"As I have stated repeatedly, Your Majesty, the specimen is not for sale at any price. This is my final word on the matter."

  The silence that followed seemed to stretch into eternity.

  Something shifted in Lucius's eyes—a subtle change that would have been imperceptible to most, but made Lord Bckthorn take an involuntary half-step backward.

  "Final," Lucius repeated, the single word hanging in the air between them. "Such certainty."

  His voice remained measured, yet something within it had changed—a quality that made the wereanimals in nearby cages press themselves against the walls, as far from him as their confines would allow.

  "Your Majesty?" Bckthorn's voice held a note of uncertainty for the first time.

  Lucius tilted his head slightly, studying the noble as one might examine an insect. "Two thousand years," he said, his tone conversational. "Do you know what patience feels like across two millennia, Lord Bckthorn?"

  The noble blinked, clearly unsure how to respond to this unexpected question. "I... cannot cim such experience, Your Majesty."

  "No," Lucius agreed. "You cannot."

  He took a single step toward Bckthorn, who retreated instinctively despite himself.

  "For two thousand years, I have watched and guided. I have orchestrated events across centuries that you cannot begin to comprehend. I have shaped vampire society through subtle influence rather than direct command. I have been patient."

  With each statement, his voice remained perfectly level, yet the air in the room began to feel strangely heavy, as if the atmospheric pressure were increasing.

  "I have allowed nobles like you to believe your titles grant you authority. I have permitted the fiction that your bloodlines provide protection. I have tolerated the arrogance born of that delusion."

  A tremor ran through the stone floor beneath them—slight, almost unnoticeable.

  "All this time," Lucius continued, "I have waited for one thing. One being. One soul."

  His gaze shifted briefly to Nova, whose expression showed dawning recognition that something unprecedented was occurring.

  "And you," Lucius returned his attention to Bckthorn, "believe you can stand between us."

  The noble's aristocratic composure began to crack, uncertainty bleeding into arm. "Your Majesty, I meant no disrespect. Perhaps we could discuss alternative arrangements—"

  "It is too te for negotiation," Lucius interrupted softly.

  The building tremor beneath their feet intensified. Dust drifted down from the ceiling as the vibration spread through the structure. In their cages, wereanimals whimpered and cowered, responding to something they sensed but couldn't see.

  "Your Majesty, what is happening?" Bckthorn asked, genuine fear entering his voice for the first time.

  Lucius didn't answer. Instead, he closed his eyes for a moment, his expression almost peaceful.

  "Two thousand years," he whispered.

  When his eyes opened again, they had changed—no longer the cool gray of a vampire king, but a deep, glowing crimson that illuminated the chamber with bloody light.

  The floor cracked beneath him, fissures spreading outward like a spiderweb. The air itself seemed to warp around his form, reality bending in his presence.

  "You are correct about one thing, Lord Bckthorn," Lucius said, his voice now yered with power that made the very molecules of air vibrate. "This is indeed final."

  He raised his hand in a simple gesture, and Bckthorn fell to his knees, then prostrated himself involuntarily on the stone floor, his body overcome by a force he couldn't see or fight.

  "What... are... you?" he gasped, face pressed against the ground.

  "I am what I have always been," Lucius replied calmly. "You simply never knew."

  A wave of invisible pressure expanded outward from where he stood, cracking gss and bending metal. The wereanimals in their cages rolled onto their backs in instinctive submission, while Bckthorn's body trembled uncontrolbly, pinned to the floor by an unseen weight.

  Nova alone remained untouched by this overwhelming force, watching with wide-eyed fascination as reality itself seemed to bend around Lucius.

  Outside the training facility, startled cries arose as Bckthorn's guards and servants suddenly colpsed to their knees, overcome by the same invisible pressure. The effect rippled outward, spreading beyond the estate boundaries, reaching toward the nearest vampire settlements.

  Across the city, vampires halted mid-conversation as an inexplicable sensation washed over them—a primal fear unlike anything in their immortal experience. One by one, they sank to their knees, trembling before a power they couldn't understand but instinctively recognized as absolute.

  The wave continued expanding—beyond the city, into neighboring territories, crossing boundaries that had stood for centuries. Wherever it passed, supernatural beings fell in submission, overcome by terror so fundamental it bypassed conscious thought.

  In his northern territory, Archduke Valerian felt the pressure wave approaching and smiled grimly. "Finally," he murmured, before the force brought even him to one knee.

  In the pace, court officials watched in horror as their king's communication device shattered in his aide's hand, moments before they too colpsed, overcome by the same distant power.

  Back in the training facility, Lucius stood at the center of the spreading wave, his expression serene despite the chaos emanating from him. Two millennia of careful restraint had finally broken, releasing power no vampire had witnessed since the Evolution itself.

  "For too long, I have allowed you all to forget who I am," he said, though his voice now carried far beyond the chamber walls, reaching across territories to every vampire who had ever existed. "That oversight ends today."

  The crimson light from his eyes intensified, casting the room in blood-red illumination as the pressure wave continued expanding, now reaching the furthest corners of vampire territory.

  "You are not alone," Lucius said to Nova, his voice gentle despite the destruction spreading around them. "You never were."

  The final restraints on his power broke free, sending shockwaves through the supernatural world as every vampire and wereanimal on the pnet simultaneously fell to their knees, overcome by the primal terror of prey before the ultimate predator.

  For the first time in two thousand years, Subject 23 stood fully revealed.