...

I had offered Lust what it demanded:

scandal.

And me?

Me...

I practiced Lust.

Not the Lust of easy pleasures, nor the Lust of closed chambers.

The true one. The one that devours. The one that looks at the world not to admire it... but to desire it. Entirely. Deeply. Unconditionally.

And in my lust — in that sacred hunger that refuses compromise, that spreads like a fever over all I cannot grasp — I coveted Orphéa.

Not as a trophy.

Not as a useful ally.

But as a truth I wanted to inscribe in my blood. A complexity, a rigor, a vertical force that contrasted so violently with me... it attracted me all the more.

I wanted her.

And because I wanted her, I had chosen her.

And all around me...

The cries continued.

The nobles protested.

Some called for scandal. Others judged in silence. A minority already tried to understand. But all stirred — a concert of indignation, of offended logic, of trampled dogma.

But me...

I was there.

In that still-smoking arena, arms lowered, breath returned.

And I smiled.

For there was no more crime in what I had done...

... than in a hand extended to fire itself.

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