The war in Africa continues, and General Berlinetta starts pushing a very aggressive approach to China and Great Japan. Orion and his advisors are conflicted about what to do. Manny and Sherri start declining in health. Sherri dies, and Orion runs away to live in isolation with Manny in the wild. Fadi temporarily takes over the government in desperation, using a hologram of Orion to deal with subordinates. The war gets worse, and Great Japan threatens to use nuclear weapons.
The vampires, meanwhile, have been largely forgotten due to the international tensions. Pellon Cross manages to make himself bleed (something vampires normally can't do) by over-gorging on blood. He starts a blood communion with his followers, who can also bleed if they drink his blood. If they can all learn to bleed, they can get past the government's security measures. He starts taking on a Christ-like role, and talking about Orion as the devil. Zebra starts to lose faith in his leader, however.
This arc has a very unique storytelling structure. Each of the comics in this arc are divided into two stories, each of which continues through the arc. The first half of each issue is about Orion, and is told using multiple small rectangular panels of the same size, usually 8 to a page. The text is often placed in large paragraphs the size of the drawn panels. The second half of each issue is about the vampires, and is told using a more conventional panel/text layout. Each of the vampire stories are themselves made of two parts: one about Cross, Kierch, and Zebra, and another about one of the "everyday" denizens of Grendel's Palace. They are narrated by either Zebra or Kierch.
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