Chapter 156: What was in that ring?
A few seconds before Jake was launched into the Ritual’s artificial sky, before the gigantic shards of Black Ice pierced his body, and before Grace realized there was something wrong with Victor, the rusty ring on his hand began to tremble.
At first, it was almost imperceptible.
A slight shudder against the middle finger of his left hand. So small Victor would have ignored it if he had not, at that exact moment, been getting beaten against a stone wall by a Jake Valentine completely consumed by Berserker. Each punch made his bones creak, his muscles tear, and his regeneration work with enough violence to heat his own blood. Even so, amid all that pain, the ring caught his attention.
Something inside it moved, and then a voice entered his thoughts.
"Who... dared... wake me?" The voice was female, arrogant, and not very polite.
Irritated in such a profound way that it did not seem to belong to someone who had just awakened, but rather to someone who had been interrupted after sleeping for millennia and already hated everyone involved anyway.
Victor, with half his body sunken into the rock and Jake repeatedly punching his chest, blinked once.
"...Ah."
The ring trembled again.
This time, harder.
The voice returned, now clearer.
"What a repugnant smell. Vampiric blood. Of course. It had to be a damned vampire."
Victor tried to laugh.
Jake’s next punch crushed his jaw against the stone and interrupted the answer.
Then the world disappeared.
There was no smooth transition.
No tunnel of light, mystical symbol, or sensation of falling.
In one instant, Victor was being destroyed against a mountain inside the Ascension Ritual.
In the next, he was standing in a completely white world.
White above.
White below.
White in every direction.
No horizon.
No sky.
No real ground.
Only a smooth surface beneath his feet, vaguely reflecting his blood-covered silhouette. The air had no smell, temperature, or movement. It was a space too empty to seem natural, but familiar enough to immediately remind him of other absurd experiences.
Carmilla.
Scarlet.
Those irritating, dangerous internal conversations, usually accompanied by women far too powerful for any sane man to approach without a will already prepared.
Victor stayed still for a second.
Then sighed.
"One more lunatic entering my life..."
He did not have time to finish.
Something struck his face.
It was not an ordinary punch.
It was a catastrophe concentrated into a fist.
BOOOOOOM!
Part of Victor’s head disappeared.
The impact tore away flesh, bone, and blood, throwing his body backward at an absurd speed. He crossed the white space, rolled across the nonexistent floor, and tried to recover by instinct, but the next attack came before his regeneration had finished.
Another blow struck his abdomen.
Then his chest.
Then his face again.
Victor could not see who was attacking him.
Too fast.
Or rather, not exactly fast.
It was as if the white space favored that presence. She appeared from impossible angles, attacked before he could identify the movement, and disappeared the next instant. The first punch crushed his shoulder. The second partially pierced his ribs. The third struck the side of his freshly regenerated head and threw him against the floor.
Victor spat blood.
The blood vanished before touching the white surface.
He frowned.
"This is starting to get irritating."
The answer came as a knee to the face.
CRACK.
His nose broke.
Victor fell backward, but this time he did not try to stand immediately. Instead, he spread Black Ice over his entire body. Not as ordinary armor. As an explosion of spikes emerging from his skin, arms, back, shoulders, legs, and even the area around his neck. Each dark point carried small discharges of Black Lightning, crackling like electric teeth.
The figure attacking him retreated at the last instant.
For the first time, Victor heard the sound of her feet touching the white floor.
Light.
Controlled.
Irritated.
"Damned vampire," the creature complained.
Victor remained lying down for another instant, with spikes of Black Ice still emerging from his body like a predatory carcass. The damaged half of his head finished reconstructing, new skin covering the bones as a smile reappeared on his face.
"You are the one attacking me," he replied. "I did not do anything."
"You woke me."
"I put an old ring on my finger. There is a difference."
"Vampires always say that. Always an excuse. Always a technical detail. Always a pathetic attempt to seem less guilty."
Victor let out a nasal laugh.
"All right, shut up."
The temperature around them seemed to drop.
Not because of him.
Because of her.
Victor broke the ice spikes around his own body with a movement of his shoulders. Dark fragments fell and dissolved before touching the white floor. He slowly stood, cracked his neck, and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb.
Then he raised his eyes.
And finally saw who stood before him.
The woman was tall, with a presence that mixed aggressive sensuality and savage nobility. Her skin was dark, warm, violently contrasting with the white space around them. Her long hair fell in voluminous brown waves over her shoulders, partially thrown to one side, as if she had just woken from a deep sleep and still looked ready to destroy an entire kingdom out of irritation.
Her eyes were large, bright, and fierce, a clear color that seemed to reflect light even in that sunless place. Long, marked lashes gave her gaze an almost enchanting appearance, but her expression destroyed any illusion of delicacy. There were thin piercings in one eyebrow, several metallic adornments along one ear, and a small discreet jewel on her lip, details that made her beauty even more dangerous.
She wore aristocratic clothing, though adapted to an obviously wild taste. A white corset of noble fabric wrapped her torso, firm and elegant, with discreet silver embroidery following the lines of her ribs and chest like refined tribal marks. Over her shoulders fell a short dark leather jacket, open, with a high collar and aged metal details. Her waist was marked by a wide belt, fastened over an asymmetrical skirt of black and deep red fabric, open on one side to allow movement. High stockings, reinforced low-heeled boots, and long leather gloves completed the ensemble. Everything about her looked expensive, ancient, and made for someone who could enter a ball or tear out an enemy’s throat without changing clothes.
Dark tattoos marked part of her chest, arms, and thighs, floral and bestial designs that seemed to move slightly beneath her skin when she breathed. Her nails were long, too sharp to be mere decoration. And there was something in her teeth, visible when she snarled, that was not completely human.
Victor analyzed the woman from top to bottom.
Without hurry.
With absolute shamelessness.
"Oh," he said. "Another hottie."
The woman went still.
For a second, the entire white space seemed to hold its breath.
Then she growled.
It was not a human sound.
It was low, deep, coming from the chest, loaded with an instinctive threat that made even Victor’s blood react. That sound did not belong to vampires. Did not belong to demons. Did not belong to dragons or ordinary magical creatures.
It was something older.
More primal.
More opposite.
Victor felt his own body’s reaction before naming it. Valentine blood stirred inside him with automatic hostility, as if it recognized that presence not as a person, but as an entire category of enemy. His muscles grew slightly tense. His teeth pressed against each other. The vampiric instinct, deep and inherited, whispered a single thing.
Rival predator.
Victor looked at her eyes.
Then at her nails.
Then at her teeth.
Then at her posture.
The way she distributed her weight on her feet. The way her shoulders remained loose, ready to advance. The spiritual scent, even in that scentless space, was warm, wild, and irritatingly alive.
He understood.
And began to laugh.
"Ah."
The woman narrowed her eyes.
Victor pointed slightly at her.
"You are a werewolf."
Her growl grew stronger.
The white space vibrated.
Victor smiled even wider.
"Werewolves," he murmured, almost amused. "The natural enemies of vampires."
The woman took a step forward, and her presence grew like a full moon rising in the sky.
"Finally realized it, bloodsucker?"
Victor tilted his head, still smiling.
"I did."
Small black sparks appeared around his fingers.
Black Ice began to form beneath his feet.
"And now I am much more interested."
He opened his arms slightly, as if standing before a wonderful discovery rather than a mortal enemy.
"Well... Carmilla and Scarlet eventually ended up becoming mine." His smile widened, insolent and dangerous. "Conquering another sealed woman full of hatred does not seem that impossible."
The werewolf’s expression darkened.
Victor raised his hand.
Black Ice, Black Lightning, and White Fire intertwined around his fingers, spinning in unstable layers until they took the shape of a long, irregular sword. The blade was black at the center, wrapped in white flames that did not illuminate the empty world, while dark sparks crackled along the edge like living cracks.
The air around the weapon groaned.
Victor gripped the hilt and pointed the blade at her.
"I am going to cut you until you understand your place."
He took a step forward.
"And when you bow..." His red eyes glowed. "It will be because you chose to survive."
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