The tear in the sky widened significantly, echoing across the crimson sky a sound like wet parchment ripping, spilling light onto the broken ground.

~THUD~THUD!~

From within, figures began to crawl, stagger, and lurch forward venomously, their eyes all on Albedo as they moved towards him, eager to take him out.

The first thing Albedo noticed about them was the stench of immense corruption that clung to them, like a rot holding onto their souls.

The creatures that emerged bore humanoid shapes twisted beyond recognition. Skin stretched paper-thin across protruding bone, fangs jutted from blackened mouths, and their eyes glowed with a hollow hunger. Their movements were jerky, convulsive, as though they had forgotten how bodies should move.

Albedo immediately used Appraisal on them, and identified the monsters as Vampiric Wraiths, which are creatures broken by Soul Binding rituals, leaving them trapped between life & death, immensely unstable mindless killing machines.

They could just be called abominations.

Albedo's lip curled as he learned this from the Appraisal, "So someone's throwing trash at me first. How considerate."

The first wraith screeched, unleashing a distorted sound, like shattered glass being dragged over stone, and lunged. Another followed, then another, until the barren ground quaked with the clawed frenzy of dozens spilling from the portal.

Albedo didn't retreat, instead immediately moving forward, raising Havoc with infernal glyphs spiraling along its barrel and Ruin humming with gravitational distortion, every step warping the dust and ash at his feet.

"Let's turn this wasteland into a crematorium."

He flicked his hand, and his mana surged. A plume of scarlet fire roared to life, twisting and writhing unnaturally, the Crimson Apocalypse Flames.

The first Wraith leapt, claws aimed for his throat.

Albedo stepped sideways, Havoc flaring once. A single bullet of condensed apocalypse-fire detonated inside the Wraith's chest. The creature didn't burn in a conventional sense, it collapsed, flesh, blood, and bone unraveling into ash that the flames greedily devoured.

Behind it, three more lunged.

Albedo twirled Havoc and Ruin into a crossfire, both pistols spitting spirals of flame. Each shot curved unnaturally, guided by Fractal Casting, weaving geometric patterns in the air.

Where they landed, entire chunks of Wraiths were consumed in searing crimson blossoms, bodies folding inward like paper turned to embers.

The air filled with their screeches.

They swarmed. From every angle,, sprinting on all fours, leaping from broken rocks, even crawling across the cracked ground like insects.

Albedo's eyes glowed violet, Source Code sharpening his perception into razor clarity. His body flowed like water, ducking, pivoting, weaving between claw-swipes as his pistols continuously fired off.

Every movement seemed almost careless, yet each shot was surgical, a cruel elegance that painted the field in a storm of crimson conflagration.

One Wraith tried to regenerate, black sinew knitting its torso back together. Albedo noticed. He flicked Ruin upward, switched modes, and a miniature gravity well detonated point-blank.

The creature was crushed into a writhing ball, its shrieks strangled before Havoc stitched a round into it, apocalypse-flames consuming the imploded corpse without trace.

Immediately after, Albedo holstered Havoc and spread his left hand wide, the Crimson Apocalypse Flames swirled outward, answering him like a living storm. With a snap of his fingers, the entire field erupted.

A ring of scarlet inferno raced across the blackened ground, expanding into a dome. The flames weren't wild—they were controlled, weaving fractal lattice patterns that forced the Wraiths into clusters. They screeched and clawed against the flaming barriers, only to find their forms disintegrating the moment contact was made.

Several tried to leap over the walls of flame but when Albedo saw that, he just smirked, "Too slow."

He spun on his heel, twin pistols rising. His shots laced the airborne Wraiths with streaks of crimson that detonated midair, turning them into falling cinders. Each impact lit up the blood-sky like fireworks, brief bursts of apocalyptic light against the eternal red clouds.

Minutes passed. The swarm thinned. Their screeches faltered.

Until finally, the last Wraith lunged.

It was larger, its frame thicker, a mockery of the vampire nobility it once might have been. Its fangs gnashed, black veins crawling across its face as if trying to keep it bound together.

Albedo didn't even bother with his guns.

He let it come.

When it was a hair's breadth away, he raised his hand, crimson fire pooling in his palm. The flames coalesced into a sphere so dense it warped the air, its heat enough to peel stone from the ground.

"Extinction."

He pressed it to the creature's chest.

The Wraith didn't scream, it simply ceased to be. The flames erupted outward, erasing not just its body, but its shadow, its presence, the very concept of its existence in this world. The aftershock rolled across the field, scattering the ashes of its fallen kin into nothingness.

Silence fell.

The wasteland was empty once more, save for Albedo, standing in the center of smoldering crimson glass where the earth itself had melted beneath his flames.

He exhaled slowly, dismissing Havoc and Ruin, the glow in his eyes dimming.

His smirk returned.

"That all you've got?"

The portal still hung open.

And deep within its torn veil, a second presence stirred, colder, heavier, infinitely more deliberate than the mindless Wraiths that had come before.

The rift groaned wider, its torn edges bleeding light into the cracked sky. From its depths came a sound, low, deliberate, a laugh buried in shadow.

Albedo narrowed his eyes. Havoc and Ruin twitched in his grasp, still humming with latent energy. The presence that stirred inside was no mindless Wraith. This was something layered, coiled, dangerous in ways that instinct itself struggled to quantify.

Then came the voice.

"I am pleased," it said, rolling like velvet thunder across the wasteland. "Had you been a pathetic weakling, I would've killed you here, if only to spare my daughter the shame."

The rift peeled further apart. Out stepped a man.

He was tall, draped in a mantle of blood-crimson trimmed with black, his every stride carrying the weight of centuries.

His hair was the shade of midnight, long and unbound, flowing like liquid shadow. His eyes burned with a molten scarlet, neither cruel nor kind, but absolute. A fanged smile curved his lips as though he knew every thought Albedo had entertained before it was even formed.

Albedo knew him instantly, even without introduction. His aura his looks, and his way of speaking all told him exactly who he was.

Vladamir BloodHaven, Lilian's father.

Vladamir raised one finger, and the very fabric of the blood-drenched world warped.

~SNAP~

Reality rippled. Two high-backed obsidian chairs and a table of black stone materialized between them, the surface marked with a perfect chessboard, pieces carved from bone and ruby already aligned for play.

Before Albedo could so much as step back, his body was seized by invisible force. It was not brute strength. It was not even mana suppression. It was something older, deeper, like gravity itself had turned its will against him.

He was placed into the chair across from Vladamir, who seated himself with unhurried grace.

It was a vast and unabashed display of the gap in power between them. It once again reminded Albedo of his reality, no matter how far ahead he was of all of the students, he still had a long way to go to reach the Ancient Powerhouses.

He activated Source Code, which flickered faintly in his eyes as he probed at the Duke's aura. It was like staring into an abyss so deep it reflected back infinity.

Vladamir leaned forward slightly, resting one clawed hand on the chess table.

"You are quite brave," he began, his tone conversational, almost amused. "To kiss my daughter, and in front of the world no less."

Albedo's jaw clenched, but he held the Duke's gaze. "Would you have preferred if I asked permission first?"

A faint laugh rumbled from Vladamir's throat, dangerous and warm all at once. "No. That would've been cowardice. And I despise cowards." He lifted a pawn between two fingers, turning it in the dim crimson light.

"The brave… are the only ones capable of moving this wretched world forward. Weaklings like Valerian…" His fangs flashed, disdain curling his lips. "…they drag everyone else down. They would smother Lilian's flame before it could ever blaze."

He placed the pawn down, the sharp tick echoing far louder than it should have in the silence.

Albedo sat back slightly, smirk tugging at his lips. "So, this is what this is? A test?"

Vladamir's scarlet eyes bored into his. "Not a test. A warning."

The chess pieces shifted on their own, sliding across the board as though the game were already in motion. Vladamir raised his hand and moved a knight without hesitation.

"You will be watched, Human. Every step, every choice. You will continue to impress me, or you will be… removed." His voice didn't rise, didn't harden, but the air itself quaked with the weight of the words.

Albedo didn't flinch. He leaned forward, moving one of his pawns with deliberate slowness. "If you think threats will scare me, you'll be disappointed."

Vladamir's lips curved wider, sharp and approving. "Good. Fear disgusts me almost as much as weakness."

For a brief moment, the two sat in silence, the board between them alive with shifting shadows and scarlet gleam.

Then Vladamir's tone changed, quieter, heavier. "One more thing." His eyes sharpened. "My daughter is not like others. She is of the BloodHaven line. She can only love once in her life."

The words hung like a guillotine blade.

Vladamir leaned closer, voice low as if it were for Albedo alone. "So, Human… if you do not intend to bear the weight of that love, ensure she does not fall."

Albedo's smirk faded slightly, replaced with steel. "And if she already has?"

Vladamir's fangs glinted. "Then you had better not disappoint her."

The board trembled. The pieces collapsed into ash. The chairs dissolved. The wasteland peeled away like mist.

Albedo blinked, he was standing once more on the bridge in Nocturna, the blood-sky gone, the crimson void erased. Only the faint echo of Vladamir's voice lingered in his ears.

"I will be watching."

Albedo exhaled through his nose, lips curving upward despite himself.

"Tch. Guess the in-laws really do make things complicated."

The torches of soul-flame guttered along the bridge as the city's night pressed in again.

And somewhere, unseen, the Duke of BloodHaven smiled.

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