All Chapters of THE DEVIL'S FRUIT : Chapter 21
- Chapter 30
31 chapters
Chapter 20: The Bloodline echoes.
Aric Blackthorn staggered, his chest heaving like a bellows hammered by the gods themselves. His breath tore through him in ragged, uneven bursts, and his heart pounded so violently it felt as though it might rupture his ribs and claw its way free from his chest.He stood there, unmoving, eyes locked on the still-smoking corpse of the creature he had just slain.“I did it.”The thought came unbidden, dazed and feral. His body shook with aftershock, not from fear, but disbelief. Disbelief that somehow, impossibly, he had survived.Not just survived — won.The Sovereign’s past missions had thrown him into combat with horrors far beyond his league, relentless Grade Ones that had nearly carved him to shreds each time. And each time, he had limped away on the verge of death, dragged to safety by one of the roaming Blood Knights assigned to patrol his area.But this time… there had been no one.And he had lived.His hand curled slowly into a fist, fingers locking tight until blood welled in
Chapter 21: Trial Sparks.
Aric Blackthorn’s gaze narrowed to slits.Crimson eyes, burning like twin embers under ash, locked onto the boy in front of him. Crimson hair, too—violent and bright like fresh blood spilled over snow. That hue was never coincidence. That was heritage. That was Blackthorn blood.But Caelan Blackthorn did not exist in this generation.Not now.Not anymore.Aric’s mind raced like clockwork gears grinding through memory and madness.The past...It clicked. And the click was cold.He had no time to dwell, because pressure began to bleed through the space like invisible steel wires wrapping around his skin. A killing intent—refined and undiluted—rolled off Caelan’s frame like a silent storm. His hand moved toward the hilt of his weapon, and that was the only declaration Aric needed.Two more Blackthorn youths emerged behind him like shadows solidifying."Third Vein..." they intoned, bowing ever so slightly. It wasn’t submission. It was reverence.They stopped at Caelan’s side. But when the
Chapter 22: Blood Logic.
It was a riddle wrapped in a coffin, floating down a river of madness.Aric Blackthorn sat still, cold against the stone wall of the damp cave, his mind spinning like a thousand knives around a single, jagged question.Why hadn't they aged?Not a single wrinkle. Not a hint of fatigue or erosion. Not even spiritual decay.This wasn’t some whimsical fable or cradle-born illusion. This was real, and in real life, time didn’t compromise. It consumed.But these descendants, these so-called elite of the dome, looked like they'd stepped out of a memory preserved in ice. Their gear was rusted in design, yet unused in essence. Their reflexes were honed, not dulled. And Caelan Blackthorn? That red-haired revenant was the biggest enigma of them all. A Third Vein that shouldn’t exist. Couldn’t exist. Not now.But he did.Aric’s crimson eyes narrowed as thoughts spiraled faster than blood from an open wound."Either I’m right," he muttered inwardly, "and they've been kept young through some absurd
Chapter 23: The Maze.
One blink. That was all the time it took before chaos cracked open.Two figures hurtled from the blinding pulse of light, their boots scraping against stone as they staggered, blinking rapidly, eyes struggling to adjust to the atmospheric hum of the chamber.Aric Blackthorn was faster.His hand snapped like a whip, gun rising with the confidence of someone who had already killed more times than he cared to admit. The barrel fixed itself with surgical precision on the chest of the lead figure.The duo skidded to a halt.Their wide-eyed shock met Aric’s crimson glare.And then a voice — omnipresent, clinical, and inhumanly calm — sliced through the tension:"Welcome to the Successor Trials, participants."Time itself paused.Aric's finger hovered over the trigger, instincts screaming to pull, but the voice coiled around his nerves like a noose."You’ve each been randomly grouped into threes and scattered across various entry points of this labyrinth. Your task: reach the center. Survive
Chapter 24: The Green Choice.
Aric Blackthorn stood motionless, his eyes locked on the ancient script carved into the stone tablet. Serpentine lines danced between the letters like runes imbued with sentient spite. The riddle glared back at him.A sun without light. A river without water. A fire without flame.His mind was already dissecting each line like a surgeon filleting myth from meaning.'A dead star,' he thought, narrowing his crimson eyes. 'A dry bed. Smoke. Emptiness without essence. Illusion wrapped in metaphor.'His silence was deep, but not empty. Aric’s thoughts ran like wild current beneath a frozen lake — sharp, fast, invisible. His childhood, scarred by injury and solitude, had gifted him one habit: reading. When his body broke, his mind trained harder. Philosophy, metaphysics, magical theory, symbolic logic — the musings of dead minds became his blades.Beside him, Kael muttered aloud, “Sun without light, river without water, fire without flame… is that even possible?”Across the stone dais stood
Chapter 25: No Rest.
An hour passed like smoke through fingers, silent and vanishing.Aric Blackthorn dropped from the obsidian podium with quiet resolve, his boots whispering against the cold stone."That should be enough time," he muttered inwardly, flexing his fingers around the haft of his scythe.He had gambled on Kael and Kendal drawing out the worst of the trial's gauntlet. But this wasn't a clean-cut scheme. Trials like this rarely tolerated loopholes. They punished the clever and exalted the cautious."Worst-case? I get hit with every challenge they did, just... retroactively."The path forward demanded alertness, precision, and the willingness to bleed if necessary. Aric shifted his grip: dominant hand low at the base, the other curled near the blade’s neck. The curved steel gleamed faintly, tilted backward, an executioner's arc sleeping in plain sight.Scythe stance: optimal.Muscles relaxed, breath slowed."Stay sharp. Assume betrayal. Even from the environment."For the past hour, Aric had ma
Chapter 26: Thirst.
Aric gave a slow nod, letting silence stretch as he processed the mountain of unspoken meaning buried beneath every interaction so far.Kael soon returned to his spot, plopping down with folded arms and a glare carved straight from stone. He still looked at Aric like he had stolen something sacred.Aric, however, had more interesting things to do than trade stares. He knelt beside one of the fallen voidspawn, fingers brushing over its warped, cooling flesh. The residual mana clung like mold to its corpse."Let's see what secrets you left behind," Aric murmured to himself.Studying enemy anatomy was never a waste. Knowing how they died meant knowing how they lived. And that, in turn, could become a weapon.He examined each wound with methodical precision. Two kill patterns emerged like opposing brush strokes on the same canvas.The first type was barbaric. Limbs ripped, torsos cleaved open with chaotic savagery. No rhythm, no art — just pure, blunt annihilation.The second was surgical
Chapter 27: Death Riddle.
Aric Blackthorn’s eyes did not stray. He watched every twitch in Kael’s limbs and every breath from Garrick's chest with the studied calm of a predator circling prey.Crude form, Aric thought. No finesse. But the pressure he exerts… that’s the real threat.Then, a flicker in his peripheral vision. Thane.His eyes narrowed.That one is the sharper blade.While Garrick swung heavy and wide, Thane moved like the edge of a surgeon’s scalpel. Precise, efficient. Every strike whispered along the axis of tendon and artery, aiming for collapse.Thane’s lineage from the Lucerna bloodline wasn’t just for show. His muscle control was eerie, almost mechanical. His timing, ghostly perfect.Dark creatures born of blight slipped past them, black shapes stitched together by the dungeon’s will. They hissed toward Aric.He did not flinch.He felt Thane’s eyes tracking him, dissecting his every motion. Not an enemy—yet—but certainly not a friend.They want to know what I am.But they wouldn’t. Not yet.
Chapter 28: Harder.
Aric Blackthorn and Kael’s eyes narrowed in unison, the silence between them turning razor-edged. This riddle was different. No layers, no illusions, no riddling syntax to decode. Just five fatal words that sliced straight into the soul:“Only one team can leave.”Their gazes locked again. The air cracked with tension. No banter. No camaraderie. Just cold calculation.“I’ll take the left,” Aric said, his voice like ice cracking across a frozen pond.Kael hesitated for a breath. His fingers twitched. Aric noticed.“…Right,” Kael finally said, almost too quietly.A nod passed between them, a shared understanding born in the fire of near-death and betrayal.The trio of advancing descendants entered the hall, their presence announced not with noise but with pressure. Aura like coiled blades.Aric’s gaze snapped to them, scanning for insignias.No Blackthorn crests. No great lineages.Good.The Grand Clans ruled the dome like demigods. Their offspring bore monstrous might and boundless evo
Chapter 29: Red Baptism.
Despite the savagery of his upbringing, despite all the years of blood-soaked training, Aric Blackthorn had never truly killed a person.Darkspawn? Dozens. Maybe hundreds. He'd torn through them like a windstorm through bone-dry trees. But this?This was different.This was human.And now she lay before him: her limbs trembling, her voice raw from sobbing, blood pouring from wounds too shallow to kill yet deep enough to break.He watched her struggle to breathe, to speak, to understand what was coming. But his eyes, those cold, ink-drenched mirrors, betrayed nothing."She’s not a monster," his mind whispered."But neither am I."The thoughts clashed like steel inside his skull. Countless, tangled, unvoiced.But through it all, one truth roared louder than the rest:This was the path.He had carved this road with the bones of dreams. Forged it in fire. Bled for it. Starved for it.And the destination had never been peace.Only vengeance.Vengeance always cost something. Always demanded