Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

Local time, 10:00 AM.

Ruins of the old royal palace, Kurtayavik.

Amidst the ruins, tourists hold up their cameras while a tour guide uses a megaphone to recount the history of the Principality of Wallachia from hundreds of years ago.

At that moment, the sky suddenly split open without warning.

A golden crack stretched across the azure sky, then violently tore apart to both sides.

A massive energy vortex formed above the city.

Golden particles of light cascaded down like a waterfall, enveloping the entire ruins of the old royal palace in a sacred and majestic glow.

Traffic in downtown Bucharest came to an instant halt.

The screech of brakes and the blaring of car alarms filled the air.

Pedestrians stopped and looked up at the sky.

At that moment, television signals were cut off throughout Romania.

Whether it's the news being broadcast or the soap opera being watched by housewives, the screen changes instantly, turning into a screen full of golden static.

A buzzing sound of electricity replaced the original audio.

Three seconds later, the image refocused.

At the center of the vortex, a black iron boot stepped out.

The foot wasn't stepping on anything, yet it remained steadily suspended in mid-air.

The air seemed to transform into solid steps.

Then came the other foot.

A man emerged from the depths of the light.

Without using any flying vehicle or having wings, he simply walked down slowly from a height of 100 meters, his hands behind his back, step by step, treading on the void.

He had long, silver-gray hair, with his bangs parted in the middle and his hair tied in a low ponytail at the back of his head. The ends of his hair swayed gently in the wind as he walked down the street.

She was wearing a black, high-necked, tight-fitting suit of armor with a deep V-shaped opening at the chest, revealing her pale, almost sickly collarbone and the bright red lining underneath.

The golden half-shoulder pads were engraved with intricate Wallachian patterns, and there was no cloak behind him, but six short stakes with black handles and golden blades floated in the air.

The wooden stakes seemed like living guardians, rising and falling slowly behind their master in rhythm with his breathing.

An indescribable sense of oppression weighed heavily on the hearts of everyone present as he descended.

Thousands of tourists held their breath in the Old Royal Palace Square.

Some people tried to scream, but found that their throats were being choked by an invisible hand, and they could not make any sound.

That was a tremor stemming from the instinct for survival.

The man walked to a height of about twenty meters above the ground and stopped at the top of a dilapidated stone wall.

He turned his head.

His gaze swept across the ruins beneath his feet, over the terrified crowd dressed in modern clothes, and finally settled on the bronze statue that belonged to him.

"It's changed."

He spoke.

"My land has fallen into such a state of desolation."

The Romanian government reacted extremely quickly.

The sound of sirens ripped through the deathly silence.

More than a dozen black special forces armored vehicles crashed through the roadblocks and rushed into the outer perimeter of the square.

Military police, armed with riot shields, and special forces, with automatic rifles at the ready, locked their dark muzzles on the man atop the wall.

"Attention, personnel ahead! You have entered a military control zone!"

The commander's distorted roar came through the loudspeaker.

"Disarm immediately! Hands behind your head! Lie face down!"

The man on the wall didn't even turn his head.

He simply raised his right hand, which was gloved in black, and gently straightened the wrinkles in his collar.

The special forces commander waved.

A group of fully armed soldiers, carrying guns, advanced in tactical formation toward the center of the old royal palace.

One hundred meters.

Fifty meters.

Thirty meters.

When the first soldier crossed some invisible boundary, he suddenly stopped.

It is not a cessation of subjective will.

He remained in the stepping posture, his right foot dangling in mid-air, but he couldn't bring it down.

The air in front of me seemed to have solidified into an invisible wall.

The soldier's face turned red, veins bulged on his neck, and he used all his strength to push forward, slamming the butt of his rifle heavily into the air with a dull thud.

thump.

The reaction force sent him staggering back two steps, causing him to fall to the ground.

The other soldiers tried it, and without exception, they all succeeded.

Whether they rammed into it with their bodies or smashed it with gun butts, the air wall, centered on the old royal palace and with a radius of 100 meters, remained completely unmoved.

"mortal."

The man finally turned around, facing the densely packed army and onlookers below.

The six short stakes behind him suddenly shuddered and hummed.

The man looked down at all living beings, his right hand loosely clenched.

A long spear with a black handle and a gold blade, known as the "King of Execution," appeared out of thin air in his hand.

The gun tip pointed downwards, and it slammed down heavily.

clang!

The sound of metal clashing resounded through the sky.

"Summoned by the Holy Grail."

He raised his head, declaring to the sky and to the whole world.

"Class: Lancer".

"Real name: Vlad Tsepesh."

.....

The global internet went into a frenzy the moment Vlad III announced his identity.

Google, Bing, Baidu... all search engine servers were hit by hundreds of millions of requests at the same time.

People frantically typed in keywords such as "Vlad Tsepes", "Lancer's real name", and "Grand Duke of Romania".

Wikipedia entries have been refreshed tens of millions of times.

The first line of bold black text immediately caught everyone's eye:

Vlad III Tsepeš, Grand Prince of Wallachia, was infamous for his cruel practice of impalement.

The second line follows immediately:

[The inspiration for the Count of Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel *Dracula*.]

Blasted.

It completely exploded.

Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Weibo...

#Lancer is Dracula#

#The Vampire Count Has Descended into Reality#

#Go buy garlic and crosses quickly#

These terms went viral, dominating the top ten of the global trending search list in just three minutes.

"My God! The Holy Grail War actually summoned Dracula?"

"How are we supposed to fight this? Physical attacks are ineffective, and it can even turn into a bat. This is practically a bug!"

"Oh no, whoever becomes his Master, will they have to donate blood every day?"

"The person upstairs is overthinking it. Maybe it's a beautiful girl being sacrificed?"

"Stop dreaming! Compared to Madara Uchiha and Newton, what's a vampire? Watch me, Lord Newton, pin him to the ground with gravity!"

"Not necessarily. The progenitor of vampires in mythology was incredibly powerful! This is the ultimate showdown between magic and physical attacks!"

Soon, countless terrifying legends, movie clips, and novel plots about vampires were unearthed by netizens and compared with the image of the silver-haired man on the screen.

fear.

excited.

Curiosity.

Human beings' instinctive reaction to "monsters" is amplified infinitely at this moment.

……

Bucharest, the old royal palace.

Vlad III tightened his grip on the spear.

Even if we're separated by a screen, even if we're separated by an internet cable.

The malice that was simultaneously fantasized, misinterpreted, and demonized by hundreds of millions of people still felt like a bucket of dirty water being poured onto his spiritual foundation.

[An innocent monster].

This is a curse etched deep into his soul.

The world doesn't need a hero to protect its homeland; it only needs a vampire to satisfy its morbid curiosity.

"Dracula..."

Vlad III pondered the name.

The surrounding air pressure suddenly dropped.

The once clear sky seemed to have dimmed a bit.

A nauseating, bloody smell began to permeate the air.

That was the smell of mountains of corpses and seas of blood that he had personally created to protect this land.

Now, however, it has become evidence for people to attack him as a monster.

"madness."

He coldly uttered two words.

A Romanian government spokesperson was frantically appealing on television: "Please remain calm! Do not approach the old royal palace! The government is evaluating contact options..."

But nobody listened.

Outside the old royal palace, a news van bearing the BBC logo pulled up.

A blond reporter jumped out of the car, his face beaming with excitement.

He held the controller in his hand, and a professional-grade aerial photography drone buzzed as it rose into the sky.

"This is absolutely Pulitzer Prize-worthy news!"

The reporter shouted into the camera.

"Ladies and gentlemen! This is Tom, a BBC reporter! I'm now operating a drone to film this Lancer who calls himself Vlad III up close!!"

The drone disappeared into the shadows and crossed the warning line.

It flew very fast, heading straight for the man on the wall.

The special forces commander tried to stop it, but it was too late.

One hundred meters.

Eighty meters.

The drone's high-definition camera zoomed in, attempting to capture the pores on Vlad III's face.

Vlad III stood there, not even lifting an eyelid.

He didn't even look at the buzzing mechanical contraption.

For a master, the harassment of flies is not worth paying special attention to.

Fifty meters.

Just as the drone was about to enter the optimal shooting distance.

Click.

A crisp cracking sound was broadcast live around the world.

The high-speed drone seemed to have crashed into an invisible meat grinder.

There was no warning whatsoever.

Its rotors, fuselage, and cameras disintegrated instantly in mid-air.

The fragments did not scatter and fly, but were forcibly squeezed and twisted by some force.

In the blink of an eye, equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars turned into a pile of scrap metal.

thump.

The scrap metal ball fell vertically, crashed onto the stone pavement of the old royal palace, rolled twice, and came to rest at Vlad III's feet.

The BBC reporter's smile froze on his face.

Viewers around the world watching on their screens felt a chill run from their feet to the top of their heads.

Vlad III lifted his foot, his black iron boot stepping on the lump of scrap metal.

crunch.

The hard metal beneath his feet was flattened like a crisp cookie.

He looked up, his gaze piercing through the distance, seemingly locking onto the BBC reporter.

The controller in the reporter's hand fell to the ground with a thud.

Listen carefully.

Vlad III's voice rang out again.

This time, it was no longer a calm statement, but rather carried the fierce and ruthless spirit of battle.

He swung his spear sharply, the tip slicing through the air with a piercing whistle.

"From this moment on..."

"With this body as the center, within a radius of one kilometer."

"All of this is my land."

Vlad III turned around, and the six wooden stakes behind him changed direction, their tips pointing at everyone on the periphery.

"Anyone who enters without permission."

"They are all invaders."

"And what became of the invaders..."

He didn't finish speaking.

But everyone understood the unspoken message.

Wooden stakes.

puncture.

Those were bloody punishments etched in history books.

Having said this, Vlad III ignored the trembling modern people.

Turning around, the black hem of her dress drew a cold, hard arc in the air.

He walked step by step into the depths of the old royal palace ruins.

Only after he completely disappeared did the terrifying pressure that had enveloped the square dissipate slightly.

But that invisible wall of air still stood there stubbornly.

Completely isolate the old royal palace from the modern world.