Chapter 21: The Fangless City
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The city was buried in fog.
Kael was at its edge looking down stone steps that had crumbled many ages ago, steps that led down into the ill-forsaken outpost of Viremoor, a long-forgotten vampire colony that had disappeared off the maps a half-century ago.
He had expected bones.
Instead, he found… nothing.
No corpses.
No blood.
No sound.
Only shattered buildings, broken altars, and streets that led nowhere.
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His footsteps echoed too loudly.
He hated that.
Past gates of rusted iron Kael went, the runes of the vampires carved upon, but every one scratched out. Others had been daubed over with ash, as though even the remembrance of the spot had been tracked.
His book pulsed faintly.
> [No Blood Detected]
▸ Unusual: Absence is unnatural
▸ Threat Level: Inconclusive
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He passed a fountain.
It once flowed with ceremonial crimson.
Now dry.
A child's doll sat beneath it, untouched by time… as if the owner had simply vanished mid-step.
Kael crouched, staring at it.
He could feel it in his teeth... something had fed here.
But not in the way of fangs and hunger.
This was… extraction.
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Kael discovered the remnants of worship of what used to be a blood hall. Portraits of vampire kings, with filed down fangs. Ranks of musty old law books, burned out.
He placed a hand on the wall.
It pulsed with a faint, residual echo.
> "Let them drink no more."
"Let them kneel."
"Let the traitor bleed for all."
Kael pulled back, breath sharp.
These weren't vampire words.
They were Pale Flame scripture.
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Suddenly, he heard it, just one sound.
Drip.
Drip.
A faint dripping echo from a shattered cathedral ahead.
Kael approached slowly, hand on his blade.
Inside, he found the only remaining body.
A vampire elder, crucified to a wall, eyes torn out, mouth stretched wide.
No blood.
Only a single phrase carved into the stone behind him:
> "The Fangless serve, or they vanish."
Kael stepped back.
For the first time, the book responded without blood.
> [REDACTED VIRE PROTOCOL DETECTED]
▸ WARNING: Memory seal breaking…
A low pulse shot through Kael's skull.
And for a brief moment…
he remembered running through these streets.
As a child.
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