Chapter 147: Escape

Chapter 147: EscapeElsewhere – Ancestral Safehouse, Eastern Romania

Rain fell outside.

Hard. Unforgiving.

The old chapel sat at the edge of a dead forest, its roof long caved in, windows shattered, and vines crawling up its stone walls like silent fingers. But beneath it—far below—was something untouched by age.

A hidden chamber.

Still. Cold. Protected by ancient blood wards.

Inside, Vladimir stood motionless before an obsidian shrine, the only light coming from the red glyphs floating across the air like drifting ash. His coat hung loosely from his shoulders, and his long black hair clung to his cheeks.

He had been standing there for hours.

Waiting.

Then the message came.

A faint ping.



The crystal embedded in his wrist lit up—a secured relay. He turned slowly, eyes narrowing as he touched the rune to activate it.

The voice on the other end was tight. Nervous.

"Sir... he lost it."

Silence.

"...The Grimoire. It’s gone."

Vladimir said nothing.

"Lucifer... he reclaimed it. Calen’s body was destroyed. The operation is considered a total failure."

Still silence.

Then a faint tremble. From the floor. From the glyphs. From the air.

Vladimir didn’t yell.

Didn’t scream.

He just moved.

The entire chamber shifted.

The floating symbols turned red-hot. One of the iron sconces holding the torch cracked down the middle from the sudden spike in pressure.

Vladimir’s hand clenched slowly into a fist.

"...You said it again?" he said, voice like paper tearing.

The communicator crackled. "Lucifer... he took the Crimson Grimoire."

Something inside Vladimir snapped.

He spun around and slammed his fist into the stone altar.

CRACK!

The impact split the center down the middle, sending ancient blood-sigils flaring into the air like exploding embers.

"THAT FOOL!" he roared.

His voice echoed through the underground hall like thunder in a crypt.

He stepped back, breathing sharp. His shoulders trembled.

That was it.

Years. Decades of searching. Bargains. Betrayals.

He found that Grimoire in the ruins of the Black Fang Citadel, buried beneath layers of cursed stone and protective necro-runes.

He lost five of his own to retrieve it.

And he gave it to Malakov.

A human.

A scientist who thought blood was code and vampires were equations.

Because Vladimir had a plan. A perfect one.

He would use Malakov’s resources to extract what no other vampire dared touch—Lucifer’s blood. The one drop of Progenitor Blood that lingered inside him like a dormant flame.

With that blood... and the Grimoire’s final ritual...

He would awaken the Elder Rite of Ascension.

He would surpass Purebloods. Surpass the Elders.

He would be acknowledged by the Council.

He would return home to the Vampire Realm.

With his name restored.

With his family.

He stared at his hand.

The fingers trembled.

"...Gone," he muttered. "Gone because of that arrogant trash."

He paced now.

Fast.

He threw a chair across the room, shattering it against a pillar.

"I TOLD him not to provoke Lucifer directly! I told him the Grimoire could only be opened by bloodline resonance—"

He stopped.

And that was when it hit him.

Lucifer didn’t just take the book.

He opened it.

That meant...

He was the resonance.

"...Progenitor," Vladimir whispered, eyes wide now.

"It’s true."

His chest tightened. He stepped backward and slumped against the wall, like the weight of the truth cracked something in him.

All this time.

He had guessed. Hoped.

But now it was confirmed.

Lucifer wasn’t just a Pureblood.

He wasn’t just strong.

He was one of them. A direct bloodline. A lost heir of the First Fang.

And he had the Grimoire now.

That meant the spell—the one Vladimir needed, the only one that could rewrite a vampire’s lineage and restore their name—was gone.

Locked.

Inaccessible.

He turned to the side wall. A faded portrait hung there. A woman. Soft eyes. White hair. And beside her, two children.

His wife. His son. His daughter.

He clenched his jaw until it cracked.

That was the deal. That was always the goal.

He would return to the Vampire Realm.

He would walk the stairs of the Ancients again, take his family with him, and restore their blood to noble standing.

But now?

Now they would remain here.

Outcasts.

Forgotten.

Because one foolish human let a monster walk into their trap like it was a Sunday stroll.

He grabbed a nearby desk and flung it against the far wall. It splintered into kindling.

"DAMN YOU, MALAKOV!"

His voice was deeper now. Rougher.

And something inside him broke with it.

He turned toward the far side of the room—toward the sealed blood chamber.

He hadn’t used it in years.

Not since the exile.

But now...

He opened it.

The door slid open with a deep hiss.

Inside was a throne.

Not of luxury.

Of punishment.

Hooks. Spines. Blood tubing.

A Blood Throne—a cursed relic that allowed a vampire to burn a part of their own ancestry to gain temporary elevation.

He stared at it.

"...If I can’t ascend the right way," he muttered, stepping inside, "then I’ll climb over the corpses of the ones who stole it."

He reached out.

Took the first needle.

Pierced it into his neck.

The machine awoke with a hiss.

The glyphs inside it flared.

His veins turned black.

He screamed.

Not in pain.

But in anger.

And as the throne fed on him, drank the blood of generations past, Vladimir’s eyes turned crimson-gold.

The color of wrath.

The color of betrayal.

"Lucifer..." he whispered, smiling now through the pain, "you don’t even know what you carry."

His bones cracked.

Wings formed.

But not like before.

They were ashen now. Decayed. Glitching between flesh and shadow.

"I’ll tear it from your chest... even if I have to tear the whole world down with it."

The chamber shook.

And from deep within that ruined earth beneath the forgotten chapel—

A new monster was born.

Central Research Facility – Lower Manhattan Underground

The air inside the Lazarus chamber buzzed.

Not with sound. With pressure.



The tanks hummed low as cooling lines bled mist into the room. Six red cylinders stood in a half-circle, each filled with bubbling crimson fluid. Inside each one floated a clone—copies of Lucifer, twisted and imperfect, forged from stolen blood, memory fragments, and rage.

They weren’t complete yet.

But one was close.

Too close.

Dr. Renlow sat at his desk near the monitoring platform, eye sockets heavy and red from lack of sleep. He hadn’t left in two days. Not since Malakov gave the order to accelerate the Ghoulus integration process.

They had stabilized five.

The sixth...

It wasn’t stable.

Its readings had stopped following projected paths hours ago. Synaptic surges were erratic. Bone density exceeded parameters. And worst of all—its core vitals were spiking too high.

Almost like it wasn’t adapting.

It was rejecting the integration.

Renlow sipped bitter coffee and stared at the sixth tank. The clone inside looked dead still.

Too still.

Its skin was pale gray. Muscles twitching beneath the surface. Face twisted in something between a grimace and a grin.

He glanced at the biometric data again.

"Still above 340% nerve response," he muttered. "That’s impossible."

A younger assistant nearby leaned in. "Maybe the readings are off."

Renlow didn’t look up.

"They’re not."

Then it happened.

A single crack.

Sharp. Clean.

The sound of glass fracturing.

The entire room turned toward the sixth tank.

A spiderweb split ran across its front.

One of the assistants gasped. "No way..."

Renlow stood. "Shut down its catalyst loop. Right now."

But before anyone could move, the crack spread. Fast. Like lightning.

The red glow inside the tank pulsed—once.

Then the entire thing exploded.

BOOM!

The reinforced cylinder burst apart in a wave of glass, metal, and steam. The clone inside was launched out in a spray of red liquid, crashing into the floor on all fours like a falling beast.

Alarms screamed.

The lights flickered red.

Sprinklers kicked in—but not water. Pressurized anti-contagion foam flooded the chamber, hissing down from the ceiling.

"Contain it!" Renlow shouted.

The clone twitched.

Slowly... it stood up.

Its body was taller than the others. Leaner. Skin ash-gray with lines of dark crimson running beneath like veins carved from hell. Its face was blank—no pupils. No expression.

Then its mouth opened.

No scream. No sound.

Just breath.

But the breath froze the air. Everyone could feel it. Like a wave of pressure pushing against their skulls.

Then it moved.

Faster than anyone expected.

It blurred across the room, slammed into one of the guards, and ripped him in half. Blood sprayed the console. The others panicked.

Gunfire lit the chamber.

Automatic rifles spat rounds into the clone—but they didn’t slow it down. The bullets tore into its body, but no blood came out. No pain.

It turned. Looked directly at one of the shooters.

Then vanished.

Appeared behind him.

CRACK!

It twisted his head clean backward and dropped him like trash.

"Seal the doors!" Renlow shouted, grabbing a control panel and slamming his palm into the override rune. "Lockdown—now!"

The blast doors hissed—but too late.

The clone leapt across the room and smashed through the half-closed metal gate like it was paper.

It was out.

Into the main hallway.

Into the rest of the lab.

—

Containment Level 2 – Thirty Seconds Later

A dozen technicians were mid-task when they heard the alarms.

Then they heard the screams.

The clone tore through the corridor, body flickering between visible and blurred forms. It wasn’t teleporting—it was just fast. Unnaturally fast.

Two guards stationed by the medbay barely had time to raise their weapons before the clone lunged.

One was dismembered instantly—arms torn off and used to beat the other into paste.

Blood sprayed the walls.

Inside the medbay, a young researcher—barely in her first month—hit the silent alarm and dived under the desk.

She watched the clone through a crack in the terminal stand.

It stopped.

Turned toward her.

Sniffed the air.

Then... kept walking.

Didn’t even look her way.

Like she didn’t matter.

Like she didn’t register.

It kept going.

Toward the central lift shaft.

Toward freedom.

—

Back in the Lazarus Chamber

Renlow was panting.

Covered in blood.

Four assistants were dead.

Another was missing a leg.

"Shut it down," he said hoarsely. "Shut it ALL down. Freeze the other tanks. Put them in cryo-lock until we figure out what went wrong!"

"But if we stop the process now—"

"DO IT!"

Renlow turned and slammed the console, entering the kill-code. Liquid nitrogen hissed into the other tanks as a rapid freeze protocol activated.

One by one, the other five clones dropped into suspended stasis.

But the sixth...

Was already gone.

And worse?

It was learning.

—

Surveillance Center – Top Level

A cluster of black-suited operators watched in horror as the screens showed carnage in progress.

Hallways soaked in blood.

Doors torn off hinges.

Security drones hacked apart.

Then they saw the clone—walking calmly now. Face still blank. But it had found a coat. A black one.

One of the staff spoke up, horrified.

"Is it... mimicking him?"

Renlow’s voice came through the intercom.

"It thinks it’s Lucifer."

"Can it talk?"

"I don’t know. But if it remembers even a fraction of the bloodline traits we copied—then it’s not just strong."

The screen flickered.

For a second, the clone looked at the camera.

Right into it.

The operator froze.

"I think it knows we’re watching—"

CRASH!

The camera feed cut.

Then another.

And another.

The clone was destroying the surveillance nodes as it walked.

—

Outside the Facility – Midnight



Somewhere above, hidden from the public, the emergency exit vented smoke and gas.

A single figure emerged from the maintenance tunnel.

Tall.

Ash-skinned.

Wearing a black coat, too long for its arms.

It looked around.

Smelled the air.

Then began to walk.

Not toward safety.

Toward the city.

Toward him.

Lucifer.

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