His world had turned upside down.

Cancún Base, Quintana Roo, Mexico -

While in the Hollow Earth, Morgana and Sorcha tended to an unconscious Eleonora, and the echoes of Cthulhu's fury still resonated, and in the Swiss Alps, the Thirteen Families drowned in their own terrible revelations, Dracula remained in one of the darkest and quietest areas of the Cancún base. Ashworth's recent confession about the "All-Seeing Eye" and the Elders' audacity in awakening Cthulhu to supplant a cosmic order had planted a seed of unease in his millennia-old mind that grew with every moment of reflection.

Centuries... millennia, Dracula thought, his red eyes fixed on nothingness, the dimness of the room barely lit by the flickering of some distant scientific equipment. I have walked this world as a shadow, a predator, a prince of my own dark creation. I thought I knew the power games of mortals, the intrigues of their ephemeral empires, the ambitions of their kings and popes. I have seen them born, blossom, and fall like leaves in autumn. I have manipulated their destinies, whispered in the ears of their leaders, unleashed wars and imposed bloody peaces, all for my own ends, for the survival and subtle advancement of my lineage, for the maintenance of my own silent empire of the night.

A bitter, almost imperceptible smile curved his pale lips. I thought I understood the board. I thought that, although other powerful players existed—wizards like Merlin, Fae creatures, even the earliest echoes of the Anunnaki in ancient times—I was an independent player, a king in my own right.

But this... The idea of ​​Ashworth's "All-Seeing Eye," that Entity Hidden beneath the Shadows of Power that had supposedly dictated human order since the beginning of its civilizations... was a variable that unsettled all his equations. How could I have been so blind to an influence of such magnitude, so fundamental, for so long? Is it possible that my own vast perspective was somehow limited, contained?

His mind, a relentless archive, began to review the eons. So many enemies throughout the ages... fanatical hunters of the Church with a faith that sometimes seemed to grant them unnatural protection. Orders of chivalry imbued with a fervor and resilience that defied mortal logic. Even rival mages and werewolf clans that rose from the ashes with suspicious frequency, with resources they shouldn't have possessed, with a knowledge of my weaknesses and refuges they shouldn't have guessed so accurately.

How many of them, he wondered with a new, cold fury, were mere puppets, their strings pulled by this 'higher power' Ashworth described? How many of my 'victories' were simply permitted, or even orchestrated, because they served a greater purpose, invisible to me at the time? How many of my 'defeats' were subtle punishments for straying too far from a path I didn't know I was following?

He recalled his own existence, the ease with which he had often been able to 'change lives,' identities, countries, centuries. His immense personal power, his wealth accumulated over the eons, had granted him a seeming freedom of movement that few beings on Earth could match. But now... was it truly freedom? The question was a slow poison in his mind. Or was I simply moving within a much larger cage, one whose bars were so vast and subtle that they were invisible even to my sharp, predatory eyes? Were my movements, my accumulations of power, my little empires of the night also permitted, or even subtly directed, as long as they didn't interfere with the 'Grand Design' of this Archaic Eye, or with the plans of its self-appointed administrators, the Thirteen Families?

I knew of the existence of those human families who believed themselves masters of the world. The Von Hesses, the Ashworths, the Medicis before them, the Rothschilds—ancient bloodlines, yes, with wealth and influence that stretched like an invisible net across the globe. I had considered them useful pawns in my own game, sometimes troublesome rivals in the arena of earthly power, sometimes even sources of sustenance or information. But that they themselves were... servants, or at least, high priests or administrators of an even greater Entity, one that dictated the flow of human history... Now it all made a new and monstrous sense! His chaos, his current despair at seeing his "tool" Cthulhu run amok... was that of the stewards who had attempted to poison the king only to discover that the dragon they had summoned to the throne was infinitely worse and made no distinction between them and their enemies.

His thoughts swirled, re-evaluating every alliance, every betrayal, every supposed friendship or enmity throughout his long unlife.

Who had been genuine? Who acted of their own miserable will, and who was a mere extension of that Eye, or of the machinations of those families who served that Eye? Even my most loyal Punishers... were their bloodlines also 'guided' to serve me, so that I, in turn, would serve a greater purpose without even being aware of it? The idea was a desecration of his pride, of his very conception of himself as a being of indomitable will.

Merlin... with his centuries-old wisdom and his apparent striving for 'good'... how much did he know of this invisible power structure? And Quetzal, with her deep connection to Gaia and the cosmic cycles? Are they also pieces on this cosmic chessboard, or conscious players with their own hidden agenda, perhaps even serving other, as yet unknown entities?

The deepest terror, however, the bitterest realization, was the question that now screamed in the silence of his immortal mind: I, Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, the Prince of Wallachia, the Lord of Eternal Night... Have I been, for all these centuries... simply another elaborate pawn? A particularly useful dark piece in the game of a hidden power, my defiance carefully contained, my empire of the night merely a storm permitted in a forgotten corner of the board to keep other lesser pieces at bay, or to serve some inscrutable purpose in its grand and terrible design?

The thought was anathema to his pride, to the very essence of his being. But the cold, pitiless logic of the recent revelations was difficult to ignore. Dracula leaned against the cold wall of the base in Cancún, the dim light from distant monitors casting long shadows that now seemed to mock his supposed mastery over them. His world, his understanding of millennia of history and his own place within it, had been turned upside down. If this was true, then the real war wasn't just against Cthulhu or the Netlins. It was against deception itself, against the invisible chains that had bound this world, and perhaps himself, for eons. And he, Dracula, must discover with icy urgency whether he was a jailer, a prisoner, or, worst of all, simply a fanged fool who had danced for centuries to a tune he had never consciously heard.