" My lord! My lord! A large modern vampire army has entered into conflict with our forces at the border.
Close to five destroyer ships have been neutralised and we have lost about 2 million men.
It looks like they are being led by the commander of the Bloodfall clan, The legendary mercenary DarkSorrow, and are headed straight for our current capital base here " the scout reported to Dracula who smiled after receiving the disturbing report.
It had been just over a day since he attained basic mastery over the attack [ Dark Dimension ] and was beginning to wonder as to when and how he could get his hands on Max, when this unexpected opportunity presented itself.
The primordial vampire forces did not have many destroyer ships to begin with.
They were not popular amongst the dwarves and nobody was selling them high end weapons.
They only had a fleet of 12 odd destroyer ships and a few hundred frigates, most of which they had stolen after conquering modern vampire planets and some of them were from the Kingdom Of Life.
To lose 5 of them at once was a big blow to their patrolling abilities at the border and such acts could not go unpunished.
For a Kingdom, external threats such as modern vampires were significant, however, what was equally disturbing was threats from rogue mercenaries and space pirate groups that threatened the security of small settlements.
Maintaining a stable and strong border patrol force was necessary for stability of any state and with the primordial vampires already being under-equipped these problems bothered them even more.
Merchant ships in and out of their lands were often targeted by pirates and there was not much that Dracula could do to ensure their security which already led to a low trade volume, however, with the loss of five more ships this situation was bound to get even worse.
Naturally, trade was not his number one priority but nonetheless he knew the importance of keeping the economy flowing, which is why he felt the pinch of losing five destroyers at once.
The only silver lining in this incident for him was that DarkSorrow was leading the charge himself and rumours suggested that he was valued highly by the Vampire King Max Rajput.
If Dracula managed to capture DarkSorrow alive, he could then in-turn force Max to enter into negotiations with him, giving him the opportunity to use the attack [ Dark Dimension ] which was the sole reason behind his uncanny smile at this dark piece of news.
" They're headed straight for the capital? How bold of them! They probably think that they can use the fancy cannons on their destroyer ships to cause damage to the planet, but those fools are clearly mistaken.
I'll smother them the second they arrive-" Dracula said viciously as he eagerly awaited DarkSorrow's arrival, however, just at this moment another messenger rushed into his office with a second message that made Dracula genuinely worried about what the enemy was plotting.
" My lord! My lord! My lord! " the messenger said as he panted and felt disoriented
" What? " asked Dracula as he frowned at the unseemly antics of his scout who was trained to always be stoic and unfazed.
" My lord, there is a large rebellion underway in the capital! " the scout reported as Dracula frowned at the absurdity of this statement.
" Rebellion? Staged by who? Who is so foolish? " he asked, wondering which of his underlings had started a rebellion against him?
" It's the pope of the Church of the cowards who has started the rebellion! Sebastian the great coward! The one who is said to be more slippery than an eel in water-
He has begun to galvanise his followers on the planet and they have set fire to some of the most key buildings on the planet as they chant and spread absurd statements like ' May the cowardice be with you ' and ' One glass of blood a day keeps Dracula away ' it's a shit-show out there " the scout reported as Dracula could not even begin to process this statement.
What church of cowards? What followers? What glass of blood and what cowardice?
He had heard a few months ago that the whore Beniogre had taken in a new husband who was a dwarf and a joke.
The only impression he had of the dwarf was that he successfully evacuated his friends without a second's hesitation when he had just broken free of his prison and that he was a smart dwarf.
However, as for the church of cowards or their influence he never took them seriously and even now he gravely underestimated the situation at hand.
It was only when he looked outside his palace window and saw several parts of the city genuinely burning to ashes that he realised that the rebellion and its threat was real as he was forced to consider the influence of the so-called cowardly leader and his followers.
********
( Meanwhile Max )
Max was riding a small frigate ship that looked like it was a part of DarkSorrow's entourage alongside 8 vampire lords who had personally shown up for the mission.
It was all part of Max's plan to hide in a smaller vessel disguised as a subsidiary of a destroyer ship as he wanted to flush Dracula out and catch him off-guard at the right opportunity.
According to the plan, DarkSorrow would attack from the air while Sebastian distracted the local authorities with on-ground problems as Dracula would be forced to choose between the two threats and which one should he resolve first.
Since the destroyer ships were a bigger threat, Dracula would undoubtedly choose to neutralise them first which would give Max the chance to face him, giving the rest of his forces the opening they needed to capture the capital planet which was in chaos.
It was a smart yet dangerous plan that ultimately hinged on the choice that Dracula made, however, Max was confident in his mind that everything would proceed as he had planned and that his forces would manage to achieve a monumental victory today.
