Nocturne had not been quiet for days. Every district in the hidden city felt tense now. Witches argued openly in the streets. Vampire houses locked their gates earlier than usual. Even the werebeings wandering the lower markets looked restless.
Across the hidden city, screens flickered endlessly with the same looping footage—Ingrid's livestream, Silas, the Alpha, and the government agents falling unconscious.
Every platform, every network, and every channel.
Inside Nocturne itself, enchanted mirrors flickered endlessly with replayed footage from Ingrid's livestream while younger witches projected Bareblood social media feeds directly into floating illusion screens above the council halls. Magical broadcasts mixed uncomfortably with stolen Bareblood technology as reports spread faster than anyone could properly contain. Even supernaturals who normally refused to touch modern devices now stood gathered around glowing phones and tablets with visible dread across their faces.
And outside Nocturne, within the Bareblood world, it had already become unstoppable.
Days had already passed since Ingrid's livestream first spread across the internet. Days since Silas appeared before millions. Days since Kahn himself stood in full werewolf form and casually greeted everyone outside of the Witching Hour through a livestream like secrecy no longer mattered at all. Instead of fading, the panic only worsened with every passing hour. Governments demanded answers. Conspiracy theories evolved into public debate. And somewhere along the chaos, the Barebloods became completely obsessed with the Witching Hour.
News channels replayed clips nonstop. Livestream archives spread across every social media platform imaginable. Reuploads multiplied faster than deletion attempts could remove them while discussions about werewolves, witches, vampires, and hidden societies consumed the internet overnight.
It was already too late.
Somewhere deep beneath Nocturne's oldest district, inside a vast chamber carved from black stone and glowing rune-light, the Witching Hour emergency council had convened at the Hall of Witches.
The room was enormous.
Long circular table. Seats assigned to ancient houses. Representatives from vampires, witches, werebeings, and older bloodlines that barely interacted unless the world itself was at risk.
Tonight, it was.
Voices overlapped immediately.
"Everything's a mess!"
"We're going to be fiddled in their wars!"
"It's over…"
"We should suppress everything immediately!"
"You cannot suppress millions of uploads across global networks!"
"The younger generation's been celebrating you know."
That last line triggered even louder arguing. Because it was true.
Somewhere in the chaos, multiple younger representatives were openly scrolling through clips of Silas and Ingrid's livestream—laughing, sharing memes, and whispering that "maybe secrecy was outdated anyway."
Across the room, several elder witches looked like they were physically in pain watching it.
"We have protocols for this!" one senator shouted. "Erase the footage. Silence the source. Remove the Bareblood immediately."
"That is impossible now," another replied sharply. "There are copies on every system. Even if we use the birthright of a vampire with seduction, it wouldn't matter."
A witch slammed a hand onto the table.
"An Alpha appeared on livestream!"
The room erupted again.
Several senators immediately redirected their outrage toward Kahn himself. According to them, an Alpha appearing publicly before the Barebloods should never have happened under any circumstance, much less through a livestream viewed by millions. The fact that Kahn had casually waved toward the camera afterward only made the humiliation worse in their eyes. Even more unbelievable to many older supernaturals was the sight of him calmly using a smartphone during the broadcast, something several elders spoke about like it was a personal betrayal against centuries of secrecy and tradition.
That statement caused a brief moment of silence before everything resumed even louder.
At the center of it all stood Charlotte. Completely calm, unmoving, and her arms folded lightly behind her back as she watched the chaos unfold like it was something mildly inconvenient rather than catastrophic.
A senator finally snapped.
"This is your doing, isn't it?"
Charlotte tilted her head slightly.
"…Excuse me?"
"You have been advocating for the Witching Hour to be exposed to the general public throughout your time here. Now suddenly the entire world knows of us overnight. Don't act like this is a coincidence."
All eyes shifted toward her. The noise dulled slightly, waiting for her reaction but Charlotte simply smiled. Softly. Calmly. And said nothing. That silence was worse than denial.
Elsewhere in the chamber, the doors finally opened again.Soline entered late as she yawned entering. Arms full of printed reports, tablets, and glowing data sheets stacked too neatly for someone who had clearly been running all morning. Her eyes scanned the room once—and immediately understood the situation was already past introductions. She merely sighed.
"Late as usual. Act like our race's representative will you?" A vampire elder scoffed.
She only groaned as she placed all the stuff she brought with her to at the table. A few heads turned at the sudden bang.
"The Bareblood girl started this. Let us not point fingers at Charlotte for once." A Senate Witch says calmly, reassessing the situation to everyone.
Soline shook her head.
That caused another wave of arguments immediately. Soline raised her voice slightly.
"If we keep trying to erase it, we will only confirm every conspiracy theory they already have."
One senator snapped back.
"So what do you propose?"
A pause.
Then Soline answered clearly.
"If the Baebloods are going to learn about us anyway, then we make sure they learn it from us and not from that woman's narrative nor the conspiracy theories."
Silence followed.
For the first time, the room didn't immediately respond. Because that idea was worse. Or better for some, especially Charlotte as she smiled quietly from her seat while the entire room was arguing about everything. No one could decide yet.
A vampire senator pointed immediately.
"We need a solution."
Theodore, who was beside Charlotte, looked at the screen projection showing the video from Ingrid's livestream with billions of views across multiple platforms. Then at the arguments. Then at Charlotte who was still smiling quietly at the center of it all.
That shut everyone up again. They just don't know what to do despite their wisdom from their long age. Silence returned. Heavy. Soline exhaled slowly.
Slowly, eyes turned toward her again.
"We make a statement before the Barebloods create one for us," Soline said calmly. "If they're going to learn about the Witching Hour anyway, then we decide what they see first instead of letting panic and conspiracy forums do it for us."
Several witches immediately reacted negatively to the idea, some visibly disturbed by what Soline was implying. To many of them, even discussing public acknowledgment sounded dangerously close to surrendering centuries of secrecy entirely. Especially, just when the Great Silver Hunt made them into just stories of old. And now this? Soline, however, remained calm and clarified that the Barebloods had already seen them whether the council accepted it or not. Continuing to pretend otherwise now would only make the Witching Hour look more fearful and dishonest once the panic settled. "Besides, the Barebloods are way too immune with their politics to care and be scared," Soline added for the others still rejecting the idea.
Another silence. This one lasted a bit longer. Then, slowly, murmurs began. Not agreement. Not rejection. Something in between. Uncertainty going towards the inevitable future.
At the center of it all, Charlotte finally spoke. Quietly. "Someone prepare the speech. Oh and who's going to say it. Inform their world government about our plans."
No one interrupted her. Not this time. Outside the chamber, Nocturne's ancient halls continued to flicker with livestreams, memes, and the Bareblood reactions spreading faster than any magical barrier could contain. And somewhere beneath Nocturne, surrounded by ancient stone and panicking aged beings infused with mana, the Witching Hour finally began preparing to face the Bareblood's world directly.