Chapter 26 The Blood Crusade
The chains continued breaking beneath the cathedral.
CLANG.
CLANG.
Each metallic echo shook the buried kingdom beneath Baalania while ancient frost spread across the underground ruins like winter reclaiming a forgotten grave.
Above the battle still raged.
Tomb Guardians collided against shadow storms and black feathers while cathedral pillars collapsed beneath the fury of immortals awakening after centuries of silence.
Yet Einar no longer watched the battlefield.
Because the moment the coffin opened memory returned.
The Frost King staggered slightly as visions flooded his mind like blood pouring from old wounds.
The buried cathedral disappeared around him.
And suddenly he stood beneath another sky.
Not the dead world of ash and ruins.
But ancient Elyria.
Before the fall.
Before the apocalypse.
Before humanity forgot the stars.
Golden sunlight illuminated vast gothic kingdoms stretching across mountains and silver forests beneath enormous moons hanging peacefully above the world.
Cities of black marble and silver crystal towered across the landscape while rivers glowed softly with celestial energy flowing from the heavens themselves.
Humanity and immortals once lived together there.
Not peacefully.
But together.
And at the center of that world stood the Hero of Elyria.
The Vampire King.
His name had been erased from history long ago.
Buried beneath fear, religion, and war.
Now only titles remained.
The Blood King.
The Moon Sovereign.
The Nameless Hero.
Einar saw him clearly now.
Tall.
Pale.
Long white hair flowing beneath black royal armor etched with silver moon sigils.
Not monstrous.
Not cruel.
The king looked almost gentle.
Yet his eyes carried endless exhaustion.
Around him marched the Blood Crusade.
Thousands of warriors armored in silver-black steel moving beneath banners bearing the crescent moon of Elyria. Vampire knights rode enormous frost beasts through burning battlefields while human soldiers fought beside them against horrors rising from beneath the earth.
The world had already begun ending even then.
Cosmic entities awakened beneath continents.
The Sky People abandoned Earth.
Entire civilizations vanished overnight.
And from the southern deserts
Baalaniah Mehmeth marched north.
The Demon King of Molochia.
Einar watched memory unfold around him like a living nightmare.
Entire kingdoms burned beneath black fire.
Gigantic necro-titans crossed deserts carrying fortress cities upon their backs while Baalanian armies swept across the continent like holy extinction.
They did not conquer nations.
They erased them.
Temples burned.
Libraries destroyed.
Children taken into the desert beneath the banners of Baal-Zhur.
And always
the black moon priests followed behind the armies chanting prayers to the Flame-Eyed King.
The Blood Crusade rose to stop them.
One final alliance between humanity, vampires, and the remaining celestial beings who refused abandoning the world.
Tenji appeared in the memory too.
But different.
The Fairy wore silver celestial armor instead of flowing robes while a giant halo burned behind him like a second moon in the sky.
He fought beside the Vampire King directly.
Not servant.
Not guardian.
Friend.
Einar saw battlefields stretching endlessly beneath storm clouds and black fire. Ancient vampire legions collided against Baalanian war hosts while celestial beings descended from shattered skies to battle monstrous gods walking beside Mehmeth’s armies.
And among them
stood Mordecai.
Human once.
A giant warrior wrapped in black armor wielding a massive greatsword capable of splitting necro-titans apart.
The Death Reaper before becoming the Reaper.
Before the shadows consumed him.
Einar remembered now.
Mordecai Blodskygge had been the king’s executioner.
His closest knight.
The last defender of Elyria’s throne.
The visions became darker.
Faster.
The Blood Crusade was losing.
Baalaniah Mehmeth himself entered the war at the Black Dunes of Molochia surrounded by burning storms and giant skeletal war machines carrying entire armies inside their ribcages.
The Demon King was enormous.
Fifteen feet tall clad in obsidian armor fused into flesh itself while black flames poured endlessly from gigantic horns curling above his skull.
And behind him—
something worse watched through the sky.
The Last Moon.
A gigantic crimson celestial body slowly appearing above Earth.
Not a moon.
An eye.
Ancient.
Alive.
Watching the world.
The final battle unfolded beneath it.
Einar saw entire mountain ranges collapse beneath black fire and celestial light while vampire armies died protecting retreating human kingdoms fleeing northward.
The Vampire King fought Mehmeth directly beneath the burning heavens.
Moonlight against black flame.
Ice against hellfire.
Two ancient rulers tearing reality apart around them.
Yet even the king could not win.
Because the world itself had already chosen ruin.
One by one
the Sky People fled Earth entirely.
Civilizations collapsed.
The Warden and other abyssal entities awakened beneath the planet.
And humanity betrayed Elyria in fear of immortals.
The final memory came slowly.
Painfully.
The buried cathedral beneath Baalania.
The same place where Einar stood now.
The surviving warriors of the Blood Crusade gathered around the black coffin while the Vampire King bled upon the cathedral floor beside shattered silver chains and dying moonlight.
Tenji knelt beside him.
Mordecai stood guard at the cathedral gates covered entirely in blood and shadow.
And Einar much younger then
watched helplessly nearby.
The king spoke quietly despite the apocalypse outside.
“If the world survives…”
“Protect humanity.”
Einar remembered answering bitterly:
“They abandoned us.”
The king smiled sadly.
“And still they deserve a future.”
Then the cathedral shook.
Mehmeth had arrived.
The survivors sealed the king inside the black coffin before the Demon King breached the buried kingdom.
Not to imprison him.
To protect him.
To preserve the final hope of the old world until the Last Moon returned.
The memory shattered violently.
Einar awoke back inside the ruined cathedral beneath Baalania while frost storms and collapsing pillars surrounded him once more.
The battle still raged.
But now
everything finally made sense.
The king was never a tyrant.
Never a monster.
He had been humanity’s protector.
The last hero of the dying world.
And far below the cathedral
the black coffin fully opened.
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