THE DEVIL'S FRUIT

Chapter 4: The Dome

The sun hung high like a merciless overseer, its scorching light beating down on the ancient stone walls of the fortress known as the Black Reach.

Aric Blackthorn stirred awake in one of the upper chambers, a place reserved for those few of the Blackthorn bloodline bold enough to climb this far. There were no elevators here, no humming engines to ease the climb. Most of the old world’s technology had long vanished, buried under the ruins of what people now called the Fall.

Time had swept away those wonders like sand through fingers, leaving behind only fragments of knowledge locked away in dusty vaults or dismissed as forbidden relics of a dead age.

Aric climbed the winding stairs anyway, his boots echoing against the stone. The soldiers he passed, scarred and battle-hardened, watched him with barely hidden scorn. Whispers followed him like shadows, but he ignored them.

When he reached the top, the balcony opened to a sight both brutal and majestic. A line of armored warriors stood before towering creatures, beasts twisted by Vita’s corrupting touch. They were massive, muscles coiled like steel cables, horns jagged as blades, claws gouging deep scars into the rock below.

Between them stood a carriage, ornate yet fortified, a relic of a time when elegance and warfare still went hand in hand.

“How is that cockroach still alive?” one warrior muttered under his breath. “I heard he took a hit from a Grade Two Enhancer and lived.”

Another scoffed. “If he hasn’t evolved by now, he never will. Still useless. A failed experiment.”

“I wonder what hopeless task the Sovereign will throw him at next.”

Their words spread like venom through the ranks until they saw who was listening.

Darius Blackthorn.

He wasn’t dressed in the standard gray of the Blood Knight lieutenants. His armor was a deep crimson that radiated power and danger. His sharp, cold features were carved in a permanent scowl, and his very presence seemed to lower the temperature around him.

The more the men whispered, the darker his expression grew.

He had prayed that Aric was gone for good, dead and forgotten under the weight of his own failures. When word came that Aric had survived, disbelief had cracked through his anger like lightning through a storm. And now, watching the younger man stride across the courtyard without so much as a glance, Darius’s fists clenched until his knuckles ached.

The boy had lived.

Darius could already feel the frustration burning in his gut, the endless waste of time, energy, and honor that came with being tethered to a ninth vein who refused to evolve. Aric’s failures were a blemish the Blood Sovereign refused to overlook, and Darius had been forced to babysit him on suicide missions that never led anywhere.

Every second spent guarding that weakling was a second stolen from Darius’s own rise to power.

“Enough,” Darius growled.

The single word cut through the air like a blade, silencing the murmurs.

As Aric approached, Darius and his soldiers bowed in rigid unison. “Ninth Vein,” they greeted, voices taut with mock respect.

Aric didn’t respond. Not a word. Not a glance.

He walked straight past them, his crimson eyes unreadable, and stepped into the waiting carriage where Seris stood holding the door. Without hesitation, he entered, and Seris closed it behind him.

A heavy quiet fell.

Darius’s jaw tightened, his hands gripping the reins until the leather creaked. He kept his glare locked on the sealed carriage long after it began to move.

That worthless failure.

Escorting Aric was an insult, a theft of everything Darius had worked for. But Blackthorn law was absolute. No one outside the bloodline or sworn oath could lay a hand on a direct descendant. Anyone who tried would pay with their life.

“We move,” Darius barked.

The carriage itself was an odd mix of old and new, its medieval frame reinforced with etched sigils glowing faintly in the sunlight. At its front stood four Equitaras, massive beasts born from Vita’s corruption. Their wings stretched wide, their claws dug into the stone, and their heavy breaths steamed in the hot air.

There were no machines left in this world, no cars, no aircraft. The Equitaras were the only way to travel, a terrifying fusion of power and arcane energy.

With a flick of the reins, Darius commanded them forward. The beasts launched into the sky, wings thundering as they climbed higher and higher.

Inside the carriage, Aric watched the fortress shrink below, its shadow stretching over the fractured land. His hands clenched around the armrests until his knuckles turned white.

He had failed again.

The Blood Sovereign had trusted him with another dangerous mission, a chance to prove himself, to finally evolve beyond his cursed stagnation. He had gone into it with a flicker of hope buried under the weight of fear. And yet, like every other time, he had come back unchanged.

His eyes followed the distant horizon, the wasteland stretching endlessly beneath the blazing sun. Beyond the fortress lay the Dome, a colossal barrier swallowing nearly one-third of the planet.

It covered over 170 million square kilometers, twice the size of ancient Asia, encompassing what remained of North America, Europe, and Asia.

The Blackthorns ruled the western regions, the remnants of the Midwestern United States and parts of Eastern Europe. Once thriving cities now lay in ruins, replaced by fortresses built for survival, not beauty.

Most of the world within the Dome was barren and silent, a ghost of civilization. But here, where the soil still held life, the land had become the Dome’s breadbasket.

The Blackthorns, however, were no farmers.

They were conquerors, cold, disciplined, and merciless.

The flight back to Ironhold was uneventful. The only sounds were the rhythmic beating of wings and the dull hum of the carriage’s enchanted frame.

Aric sat in silence, lost in thought. He had stared death in the face. He had touched the essence of Vita itself. He had fought until his body was nothing but pain and blood.

And still, nothing. No evolution. No change.

His jaw tightened, anger boiling beneath the surface. Was it ever going to happen? For years, he’d believed that evolution was simply a matter of time and willpower. But that faith was starting to crumble.

As the sun dipped low, staining the sky with deep oranges and reds, the Equitaras began their descent. The fortress of Ironhold rose ahead, a city ruled under Blackthorn command.

By nightfall, they landed at its gates, the air thick with the scent of steel and smoke.

And as Aric stepped out into the darkening light, one thought burned brighter than the rest.

He would not fail again.