A heavy silence filled the dining room.

  Dante and Seraphina remained frozen in the doorway, their expressions locked in perfect shock. The court officials who had gathered to witness the meal stood equally paralyzed, their eyes fixed on the impossible sight of their king consuming human food.

  Amid this tableau of stunned immobility, Lucius casually continued his meal. He cut another piece of meat, brought it to his lips, and chewed with evident satisfaction. Only after swallowing did he finally look up at the gathering of speechless observers.

  With perfect deadpan delivery, he asked: "What, did you never see a vampire eating food?"

  The absurdity of the question hung in the air. While they knew of Lord Elias, Duke Maximilian's husband, who consumed food, that had been dismissed as an anomaly—a curiosity or weakness in a lesser vampire born rather than transformed. But their king? The being whose power had just brought the entire supernatural world to its knees? His joke simultaneously acknowledged the bombshell revetion while trivializing it, as if this shattering of vampire mythology were merely an everyday occurrence. The implication was clear: what they had considered exceptional was actually normal for the most powerful vampire in existence.

  This unexpected humor from the typically serious king created further dissonance in an already surreal situation. For a being who had maintained meticulous secrecy for two millennia, who had orchestrated vampire society with careful precision and grave authority, this casual mockery of his own deception seemed almost incomprehensible.

  Nova's surprised ugh broke the tension, his genuine amusement cutting through the stunned silence. The sound created another yer of connection between them—sharing humor that no one else in the room could fully appreciate.

  Valerian's slight smile suggested he understood his brother's dark humor, perhaps the only one present who truly comprehended the weight of pretense Lucius had carried for two thousand years.

  Dante and Seraphina remained too shocked to react, their expressions frozen between disbelief and dawning comprehension as the implications rippled through their understanding of vampire history.

  Lucius's casual joke signaled his complete abandonment of secrecy. His willingness to mock the situation showed how thoroughly he had moved beyond hiding his true nature after millennia of carefully maintained pretense. The king who had shaped vampire society through patient, calcuted governance now dismantled those same structures with deliberate, almost cavalier ease.

  In that single moment of deadpan humor, Lucius revealed more than just his ability to eat food—he dispyed liberation from constraints that had defined his existence since the Evolution, publicly shedding the weight of pretense he had carried for two thousand years.