Chapter 103: [PS Bonus Chap] Declaration of War

"WHAT?!"

Alistair shot to his feet. The velvet cushion tumbled off his throne backward. He didn’t notice.

The Judgment Hall came apart in seconds. The composed, political theater of a royal tribunal dissolved into something much louder and much more frightened. Ministers turned to each other with wide eyes. Nobles grabbed the arms of their chairs. Somewhere in the middle rows, an elderly Duke’s hands began shaking so badly his signet ring clinked against the wooden railing.

"After two decades of silence," the Duke whispered, more to himself than anyone around him, "why now?"

"They barely survived the Great Calamity as it was," a younger noble said beside him, his face completely drained. "We surrendered three border territories just to make them stop. We left entire populations behind those lines."

"And now they are breaking the treaty?"

The word traveled through the hall in pieces.

War.

War.

War.

Each repetition landing heavier than the last.

The memory of the last conflict was not something anyone in this room needed to be reminded of. It lived in the architecture of every city wall, in the emptiness of border provinces that used to hold hundreds of thousands of people, in the treaty terms that had been written in desperation by a humanity that had been three months from total extinction. It was not a war that humanity had survived through strength. It had survived through the simple fact that the vampires had decided to let it.

Now that courtesy was apparently over.

The Chief Magistrate had gone grey. His quill hovered motionless above the parchment. He stared at Theodore. "Could the Crown Prince’s actions, the vampire force at the mountain pass, could all of that have been a prelude to this campaign?"

"We cannot confirm that yet," Theodore said flatly. "We are still trying to map out everywhere they have placed their people."

He looked across the gallery.

"But one thing is certain. The Vampire Council has crossed the threshold. War is not a probability anymore. They have issued their formal proclamation."

The Magistrate leaned forward. "A proclamation? What document did their emissaries deliver?"

Theodore’s jaw tightened. "Something more definitive than parchment."

He turned to the doors. "Bring them in."

The double doors opened wide. Two elite Royal Guards led the way, armor catching the light. Behind them came eight heavy-infantry soldiers carrying four large, iron-bound wooden coffins. They brought them through the aisle and set them down on the stone floor one by one.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

The smell reached the front rows before anyone had said another word. Several nobles shifted in their seats. One noblewoman pressed her handkerchief against her nose before she even knew why.

"What is the meaning of this?" Alistair demanded, his voice sharp, but with a new edge of unease underneath it.

Theodore walked to the nearest coffin without answering. He placed one gloved hand flat on the lid. Then he slid it open.

Creaaaak.

The smell hit properly now. Iron and cold air and something ancient underneath it.

Inside, resting on white silk, was a human body. The skin had gone pale and paper-thin, like something kept away from the sun, and on the side of the neck were two clean puncture marks.

There was not a drop of blood left anywhere in the body. Not a visible vein or a flush of color anywhere. It had been drained completely and systematically, and then placed in a box, and sent.

A noblewoman in the second row turned away. A high minister covered his mouth with both hands. Several people near the aisle leaned back in their seats like the sight was something that could reach them physically.

Theodore closed the lid. Moved to the second coffin.

"Civilians," he said. "Recovered from three separate farming settlements along the Northern Marches."

He opened the second box. Another hollow husk. Closed it.

Opened the third.

The gallery did not recover between each reveal. By the third coffin, several nobles had stopped looking entirely. Palace Guards along the perimeter had gone very still, knuckles pale around their polearms, professional discipline holding but only just.

Theodore’s voice did not waver. "These were not soldiers with weapons. They were farmers, blacksmiths, and children."

He looked directly at Alistair. "They were drained, packaged, and left at our border outposts as a statement."

Nobody spoke.

"The word we would use," Theodore said, "is harvested."

The silence that followed was a different kind of silence from the one that had existed before the doors opened. That one had been political. This one was existential.

The Chief Magistrate’s voice came out smaller than it had been all morning. "How many settlements?"

"We do not have a full count yet. These four were retrieved before the border zones were sealed behind blood barriers."

An elder Duke pressed both hands flat on the railing in front of him, steadying himself. "If this is already happening along the perimeter... how many have already died in the dark?"

Theodore said nothing.

That silence answered the question.

For nearly ten seconds, nobody in the hall breathed properly.

Then Isabella stepped forward.

"There is an additional directive that brought us here today," she said. Her voice was calm and clear, standing out from the surrounding panic the way a candle stands out in a dark room.

"The full invasion will not begin immediately. According to our tactical intelligence, we have approximately three to four weeks before the primary vampire host breaches the outer mountain gates."

Uneasy murmuring moved through the gallery.

"That is a narrow window," Isabella continued. "The Upper Academy has initiated emergency war-rules, ordering the Spires to immediately find and pulled out the best young fighters among the cadets."

A minister stood halfway. "You are conscripting academy students?!"

"Normal troops will do nothing more than buy us time against the high-tier vampire nobles." Isabella said, not unkindly. "We need elite mana-output fighters capable of holding frontlines against blood magic. That is not an opinion. It is a practical reality."

Her eyes moved across the room unhurried.

"Because of this emergency, the Upper Academy is opening candidate spots. Anyone who shows exceptional strategy and skill in battle will be promoted to Upper Academy Cadet right away, even before the school year ends. And whoever performs the best,"

She paused, letting her voice carry across the room.

"They will be named a Spire of this year."