The armour was made of the finest metal alloy ever forged in the smelters of Fanum-Divus and painstakingly engraved in gold and silver with every one of the thousand symbols that represented the names of god. The sword was likewise endowed with exquisite workmanship, the metal had been folded a hundred times and then reinforced with a sheet of gold and silver. The blade sparks with the red lightning of the storm around him, highlighting his angular features with deep shadows.
On his other arm, the shield of the three divines hummed in anticipation of battle. Constructed for him when he had first turned to the worship of the one true god the shield was tailor made to his own soul. None but himself could wear the shield and not perish. Top his head was the elaborate golden crown of Fanum-Divus, worn by the king and the scribe of god.
The face of the king of the Divus was set into a granite hard expression of hatred and righteous anger, eyes burning with fanatic zeal.
This same fanaticism had been the driving force between the thousand year conflict between the Hylden and the ancient Vampires which had left millions dead and the land drenched with blood. The scribe of heaven, king of Fanum-Divus and the first acolyte of the Elder had plunged the world into a chaos and devastation he would repeat in the name of his god in a heartbeat.
“Children of the dust!” He proclaimed in a voice that cracked like the boom of thunder. With the tip of his sparking blade he pointed down towards the ruins of Malek’s bastion far below. Even before he did so columns of dusts, a multitude of swirling vortexes of particles, were already condensing into a vast army of terracotta figures. The home garrison of Fanum-Divus were formed of legions of homunculi, uncountable numbers of archaic golems grasping sword, axes and spears. They appeared one by one all across the mountains surrounded the bastion. The thick snow did not sway them as they turned as one to face the ruins and began to march in step towards it. Those of their kind that appeared inside the ruins themselves moved quickly to find and penetrate the hidden entrances to the underground tunnels to allow the rest to move in swiftly for the kill.
Out of the gap in the sky came two more figures that flew down to flank Raziel-Divus on either side. On his left was the massively heavily built Metatron-Divus, holding his obsidian hammer in his hands and hovering protectively behind his master. To his right was the boyish and effeminate Asmodeus-Divus. Far more slender and wiry of frame, Asmodeus wore silver armour across only his shins and lower arms. His weapon of choice was a morning star, a ball on a thick silver chain studded with curved sharp spikes. It hung at his waist negligently but his hand was always poised near its handle ready to snap it up.
“Oh, crude.” Asmodeus remarked flippantly, looking around at the environment with a disdainful expression. “I always thought this era was a bit rugged.”
“Rugged or not, this is where the enemies of our king have gathered.” Metatron said flatly and without emotion, heaving his hammer up to rest across one of his beefy shoulders. “For our sovereign, they will be destroyed!”
“Yes yes.” Asmodeus replied unenthusiastically, waving a hand at him in a dismissive gesture. “Fight, crush, destroy and all that.”
Raziel-Divus ignored their banter
“Sweep this mountain clean!!” The king of Fanum-Divus commanded, swinging his sword across sharply in a commanding gesture. “Leave no living thing! Not even a single blade of parched grass is to be left alive!”
The homunculi continued their march trampling wide paths through the near frozen snow towards the towering bastion. The sound of their synchronized march shook the ground with a steady measure beat. 
Asmodeus cast his near deranged king a sidelong glance and then a short knowing smile past unseen on his lips.
“Cleanse them so that I may face destiny with whatever dignity they have left me!” That last command was delivered in a voice that ranged on the edge of mad hysteria and it echoed for miles, even deep underground to the forging chamber.
Ewoden had reassumed his lycanthrope form and his ears were pricked forward, listening to that echoing scream and the increasingly loud thump of the oncoming armies. Behind him, the bubble of light that had enveloped Kain and the old man continued to pulsate and writhe. The ritual was not yet over and Ashar was on his knees, his armour body shaking and trembling as he tried with all his strength to keep it going.  Beside him, Umah stood there watching events unfold with a sort of helpless frustration.
“It ...is... almost ...complete....” The king of the Hylden wheezed, straining to hold his head up. The inner light of spirit from within his armour was ebbing dramatically, sometimes appearing as little more than a faint glow. He turned slightly to look at her and even without a face he looked desperate.
“Umah... please... help me.” He said. Instantly she was kneeling beside him, not touching him for she did not want to risk spoiling the enormous concentration required.
“Yes, what do I do?” She asked of him in a quick voice. Ashar looked back at the bubble before him. Smoke was starting to rise from around it, a thick red smoke that turned black when it reached the ceiling curling and boiling thickly.
“Keep me ...protected, unmolested... until it is done.” He said, redoubling his efforts on the ritual with some vigour. “This must not... not... be interrupted for any r...reason!”
Ewoden snorted derisively and looked out past the door again into the dark corridor beyond. The resonating thud of approaching doom grew louder each time. It reached such volume and resonance that some discarded pieces of armour still lying on the floor began to clatter. The floor vibrated slightly each time.
The lycanthrope emissary squinted and then pulled his canine lips apart into a malicious sort of grin.
“Despite my immortality, I never did want to live forever.” He said and then a quick bound he leapt into the darkness to halt the advance of the insidious homunculi.
Umah watched him go and she hesitated instead of following him. If she left Ashar would be vulnerable to attack with nobody near to ensure he was left alone. As much as she deployed letting their werewolf alley fight by himself, she could not risk leaving the Hylden king unguarded.
Grimly she took up her position by the door, snatching up a sword from the grumbled remains of one of the possessed Hylden horde and stood guard before it so that none might pass her.
-
The pain faded and some semblance of sanity and rationality seemed to return to me. My senses reconnected and I found myself not in the present, but far into the past.”
-
Kain took in a shuddering breath as he opened his eyes, his body feeling as cold as the touch of snow and ice. Everything about him was flimsy as if he was looking at it from underwater and sounds were strangely muffled. Vainly he looked this way and that but everything around him was a nebulous blur of grey and white.  
“Where am I?” He asked out load. “What is this?” Even the sound of his own voice came out as a garbled collection of guttural noises to his ears.
The last thing he recalled as the beginning of the ritual. After that it had all vanished in a blur of pain and powerful sensations. Quickly he glanced down at his own chest. It was whole and pristine, unmarred by the gaping hole he had seen wrenched in it.
“I’m sorry.” The voice came through to him suddenly and quite clearly. With a start he turned and watched as the blurs around them seem to clear and condense becoming a solid image with proper shape and definition. The solidification spread rapidly and before long Kain found himself standing in a small drawing room. There were polished oak tables and thick carpets imported from the east. The walls were hand painted royal red and the shield of his father baring the coast of arms of Willendorf.
At the table was seated a slender woman. She had high cheek bones and long black hair, tied back into a pony tail halfway down between her shoulder blades. She was dressed in a frilly sort of brocade dress outlined with red satin and her eyes were pale with the signs of blindness.
Before her stood a young man perhaps no older then fifteen. He was looking at the women with a defiant expression set rigidly into his face.
The woman looked at him, despite the blindness, and then shook her head and sighed.
“No Kain, no you’re not.” She said in a flat voice that carried no traces of acceptance or scorn. Instantly Kain understood. He remembered this scene now. This was the moment where he had come to her to face the rebuke of his sister after he had killed his brother to secure dominance as the heir to their father’s estates.
He was standing that watching it from a third person view and neither of them seemed aware of his presence. The young boy was himself... and the woman at the table, was Ester the sister who had helped ensure his assassination during his human life.
“No... I’m not.” The young boy admitted after a moment of silence. His manner and tone were completely unapologetic but then he softened a little and lowered his gaze.
“I am sorry if it upset you though.” He added in a more reasonable voice. “But I did what I had to do. It was me, or him.”
Ester smiled faintly at him in response and there was some element of pity there in her smile that made Kain’s stomach squirm.
“There can be only one successor to father’s title.” She said lightly. The boy looked up at her with expectation of acceptance in his face.
“Yes. I have to...” He started but the elder sister cut him off.
“I have to kill, in order to live.” She said, turning her blind eyes away from him. “Survival of the fittest.”
The younger Kain blinked in confusion.
“Who said that?” He asked a little perplexed.
“A scholarly friend of mine I knew from the University of Stahlberg doing work in biology, the study of wild animals.” She said absently and then turned to face him again and now her expression was deadly serious.
“Kain, you do what you have to do.” She said and then reached out and grasped him quite firmly on his shoulder pulling him a step closer.
“But I would not have you lose sight of that and kill for the sheer joy of it.” She said in a tone like cold iron. The young Kain flinched slightly in her grip but she held him fast so he could not look away from her face.
“Kill when necessary.” She said and those three words were more of a command then a rebuke. “Can you promise me that?”
The young man looked frozen on the spot for a moment and then looked down at the floor, his expression troubled. When he looked back up his face was set with a consternated confusion.
“I don’t know.” He admitted slowly. Ester didn’t release her grip on him but held him there with an expectant silent waiting for him to continue.  
“I cannot tell what the future may ask me to do.” Kain said. “Necessity may require me to kill a lot of people... and I may be required to enjoy it. I cannot make that promise ahead of time.” Ester was silent her lips thin and pulled down into a frown.  Then she straightened and seemed to smile.
“A wise answer.”  She said and she pulled her younger brother into an embrace, holding him to her. The young man hesitated and then slowly returned the gesture.
“Try to keep my words in your heart Kain.” He said and for an instant, just for an instant, Kain could have sworn that she was looking directly at him rather than the boy.
In that moment Kain felt a solid, thump. That powerful blow came from directly inside him and it rocked him to his knees with its intensity. Then it came again, stronger this time and he collapsed onto his all fours gasping in surprise. There was no pain, just an unexpected intensity.
Thump after thump echoed through him and in the midst of their internal bows Kain realised what they were. It was his heart beating. The heart cut from him as a human being had been returned to its proper place and he could feel its strength pounding through him. He had been without one for so long that its powerful thumping took him by surprise.
-
“Almost literally I kept her words in my heart. For with the return of my original human heart, came with it the realization that I had failed many times to live up to her expectation of me. I had killed more times than I could count for the pleasure of the act.”
-
As his body stiffened and muscles tightened to adapt to the new powerful sensation running through him, the once emperor of Nosgoth recalled all the instances of casual violence had had engaged in. The imagination of the vampire can at times be quite graphic and Kain was a very imaginative person, coming up with diverse and unusual methods of sending even the most benign of offenders screaming into the abyss.
He had waded through blood to reach his throne and then butchered thousands of people over the generations of his rule and had thought nothing of it.
-
“Vampire or not... Emperor or not... I was accountable for my actions in this regard at least.”
-
The beating inside him settled into rich thrumming and when that happened it no longer weakened his body but strengthened it instead. He could feel all the strength his fit like attacks had lost him flowing back to him, slowly at first and then in a rushing river.
But it went even further then just restoration. Inconceivable as it was his human heart was actually making him stronger then he had been in the first instance. Had the Heart of darkness been a leash keeping him tethered to a certain length of strength and then not allowing him to surpass it?
That heart had belonged to Janos Audron and its presence inside his body had been maintained through necromantic magic. That had been necessary to revive him as a vampire to begin with but had he simply outgrown it now? With his original intended heart restored in its place was he reaching his full potential now?
Was this the final intent Mortanious and Ester’s machinations? Many unanswered questions burned in his mind, overriding Ester’s words and advice - kill only when necessary, which swam like a fish through the current of his soul.
-
“But it was of only momentary regret. The human, Kain the son of Coorhagen was long since gone. Kain, the Scion of Balance was all that remained now. He killed whenever he chose to consider it necessary. That was enough to satisfy my sense of right and wrong.”