The castle loomed, draped in eternal night, its spires piercing through a sky devoid of mercy. A graveyard of stone and shadow, a monument to the cursed blood that ran through his veins. The scent of damp earth and something ancient lingered in the cold air, whispering of an era that refused to die.

Alucard moved like a whisper through the halls—graceful, inhuman, untouchable. The silence around him was absolute, save for the soft rustle of his coat trailing behind him. Moonlight kissed the sharp edges of his form, carving out something almost divine.

Yet there was no divinity in him.

No salvation in the predator’s poise of his shoulders, nor in the cold, aristocratic beauty of his face. He was something sculpted from contradiction—both ethereal and monstrous, both heir to a throne of blood and an exile of his own making.

Gold shimmered in his eyes, a molten glow between hunger and restraint. It was a warning. A silent hymn of violence.

Son of Dracula.

A name whispered in fear, a bloodline both revered and reviled. The weight of it pressed against him, coiling like a noose around his throat. He had spent a lifetime resisting the hunger that pulsed through his very marrow, but it was always there, waiting beneath the surface.

The air crackled with something unseen.

A hand twitched at his side, and the shadows obeyed. They stirred at his command, creeping along the walls like living things, eager, waiting.

Alucard did not move.

He did not need to.

Fear had already done the work for him.