Thirty-Seven: The Behemoth’s Wrath

A dark fish floated in the dark universe. The stars resembled pearls, and its eyes were like bright moons.

Looking at the winged figures descending across the sky, the fish opened its mouth, revealing a full set of sharp teeth.

Slaughter was about to arrive, but it was starving. It had long grown weary of mortals; it had long forgotten the oaths. The fish only followed their Morning Star, the first and mightiest archangel.

The Morning Star had not given up, and neither would the fish.

What would happen after that? The fish ceased to think; the armies of Heaven had already arrived.

......

I took a fall—a terribly hard fall—and for a moment, I could not stand back up.

Lamia was frantic, wiping the sweat from my forehead, and cried out, "He has a fever, a very high fever!"

Typhon asked, "How did this happen?"

Lamia said, "He was overexerted and suffered heavy injuries."

Christina said, "It is rumored that he drank the blood of Vasilisa, why..."

Lamia said, "That blood takes time to recover, he exceeded the limit, and the poisonous gas here... is killing him."

I wanted to embrace Lamia, I wanted to tell her that I would be fine, but I could not do it.

The shadow of the dark fish swept across the cave wall. It was deeper, more mysterious, more evil, and more unfathomable than the darkness here. I saw its mouth remaining open, watching its sharp fangs perpetually bared.

It was here; it had never left. Here, in the charnel ground of Kaymakli, it had awakened.

Why?

This place closely resembled where I found it: that underground realm intertwined with darkness and paleness, a labyrinth where the sacred and death overlapped, a church where filth and purity coexisted.

Row upon row of medieval stone houses, bell towers, farmhouses, pigsties, streets—everything was just as it had been over a thousand years ago. The city was dead and silent, yet the shadows of people, the thoughts of people, and the souls of people still lingered.

The lethal poisonous gas of a millennium, like the grievances of the dead, like the curse of the Grim Reaper, eroded me, tortured me, and awakened a demon, yet I only wished for my Lamia to survive.

Looking at those stones, those tools, those wooden carts, those decorations, I could still faintly hear the voices and footsteps of people, though mostly they were cries of weeping and running.

They said, "Why? Why? Ancestors of Cappadocia, what wrong have we done? Why must you kill us?"

I felt anger, coming from a promising young Kindred who had such a bright future ahead of him—why was he imprisoned here?

I felt vigilance, coming from a shrewd and calculating Kindred who knew deeply that the seal of Cappadocia was absolute, and even if they plotted their escape together, it would be in vain. They would have no more food, or rather, they would all become each other's food.

I felt piety, coming from a female Kindred kneeling in prayer. She said, "Oh, my lord, I know I overstepped my bounds, so you imprisoned me here to discipline me, to make me understand my fault. Now I have learned my lesson; I accept this fate, and I offer myself to you, to the unknown god.

My name is Dahlia."

Dahlia?

I saw Dahlia. She was kneeling amidst the endless undead, her attire exactly as it had been when we parted. A black shadow flowed across her skin, yet it made her look as though she were bathed in holy light.

Dahlia!

She heard my silent call and stood up. Her gaze was bewildered. Soon, it seemed she saw something; a smile appeared on her face, and I saw her sharp canine teeth shining brightly in the darkness, just like her pale skin.

She asked, "What is your name?"

I told her I was Fish-Bone, but she said, "Constancia? Are you also trapped here? Where on earth is this place?"

......

Typhon said, "I see him!" Far in the distance, Norris appeared, at least five hundred meters away from us, crawling toward an open space on the mountain.

Another voice said, "I see him."

This voice came from my mind.

Saw whom?

Saw the Morning Star.

Morning Star? The riddle you made me guess—are you not the Morning Star?

Ah, you believed that ballad. This is hardly surprising. I silently recited that song in my heart, for a duration so immeasurable that even I began to believe it myself. By chanting that ballad, I firmly believed I would be guided by fate to find the person described in the song.

I am not the primal light; I am not the King of Darkness. I have been searching for the archangel in the ballad, and I have been searching for a very, very long time.

Once found, he will be in for a miserable time. He will endure all the suffering we have suffered, and he will regret his betrayal of us.

Who on earth are you? The Progenitor of Lasombra? Why do you seek that archangel?

I am a fallen deity, a behemoth of the abyss. I am the nightmare of the endless sea, the angel who devours angels.

I am Belial.

Longinus, you have done well. You did not disappoint me. Long ago, although you killed my servant, the Progenitor of Lasombra, you allowed me to find my enemy.

I was completely bewildered, I...

Belial would not let me think further; he seized my vessel and imprisoned my soul.

Lamia asked, "Fish-Bone, are you... is your body feeling better?"

Belial replied, "It is no longer a serious issue."

Typhon and the others had already rushed to that patch of flat ground. In the center of the clearing stood a stone coffin, upon which bloody handprints still remained. This stone coffin had been crafted using human hands.

Norris activated the Sealing Stone, and several pale beams of light struck Typhon and Chris. They stepped back, dodging this fatal weapon.

Norris shouted, "Get away! The thing inside this belongs to me!"

Typhon reached out toward Norris, unleashed her will, and shouted, "In the name of the blood pact, I command you to obey! Hand the Sealing Stone over to me!"

Norris shouted loudly, "Do you think the blood pact still works on me? The power within the Sealing Stone has granted me freedom! Typhon, I endured for years, kneeling and scraping before you, just to see this look of exasperation on your face!"

Wherever the white light swept, the ground split open, and four-meter-tall skeletons crawled out, grasping giant swords. Typhon condensed blood onto her long sword, making it massive, and with a single strike, she cleaved those skeletons into bare bones. Golden light rained from Chris's hands, shattering the skeletons before her into pieces.

Norris released mist from the Sealing Stone, fired bone spikes, and raised city walls covered in corpses, preventing Typhon and Chris from approaching.

Chris shouted, "How long can you keep this up? The power of this stone will eventually run out! You are dead, Norris!" With every stroke like lightning, she slashed at the corpse wall, causing it to crumble piece by piece.

Norris wore a fierce and hurried expression as he turned to push the stone coffin. Suddenly, a white figure charged toward Norris.

Norris yelled, "Malachini! Go to hell!" A cluster of bone thorns resembling briars spiked out from the ground, but Malachini transformed into a plume of mist, rapidly closing in on Norris.

Norris shouted, "The aura of death? Do you think I cannot use it?" He summoned a multitude of dead bodies, which spewed mist toward the White Lady, forcing her to revert to her physical form to evade Norris's offensive.

Belial grew impatient. He sensed that everything happening here was connected to a demon—some fallen angel, a great fiend who, just like himself, had manipulated Cappadocia, driving him to commit the sin of slaughtering his own kin. He suspected Azrael, the leader of the Angel of Death, but this had nothing to do with him.

He was tracking Lucifer.

Lucifer, whom he had once regarded as his faith.

Yet Lucifer had ultimately turned his back on all fallen angels.

Belial clenched his fists, silently watching the war among the Kindred. Then, he shifted his gaze to the stone coffin. From within the coffin, the behemoth hiding inside a mortal body caught the scent of Lucifer.

Lucifer was inside the stone coffin?

That scent was Lucifer's divine power; there could be no mistake. Even if the person inside the stone coffin was not Lucifer, the coffin itself was definitely an artifact of Lucifer.

During his ancient slumber, Belial had pondered ways to locate Lucifer. Even if Lucifer himself was not present, he could find Lucifer's whereabouts through the artifact.

Lucifer could not have anticipated Belial's pursuit, and the behemoth that devoured angels would, this time, devour the primal angel.

That girl Dahlia seemed to have been here before. Longinus had prayed for him to save her, and Belial had sent her away through the shadows, not even he could predict where she would arrive. He could only ensure her absolute safety, thereby fulfilling the pact between Belial and Longinus.

Yet at the very instant the Sealing Stone unsealed this place, she had escaped, failing to meet with Longinus.

He realized that Longinus, whose vessel he currently occupied, was still alive and attempting to break free from imprisonment. The former Saint Longinus was immensely powerful—he had killed Belial's cultivated puppet, the Ancestor of the Lasombra—and he still possessed an extraordinary will. Belial had to be careful, extremely careful.

He continued to probe the stone coffin. The Kindred slumbering within the coffin was gradually awakening.

Azrael's creation—the Kindred he obtained by deceiving Cappadocia—what did he intend to do with this Kindred? Was he also hunting Lucifer?

Yet Belial and Azrael were not comrades; ever since the War of the Fall, they had been enemies. Had it not been for Lucifer's restraint, Belial would have bitten out Azrael's throat without hesitation.

Belial suddenly perceived the dream of the Kindred inside the stone coffin. Her thoughts gradually became clear, unfurling before Belial.

Like Dahlia, she was a pure maiden. Her name was Constancia, the last human personally embraced by Cappadocia.

She had been chosen by Azrael, a Nephilim.

Cappadocia nurtured the maiden, cherishing her dearly. She learned Cappadocia's knowledge and the power of Cappadocia's blood, which, combined with the Nephilim's extraordinary talent, allowed her to stand out rapidly.

Yet on the day known as the Night of Fools, Cappadocia secretly summoned his progeny scattered across the cities near the Cappadocian Mountains to return to the castle of Kaymakli.

Cappadocia believed that these progeny were all sinful, and only by purifying these sinners could he be granted a vision of the one who would become a god.

He hoped Constancia would survive, and through this ordeal, become the God of Death.

Constancia followed her father deep into the underground city, standing upon that precipice and gazing down at the thousand vampires below. She thought her father was displaying the prosperity of the clan to her.

When she turned back to smile at her father, Cappadocia pushed her off the cliff.

He said, "In the final moments of your lives, reflect upon your sins; the seal has opened.

From this moment on, no human shall ever step into this underground city, and no Kindred shall ever walk half a step out of Kaymakli.

May the sinful perish, and the sinless live eternally."

Cappadocia turned and walked away. He was right; Constancia ultimately survived.

Yet he was also wrong; Constancia was no longer the only sinless Kindred in the clan.