The Devils did not descend upon Isla Isabela as conquerors.
They arrived as judges.
No armies marched behind them. No declarations were made. Their presence alone was enough to silence those who understood what they truly were. Even the oldest vampires, beings who had witnessed centuries of history, recognized that resistance was meaningless.
The conflict between the Seakh and the vampires had grown beyond control.
Every new dimensional gateway brought more Seakh into the human world.
Every successful possession ended in another execution.
Every execution inspired another act of retaliation.
The cycle no longer served anyone.
The island was no longer an experiment.
It was becoming an extinction event.
The Devils refused to allow it to continue.
Their solution was neither peace nor victory.
It was balance.
The Devils had no interest in protecting humanity.
Nor did they intend to preserve vampire dominance.
Their concern lay elsewhere.
The spiritual races had already lost one world.
They would not allow another to be consumed through endless war.
Thus, they imposed an agreement.
Not a negotiation.
Not a request.
A command.
The ruling vampires of Isla Isabela were given a choice that was not truly a choice at all.
Accept the Devils' conditions...
Or witness consequences no civilization could survive.
The agreement would permanently alter the island's future.
A completely new race would be created.
Neither fully human.
Nor fully vampire.
A race that had never before existed.
The Half-Vampires.
Unlike true vampires, Half-Vampires possessed a diluted bloodline. Their instincts remained powerful, yet they were capable of living far closer to ordinary human society. They were not intended to replace vampires entirely.
They were intended to replace conflict.
To create them, however, sacrifice was required.
Vampires who held no political authority—those considered expendable by the existing hierarchy—were selected for transformation.
The process was unimaginably painful.
Few records describe it in detail.
Those who witnessed it rarely spoke of it again.
The Devils reshaped their very nature.
Blood was altered.
Instincts rewritten.
Identity dismantled and reconstructed.
When the process ended, they emerged as something neither side had anticipated.
Not lesser.
Simply... different.
The first Half-Vampires had been born.
Unlike the Seakh, the Half-Vampires were never intended to exist temporarily.
Their existence was permanent.
They could reproduce.
Their children inherited the same blood.
Generation after generation, the race continued without further intervention from the Devils.
For the first time in history, a supernatural species had been engineered rather than naturally born.
An entire civilization had been created through necessity.
The consequences unfolded slowly.
As decades passed, the population of true vampires steadily declined.
Some disappeared through war.
Others chose transformation.
Many simply faded from positions of influence.
Meanwhile, the Half-Vampire population expanded with every generation.
Humans remained the numerical majority.
Half-Vampires followed closely behind.
True vampires gradually became uncommon, their presence increasingly associated with authority, ancient bloodlines, or exceptional power.
Power itself had begun to evolve.
Not through conquest.
But through inheritance.
One law, however, remained absolute.
No human could ever become a vampire.
At least...
Not legally.
The prohibition extended across every nation, every governing body, and every supernatural authority. Turning a naturally born human into a true vampire was considered one of the greatest crimes imaginable.
The punishment admitted no exceptions.
The newly created vampire would suffer Final Death.
The vampire responsible for the transformation would share the same fate.
Mercy was forbidden.
Appeals did not exist.
The law had been written in blood, and blood alone enforced it.
It was not merely a legal principle.
It was a boundary the world had agreed must never again be crossed.
And yet...
History has always belonged to those willing to violate impossible laws.
Soon enough, someone would choose exactly that.
Not for power.
Not for ambition.
But to save a single life.
Her name was Angelica.