[Before the fall of Az'Talon...]
Location: The Grand Plaza (Immortal City)
"I am restraining my power. It is not leaking so why are you all so quiet when you were so noisy before?" The Emperor asked. His voiced reached everyone gathered.
His mana was thinly spread on the ground to stop them from leaving but that was it.
"Father..." Gilford began but was interrupted.
"I am not your Father!" The Lord of Az'Talon glared and His tone full of malice. "You use the title that the Children of Blood call me out of respect but your actions show me no respect. They offer no courtesy. They have no sense of nobility. You march and speak of your rights and will, when you have been given everything. Be silent!"
The Patriarch raised His gloved hand and made a fast twisting motion.
The sound of Gilford's neck snapping and his lifeless body hitting the floor made those who saw the scene gasp.
The Patriarch smiled and breathed a satisfactory sigh. His eyes turned to Evelyn who was looking at the body of her friend, employer and co-conspirator with sadness in her eyes and a heaviness in her heart.
"Would you feel the same way about me, Evelyn? If I were the one that died so easily?"
The question stunned the barbarian but the Patriarch was patient and waited for her reply.
"Lord Emperor..." Evelyn gathered her voice.
"Please, call me Rio. It is not my name but it is the name I cherish because you used it. You are still the only friend I ever had."
His smile was genuine but it was tainted by His deeds and identity. It was the honest smile of a villain.
"Y-yes...uhm...of course...Rio. I still mourn the day we separated." She said.
"I think about that day often if I am truthful. How have you been?" He asked.
'What sort of game is He playing!' She wondered. Her hands were shaking. 'Why are we not running away?'
"I have been fine, Rio." She said plainly trying to hide the fear in her voice. He killed a Pureblood by moving His wrist. It was only right that she was afraid. "How are you?"
"I am devastated." 'Rio' even shook His head as if to emphasise His devastation. "I am devastated for two reasons. Firstly, because you feel the need to lie to me. You are not fine. Otherwise why would you be here? Secondly, you actually came here even though I hoped you would not."
His words implied that He knew that they would come in the name of rebelling!
"Wait-! You knew?!" She asked.
"I did. Why else do you think everything lined up so perfectly for you all to attack today? I got tired of your plotting. I have known since the day I visited the late Marquis Gilford's manor to meet you." The Patriarch replied. "Something was off about you two that day. It was as if you were hiding something. You even controlled your heartbeat around me and Gilford...Gilford could not hide his thoughts from me."
'Hide his thoughts?' Evelyn did not want to even touch on that subject. Her own heart and mind were racing. She was struggling to focus.
"Dissatisfied nobility and citizens who were unhappy under my leadership. Vampires who taught themselves to 'break free' of the shackles that make them submit to my will. That is your premise. The reason for all of this." The Emperor laughed. "Such foolishness."
"It is not foolish. You cannot make sentient beings subjected to your will to become your loyal subjects." Evelyn said. Mixed in with her fear was anger.
"I agree." The Emperor smiled. "I believe in free will which is why I do not make them follow me. They choose to. What makes them obey and bow to me is their instinct."
The words He spoke shocked them. The Emperor continued speaking.
"Vampires are relatively powerful beings. They can be great predators but a true skill of predators is to know when they are prey, to recognise a greater predator, an apex predator. I will show you, though, I am sorry to say this, you wasted your time and your lives for such a simple lesson."
The Emperor's cloak began to move. No, it was more accurate to say that is was unfurling. The cloak opened up and spread out into four directions.
Four bat like wings coming out of crimson skeletal bones that shone with an ethereal metallic radiance appeared.
The Emperor was wearing a simple white silk tunic that displayed half chest. A black robe that dragged behind him and black pants that seemed to be made of leather from a beast with white stripes.
Red and purple flames danced around His body. They were the physical manifestation of His bloodlust.
He directed it toward the rebels and all the traitors, vampire or not, they were made equal when they fell to their knees. Some began to vomit while others began to cry out.
How long had He lived to have killed so many beings? Bloodlust was the manifestation of the hatred, curses and combat experience of the enemies a person had killed.
The Emperor's bloodlust was so intense, so pure and so dense that it was even capable of being seen with the naked eye?! To be pushed forward and reach all of them?!
So this was all for nothing? They spent years thinking they were training themselves to be resistant to their bloodline, the bloodline they thought made them obey their superiors but it turned out that they were not being suppressed? It was their own instinct?!
Their forefathers obeyed their Ancestor out of respect and fear!
They understood this now but it was too late. The Ancestor had brought out the Sicarii.
The Praetorian Guard who were the daily deterrent to transgressors wore black because they moved with the Emperor like His shadow.
The Sicarii who were the ultimate executioners and were said to be His true Shadow wore red so that they would not disgrace themselves by letting their Lord see the unsightly blood of His enemies on them.
To see the Sicarii was to know you had been judged by the highest authority and you had been condemned.
Many started to shout. Begging. Pleading. Promising to never stand against him again but the Lord of Az'Talon frowned.
He looked at Evelyn. She was looking around her. The rebellion had turned pitiful.