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Bloodbound

Summary:

In the shadow of Virmarion, something ancient stirs.

Feared by his kind and hunted by whispers, a nameless vampire drifts into the fabled city—a place untouched by time, guarded by secrets, and haunted by a silence too loud to ignore. Labeled an orphan, an outcast, a mistake, he has no origin… or so they believe.

But his arrival is no coincidence.

As creatures of both day and night vanish without trace, the city trembles beneath the weight of its forgotten past. And in the quiet, an ancient darkness begins to rise.

Notes:

This is actually one of my buried drafts.

It was inspired by Underworld, but I decided to scrap it—until I came across the Castlevania anime series, which prompted me to rewrite it.

So I hope you guys like it, even if no one asked for it.

Also, whenever I write, I tend to imagine the scenes as if they are from an anime or a K-drama episode.

That’s why the pacing is either rushed or slow. Lol.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Virmarion

Chapter Text

For centuries, humanity walked blindly through the world, drunk on the illusion of supremacy.

They built cities that kissed the sky and forged empires from dust and steel, crowned themselves kings of civilization, and called it progress. In their arrogance, they believed they had tamed the wild.

That they had conquered the night.

They were wrong.

The truth was never theirs to know.

Beneath their feet, beyond their sight, within the whispers of ancient forests and the heartbeat of forgotten ruins—myth walked.
Vampires, werewolves, witches, elves, sirens, and creatures older than time itself—beings of power, legend, and darkness—lived among them, hidden in plain sight. Watching. Waiting. Enduring.

And in the heart of Europe stood the city of Virmarion, where myth had not just survived—it had thrived.

Once a blood-soaked battlefield of forgotten gods and shadowed titans, Virmarion had since grown into a gothic sprawl of secrets and silence. Its cobblestone streets bore the weight of centuries, and its air was always thick with the scent of magic, old and patient. Every alley hid a story. Every stone had bled.

Virmarion was more than a city. It was a living archive of power, and its true rulers were never human.

For millennia, the vampires ruled the city’s underbelly with an elegance as terrifying as it was beautiful. They were not the caricatures of horror tales nor the tortured lovers of bedtime myths. They were predators. Aristocrats of the dark. And they lived in covens bound by blood, oath, and legacy.

At the heart of this secret empire stood the greatest of them all—the Royal Coven of Virmarion.

It was not simply a family—it was a bloodline, a divine force of nature passed through centuries of pure, undiluted vampiric heritage. King Vernon, the Crimson Sovereign of the North, whose voice alone could silence wars. King Wonwoo, his eternal mate, the Iron Eclipse of the South, known for wisdom that unraveled curses and eyes that saw through deception. And their only son—Prince Sunghoon—young, brilliant, feared, and beloved. His blood was said to sing with power so ancient that even the stars bent slightly in his presence.

Though the royals rarely stayed within the coven walls, their absence did not mark a lack of control. It marked a deeper game—one of legacy, of fate, of an ancient hunt still unfinished. The kings were seekers, wanderers not out of boredom but necessity. As if something beyond even their comprehension called to them across time.

In their absence, the coven was governed by the Elder Council—a circle of the oldest vampires still awake, each one a nightmare in their own right. They upheld the laws, maintained the fragile peace between species, and quelled rebellions before they could rise.

But even the elders, for all their might and myth, knew the truth.

Their rule was borrowed. Their power, temporary.

When the royal family returned—be it after a decade or a century—even the eldest bowed.

Still, the Elder Council hid a truth even darker than the city’s bloodstained history.

There were other covens. Other royal families. Other powers that ruled distant lands. But none matched the scope, the legacy, the sheer gravitational pull of Virmarion’s royal bloodline. They were the center of the web. The beating heart of the vampire world.

And yet—a storm was coming.

There was a whisper. A memory buried so deep even time had tried to forget it. That there once lived a lineage of vampires more powerful than even the kings. Beings whose blood predated royalty, whose presence twisted the very fabric of reality. Neither dead nor living. Neither legend nor lie.

Ancient, sleeping gods of night and power.

Their names had been scrubbed from records, erased from memory. But the earth remembered. The wind still screamed their names on cursed nights. And Virmarion trembled in her bones.

Something was awakening.

A coldness not born of winter began to seep through the city's soul. Shadows deepened. Magic thinned. Witches closed their shops earlier. Wolves howled with unease. And the blood of the royal son—Sunghoon—began to burn strangely in his veins.

Some said it was a call.
Others said it was a curse.

But the oldest of the elders, eyes clouded with time and terror, knew the truth.

The balance was breaking.

And with it, the night would never be the same.