The Archon in Sanguine

'I state it, therefore, it is prescribed.'

'The wind and rain cease, deprived of the right to flow.'

You've halted the surging? Impressive. Blood pauses at your command.

But—I am its master.

The knell will decay, the order will wear, no?

If you so disdain your noble blood, I might as well extract it and return it to your mother, Banshee.

She will play for you a mournful whistle.

Amiya!

—

Is this your blood?

Heated by Arts, heated by your talent.

But the hot blood I've seen—

—has all been for the sake of resistance, for the sake of life.

And those people, their blood is much hotter than yours.

Hngh.

Amiya, fall back!

You didn't get his vitals!

Oh how cold, King of Sarkaz.

A monarch of such little grace you are.

Sanguinarch of Vampires, Prince of the Crimson Court, your offspring fill every battlefield the Sarkaz touch.

You proclaim to them that slaughter and conquest are the ancient traditions of the Vampires.

You've shaped your court into what it is today. You've made the people see all Vampires as nothing more than twisted creatures of desire like yourself.

But the Vampires I know are not like you.

They haven't gone mad like you.

They've only managed to conceal their desires, conditioned to deeply by this age in which they have no home.

Some choose to bow down to the invaders, and I pity them.

No, that's not it.

How do you interpret the blood that your court stands for?

The sufferings of the Sarkaz need no elucidation. All Sarkaz, even those who submit to you, inevitably know the taste of blood.

Overturned in dark alleys, intercepted in dark forests, sometimes a throat is cut, sometimes cold daggers are thrust between ribs.

It awakens the siblings, who now know the cost of submission, and they come to rebel until they too are covered in the blood of their enemies.

How pitiful.

Kill or be killed, this is the cycle of blood that the Sarkaz carry.

Is that how you define the meaning of blood? A cycle?

......

The first time any of us felt blood on our skin, wasn't it... when we were born from our mothers?

Blood is the foundation of human life, heritage passed down on umbilical cords, inevitable stumbles when exploring the outside world, and wounds that will surely heal.

But you see it only as a synonym for torment and death.

Your obsession makes you bloodthirsty.

You, with all your arrogance and pride, lead them to believe that this is the path the Sarkaz should take, the things they should do.

I reject you, Sanguinarch.

I reject your actions, your words, and your court.

Ahahahahah! What is this I'm hearing?

You, an outblood, reject me?

A mere crown has inflated you to what... King of Sarkaz?

I don't care what I am, or what I'm called.

I only know what I need to do.

Is this how you manipulate the King's power, Cautus?

Will you share some profound words? Try to shake me with shallow emotion?

You're welcome to try.

I reject you.

I reject you, the way you reduce the King, the Sarkaz, and Kazdel to concepts of power and tradition.

I reject you, how you entrust the future to the past, entrust life to slaughter.

Theresa, the King, the Chancellor, the leader of Babel, she showed everyone a path.

Maybe that path is too idealistic, maybe her promises won't bear the thousands of years of hatred of the Sarkaz.

But that's not now, not your choice.

......

You'd laugh at my weakness? Say it's not my place to talk about the Sarkaz with you?

Or you'd mock Logos for not making use of the blood you 'awakened' just now?

Oh, King of Sarkaz... You eavesdrop on my thoughts? Is that your ability?

Then of course you know what I'm going to say.

I do.

But we've never said that the Sarkaz should give up their resistance. We've never said that suffering is justified.

On the contrary—

Those rebels who awaken from their suffering and hardship, from the abyss of hatred—

They will be much, much stronger than you.

The lost homeland of the Sarkaz is not in the history you keep looking back to, an eon ago.

It can't be a slogan, or fantasy, or symbol.

It's right here, where the Sarkaz came from.

In the city called Kazdel, where so many real people live, people that you've only condemned to a void of ideas.

You've imagined the present from the past, and the real future can never be born.

It's time to stop, Vampire.

Even Theresa failed. What do you think you are?

That's why Theresa needs me. The Doctor and Dr. Kal'tsit need me.

And that's why I'm here.

I, as the revenant called me, as you called me, as so many Sarkaz believe me to be—

The outblood—the weak—King of Sarkaz.

Stand down.

You can't fight anymore, Sanguinarch.

It's time for this battle to end.

King of Sarkaz, won't you grant me that vision of emptiness?

Don't you want to peer into my thoughts, see my sorrows and pain?

......

You can reprimand me, reject me. Countless Sarkaz believe this is the power of the King.

You say I've corrupted my court, but what about you?

Oh King, the Sarkaz take your direction, your path. My people follow you, expecting you to well exploit their flesh and blood, their lives, and their souls.

Their blind faith is ridiculous.

I sneer at the King's comfort, but... I have seen it.

My elder brother was a King of Sarkaz.

Hah, what a lofty title, what a transcendent role—

He was looked to as the leader of the Sarkaz, our guiding light.

He was a natural savior, the one who would pull us out of our misery.

But what was the reality?

What kind of people has the Black Crown chosen?

In the beginning, the King of Sarkaz was indeed magnificent, the Diαblos walked the path of punishment, the Goliaths roared the fearless calamity—

But they found themselves betrayed by the cowardly, sold out by the selfish.

This is our curse.

'The King killed the King.'

Succession to this crown often comes with death.

The vile always prevail.

As such, the Crown was besmirched by shortsighted fools.

The weak began to appear among the Kings.

They were narrow-minded, focused on toying with the power the held in their hands—They became no better than the hypocritical lords among the Elders and Ancients.

The power they stole from others clouded their vision. The focus of my people's faith turned from fearless warriors to vermin hiding in their palaces.

They even forgot the shame borne by the name 'Sarkaz'!

But the Crown continued to make its laughable choices, right up to my brother.

I thought surely he would be the hero we had waited for!

He, on the other hand, had the audacity to say to me that the Sarkaz could no longer afford to continue to war, that it would take generations to rebuild Kazdel...

Even the skeleton beneath our feet knows that the Kazdel we should rebuild was never meant to be a city. And that the 'King of Sarkaz' should be the one to stand before them all.

How can a man like that deserve to hold a single drop of Teekaz blood within his body?!

Do you see it, King of Sarkaz?

I see... a bloody civil war.

The carpets of the palace are soaked red.

I see a... Vampire, lying in the arms of another Vampire.

The legend of 'The Toppled Blood Prince'.

He died in a civil war. You're his kin, did you fight in the war?

No.

No! Of course not! 'Did I fight?'

I shattered the Crown myself!

I remember it like it was yesterday. My hand pierced his chest. The limpid Teekaz blood danced on my fingertip, finally entering my veins.

He turned his head to look at me, grabbing my clothes... The 'King of Sarkaz' showed his illusory vision to his murderer before he died, the vision that should have been bestowed as an honor.

In the vision, I saw... I witnessed, peace.

As you said, Cautus, blood is not synonymous with death. I stood in the valley, watching a quiet village, a doctor laughing as he spoke, stitching up wounds for the injured.

An injured man tells the doctor that his quarry was particularly ferocious, but he eventually won out. In the courtyard hangs the freshly harvested beastmeat.

...And the doctor is me.

But this makes me uncontrollably angry.

How tragic, how meaningless, how shameful! My brother actually believed that this false 'peace' could deceive me? He was horrifically wrong!

He thought I was blinded by hatred? No, I know what peace is. And that's exactly why I feel so restless!

We long to see the great and powerful, true Teekaz!

I absorbed my brother's blood into my body, and I watched as the Black Crown vanished before my eyes—

But you did not ascend to the throne of the 'King of Sarkaz'.

And I do not regret that. If it could choose a formidable leader, I would be genuinely delighted.

But this Crown disappoints me time and time again. Each time I am more disappointed.

My brother's successor was a wandering vagrant. The next was a lumberjack. If it weren't for the records kept by the Confessarii, these people would not be remembered at all.

Later, a King who ruled Kazdel was killed by the monster called Kal'tsit in the sight of the coalition army.

Then came Theresa and Theresis.

They were impressive, but also frustrating. Theresa, immersed in her fantasies, wasted her strength, much like my... weak elder brother.

And her successor... turned out to be a Cautus, an outblood.

Things being what they are, the Crown's choices being so absurd, even as its existence brings such humiliating hope to my people—

I would rather bury it beyond the reach of civilization. I will let it be truly lost, forgotten to history.

You're still struggling.

Amiya, don't give him a chance.

You are weakening too. However tarnished the Crown may be, its weight is not something an infantile Cautus could bear.

It seems the Confessarii so eager to manipulate the Crown are going to blather some nonsense at me.

Take another look around, Cautus. If you die, there will be no more 'successors'.

Or maybe you'd place your crown on the moons?

What...? How can he still fight?!

The King's Arts should have pierced his body, leaving it unable to regenerate!

......

He is using blood to fill the holes in his flesh, using it to mend his wounds.

He's a marionette now.

You've become more proficient in the use of the King's power, Cautus.

But all your admonitions, warnings, judgments, and proclamations are nothing but jokes.

Ignorant little rabbit, the crown over your head represents no responsibility or authority.

King of Sarkaz, hah. I mock not only your foolishness, but that of the King.

And that of the Crown itself.

When the Sarkaz lose the King on which they're so dependent, then perhaps they will wake up from this shameful dream of a coming salvation.

I accede to your statement, that those awakening from a dream will be much more powerful.

And that is why you cannot defeat me.

How can the fallen consciousness of the Sarkaz resist me, who once carried the blood of the Teekaz?

The polluted cannot defile the pure, the impure cannot touch the limpid.

Your origin lies in the Teekaz, a long line you can only climb!

We are the rebels!

'I decree, therefore, I correct.'

'Blood and fire extinguished, face to doom.'

Look out, Logos!

*cough*!

His blood, it's... affecting me.

Several times stronger than those Arts Circles—

Yes, thanks to you, I have also shed my blood here.

And therefore—

This place is now part of Kazdel.

Who would have thought that as much as anyone assumed they knew the full length and breadth of this great land...

The boundaries of our home are still expanding, even in this time and place.

Sarkaz, my self-proclaimed Sarkaz kin!

March with your blood, carry on with that which will never betray you, the boon of your blood!

I will take you back to the origin of all of this.

And that is—

You—

Sorry, Sarkaz boons don't do much for me.

Bunny!

You *Sarkaz profanity* aren't Sarkaz! Hop to it! Weaken his binds!

That's what I'm doing! His Arts are even... crazier than I imagined!

I can barely hear his thoughts anymore, there's... there's only red... all red...

I've almost... got it!

Another outblood... an unexpected development.

The scent of your blood... you're Caprinae?

Such a dull disguise... let's have your blood suffocate you.

...Urk!

Do you think such crude Arts would let you kill a King of the Sarkaz Royal Court?

Of course not.

You can't call something as cliche as slaughter an 'awakening', Sanguinarch.

You're still wandering in hatred and destruction, you've never left the 'abyss'.

You're the ones who are still sleeping.

—Vile traitors—

—

King of Sarkaz!

Now!

Before he recovers, knock him off the skeleton!

The moment I took my throne, the knells were already tied to my fate.

None of us can escape.

But what the elegy mourns will not be your corpse.

It will be all of our connections.

I—will not—Banshee—

Amiya, join me.

Explore the strings of the elegy. Seek out the origin of the Banshee.

Look at me. Look to the wails you once covered your ears to avoid.

We must end him here.

I'll try!

Banshee! Listen!

You have still—Accepted your blood, my boon—

You have not yet... defeated yourself!

......

Ridiculous... even the myriad souls mock me.

Lord of the Banshees, and... King of Sarkaz.

You keep these deserters around who ignore the past, and in the end, you don't even dare to act yourselves.

Oh... the vile always prevail.

This is indeed our curse.

The outblood King has executed me?

The King of Sarkaz resounds with the knells. But you don't know how strong the ties of blood are. You try to judge...

You—

Heh, in the end, you did use the power within your blood!

Two elegiac singers offered me a dirge at the same time—

When the time came, you could not resist the instinct within your blood that comprises all that you are.

Did you really kill me? No.

I have returned the Teekaz blood to where it belongs...

Go and see, go to Londinium—

(Whispered Sarkaz) I'll be waiting for you behind the curtain of ruin.