Prague looked like the end of religion.

The city burned beneath a blood-red sky while cathedral bells rang continuously across collapsing districts like something inside the Church still believed noise could frighten God back into paying attention.

The alliance entered through the western quarantine walls at dawn.

Or what used to be dawn.

The crimson sky erased normal time now.

Smoke rolled through shattered streets.

Military barricades lay overturned beside burned transport convoys and infected corpses twitching faintly in the snow.

Every building seemed broken open somehow.

Like the city itself had been forced to expose its insides violently.

Seraphina moved beside Lucien through the ruined tram sectors while sanctuary strike teams advanced block by block behind them.

Humans.

Vampires.

Former hunters.

Nobody even looked strange standing together anymore.

War adapted people quickly.

Cassian coordinated assault routes through comms while simultaneously insulting everyone’s tactical decisions with remarkable consistency.

“Eastern flank, stop improvising heroically,” his voice snapped through the radio channels. “If you die doing something stupid, I will personally resurrect you just to complain about it.”

One of the younger resistance fighters laughed breathlessly over static.

“Copy that.”

Lucien glanced sideways toward Seraphina while they crossed beneath the remains of a collapsed bridge.

“He sounds emotionally invested.”

“He’d rather burst into flames than admit that.”

Fair.

The humor lasted maybe thirty seconds.

Then the infected hit.

They poured from underground metro entrances in massive waves now.

No longer random.

Organized.

God.

The realization hit everyone simultaneously.

The corruption was evolving.

Silver rounds tore through the front ranks while vampire strike teams intercepted the faster creatures before they reached civilian evacuation corridors.

Seraphina fired twice into an infected priest sprinting unnaturally across the side of a cathedral wall.

The body dropped.

Then kept moving.

“Nope,” Cassian muttered through comms. “Deeply disrespectful corpse behavior.”

Lucien moved ahead of the formation instantly afterward.

Too fast.

Too violent.

Seraphina felt fear spike immediately.

The corruption always worsened during combat now.

She saw it in the way his movements sharpened beyond control lately.

In the extra second he lingered after killing something.

In the bloodlust flickering too visibly behind his eyes whenever fresh wounds opened nearby.

God.

Please.

Not here.

Not now.

The cathedral district appeared through smoke roughly an hour later.

Saint Vitus rose above the ruined city like the skeleton of something holy already halfway dead.

Massive ritual symbols burned crimson across the stone exterior while Church execution forces barricaded every major entrance beneath rows of sanctified artillery and silver flame cannons.

And beneath the cathedral—

something pulsed.

Seraphina felt it immediately through the ground itself.

Heartbeat.

Wrong heartbeat.

Ancient.

Lucien stopped walking beside her.

His face had gone completely still.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Lucien stared toward the cathedral.

“The reactor.”

Seraphina frowned sharply.

“What reactor?”

Cassian answered first through comms.

“Please tell me the Church did not build a magical apocalypse engine underneath Prague.”

Lucien’s expression darkened.

“They used holy relics as fuel.”

Silence.

Then Cassian again:

“…I’m sorry, fuel?”

Lucien looked sick suddenly.

“The relic creation process was never symbolic.” His voice lowered. “The Church harvested blood, soul resonance, and sanctified remains for centuries.”

God.

Seraphina felt cold spread violently through her chest.

The horrifying relic laboratories.

The tortured children.

The immortality experiments.

All of it connected.

Lucien looked toward the cathedral towers.

“Aldric converted the entire reliquary network into a ritual engine.”

“And what exactly happens if he finishes?” Seraphina asked quietly.

Lucien didn’t answer immediately.

That terrified her more than the explanation probably would have.

Finally:

“The Gate opens fully.”

Thunder cracked violently overhead.

The crimson sky darkened further.

And somewhere deep beneath Prague—

something screamed again.

Not human.

Not infected.

Older.

The alliance assault began twenty minutes later.

The cathedral siege turned the city into hell almost instantly.

Silver artillery shattered ancient stained-glass windows across Saint Vitus while vampire strike teams climbed cathedral walls under gunfire to disable sanctified cannons from above.

Former Blackthorn hunters fought Church execution squads in the streets they once patrolled together.

Nobody spoke much during combat now.

There wasn’t room emotionally.

Only movement.

Survival.

Forward.

Seraphina lost track of time completely somewhere inside the cathedral breach.

The alliance stormed through burning side entrances while relic reactors beneath the city pulsed brighter beneath the stone floors.

Church soldiers screamed prayers while firing silver rounds into advancing vampires.

The infected flooded lower corridors indiscriminately attacking both sides.

Blood covered everything.

Human blood.

Vampire blood.

Black corruption blood.

War eventually erased categories.

Lucien fought beside her through the western transept with terrifying precision.

Too precise.

The corruption sharpened him into something frighteningly efficient now.

He moved through enemies like instinct stripped hesitation away completely.

One execution soldier raised a sanctified rifle toward Seraphina from the balcony above.

Lucien crossed fifteen feet before the trigger finished pulling.

The soldier never touched the ground afterward.

Seraphina stared briefly.

God.

Too fast.

Lucien turned toward her immediately after.

“You hurt?”

The concern in his voice sounded so normal compared to the violence surrounding them it nearly broke her concentration.

“I’m fine.”

Lie.

Everyone was bleeding now.

Cassian’s voice exploded through comms again.

“We found the lower reliquary entrance but there’s a slight issue.”

Seraphina reloaded automatically.

“What kind of issue?”

“Cultists.”

Pause.

“Like… aggressively many cultists.”

Fair.

The alliance pushed deeper anyway.

By the time they reached the cathedral undercroft, the entire city above them sounded like collapsing civilization.

The underground chambers stretched impossibly huge beneath Prague.

Ancient stone tunnels converted into ritual machinery.

Rows upon rows of glowing reliquaries embedded into cathedral walls pulsing crimson like exposed organs.

And at the center—

the reactor.

God.

Seraphina stopped moving entirely.

A massive circular chamber opened beneath the city foundations where thousands of holy relics rotated slowly around a black fracture suspended in midair.

The Gate.

Not fully opened yet.

But tearing wider.

Reality itself bent strangely around it.

Shadows moved wrong.

The air tasted metallic and ancient.

Lucien looked horrified.

“Aldric actually did it.”

Church forces waited around the reactor chamber already.

Execution squads.

Priests.

Fanatics kneeling in prayer while the world physically unraveled above them.

And standing nearest the Gate—

Aldric.

White ceremonial robes stained dark red beneath the reactor light.

His eyes looked feverishly bright now.

Almost ecstatic.

When he saw Seraphina and Lucien entering together through the shattered reliquary halls—

he smiled.

God.

That smile belonged to someone who stopped fearing consequences entirely.

“The false daughter arrives,” Aldric called across the chamber. “And the Beast beside her.”

Cassian stepped into the chamber from the eastern flank with sanctuary strike teams behind him.

“Has anyone ever told you your speeches are deeply exhausting?”

Aldric ignored him completely.

His gaze remained fixed only on Seraphina.

“You were meant to stand beside salvation,” he said softly. “Instead you chose corruption.”

Seraphina raised her weapon.

“No,” she answered coldly. “I chose people.”

Something furious flashed across Aldric’s face then.

Not disappointment.

Betrayal.

Like her humanity itself offended him now.

The reactor pulsed violently overhead.

The Gate widened another inch.

And suddenly every reliquary in the chamber exploded simultaneously.

The blast threw everyone sideways.

Stone shattered.

Blood sprayed across the ritual floor.

Seraphina hit the cathedral steps hard enough pain burst white behind her eyes.

Then screaming erupted everywhere.

Church forces charged.

The alliance answered.

Chaos swallowed the reactor chamber instantly.

Lucien disappeared into combat near the Gate itself while sanctuary fighters clashed with execution squads beneath collapsing relic machinery.

Seraphina fired point-blank into an advancing priest before spinning toward Cassian—

just in time to see the sanctified spear tear through his side.

No.

Cassian staggered violently backward beneath the impact.

Blood exploded across the reactor floor.

The spear pinned him against shattered cathedral stone while the Church execution captain advanced through smoke toward him calmly.

Seraphina’s pulse stopped.

“Cassian!”