42 Vampiric Genocide

(A/N: This chapter is in 3rd POV (tried it out extensively here; it's pretty good for fight scenes and non-MC POVs, but 1st POV will stay my main when the chapters have Ioann), mostly from the focused perspective of King Tepes of the Tepes Faction. It's also 9.1k words, absolutely blowing my last record for longest chapter ever out of the water.)

King Tepes, fourth king of the Tepes Faction, would, with neither reluctance nor doubt, refer to himself as an intelligent, pragmatic man. As a being standing at the pinnacle of power, one superior even to all other members of the greatest race in the world - his people, the Vampires - it was only natural that his overbearing might would take precedence over his ruminative acumen.

A king was a man of power and influence first and foremost, after all. But truly great rulers embodied both brawn and perception, indeed! The True Ancestor of the Tepes Faction was a prime example of this.

King Tepes IV was a paragon of all that this world had to offer.

He was aware, of course, that his magnificent Faction was being corralled. The state of things was only mildly irksome, when it came to its tangible effects, but the great ruler was troubled, feeling as if he should do more for his people.

Transylvania was his domain, as it had been for centuries, and millennia before then in the hands of his predecessors - and yet, they could not freely feast. He still remembered the days when banquets piled high with fresh delicacies - the items' hearts still pumping blood, for the most part, unless shock got to them before his cavernous maw - at the snap of his fingers for all of the Lords and he to enjoy, ah! Those were the days. But alas, it was no more.

That sanctimonious Papacy and the blasted Hellsing Organization stationed themselves everywhere, always on the lookout, always on the prowl. Mighty King Tepes could not even leisurely travel to his vacation manor in Bran, perhaps picking up a snack or two on the way, lest he incur the ire of fodder. [1] They were of insufficient strength, yes, and he would deftly skewer them on his shadowy tendrils without overmuch trouble, indeed, but it was all so pestiferous.

He would send a subservient minion forth on an excursion out in his demesne, commanding them to fetch him a hearty meal of ten courses, and occasionally, they'd return with nothing but masses of mangled meat, lesions embedded with accursed Light, and a bruised ego. It was unthinkable!

Where were the dozens of delicate, unblemished fares he so used to relish in devouring? He was practically on a diet, only consuming a hundred humans a week. Any more and the entire country would be overrun with panicked slaves of Light, and he refused to lower himself to consume the dreadful gramaungers vegetating in the dungeons out of mere gluttony. Only once a month, now, would he have the capacity to fill a cornucopia with numerous humans' sanguine, crimson fluids, guzzling it down as a party trick in front of the Lords.

Nowadays, those of the noble houses would need to send their most competent High-Class retainers to find fresh food for banquets, whilst the Middle-Class and below peons were incapable of receiving such privileges.

The human cattle bred and cultivated in the expansive dungeons were all that the peasantry could safely subsist off of. They were disgruntled, indeed - their meals were communal, akin to lunch from a mess hall, and their pleasure thralls were dull-eyed and used, sloppy seconds from hundreds of their kin beforehand.

It was their nature to hunt for nourishment, but many were not capable of doing so. Many would venture forth from the castle to hunt for their own meals, hoping for virginal, uncontaminated provisions. However, Exorcists and Vampire Slayers ceaselessly lied in wait, never letting up, not even on their obnoxious holidays. While some Vampires would savor a few eatables and adroitly cut their losses before an untimely execution, many foolish gluttons would become beguiled by the taste of fresh blood and virgins.

They would remain in the human lands, spellbound by having such everpresent nourishment… and then, the feral beasts would perish after a rampage, bringing about more opposition from their foes and thus making it even more troublesome and perilous to fetch fresh meat!

The Tepes Faction surreptitiously captures cattle every day, generously serving them out for the rabble to partake (although, they are typically used for communal pleasure beforehand so as to wring the most use out of them). The peasantry needs those goods and services, and yet the rogue Vampires selfishly sabotage the established system for their own greed and gluttony. Where do they think the subsistence in the dungeons comes from? Their actions make everything all the more troublesome.

The whole apparatus - especially the portion involving the rogue Vampires - was a vicious cycle. How could it ever have come to this? He knew, if he himself, King Tepes IV, ever decided to leave the castle to fumigate his rightful domain and exterminate these pests, the Angels would be upon him in hardly any time. As a being of fearsome power, of Ultimate-Class, he could defeat anything less than a Seraph. [2]

But then, what would transpire when one of these creatures descended from their lofty perch?

Death and retribution. And so, he left things to fester, content with his still bountiful - though less so and less frequent, now - luncheons and feasts. Retrieving mint virgins and other savory aliments was a simple matter for his most competent vassals, if a bit risky at times.

And then, after centuries of having resigned himself to his situation, he saw that Queen Carmilla, his sworn nemesis, had extended an olive branch to the Devils. The Underworld responded, and after a few years, things had progressed to the point that they outright declared an alliance! The Zepar-Karnstein Agreement, they called it. By then, Heaven had sunk its claws into the nation just across the Black Sea, the large one he had never paid attention to.

The Rus'? The Kievan Rus', they were called, yes? [3]

Regardless, after that debacle, the quivering, imploring Devils similarly offered him a proposition:

Shall you ally with and assist the Underworld, should any conflicts with Heaven arise?

With the goal of staking Devil and Vampire dominance over Europe, thereby driving away the Church, he almost accepted right away. But then they offered an expansion of his territory, outright giving him much of the Balkan peninsula.

How could he refuse? Even if it meant gritting his teeth to indirectly ally with that deviant whore, Carmilla, as well as having to mentally admit that he would need the assistance of those Devils to raise his race to glory, he would do it. His ardent hatred for the woman had settled deep into his heart, now, and he could restrain himself with the Queen as long as she did not overstep her bounds. The benefits were too great - his reign would be magnificently lauded in the annals of history, his people would eternally eat, drink and be merry, and his sons would have a fruitful empire to inherit, should the unspeakable ever pass.

Whether they would win? Well, it was a given that the Vampires, the Tepes Faction specifically, were of supreme power. Bodily augmentation of whatever nature they wished, mastery of the shadows and fog, the capability to turn humans into Vampires - if bitten under a full moon, placing them under their absolute control, which is an exceedingly distasteful act regardless - and Ghouls… what was there that they couldn't do? What did those pitiful Devils even have over them? Magic?

Magic was a nauseating, useless tool of humans. It was unbelievable that the Devils acted so haughty.

Regardless, the inevitable war went well, at first - obviously, as it was a simple endeavor. Simply place Ghouls in strategic positions, send out certain Vampires to occupy the Exorcists, and watch as Romania truly went under his direct control, rather than merely in name. They feasted merrily, that day.

Then more Exorcists and Vampire Slayers arrived near the borders, halting his progress and slowly driving them back. That was okay; his people would prevail against piteous humans, these chattel. If the worst came to pass, they could simply release Ghouls all across the continent, rather than restricting themselves to a specific front as had been suggested.

Then, Queen Carmilla and her Faction showed up at his doorstep, along with a Devil messenger, citing that they'd been evicted from Styria and would join forces with him.

Sighișoara would become a main command base, with Romania being the main front of the Vampires - of both Factions. They'd no need for Carmilla and her lackeys on the Church versus Devil battleground, after all. It would be best to group everyone together, producing coordinated, concentrated efforts with all the vigorous might of the Vampire race.

He graciously took them in, leaving it at that. The vile Carmilla Faction would stay out of his sight in the dungeons, and the Queen would be content with his protection. Perhaps a chance to finally rally all Vampires under one banner - his banner - would arise once again.

All should have been well. And yet, the harlot hungered for more under the guise of rightful negotiations, just as she did when she fractured his people into a feuding, disreputable mess.

"Haven't we been parroting these same arguments for days, ad nauseam, King Tepes?" the wench drawled, drawing out the 'King' in his title, mocking him.

"And I will continue to do so until you see reason, Queen Carmilla," he growled, beginning to lose control of his calm breathing. He had the awareness to return the favor on the 'Queen' of her title, though. "I have magnanimously allowed you and your Faction within my castle, placing in you the benefit of the doubt that this is no scheme. But now, after I have offered you refuge from any wayward slaves of Light, you wish to take equal control of my armies? No. I will not allow it. You are encroaching on my land, in both a literal and figurative way by additionally attempting to lay claim to much of Slovenia and western Hungary! It is mine! What use do you even have for such a region? Who do you think you are?"

He leaned forward, barely repressing a sneer. Or perhaps it was a snarl?

"I shall not accept these insults! You demean me with these requests."

"So, then, you'd have us sit back, allowing you to do all of the work?" she raised an eyebrow, leaning back into her chair in turn. "It is unacceptable to deny us any role; this is our war, too. And the region is merely an interest of mine. I have been willing to negotiate terms, but you have refused. You do nothing but bluster."

"You do nothing but swindle and defraud!" King Tepes accused. "Do not pretend otherwise! Naught but ill intentions for my people reside in your heart!"

Queen Carmilla smirked at that, fanning her face with a dainty hand. "I have no use for machinations against this… place," she airily explained, gesturing around at the room as if it were a sty. "Your people are not overly important to me. They are all similar to you."

"And just what do you mean by that?" he questioned, clenching his fists hard enough to crack his knuckles.

"...Well, if you insist," she turned away, as if to hide a snicker. "Arrogant, full of masculine pride… girls, what's the word?" she asked her bodyguards.

"Virile?" one of them supplied, none bothering to hide their smiles.

"I suppose," Carmilla hummed, ignoring the outright steam pumping out from King Tepes' ears. "All of them do nothing but…" she smirked, "bluster."

At this audacious pretense, this outright presumptuousness - the one to have fractured his power base all those centuries ago, to have stolen and turned against him half his people, making such demands and directly insulting both him and his Faction? - he could not bear it. He had gone above and beyond for her already, relegating his dungeons as living space for all of her traitorous sluts, and still she behaved so haughtily.

His face turned red with rage, augmenting his ordinarily pale complexion.

"OUT!" he stood, thrusting a finger at the lacquered mahogany door. "BEGONE, lest I strike you down MYSELF! I'd have your head if it were up to me! And bring with you your whores! Fight as you'd like, AWAY FROM MY DEMESNE! The Church must have routed my Ghouls to Mount Moldoveanu whilst I was preoccupied with your useless PRATTLE!"

Carmilla narrowed her crimson eyes at that, lips curling into a snarl, before closing her eyes and exhaling.

"You will forever remain foolish, won't you, Tepes? You are the one to have brought us to this point; all of our best interests would be fulfilled with simple cooperation. Did you not take us in with the admission of bolstering each others' forces? Stand down, girls," she commanded, noticing her seething trio of bodyguards. King Tepes ignored her words with a caustic scoff, for his goals could never involve heeding such a harlot's proposals.

If it weren't for the fact that they had already breached his castle, then he would have incited another war right then and there. The True Ancestor was reminded of why his heart so burned with hatred for Carmilla all those centuries ago.

"Then, I shall take my leave - "

The two True Ancestors, the six bodyguards, and the one butler in the room all had their eyes widen upon sensing a colossal wave of Holy Energy barrel through the mist and toward the castle. All Vampires, even those of the Carmilla Faction in a foreign land, were attuned to the fog - and the sudden, fiery mass of Exorcists, chanting their damnable hymns and wielding Light and Holiness and streaming into the domain, was akin to having klaxons blare in their minds.

The stronger, more skilled Vampires could visualize and feel any individual thing within their mist - and while they could not currently do so, as the Exorcists preemptively dispersed any of the substance that came in their way and thus marched through a blank spot, they could feel the consecrated, blazing erosion of the fog and the Light pressing against it. Even the lowest dregs of Vampires, only able to sense that things actually were in their haze, rather than the exact location or nature of those things, knew what was happening.

"Ah," was Queen Carmilla's reaction.

The thin, compressed, exceedingly potent wave of Holy Energy blasted apart and eradicated kilometers of mist at once with its withering presence, colliding with the main gates of the castle and sending a tremor through much of the hill.

King Tepes swiftly raced out of the room - no, out of the castle, flying through dozens or hundreds of walls with a single leap. Antique masonry scattered and crumbled in the wake of his tread - anything that came in his way was splintered and crushed, including various servants. He emerged to see his gate cut clean in two, as was the case with the blanket of mist in the sky. An azure airspace with dotted white clouds made itself known to the realm, which had been hidden beneath the mist for so many years until now, and a garish, bilious mass of Light that King Tepes had not seen for centuries made itself agonizingly known.

The sun.

Accursed sunlight streamed down, making his skin writhe and his blood boil. His minions had far worse effects down below, doubling over, flesh turning red, eyes bloodshot, rebuking the Lord of Heaven above in between their gasps and shrieks.

He mentally grasped the veil and tugged with a mighty heave, reknitting kilometers of the very sky and giving his people relief. From there, he turned himself to fog, instantly materializing on the rampart above the main gate and frowning at what he saw.

His beloved fog, defining the limits of his estate, was split, as if a titan had taken a cleaver to it. He had only repaired the very top, after all, blocking out that repugnant mass of Light. Four kilometers away, he could clearly see thousands of Exorcists bounding forth, about to storm the castle. The True Ancestor's piercing eyes could see anything until the very curvature of the earth itself impeded him, and those crimson orbs took in every detail of the attacking force.

At their head, he could see a muscle-bound brute, wielding that foul blade he had only heard legends of: Durandal. If his veil was the Red Sea, that man was Moses, only that the Israelites, here, were leagues more belligerent.

Queen Carmilla appeared beside him, her slavering courtesans swiftly following. As soon as she did, they both sensed another intrusion, this one from the back of his castle. The Holy Energy was not quite as fearsome, but there was something special about it, they could tell.

"Let us set aside our grievances for a perfect opportunity to crush the enemy. If you so wish to fight," King Tepes spat, "then here. Their armies have come for a final strike only weeks after the conflict began; they must be desperate. My bats have informed my minions to begin defending the front line, as you can see," he gestured towards the Vampires exiting the castle and streaming towards the army, now only two kilometers away. "Your Faction may handle the force from behind."

He hoped they perished.

"Kriemhilde, Adelheid, Sieglinde," she commanded her bodyguards, "go face them."

They curtsied and dissolved into vapor.

"I shall lie in wait for the ones behind," she told him, also disappearing.

King Tepes called for the Lords of the noble houses, unaware of the fact that Queen Carmilla would hardly muster any sort of true defense. She would love nothing more than for the Exorcists to breach the castle and execute King Tepes, the cur. He would only undermine her efforts with his vanity and recklessness, and better for him to vanquish thousands of their enemies in a last-gasp vengeance than to continue staining the reputation of Vampires.

And if it would likely afford her more land and prestige after the war while snuffing out the life of a sworn nemesis, well, that was all the better.

She would send perhaps one hundred of her people as a ruse - as the King, at the very least, would keep a minimal awareness of anything going on via his superior connection with his mist - and her three faithful bodyguards as well. Queen Carmilla was not worried - they could handle themselves, and surely, they understood the assignment, to give a token effort before swiftly escaping, without her directly telling them?

Yes, they undoubtedly would. None would be so foolish as to die defending the lands of an enemy.

The Lords of House Vladi and House Manthar appeared beside King Tepes, and the six other Lords quickly followed. The King's sons, too, lined up beside him, beloved Marius on the right. The majority of their retainers were not present, currently serving as leaders and successful gladiators against the swarm of Exorcists. Many Vampires not of noble blood were dying in droves, especially from the human warrior at the head.

The King had heard many frustrated complaints - from his faithful Lords, of course - in the midst of gluttonous banquets, and a certain amount of them, recently, stemmed from a certain warrior at the head of the army.

Vasco Strada was an unstoppable juggernaut in the midst of mere hunting dogs. None of the Vampires dared approach him after he slayed a crowd of two dozen with a single, horizontal slash of his sword.

Watching his servants be slaughtered by the bushel, albeit while bringing some of their foes with them, King Tepes' frown turned to a grimace, and then a scowl, and then a snarl and a rictus.

He decided to unleash his ire on the man to have so brazenly split apart his gate and veil.

"Lords and servants, all of you, pick apart that army piecemeal. Do it however you wish, as long as you crush them! Marius, serve as a general!"

They nodded, disappearing with ignored affirmations. King Tepes reached out for the slumbering shadows cast by his towering abode, awakening and forcing them into ungodly tangibility with the clench of a fist. The livid blackness writhed, uncontrollably rupturing the dirt and masonry after being abruptly infused with his tremendous power, before settling under his iron fist, ready to lash out.

Inky black tentacles first rose, stretching across the valley. Their very movement made the earth tremble, rending tears everywhere the eye could see. Darkness was ever-present beneath the veil, and he made use of it. Some slithered through the peripheral mist, opportunistically swiping out and dispatching unsuspecting Exorcists, while others pierced into enemy lines, whipping about and extending hooked spikes from their formerly smooth appearance, lacerating flesh. Certain shadows burrowed into the ground, turning into pikes that perforated the humans from below and raised them ten feet into the air - a clear homage to his actions back in his heyday, as Prince rather than King. He smirked at the memory.

The Vampires stared in awe. Their True Ancestor grasped the veil once again, forcing it to swiftly encroach upon the battlefield rather than slowly regenerate as it was wont to do.

Hundreds of Exorcists were sundered before the first gout of blistering Holiness retaliated, sweeping over the heads of its allies and dicing apart the shadows in a seemingly kilometer-wide slice. They were split apart, retreating into the ground after serving their purpose, their master having gained the attention of his quarry.

King Tepes locked eyes with Vasco Strada, finding the man to be an acceptable opponent - for a human. A giant of a man, over two meters tall, with hardened eyes and short blond hair. His muscles were thick and intimidating, fully showcased by the lack of any robes to cover his upper body. Only a golden bishop's stole hung from his neck, falling to his sculpted abs.

The King had never slain a Hero-in-the-making, and he was invigorated, brimming with anticipation.

In a flowing swordsmanship maneuver, the Exorcist cleared all of the mist above and around the battlefield with three swings of his sword, revealing the accursed sun and giving his allies an advantage. King Tepes reinstated his hold on the fog to plug the hole in the sky, doing no more, as he had to quickly draw in every ounce of the mist around him to form an unreasonably strong barrier.

"HOLY FIST!" Vasco cried.

Every inch of the construct still cracked when a mortal appendage slammed against it with enough force to blow away the rest of the surrounding haze in a release of energy. King Tepes used the brief seconds the defense afforded him to dematerialize and escape, leaving his barrier to corrode under the direct onslaught of Holiness. He reappeared on top of the castle's main tower, summoning more shadows to do his bidding until, through a window, he noticed a cowering Vampire who winced and gasped from the nearby Holy Energy.

"ALL STEWARDS AND SCULLIONS!" he shouted, bringing titanically sized tendrils of darkness to rest atop the buildings and coil around the ramparts, minutely rising in the air to face the Holy Man standing atop the main gate. "RETREAT TO THE DUNGEONS!"

He compressed and strengthened the shadows, making them bulge and tremble. Mosaic windows shattered and spires cracked as more and more constructs of night spawned from each other, eventually reaching a point where one could no longer see the brick masonry beneath the murky blackness. King Tepes ignored the damage.

He could always rebuild.

The darkness writhed everywhere but around Vasco. Durandal shimmered with a golden light, its wielder bathed in a radiant aureole, and the gate was free from being crushed by the vibrating tendrils. Any shadows touched by Holiness would warp, soften and evaporate, and so King Tepes left the vicinity as a blank spot. Vasco further augmented himself, becoming a glowing silhouette of a man, his features unseen. The Violence of Heaven practically absorbed the light around him with his sheer brilliance, turning the gate a shade of night just as obscure as the tentacles that brimmed with power.

Their face-down reached a crescendo, and the Holy Man struck first. Durandal whipped through the air almost faster than the True Ancestor could follow, and rather than aim for the Vampire, a dozen thin, compressed slices of Durandal were carefully controlled to cleave through the castle and the castle only, rather than waste energy in a kilometer-wide attack.

Horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curving - many slashes of all positionings and directions were produced in a flowing motion, stances and swings seamlessly connecting. Each and every single one cut through the castle's buildings without an ounce of difficulty, withering and dissipating any tentacles that were cut off from their foundations. King Tepes nimbly flattened the remaining constructs to the ground with a snarl on his face, dematerializing and, faster than he had ever gone before, dashing out of the way of an attack from Durandal.

Durandal was known for being able to cut anything, no matter what it was, and the King did not wish to test that.

The final motion in the maneuver was a skyward slash, and this time, the attack was not directionally compressed. The veil was split for kilometers, from northwest to southeast. King Tepes rematerialized far away, long enough to, yet again, close it back up within seconds, before returning to find his castle in ruins from the dozens of attacks that diced up every floor.

The simplest way to put it was that everything had toppled over after being sliced into dozens of pieces, and over it all stood the Holy Man.

A bitter hatred began to fester in King Tepes' heart, showing in the rictus that had overtaken his visage. He overlooked the crumbled towers, the gaping, halved ballrooms, the cobbles of the courtyards hidden beneath rubble. It was utterly absurd that his estate was decimated in literal seconds - by a mere human, no less! He had never even had an opportunity to strike back.

King Tepes was powerful, and that was no boast. At the lower levels of Ultimate-Class, he could pulverize a city in under a minute's time. His various Vampiric abilities - of turning into and manipulating mist, of transforming his body however he wished, of bringing the shadows themselves under his unholy control - made him an opponent versatile in practically every form of combat, albeit limited by his mild inexperience.

Vasco Strada was able to naturally wield and augment himself with Holy Energy. At his peak capacity in this way, he could reach High-Class in raw, physical power - enough to flatten a city block or two within a minute. With the special ability and sheer might of Durandal helping him along, however, he was a tricky opponent, being able to cleave through anything with, quite literally, no effort. His attacks with Durandal could slice something in two from kilometers away.

However, even Durandal's ability was an inferior advantage when facing a creature of the night compared to simply being a Holy Man - a being able to wield Holy Energy. Their sanctity could erase such beings to nothingness, vaporizing them with ample amounts of the consecrated substance. Simple proximity to such zeal would drain them of their stamina and invoke discomfort and pain, with any attacks suffered exacerbating these effects to the utmost.

Being cut with a Holy Sword, to a Devil, Fallen, Vampire or Yokai, would drain them of much of their stamina; inflict severe, lasting agony with the remaining Holiness in the wound, which could only be flushed out with large amounts of the races' respective energies; and, potentially, vaporize a part of them, if they are weak enough.

Most creatures of the night would immediately break out into a sweat in the mere vicinity of Holy Energy, primal instincts urging them to flee. Being injured with it would cause most to simply crumple under the anguish, and any that recovered would be largely useless in a fight immediately after, having lost much of their stamina after their energies had been burned away within their bodies.

Light had similar effects but to a much, much lower degree, being a natural element that only complements Holiness. The difference in potency is palpable.

King Tepes was beginning to understand how, exactly, slaves of Light and Holiness could so easily fight above their levels, as well as the reason why the Underworld, Devil or Fallen Angel, never made it even close to Heaven in the Great War all those ages ago.

Upon seeing a minute twitch from the figure, King Tepes broke out from his rage and summoned forth his remaining shadows after reinstating his control over them, just as he would have to do with any darkness and mist every time he rematerialized. Rubble was flung into the air as tendrils of inky blackness erupted from the pile, swinging towards the Holy Man.

He cleaved the majority in two with one slice. King Tepes made more, manipulating them in various ways while dodging attacks from Vasco, counterattacking with shadows that warped and softened upon making contact with the emanating Holy Aura of the man and sword. The fog was not free from his grasp, either, and he made various barriers from it, all of which cracked under the force of Vasco's fists. The largest, densest tendril of all, hidden beneath a watchtower, speared into the Holy Man's side after the King lured them over to the area. It was blocked with a quick retreat of the man's left arm, which, rather than the human's ribs, took the brunt of the attack, but it connected and sent him flying nonetheless. It was at this moment that the King noticed another large, blistering disturbance in the mist on the side of the hill, but he ignored it, focusing on how his strike had impacted the Holy Man.

It had no real effect other than that he stopped punching with his left hand. On that note, the True Ancestor was baffled at why Vasco would occasionally punch rather than attack with Durandal, as he would simply create a barrier in place of dodging, allowing him an opportunity to scheme up a counterattack.

That was, until Vasco feinted a punch.

The King, seeing nothing wrong with the move, thinking it was simply another of the human's loathsome 'Holy Fists', created a barrier from the mist and pushed power into a shadow he had hidden beneath the ground. It began to crash its way through the rock, and the King summoned more condensed spears of shadow to pierce through the Holy Man.

Durandal effortlessly tore through his defense, carving through the Vampire's abdomen and making him squeal like a stuck pig.

The condensed mist barriers were even more visually impairing than the ordinary fog, after all.

The True Ancestor instantly dematerialized, barely avoiding another 'Holy Fist' that aimed to dissipate him in his fog-like state, and traveled to the very edges of the castle, heaving and groaning in pain.

The only truly painful affliction the King had ever suffered was a stomach ache after feasting excessively in too short a time. He had never felt true anguish, let alone the kind caused by being disemboweled by a sword on par with Excalibur before it had been fractured into its seven fragments. He had to remove his vocal chords with bodily augmentation to keep from crying out.

As he panted and hid, trying to get himself under control in the ten seconds he would have before his opponent hunted him down, a mound of stone briefly shifted, before getting pushed up with a larger motion, and then heaved aside with a colossal - for a human - strength. The disheveled form of a hazel-eyed, dirty blond-haired Exorcist with a mustache, wielding two swords that simply reeked of Holiness, was revealed, his lightly armored priest garments drenched in blood that was not his.

King Tepes only then noticed the varied bodies of Exorcists beneath the rubble on this side of the ruins, some dead, some crippled, and some having reacted quickly to the dismemberment of the castle, putting themselves in positions to survive its fall. Those ones were beginning to climb out, now. It seemed that the army from behind had breached the castle and spread out among the back wing of the castle before getting crushed under several tons of brick.

After he realized what that meant for Queen Carmilla's 'defense attempts', his face contorted with pure rage and malice.

At the exact moment that the Exorcist noticed the King, a small blonde woman with yet another Holy Sword reached the peak of the hill, a sizable retinue of a few dozen Exorcists behind her. Each and every single one looked bewildered at the sight of the destroyed estate.

The King dematerialized and escaped to the other end of the castle as soon as he sensed Vasco bounding towards their location, listening in on their conversation through the remaining dregs of mist in the area. He prepared to heal himself, meanwhile.

"You must leave here, Cristaldi! You're better served assisting the main force. With the castle destroyed, the dungeons, full of the servant Vampires and Dhampirs, have collapsed - there's nothing here left for you. Even a cleanup is unnecessary."

"'Nothing here left?' What, pray tell, was the pallid, crimson-eyed, blond-haired being leaking power like a faucet, then? You will not take the honor of bringing retribution down on that demon from me."

"Please, do not make me say it, Cristaldi. You must leave here, quickly."

"Say whatever you wish to say, Mister Durandal."

"...You will only hinder me in this battle, friend. You must leave!"

"Nay. I will assist, and you will not act superior to me! The ardent flames of faith run through my veins, and they command me to slay the idol of vampirism! They say nothing of merely stepping by, hoping and praying for someone else to enact the miracles of the Lord!"

"You are better served elsewhere… look."

Several swings of Vasco's mighty sword dissipated much of the domain of mist, revealing the source of King Tepes' sensations from earlier: a large battle between the Hellsing Organization and most of the Carmilla Faction on the southwest side of the mountain. That damnable Descendant of Van Helsing, his second sworn enemy, whose ancestor had slain King Tepes' own, dueled the Queen, while the Vampire Slayers were largely winning the battle against the Carmilla Faction with the assistance of another yet Holy Sword wielder.

King Tepes, True Ancestor of the Tepes Faction, swore an oath to grind every Holy Sword in existence to dust beneath his heels at that moment.

"Sir Van Helsing is on the losing end in his duel, even though his followers are mostly winning against his opponents'. Assist him in slaying the other idol of vampirism, rather than impeding the death of this one."

A pause.

"...Squire, men, go to the main battlefront. I will assist Sir Van Helsing."

King Tepes truly appreciated the distraction, especially when it made the fledgling Hero realize that he had inadvertently caused the deaths of so many of his comrades with his attacks. The Holy Man was now going through the castle's remains, excavating any living Exorcists from the rubble. The Vampire used the time well and had expunged the remaining dregs of Holy Energy in his body by carving out his entire stomach with a tendril of shadow, keeping his vocal chords nonexistent all the while - he'd have wailed like a newborn otherwise. Then, he dedicated every ounce of his being to regenerating the damage, and it sufficed, leaving him exhausted rather than crippled.

His lapse in concentration had caused all of his remaining constructs of darkness to dissipate, and he began to reform them while the Holy Man saw off his comrades and assisted any still-living Exorcists in their escape. The King did not impede them. More than anything in the world, he wished for Queen Carmilla's demise - he had remembered that on this day - and they would unknowingly fulfill that desire for him.

Shadows flowed through the rubble, filling every dark crevice and bulging as he poured more and more power into them. Any human bodies beneath the stone were subsumed into the tendrils and delivered to his waiting mouth, which had been transformed into a hippopotamus'. The True Ancestor basked in a veritable river of sanguine fluids, recovering his stamina with the minor cost of swallowing Light's bitter tang.

While the Devils powered themselves with their Demonic Energy, Vampires were infused with only blood to march forth.

The restoration was delightfully filling and efficient - there were over a thousand Exorcists beneath the rubble, and many were virgins, their blood thus more potent and delectable. The True Ancestor trembled in elation at such scrumptious, poetic, satiating feast, his former torment and fatigue forgotten.

Within twenty seconds, every last nook and cranny in the ruins of the castle was filled with a tangible darkness, and the King swiftly moved onto the dungeons. His shadows moved even quicker, now. Every carcass in there was either an already-drained human, a low-level servant Vampire, or a filthy Daywalker, none of which he would receive much, if any, value from. There was no need to bother with the arduous task of delivering their sanguine fluids to his gaping maw. With every last inch of the hidden catacombs already bathed in darkness, and with there being no need to move silently and deftly to avoid notifying Vasco, the Vampire simply blasted through everything with a monstrous speed.

The destroyed dungeons, which stretched for kilometers and filled the entire hill, were brought under the command of the night. The King's streak ended when he reached the very bottom, breaching into the still-intact royal vaults.

With the sheer Holiness radiating off of the artifact he and his ancestors had stolen and stored within, he could not go deeper. The King closed the door, theorizing how he could potentially use the Holy Relic hidden away.

Those thoughts were interrupted by Vasco, who bellowed out something the King was not quite cognizant of, what with the sheer focus and drain he was sustaining to uphold and strengthen such a colossal mass of shadows. The hill was a small mountain in reality, and he had crashed through many a dungeon wall to fill the landmark with as many shadows as possible, pouring every ounce of his power into it.

Nonetheless, King Tepes was no coward, and he trotted out of his hiding spot, arms behind his back in a parade rest fashion. The King's snarl had been replaced with an easygoing, regal smirk, but his eyes were unfocused - his mind was reigning in a small mountains' worth of power, after all.

Vasco stood on the other side of the devastated estate, brimming with Holiness as soon as he saw his opponent. Durandal, usually blue with gold outlines at its edges, was neither of those, now a miniature sun in its own right. Vasco drew upon its power to further boost its own Holy Aura and augmented himself as well, and once again, he turned to nothing but a silhouette of pure, blazing aurum. With a single leap, the Violence of Heaven traveled hundreds of meters in half a second, rearing back Durandal for another direct hit.

Just as he was halfway to the True Ancestor, in the direct middle of the hill's peak, the void itself discharged from the ground to terrorize the earth.

All paused in their battles, no matter who, to witness the small mountain explode. Chunks of earth the size of small villages flew through the air, and the ruins of the castle followed suit - spires, courtyards, servant homes, main towers, ballrooms, all were tossed into the air fast and hard enough that they turned to a vast, far-reaching deluge of rocks and boulders under the sudden force and acceleration. The stronger members of the Carmilla Faction and Hellsing Organization, who had been battling at the base of the hill, were launched across the valley when the very ground they stood on suddenly flared up. The majority of them, all of the weaker members, were turned to a chunky paste as soon as the colossal tide of darkness slammed into their bodies.

The scene was akin to a volcano of black lava erupting, only that the volcano itself was rent asunder under the sheer might of its torrent. It was to the degree that the fog above had been blasted aside, flowing with the breeze rather than being anchored to the area. Pure blackness writhed in the air, stretching into the sky for kilometers. The flood was imbued with enough power that it did not falter, even when the rays of the sun, its mortal enemy, beamed down with a scalding heat.

Everyone, from Vampire to human to debatably human, watched with bated breath as the flood seemed to continually compress in on itself.

Until another tide, this one of Holiness, coursed out from the center of the mass. It cleaved through the shadows, leaving a horizontal, meters'-wide tear across the entire construct from left to right, before continuing on to slice into the ground, rending kilometers' worth of earth. This pattern repeated once, then again, then again, going on for long enough that the warriors had snapped out of their stupor and began battling each other again.

After a minute of this, with each attack of Holiness seemingly coming from closer and closer to the shadows' periphery, a human form escaped from the detestable darkness, falling to the ground from a daunting height. The shadowy prison swiftly repositioned itself, placing an immense amount of inky blackness beneath the glowing man to trap him again. He swung his sword down, and its slash cut swiftly through the wave, but it swiftly regenerated. Another tremendous cocoon was weaved around the warrior, restricting his movements, further battering and squeezing his form. It then rose into the sky, rendering his attempts worthless.

The terrifying thought that coursed through many of the spectators' minds was that it was just past noon, when shadows were at their weakest, and this mass was beneath the direct effect of the sun.

What would have happened if it were night, when shadows were at their strongest?

This repeated twice, until eventually, the shadows were reduced to half of their initial size via evaporation. Vasco successfully escaped, landing on the ground and forming a crater, but his state was pitiful relative to before. He was riddled with bruises, broken bones and even a few gashes. His Holiness was dim, bleak compared to his previously blazing ardor. It only shimmered around him in a haze, rather than radiating outward like a bonfire, and Durandal was in a similar state, no longer a miniature sun.

Nonetheless, it was sufficient. With newfound freedom of movement and stable ground to stand on, the Holy Man continually slashed through the torrent of darkness still attempting to entrap and wound him, leaping away whenever it attempted to crash down upon his form. Sometimes, skulking shadows would erupt from the earth in the form of spikes, perforating his bare feet and making it painful to walk - at least until he drowned out the torment with another tide of Holiness, some of his smaller wounds beginning to heal. The human's hit-and-run strategy eventually reduced the darkness to a fifth of its original size, around the level of what King Tepes had summoned at the start of their battle.

It had also driven him to the area where Cristaldi, Van Helsing, and Queen Carmilla had restarted their battle.

Cristaldi used his Holy Swords' abilities continuously, always confounding Queen Carmilla with Excalibur Nightmare while he deftly avoided her stray attacks. Excalibur Blessing boosted his various Holy Sacraments, such as his never-ending prayer, the holy water he would spray, and the miscellaneous area-of-effect Sacraments he would briefly enact, such as barriers, before the True Ancestor destroyed them with an arduous effort.

Van Helsing was still going strong, unlike Vasco, and blazing with pure Light. While Holy Energy glowed a soft gold, turning to a smoldering bonfire with enough energy, the element the Vampire Slayer wielded was simply blinding no matter what. Purest white would appear from nowhere in his hand to be cast out in an immense gout, or in a cutting wave, or in a piercing spear, all calculatingly used while in main combat with an enraged, exhausted-looking True Ancestor.

She would turn her body to whatever form she believed was optimal, manipulate shadows - albeit to a lesser degree than King Tepes - to attack and faze her foes, and create various barriers of mist, all in an attempt to escape, it seemed. In every moment of respite, without fail, she would dematerialize and begin to flee before being cut off with a Holy Barrier or torrent of pure Light, having to rematerialize or risk being incinerated.

Vasco decided to assist. Three would be better than one when King Tepes showed up, after all, and the two Vampires were unlikely to cooperate.

He swung Durandal at the True Ancestor, whose eyes widened in shock and then wrath before she erected a mist barrier.

The slash cleaved through the barrier and bisected the Queen at the waist.

All of the humans stared in bewilderment at the anticlimactic end of such a mighty opponent, wondering why she hadn't dodged as well as blocked, before they noticed how her upper body was still propped up in the air. Dozens of inch-wide spikes of shadow perforated every inch of her back, burrowing deep into her carcass before coalescing at the neck and severing the Queen's head from her shoulders.

King Tepes was more refreshed after surreptitiously devouring the lifeblood of any humans that had died on the main battlefield, using the same technique as when he was recovering from his disembowelment, but he was still mentally exhausted from everything that these battles had wrung from him. Not even two consecutive restorations of his stamina could fully rejuvenate his mind. He had struggled and fought today to a degree that he had not thought possible - a challenging battle had foreign to him until now. Nonetheless, he would never, not in his life, ever give up the chance to end the person he most despised in this world.

King Tepes' wrath and rancor had formerly settled, festering in his heart, unseen and forgotten after several centuries. It was akin to an abandoned room full of dust; it would continue to blacken, but when ignored and undisturbed, the grime would remain as a mere surface coating.

On this day, Queen Carmilla had effectively tipped over every last piece of furniture in the room and disturbed everything with a duster in her words and actions. The King's contempt had filled every crevice of his heart and mind, encroaching on every aspect of his thoughts. His malice was unrestrained, now, and it was all he could think about.

He rematerialized next to his former adversary's corpse and plucked her head from her shoulders, mocking it even in death.

"I do believe that was the first time this deviant whore has ever been pierced with any shafts!" [4] he guffawed, laughing maniacally in the midst of his glee and mental fatigue. "I'll have to mount her head above my fireplace! When I rebuild it, of course."

The Exorcists and Vampire Slayer readied themselves for battle, the latter already gathering a small star in his hand, before King Tepes held out his own.

"Now, now, little men, calm down," he commanded with a chuckle, still gazing into Queen Carmilla's dead fish-like eyes. His were full of scorn, delight, and madness. "This was one of my most important goals, you see, only second to improving the lives of my people, staking their superiority above all else… you have fulfilled it for me. If you leave now, we will retreat, and this can end on a joyful note. I can even bequeath you some… compensation."

King Tepes was lying, of course. He would never retreat from such piteous creatures, and he would never surrender the Holy Nail, one of the tools used to pierce the mortal incarnation of the Lord of Heaven on the cross, let alone to mere humans. His direct ancestors had plundered it themselves and forever hidden it away in the vaults, where it would forever stay. [5] The second the Exorcists let down their guard, he would lash out with the shadows he had cultivated beneath the earth after having excavated much of its dirt, allowing room for the darkness to grow. It slumbered just below their feet, waiting for a command.

In the midst of his scheming, his elation at having vanquished his rival, his utter exhaustion at exerting more effort at something than he had ever done before, King Tepes failed to notice Excalibur Nightmare glow an ominous purple for an entire five seconds, longer than Cristaldi had ever been forced to use it for at once.

The King was exceedingly powerful, and the human was unable to fully twist his mind. Still, with how the Vampire was practically hypnotizing himself by viciously gazing into the Queen's glassy eyes with focus of the utmost, all he had to do was amplify an aspect or two of the monster's consciousness - his sluggishness and inattention - rather than fully control the King's perception. Excalibur Nightmare's main effect was creating illusions, not directly influencing minds, and doing so - especially to a being of Ultimate-Class - was a feat of utmost mastery from Cristaldi.

The King had not acted with caution.

"And what is this compensation?" asked Vasco, muscles tensed for an attack.

"The Holy Nail that pierced Christ, hidden in the vaults," the True Ancestor slurred, his eyes as cloudy as the dead ones he continued staring into.

All three Christians gasped, and the illusion was undone, revealing the building-sized mass of Light that Van Helsing had been summoning.

King Tepes only had enough time to blink twice in confusion and command his slumbering darkness to cripple the Vampire Slayer before getting burnt to a crisp, diced into pieces, and entrapped within a multitude of converging Holy Barriers.

The last thing he saw was the desecrated visage of his sworn nemesis, and his last thoughts were of a a biblical verse an Exorcist he'd slain centuries past had spouted:

Pride becometh the fall.

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[1] King Tepes' 'vacation manor in Bran' is the actual castle from the novel that Dracula resides in, Bran Castle. 'Picking up a snack or two on the way' means that he probably destroyed and devoured a village or two while traveling.

[2] He can't actually defeat any Angel below the level of a Seraph. Seraphs tend to be Satan-Class, and there are plenty of Ultimate-Class Angels that aren't Seraphs. Practically all of them can defeat him, considering he's only low Ultimate-Class and all of them have the same advantages that Vasco had against him, minus Durandal's unblockable attacks. Most of this chapter was from his 'perspective', and Vampires are particularly delusional and moronic in canon, so take the stuff that's obviously biased from him with a grain of salt. An instance of this is the 'negotiation' with Carmilla at the start, which was a complete gray area, with each of them spouting their own lies and truths because they're both biased.

[3] 'The Rus'? The Kievan Rus'…' is the ancient name of Russia, from the late 9th to the mid-13th century as an amalgam of states. I tried to convey with this that King Tepes is super old and out-of-touch with really everything. He couldn't even be bothered to listen to whatever trifles the mortal world was going through, still thinking of Russia/the USSR as what it was when he was young and on the prowl.

[4] He says this because in the novel, 'Carmilla', the main Vampire (Queen Carmilla) was lesbian. The whole story was about how this young girl, Carmilla, happened upon Laura's (the protagonist) castle in a carriage accident, where they then grew to be friends. However, after she arrives, young women and girls in nearby towns suddenly begin dying from an unknown malady, and Laura also gets it after she has nightmares of a cat-like beast jumping onto her bed. In that dream, she feels something like two needles pierce her breast. A light reveals Carmilla standing at the foot of her bed, her nightdress drenched in blood. Basically, yes, Carmilla is lesbian, and I don't think it's talked about in DxD, but it's pretty on the nose with how nearly all of the Carmilla Faction is composed of youthful, beautiful Vampire girls, lol. If 'nonconsensual sex' and feasting on humans happens in King Tepes' dungeons, I'd assume certain depravities happen in Queen Carmilla's castle as well. I think a lot of the Carmilla Faction Vampires have 'nonconsensual sex' with human males and then bear their children, though, so it's probably a split.

[5] The Tepes Faction having the Holy Nail in their vaults is canon. In that said canon, when Valerie Tepes, the King's Dhampir (half-human, half-Vampire, they're called 'Daywalkers' as a slur since they're not harmed by the sun) daughter, awakens the Holy Relic Sacred Gear, Sephiroth Graal, they use it to contain her. Holy Relics cancel each other through 'resonance', so every time Valerie was pushed to the brink in experimentation and training or when she had fits of madness from how her Sacred Gear would make her see spirits and such, the King's second son, Marius Tepes (fifth in line to succeed the throne, chief advisor for the Sacred Gear Research Department, Mayor of the Tepes Faction, tried to usurp his father) would use the Holy Nail to conk her out every time she went insane.

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I imagine the Tepes Faction's estate as Hohenzollern Castle, but bigger and with dark colors. The 'hill' (really a small mountain) doesn't have any trees here, either, unlike Hohenzollern.

This chapter hopefully conveyed how Ioann is actually pretty weak in the grand scheme of things in DxD. He's maybe Mid-Class, only able to destroy a building or so in under a minute - it's just that Holy Men have a significant advantage against Devils, Vampires, Fallen, Youkai, etc., as explained in this chapter, so he seems kind of strong against his grunt opponents as their natural enemy. Dude lost his arm fighting a bunch of random Devils and one Exorcist. Don't worry, though, because a powerup is coming soon (maybe ten chapters) - no need for another 40 chapters of Ioann at a plateau of power, only learning little tricks to set himself apart.

And finally, I accidentally took care of the matter of how Abraham Van Helsing and his organization ended up… by turning the organization to paste when the King reached his second phase in the boss battle, with Van Helsing getting crippled by the King just before the latter died.

The only other thing I have to say is the question: Really, does it count as genocide if they're not human? I'm not sure.

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