Chapter 155: A New Enemy II
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Her beauty was the type that made lesser men forget to breathe.
Not because it was gentle.
Because it was dangerous.
Her lips were full. Her eyes were sharp. Her expression was calm, but it carried the kind of confidence that only survived if it had killed its rivals.
Her name was Selene.
She was one of Klaus’s favored lieutenants. Not a wife, not a concubine, not a toy. Klaus did not play those games with his strongest tools. He owned them through fear, oath, and the simple fact that his shadow was safer than the world outside it.
Selene stopped at a respectful distance and bowed her head slightly.
"Lord Klaus," she said.
Klaus did not look away from the empty space in front of him, as if he was staring at something only he could see.
Selene continued, voice controlled.
"That is not possible."
Klaus’s eyes shifted to her slowly.
The movement was unhurried, but it made Selene’s spine straighten as if the air had suddenly become heavier.
Selene was not afraid of shouting.
She was afraid of quiet.
She asked carefully, but her question carried the sharpness of a mind that dared to challenge.
"We know all the original vampires," Selene said. "All of them who still exist. All of them who can create true vampires without a ritual circle. All of them who carry the old blood strongly enough to trigger that kind of shockwave."
Klaus stared at her.
Then he smiled slightly.
Not warmth.
Amusement.
Like a man watching someone argue with a storm.
"You know names," Klaus said softly. "You know locations. You know the stories we allow you to know. You know the list we built to comfort ourselves."
Selene’s jaw tightened.
Klaus lifted one hand slightly.
The air around his fingers thickened. A faint red mist appeared, not from an external source, but from the atmosphere itself responding to his authority. It curled around his knuckles like obedient smoke.
He let it drift, then spoke.
"I felt it."
That was the entire explanation.
It was more terrifying than a speech.
Because in that simple sentence was certainty that did not require proof.
Selene lowered her gaze for a moment, recalibrating.
Klaus’s voice remained steady.
"Someone used new chaos energy to create true vampires."
He paused.
"It came from the lower domain."
A quiet tension ran through the hall. The lower domain was a place of cheap violence, weak cultivators, and desperate people who believed survival was the same thing as living.
For something like this to rise from the lower domain meant one of two things.
A hidden monster had awakened.
Or someone had found forbidden blood.
Selene lifted her head.
"If it was a god-level powerhouse, you would know," she said.
Klaus’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"Yes," he replied. "That is why this is interesting."
The word interesting sounded like a death sentence.
Klaus leaned forward slightly, resting both elbows on his knees for the first time. His posture changed, and the hall responded as if it had been ordered to listen.
"It is not god level," Klaus said. "Not yet."
Selene’s expression tightened.
"How can you tell," she asked.
Klaus’s smile returned, thin and sharp.
"Because the shockwave was loud enough to be real," he said, "but not loud enough to challenge me."
Selene swallowed once, careful not to show it.
Klaus continued.
"There was hunger in it," he said. "There was instability. There was newness. It tasted like fresh blood the moment it spills, before it cools."
He spoke the word tasted without humor.
Selene understood then.
This was not metaphor.
Klaus had literally tasted the shockwave through the blood oath inside himself, through the legacy he carried.
He could sense blood the way sharks sensed water.
He sat back again.
"An original vampire is born," Klaus said, "and that original vampire turned someone into true vampires."
Selene’s eyes narrowed.
"How many," she asked.
Klaus paused.
He did not answer instantly.
When a god-level creature hesitated, it meant calculation.
"Two," Klaus said finally.
The hall went colder.
Two.
Not one conversion.
Two.
That meant the new original vampire had either enough power to convert more than one, or had an unusual compatibility, or both.
Selene’s mind moved quickly.
If those two new true vampires were created, they were now linked to the creator. They were now potential blood resources, potential soldiers, potential leashes. If the creator was weak, those vampires could be stolen. If the creator was strong, those vampires could become a foundation.
The balance of power among the Blood Sovereigns could shift from one shockwave.
Selene spoke carefully.
"Other Blood Sovereigns felt it," she said.
Klaus’s eyes gleamed slightly.
"Yes," he replied.
Selene’s voice became quieter.
"They will move."
Klaus’s smile widened slightly.
"Yes," he said again.
His tone was almost pleased.
Because Klaus did not fear competition.
He fed on it.
He stood slowly.
When he stood, the hall’s shadows shifted as if they were kneeling. His height was not extraordinary, but his presence was. He looked taller simply because the world seemed to make room for him.
His clothing was simple compared to some of his subordinates. A long coat of dark fabric, fitted and clean. No jewels. No crown. No visible armor.
He did not need decoration.
He was the decoration.
His eyes looked over his gathered followers.
"Listen," Klaus said.
Every subordinate stiffened.
Even those who had served him for centuries did not relax when he spoke.
Klaus’s voice carried across the hall like a slow moving wave.
"We cannot let another origin vampire exist unchecked."
The words landed like stone.
Selene’s expression tightened, but she did not interrupt.
Klaus continued.
"Either that person joins us," he said, "or that person is destroyed."
A few subordinates smiled slightly at the word destroyed, but their smiles were not joyful. They were hungry.
Selene asked the question that mattered.
"Why," she said, "must it be you."
The room went very still.
That was dangerous to ask.