Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 82: The Fall of Anthony Paine

Chapter 82: The Fall of Anthony Paine

Ding!

I slowly lifted my head, my movements measured, almost solemn. That sound... I had awaited it. I had feared it. I had hoped for it.

It never came without consequence. It never happened without twisting, tugging, and reshaping the thread of my existence in some irreversible way. It was the kind of sound that marked the secret crossroads of a life, the turning points we only recognize afterwards, when it’s already too late to turn back.

But this time... This time, it carried the taste of apotheosis. A scent of culmination, of silent fulfillment. As if all we had sown in pain, doubt, and hope had finally borne its first fruit.

With a calm heart, breath suspended between two beats, I prepared myself to welcome what was coming. Without fear. Without regret. With that quiet certainty that had, by now, become part of me.

The World learns of your existence, your name, your deeds. Lukaris Thalaris Von Eskarion, Vaarkhyr, vampire of lust.

A shiver ran through me, raw, instinctive, from that ancient place deep within that neither reason nor will could truly control. My name. That name.

I hadn’t chosen it. It had found me. Like a wandering star that, at last, discovers its sky.

I was still Anthony, somewhere, lurking in the shadow of memory. But that shadow was fading.

A part of me still screamed, wild, distrustful, that all of this was an illusion. An elegant disguise draped over the carcass of a survivor. A subtle lie I had let myself believe.

But the other part... The other, the one forged on scorched roads, in the flames of choice and pain... was smiling. And accepting. Because this world does not forgive hesitation. It only keeps those who become.

My breath held, frozen on the edge of vertigo. A chill, almost electric, climbed my spine.

They know. The whole world now knows me. No more shadows. No more falsehoods. Only my name, bare, carved into the foundations of reality.

I slightly bowed my head. Closed my eyes. And I whispered it. To hear it. To make it real. To anchor myself to it, permanently.

— Lukaris... Thalaris... Von Eskarion...

And the name vibrated. In my throat. In the air. In my soul.

It didn’t sound like a foreign label, imposed on me by others. No. It harmonized with every fiber of my being. It echoed in my blood like a silent truth. It was me. More than "Anthony" had ever been.

The System acknowledges the birth of your legend.

A legend.

Not a stray rumor, tossed about by the capricious winds of chance.

Not a mistake, quickly corrected, quickly forgotten.

No.

A legend.

An unquenchable fire, lit in the archives of the world itself.

A blaze that would not flicker under the rain of time, that would not extinguish under the breath of doubt.

A name inscribed in burning ink in the memory of land, sea, and sky, where even the cruelest centuries can no longer erase the trace.

I was no longer a wandering shadow. No longer a whisper doomed to fade.

I had become flame. I had become myth.

And that truth, simple and terrible, echoed within me like a second heartbeat.

— So this is how it begins.

Your name [Anthony Paine] becomes [Lukaris Thalaris Von Eskarion]!

A smile split my lips. Slowly. Definitely. Irreversibly.

It wasn’t a smile of vanity. Not a mask. Not a performance.

It was the raw expression of a certainty engraved in the very flesh of my being. It was done. The past had burned.

All the days of wandering, all the nameless nights, all the silent pains... All of it had been consumed in that silent fire.

Only I remained. Alive. Standing. Forging my own name, my own legend.

And no one would ever extinguish what I had become.

Your race has evolved into [Vaarkhyr (Predator)]!

I arched under the impact, unable to restrain the brutal spasm that coursed through my entire body.

My fingers, clenched, pressed against my chest, trying to contain the sharp pain radiating from my heart like an inverted explosion. It was as if my very bones were being redrawn from the inside out, crushed and reforged in a silent fire.

Every nerve vibrated, stretched to the limit, like living steel wires. And in that vibration, there wasn’t only pain.

There was something else. A pure hunger. An unrelenting clarity. A cold urge for absolute domination.

I was more than a vampire. More than a creature born of the night.

I was... a predator. Awakened. Unstoppable. Made to hunt not just to survive, but to impose my existence on the entire world.

Your new race directly affects your level gains. Grants +7 Free Points per level.

I remained silent for a moment. Frozen, suspended between two heartbeats.

The world seemed to slow around me, eclipsed by the enormity of what had just been born within me.

Then, without warning, without being able to stop it, a burst of laughter escaped me. Brief. Brutal. Pure.

A laugh that sliced the air like a sharp blade, charged with all I had just gone through — the pain, the revelation, the new power pulsing in my veins.

A laugh of acceptance. A conqueror’s laugh.

— Seven?!

You have received the Title [Living Sin]!

My laugh turned rough, grating like a bare blade on raw stone.

Yes. Yes, that was me.

Not a mirage. Not a fleeting shadow.

The dripping reflection of buried desires.

The dark echo of unspoken ambitions.

The silent incarnation of everything they refused to admit, even to themselves in their darkest nightmares.

I was what they feared to become. What they dreamed of being. The unmasked truth. The predator their hearts secretly called for when the night grew too dark for their illusions.

You have obtained the skill [Aura of Lust (Master)]!

Your skills [Intimidation (Master)] and [Aura of Lust (Master)] have fused!

A shockwave rippled through my core, deep, brutal, as if the universe itself had knocked on the door of my flesh.

Two opposing poles, impossible to reconcile, were drawn together with a devastating force until the explosion erupted within.

It was no longer a simple presence lurking in the shadows of my being. It was no longer an emotion. It was a command.

An order etched into my bones, my nerves, my blood. A visceral, absolute, irrevocable injunction. Be. Become. Dominate.

No more doubt. No more turning back.

— Fear me. Love me. Burn... in my chains.

You have obtained the skill [Luxurious Domination (Legendary)]!

I fell to my knees. Not from pain. Not from weakness. But from impact. Brutal. Absolute. Irreversible.

The ground seemed to vibrate beneath me, as if it recognized the force surging through my bones.

An unbearable heat coiled around my heart, snaking through my veins, consuming every part of me without mercy.

It wasn’t an external fire: it was a blaze born from within, ancient, wild, eternal.

I let out a gasp — a raw, primal sound — halfway between a breath, a laugh, and a cry of ecstasy. A wild echo that belonged neither to man nor monster, but to something in between, something greater, freer.

— What... what is this...

I could feel the power. Not like a tool to be grasped. Not like a weapon to be wielded.

No.

Like a second skin, fused with mine, woven into every fiber, every beat, every breath.

Like a burning whisper in my ear, a voice both gentle and commanding, telling me that everything I desired...was mine by right.

By natural law. By essence.

I raised my eyes, slowly, sensing the air vibrate around me, warped by the mere existence of what I had become. And my gaze, incandescent, cut through the shadows.

Not to seek permission. But to declare, without hesitation, that from now on, nothing would stand before me.

— I am desire. I am decay. I am the law of bodies and wills.

And the world, now, had no choice. Bow beneath my will... or burn in my fire.

There was no more in-between. No more compromise. Only the inexorable march of a new force, born of ash, rage, and blood.

Regaining my senses, panting as though emerging from a fever dream, my body trembling with a still-raw, untamed energy, I let out a whisper.

A breath older than words themselves. A vow murmured into the heart of the universe.

— What was that?

I had been consumed. Literally devoured, engulfed, reduced to a mere ember in the blaze of that power. For a brief moment — a heartbeat ripped out of time — I had ceased to be a separate consciousness. I was nothing but raw pulse, a breath chained to the rhythm of a force infinitely greater than myself.

That lust incarnate — that thirst for the absolute, for domination, for pure existence — had passed through me without restraint, without shame.A power as intoxicating as a forbidden kiss beneath burning skies, as dizzying as a cry torn from the deepest, most intimate darkness.

A vertigo with no return, a fall without end... And I, in the midst of that maelstrom, had not resisted. I had welcomed it.

— This gift is strong. Too strong. And just as dangerous.

I passed a trembling hand over my forehead, still burning, radiating a deep heat that seemed unwilling to fade.

I could feel it.

If I let my guard down, even for a moment, if I let this force devour me without restraint, there would be nothing left of me.

Nothing but an empty throne, raised over smoldering ruins.

Nothing but a name whispered between moans and ashes, scattered in the dust of a world I would have destroyed without even meaning to.

No.

I had to remain master of myself.

Not a slave to this power. Not a plaything of this fire.

I would use it only as a last resort. Only when there was no other way. Like a blade hidden in the shadows, a final card played when everything else had failed.

Not for pride. Not for show.

As long as I could not fully control it, it would remain sealed within me.

A silent pact.

A promise made to what I was... and to what I refused to become.

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