Chapter 223: Blood Moon Eclipse

Chapter 223: Chapter 223: Blood Moon Eclipse

Seth looked up in terror as his knees struck the ruined courtyard with a heavy thud.

For the first time in centuries, the patriarch of the Apep vampires could not trust his own mind.

His thoughts scattered. His mana circulation stuttered. The shadow serpents surrounding him twisted violently before collapsing into wisps of black smoke.

Lucian stood several meters away, breathing heavily. His greatsword hung at his side, its edge stained with Seth’s blood. Cracks spread across the ground beneath his boots, and the wounds on his body were already beginning to close.

But regeneration could not erase exhaustion.

His mana reserves had fallen dangerously low. His mental power was nearly depleted, and even maintaining his refined Predator Form demanded more energy than he wanted to spend.

Across the courtyard, Mickey struggled to rise from the rubble. One hand pressed against his ribs while the other supported his weight.

Clara remained standing at the center of the fading lunar radiance, her silver hair drifting around her face. Her breathing was ragged. The enormous spell had consumed almost everything she had accumulated during her cultivation.

Nevertheless, Seth was finally on his knees.

"Now!" Mickey shouted. "Finish him!"

Seth raised his head.

His crimson eyes focused on Lucian through the blood covering his face.

"You..." His voice emerged as a broken whisper. "You insignificant—"

Lucian disappeared.

Flick!

Light Acceleration propelled him across the courtyard. His greatsword rose, and Seth’s expression changed as he sensed the killing intent descending upon him.

Seth forced his trembling arm upward. A thin layer of shadow mana gathered around his hand.

It was pathetic compared with the fortress of darkness he had commanded moments earlier.

Lucian’s blade descended.

CLANG!

The impact forced Seth’s arm against the ground. The curved blade in his hand cracked, its serpentine runes flickering before going dark.

Seth stared at the broken weapon.

Then he looked up.

Lucian’s crimson eyes were cold.

"You should have stayed on your knees."

Seth snarled and released the last of his shadow mana. Darkness exploded between them, swallowing the courtyard in a violent cloud.

BOOOOM!

Mickey shielded his face as the shockwave sent fragments of stone tumbling past him.

"Lucian!" Clara shouted.

Then a crimson glow appeared inside the darkness.

It spread outward in thin, curved lines, tracing the edges of a sword that moved too quickly for ordinary eyes to follow.

Shing! Shing! Shing!

Seth’s eyes widened.

He knew sword techniques. He had fought swordsmen from human clans and vampires who had spent centuries refining their weapon arts. Even now, despite his injuries, he could recognize the danger of a properly executed technique.

But this was different.

The crimson sword intent carried something that made his vampire instincts recoil.

It was an intent that resonated with the very nature of his race.

Seth attempted to retreat.

His legs refused to respond quickly enough.

Lucian’s voice rang through the darkness.

"Eclipse Sword Art..."

The crimson lines multiplied.

"...Blood Moon Eclipse."

SHIIIIIIIIING!

The first slash came from Seth’s left.

The second struck from his right.

The third descended from above, followed by a fourth that appeared to cut through the space behind him.

Seth raised his arms, desperately gathering shadow mana to defend himself.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

His defenses lasted less than a second.

Lucian moved in a blur, his greatsword carving overlapping arcs through the air. Each swing left behind a crescent of crimson sword intent. The crescents did not disappear. They lingered, intersecting and overlapping until a sphere of deadly energy began forming around Seth.

A blood-red eclipse.

Seth tried to force his way out.

A slash caught his shoulder.

Another tore across his chest.

A third sliced through the shadow mana protecting his back.

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

Blood sprayed across the ruined stones.

Seth roared and released a burst of shadow energy, but the crimson sphere swallowed the attack. Every shadow serpent he summoned was shredded before it could fully materialize.

The technique gave him no room to counterattack.

No opening to gather mana or moment to recover.

Lucian’s sword continued moving, each strike feeding another arc into the expanding storm of crimson energy.

The Blood Moon Eclipse was designed for exactly this purpose: to overwhelm a single, powerful opponent through continuous attacks from multiple directions. Against an enemy with enough strength to withstand ordinary sword strikes, a conventional exchange could become a battle of endurance.

Lucian had no intention of giving Seth that opportunity.

He poured his remaining strength into the technique.

The sphere contracted.

SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING!

Seth’s shattered armor disintegrated. His remaining defenses broke apart beneath the relentless flurry. His roar became a strangled scream as the overlapping slashes tore through his body.

"No—!"

The crimson eclipse flashed once more.

BOOOOOOM!

A wave of blood-red energy burst outward, sweeping through the dust and smoke.

Then silence fell.

Lucian stood in the center of the ruined courtyard, his greatsword lowered. Crimson particles drifted around him before dissolving into the air.

Seth was no longer standing.

The patriarch lay motionless in the crater, his body broken beyond the point of recovery.

Lucian watched him for several seconds.

He wasn’t going to make the mistake of assuming the battle was over simply because his opponent had stopped moving. Seth had been a Peak Grand Core cultivator, a vampire with centuries of experience and a collection of powerful spells that had nearly overwhelmed all three of them.

Lucian observed with his blood sense until Seth’s heartbeat stopped.

A vast reservoir of mana lingered inside the fallen patriarch, dense and dark, carrying the remnants of his cultivation. It was the accumulated result of decades upon decades of growth.

And now it belonged to no one.

Except, perhaps, him.

A notification flickered at the edge of Lucian’s vision, but he barely glanced at it. The sensation of Seth’s energy drew his attention more urgently than any message from the system.

He extended his free hand.

"Devouring Void."

Fwoooooosh!

A dark pool formed beneath Seth’s body.

Unlike the earlier use that had drained the mana cohesion of the shadow serpents, Lucian directed the ability toward the energy remaining within Seth. The pool deepened, its surface twisting like a bottomless well.

A stream of dark mana rose from the corpse.

It flowed toward Lucian’s palm.

Thrum.

The moment it touched him, Lucian felt the difference.

This was not the scattered mana he had absorbed from the serpents. Seth’s energy was condensed, carrying the weight of a cultivator who had reached the very peak of the Grand Core Realm.

The sheer volume threatened to overwhelm him.

Lucian’s expression tightened.

"Careful," he muttered to himself.

He adjusted the flow, drawing the energy inward in controlled streams rather than allowing it to flood his body all at once.

The first wave entered his core.

BOOM!

His mana surged.

The second wave followed.

BOOM!

The sensation spread through his lower dantian, where his existing mana core struggled to accommodate the incoming power. The energy pressed against its boundaries as if a storm had been trapped inside a vessel too small to contain it.

Lucian clenched his teeth.

He had absorbed powerful enemies before, but Seth was on an entirely different level. The difference between their cultivation realms had been a constant disadvantage throughout the battle.

Now that same difference was becoming an opportunity.

His ancient vampire bloodline stirred in response.

The crimson light beneath his skin intensified.

Lucian continued devouring Seth’s energy.

Across the courtyard, Mickey finally managed to stand upright. He stared at the scene, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten.

"Is he... absorbing Seth?"

Clara wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.

"That’s what it looks like."

Mickey swallowed.

"Of course he is."

Even after fighting a Peak Grand Core vampire, even after taking enough punishment to bring an ordinary cultivator to the edge of death, Lucian had found another way to turn the battle to his advantage.

Clara didn’t answer. Her gaze remained fixed on him.

She knew Lucian was dangerous. She had known it for a long time. But every time she thought she understood the extent of his abilities, he revealed another layer.

And this time, she could feel it even from a distance.

Something inside Lucian was changing.

The Dark Wyvern limped into the courtyard.

Its scales were cracked in several places, and dark blood stained its flank. One wing hung lower than the other, but the beast remained alert, its golden eyes moving between Lucian, Clara, and Mickey.

Behind them, three children stood near the broken entrance to the throne room.

The Apep children.

They had witnessed the battle. They had seen their father fall, and whatever they understood about the world had been shattered alongside the fortress around them.

With one final pull, Lucian drew the remaining usable energy from Seth’s body. The dark stream thinned before disappearing into Lucian’s palm. The Devouring Void collapsed, leaving the patriarch’s lifeless remains in the crater.

Lucian exhaled slowly.

His body felt heavier, yet strangely more stable. The energy he had absorbed was still turbulent, but his bloodline was helping him process it.

He lowered his greatsword and walked toward a relatively intact section of stone beneath a collapsed archway.

He sat down cross-legged.

"Don’t disturb me," he said. "I need to absorb this properly."

Clara and Mickey exchanged a glance.

Then, almost simultaneously, they deactivated their forms.

The crimson crown and horns surrounding Lucian faded as he released his Predator Form. Clara’s Lunar Sovereign Form dissolved into silver motes, and Mickey’s lesser Predator Form vanished with it.

Without the transformations sustaining their heightened states, the exhaustion became immediately apparent.

Mickey dropped onto a flat piece of rubble.

"Next time," he muttered, struggling to catch his breath, "I’m voting for an opponent who doesn’t summon enough shadows to cover an entire fortress."

Clara gave him a tired look.

"You were the one who wanted to help fight him."

"I wanted to help defeat him. I didn’t specifically request being punched through ancient architecture."

Despite herself, Clara almost smiled.

Thrum.

Inside Lucian’s lower dantian, his mana core trembled.

The energy accumulated within it had reached its limit. Seth’s remaining power pressed against the boundaries of Lucian’s cultivation, forcing his core to compress and refine the mana it contained.

Lucian guided the process with careful concentration.

He could feel the bottleneck.

The boundary between Early Grand Core and Mid Grand Core was no longer distant. It was right before him, a barrier that demanded both sufficient energy and the ability to control it.

His ancient bloodline pulsed.

Crack.

A fine fracture appeared along the outer layer of his mana core.

Lucian remained perfectly still.

The fracture spread, not destroying the core but allowing its structure to reorganize. Mana surged through the opening, compressing into a denser, more stable state.

BOOOOOOM!

A wave of pressure swept outward from Lucian.

Dust rose from the courtyard floor. Loose stones rattled, and the Dark Wyvern immediately turned toward him, shielding the children with its body.

Mickey’s head snapped up.

"What was that?"

Clara felt the pressure wash over her skin. Her eyes widened as she recognized the change in Lucian’s aura.

"No way..."

The energy surrounding him surged once more, then settled into a powerful, steady rhythm.

Lucian opened his eyes.

The crimson glow within them was brighter than before.

He had broken through.

Mid Grand Core Realm.

A slow smile appeared on his face.