The System Awakens: Rise of the Champion

"I wonder why they are here…" Damian smiled. "Hehe, this should be fun."

Damian walked toward the bed and looked at his five wives with a warm gaze, smiling slightly.

"I'll be back before you wake up... my love, my heart."

In the next second, his figure transformed into a bolt of golden lightning, and in an instant, he disappeared.

Far away from the Twilight Castle, a thunderous sound cracked through the sky as golden lightning struck the ground, scorching and fracturing it, creating cracks in all directions.

From the impact emerged a beautiful man, tall and impossibly charming, with eyes red as blood, and messy, night-black hair flowing down to his shoulders.

The place where Damian landed was the heart of Twilight City, the capital of the world, the Nightingale.

His dramatic arrival drew the attention of all the noble vampires nearby, but the moment they recognized who he was, they immediately knelt in respect to their king.

In the next moment, hundreds of noble vampires were on their knees.

"Hmmm." The Vampire King waved his hand, and the noble vampires resumed their activities.

He didn't need to speak, his will was law.

His blood could command all vampires around him.

Ignoring the noble vampires, the Vampire King turned his attention to… a strip club?

"A strip club in the world of vampires? Interesting," Damian muttered, then walked toward it.

As soon as he entered, all the noble vampires and the half-naked vampire women dancing froze in place and dropped to their knees without hesitation.

All except for two men sitting at the bar counter, with glasses of red liquid before them, and an empty stool between them.

Damian gestured for the vampires to return to what they were doing as he walked toward the two men.

One wore a black suit with a black shirt, and the other appeared to be a middle-aged man with long, golden-white hair.

They looked like noble vampires, but Damian knew better.

These two weren't vampires.

They were powerful beings.

He sat on the stool between them.

The bartender bowed slightly before silently preparing a cocktail of red liquid, serving it neatly in a glass before the king.

Damian didn't speak.

He simply took the glass and began drinking the red liquid.

As it entered his mouth, a sweet flavor spread across his taste buds.

"Hmm… this is definitely blood… mixed with something… it has a weird sweetness and a taste that strangely resembles wine…"

"You know, of all people I expected to meet especially in a strip club…" Damian smiled as he looked at the golden-white-haired man.

"And I'm not talking about him, Heavenly Father…"

"Come on now. My Father may seem all high and mighty, but he's still a man. It wouldn't hurt to have fun once in a while," the blonde-haired man in the dark suit chuckled.

His real identity: the great king of demons, fallen angel, and one of the seven deadly sins, the Demon of Pride himself, Lucifer Morningstar.

"Don't talk nonsense, Lucifer…" the Heavenly Father, king of the biblical Heaven and ruler of the angels, snorted, shaking his head in irritation.

"You know I have a lot of things to do, and I'd rather be doing them than dealing with you two. So why don't you just state the reason for your unannounced arrival in my world…" Damian narrowed his eyes.

He wasn't happy to see them.

They had appeared in Nightingale, a world that belonged to him, as if they owned the place.

That made him angry.

But since they hadn't done any harm yet, he wasn't going to attack. Yet.

"You know," Lucifer said, looking Damian up and down with curiosity,

"you look like a vampire, but I can still feel the presence of a high demon, a fallen angel, and the human progenitor from you… How exactly does that work? What are you, exactly?"

Damian's expression darkened, and his presence grew terrifying.

Lucifer's smile disappeared instantly.

"What do you want, Lucifer?" the Vampire King asked coldly.

"Well… I don't know why he is here," Lucifer shrugged, pointing at the Heavenly Father. "But I came to meet the new 63rd ruler of biblical Hell. That's all."

Damian ignored him and looked at the Heavenly Father.

"King of Angels… I have great respect for you, but why the hell are you in my world?"

The Heavenly Father had been observing Damian silently this whole time.

"Like Lucifer said… Even though he is now the progenitor of vampires, I can still sense the presence of a human progenitor, a high demon, and a fallen angel within him," the Heavenly Father said thoughtfully.

Ever since Damian defeated the Marquis Andras, he had caught the attention of both the King of Hell and the King of Heaven, Lucifer Morningstar and the Heavenly Father.

Especially the Heavenly Father.

"I came for the same reason as that fallen one… I wanted to meet you. You are a being of immense power and influence in the lower plane. You're no different from any other god-kings… and I can see you're already half a step into becoming a god yourself…" the Heavenly Father said calmly.

His eyes glowed with divine light as he peered into Damian, and what he saw shocked him.

"How is this possible? How can he be comprehending so many laws at the same time? Just what is he…" The Heavenly Father's eyes widened, just as he felt a terrifying force grip his throat.

In an instant, Damian had him by the neck, lifting him into the air, his grip tight enough to crush divine flesh.

"What the hell are you looking at, God-king?" Damian growled.

Half of his face began to distort, animalistic and monstrous.

The other half darkened, as if coated in living shadow.

His aura grew thicker and more terrifying.

The Heavenly Father felt a chill deep in his divine soul.

It was as if millions upon millions of nightmarish monsters stood behind Damian, watching, growling, existing within his presence.

All the vampires in the area fled in terror.

Even Lucifer felt something he hadn't in eons: fear.

"Fucking Heaven…" Lucifer muttered, gulping. "How strong has he become since defeating Marquis Andras?"

He could feel it clearly now, this Vampire King was far stronger than him.

And Lucifer himself was a god-king level being.

Maybe not on the level of the Heavenly Father, but still one who could go toe-to-toe with divine kings.

The Heavenly Father felt that he might actually die if he didn't speak quickly and sincerely.

"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have looked into you like that… Please forgive me…" the Heavenly Father begged.

Lucifer's eyes widened.

He had never seen the Heavenly Father, who had banished him and countless other angels, beg.

This was the same Heavenly Father whom even the upper realm gods hesitated to provoke.

Not just because of his power, but because of his divinities, the concepts of life, creation, and beginning, and the vast angelic armies he commanded.

To make him beg…

Just how terrifying had Damian become?

At that moment, Lucifer felt something he hadn't felt since his fall: dread.

Damian narrowed his monstrous eyes.

A sigh escaped his distorted face, an eerie mixture of growls, groans, and monstrous echoes.

Then, his presence began to retreat.

The terrifying aura faded, and he released the Heavenly Father, who gasped as the deathly grip vanished.

It wasn't the physical act of grabbing his neck that terrified the god, it was the presence.

The feeling.

The sensation of being at the very edge of true annihilation.

The Heavenly Father stared at Damian, a visible trace of fear on his face.

Behind Damian, the swirling red mist, shadows, and countless eyes, each one seemingly holding a soul of its own, slowly disappeared.

His face and body returned to their original, handsome, manly form.

"I already said I respect you, Heavenly Father," Damian said, narrowing his eyes.

"Don't make me take it back and kill you."

Damian continued, "Take this as my final warning. If you dare attempt something like this again, I will devour your soul and show you what true hell is like. And it will be many times more terrifying than the one you banished your sons to..."

"I'm sorry... I shouldn't have acted like that."

The Heavenly Father didn't want to create any sort of animosity with him, because just now, he could sense it, the Vampire King was definitely stronger than him.

And who knows what kind of disaster could manifest if he went all out?

Even with his army of Heaven's angels, he didn't have the confidence to go against him, not to mention whether he would even have an army to begin with, considering how things were going.

"Now tell me why you're here, or get the hell out of Nightingale right now," the Vampire King demanded in a louder tone.

"...."

The Heavenly Father gulped. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to reveal his reason for coming.

"I know why he's here," Lucifer said, seeing his father remain silent.

He decided he should speak up himself.

"Do tell, Demon King?" the Vampire King asked, narrowing his eyes as he sat on the chair.