2026-01-04 21:05:26It was a nightmare stitched together from the chamber’s dead bones of ancient warriors fused with ash-wolf skeletons, armored plates grown over like tumors, mana twisting the whole mass into something that had forgotten what it once was. Ten feet tall at the shoulder, four mismatched arms ending in claws and broken blades, a skull split open to reveal a pulsing crimson core where a heart should be.
It roared, and the sound was every death in the room crying out at once.
Elias tightened his grip on Crimson Reaper. The greatsword hummed in his hand, eager, almost pulling him forward. His new aura flared instinctively a veil of red mist coiling around his body, sharpening the world to a razor’s edge. Sounds became clearer, movements slower. War God’s Instinct sang in his blood.
Thorne floated to his flank, expression grim but alive with something dangerous. “Guardian’s bound to the trial. Kill the core, it dies. Everything else just slows it down.”
“Noted,” Elias muttered.
The guardian charged.
Elias met it head-on.
The first clash shook the chamber. Crimson Reaper met a bone-clad arm—sparks flew, bone shattered, but the limb regrew almost instantly, mana knitting it back together. A second arm swept low; Elias leaped, aura propelling him higher than should have been possible. He came down blade first, carving a deep gouge across the creature’s shoulder. Black ichor sprayed, hissing where it touched the floor.
It backhanded him.
He flew ten feet, slammed into a wall hard enough to crack stone. Pain exploded across his ribs two cracked, maybe broken. But the aura flared hotter, crimson light sealing fractures as fast as they formed.
“Get up!” Thorne barked. “It’s testing you. Pain is part of the lesson.”
Elias spat blood and rose. The rage stirred again, deeper this time, tasting the pain and wanting more. He shoved it down.
The guardian barreled forward, claws raking furrows in the stone. Elias rolled under the swipe, came up inside its guard, and drove Crimson Reaper upward in a vicious uppercut. The blade bit deep into the chest cavity, stopping inches from the core.
The guardian howled. All four arms slammed down.
Elias twisted the sword and ripped sideways. Flesh and bone parted. He dove between the creature’s legs as the arms cratered the spot he’d stood.
He came up behind it, breathing hard. The core pulsed brighter, mana surging to heal the wound.
Thorne’s voice cut through the chaos. “It’s drawing from the chamber’s essence. Longer this drags, stronger it gets. End it fast.”
Elias nodded. He let the aura build, felt the bloodline respond heat coiling in his legs, his arms, his spine. Not blind rage. Controlled burn.
He charged.
The guardian spun, jaws unhinging impossibly wide. Elias slid beneath the bite, blade dragging a burning line across its underbelly. He rolled to his feet and leaped onto its back, boots finding purchase on jagged bone. It bucked wildly, trying to throw him.
He climbed higher, Reaper buried to the hilt for leverage.
One clawed arm reached back, groping for him. Elias ducked, felt talons shred the air where his head had been. He grabbed a protruding spine, swung around, and drove the sword straight down into the exposed core.
The impact jarred his arms to the shoulder.
Crimson light exploded outward.
The guardian froze. A sound like cracking ice filled the chamber as fissures raced across its body. The core pulsed once twice then shattered in a burst of red mist that rushed into Elias like a tidal wave.
He dropped to the floor as the guardian collapsed into a pile of inert bones.
Silence.
Elias stayed on his knees, chest heaving. Crimson Reaper lay beside him, blade drinking in the last wisps of essence. His aura slowly dimmed, but the power settling in his veins felt permanent. Deeper.
A new panel shimmered:
(Primordial War God Bloodline – Purity: 40%)
[Stage Advanced: Battle Lord (Initial)]
(New Ability Unlocked: Blood Rage (Basic) – Temporary explosive power boost. Warning: High risk of loss of control.)
(Weapon Evolution: Crimson Reaper – First Awakening. Edge permanently enhanced.)
(Crimson Vitality upgraded – Regeneration significantly improved in combat.)
Thorne floated closer, staring at him with something perilously close to respect.
“You just forced a stage breakthrough in one fight,” he said quietly. “Most take months. Years. The old bastard would’ve liked you.”
Elias pushed to his feet, wiping ichor from his face. His ribs were whole again. “Felt like it was trying to kill me.”
“It was. And you killed it first.” Thorne’s mouth twitched. “Welcome to the path, Battle Lord.”
Elias sheathed the ache in his muscles and picked up Crimson Reaper. The sword felt lighter now, extension of his arm rather than burden. He slung it across his back where it shrank further, fitting perfectly.
He returned to the pedestal. The crimson crystal pulsed invitingly. When he touched it, warmth flooded him, but no immediate surge.
“Stabilizer,” Thorne explained. “It’ll help anchor the new stage. Absorb it slowly over kills, or you risk the rage taking root.”
Elias pocketed it and opened the journal again, flipping past his ancestor’s note. The next pages were battle records tactics, weaknesses of divine bloodlines, warnings about specific gods still active in the empire.
One entry caught his eye:
The Voss Clan was once our shield-bearers. Loyal until the coalition offered them elevation. Betrayal runs deep in their current line. Trust none who bear the name lightly.
He closed the book. Harlan’s face flashed in his mind.
Thorne watched him carefully. “You’re thinking of going back already.”
“I’m thinking of Mira,” Elias said. “She’s alone up there. If Harlan framed me once…”
He didn’t finish. Didn’t need to.
Thorne nodded. “Fair. But you’re not ready for a full clan yet. You need allies, resources, a place to grow without every hunter in the empire descending on you.”
“Where?”
“Borderlands. There’s a war academy in Greyhaven neutral ground, takes anyone with potential. Strong survive, weak die or leave. You’ll find fights, training, and people who don’t give a damn about your name.”
Elias considered. It made sense. Power without control was just another way to die.
He headed for the exit stairs. The chamber’s runes dimmed behind him, the trial complete.
Halfway up, Thorne spoke again, quieter.
“One more thing, boy. The rage will get louder with every stage. You held it today. Doesn’t mean you always will.”
Elias paused. “Then I’ll keep finding reasons not to let it win.”
Thorne was silent for a long moment.
“Good answer.”
They emerged into the Ashen Wastes under a sky bruised purple with dawn. The fog had thinned, revealing a distant horizon where the barren lands gave way to sparse forests the edge of civilization.
Elias took a breath of cold, free air.
For the first time since the fall, he knew exactly where he was going.
Greyhaven. Then home.
And when he came for House Voss, Harlan would learn what bloodless really meant.
In the distance, a lone ash wolf howled mourning its pack, or sounding the alarm.
Elias smiled, small and cold, and started walking.
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Whispers On The Wind
High above the borderlands, the floating manor of House Voss drifted through perpetual clouds, its golden spires catching the midday sun like a crown. Inside the grand strategy hall, Harlan Voss stood before a massive scrying mirror, its surface rippling with mana-fed images of the empire’s far reaches.He was twenty now, broader in the shoulders, flame mana coiling lazily around his fingers as he dismissed another report. The room’s other occupants his father’s advisors, a pair of clan elders, and Lord Voss himself waited in tense silence.The latest image faded: a grainy projection of Greyhaven’s lower arena, captured by a paid informant’s memory crystal. A lone figure in ragged clothes carving through raiders with terrifying efficiency. Black hair. Gray eyes. A greatsword that drank light.Harlan’s flame flickered, guttering for the first time in years.“It’s not him,” he said, voice flat. “Elias Voss is dead. I watched the airship drop him into the wastes myself.”One of the elder
Iron And Blood
The outer-ring dormitory was exactly what Liora had warned: a long stone hall packed with narrow bunks, the air thick with sweat, cheap ale, and the metallic tang of old blood. New cadets those who’d passed the trials were thrown in with the established outer-ringers: failed second-years, disciplinary cases, and kids from nowhere with nowhere else to go. Fights broke out nightly. Knives came out weekly. Instructors didn’t interfere unless someone died.Elias claimed a bottom bunk near the door, dropped his wrapped bundle, and sat. No one approached him yet. They were sizing him up the quiet one who’d walked through the trials like they were practice.Thorne materialized in the corner, invisible to everyone else, arms folded.“Smells like a barracks before a losing battle,” he said. “You’ll either make friends here or a lot of enemies. Probably both.”Elias grunted. He was unwrapping Crimson Reaper, checking the edge, when the door slammed open.A mountain walked in.The cadet was huge
The Gates Of Greyhaven
The journey to Greyhaven took another five days. The land healed as they traveled ash giving way to scrub, then rolling hills dotted with farms, until the road widened into a proper trade route. The survivors now a tight, wary group spoke little at first. Elias’s slaughter of the raiders hung over them like a shadow. Respect, fear, curiosity; he felt all of it in their glances.Liora rode beside him most days, silent for long stretches, then asking sharp questions about his fighting style or the wastes. She never thanked him again pride wouldn’t allow it but she shared her rations without being asked and took the night watch closest to his.The other cadets thawed slower. Jax, the broad earth-mana user, grumbled about “waste rats” until Elias helped reinforce a broken wagon wheel with raw strength; after that, Jax offered a grunt that might have been approval. The twins, Kael and Kora wind siblings kept their distance but stopped whispering when Elias passed.Thorne, invisible to all
Strom On The Horizon
The Ashen Wastes didn’t end cleanly. One mile the ground was cracked ash and bone; the next, stubborn grass pushed through, then scattered trees, until the barren scar gave way to ragged hills and the faint green of true wilderness. Elias walked for three days, sleeping little, eating what he could hunt with bare hands or Reaper’s edge. The bloodline kept him going wounds closed fast, hunger dulled to a manageable ache.Thorne kept up a steady stream of commentary: battle critiques, ancient war stories, and the occasional barb about Elias’s “soft modern upbringing.” It was irritating. It was also the only company he had.On the fourth dawn, smoke rose on the horizon thin, black, deliberate. Not a wildfire.Elias crested a ridge and stopped.Below, in a shallow valley, a small caravan had been ambushed. Six wagons circled defensively, canvas torn and burning. Bodies lay scattered merchants, guards, a few in uniform. Ash wolves prowled the edges, but they weren’t the main threat.A doze
Reaper's Baptism
The guardian hit the ground like an earthquake.It was a nightmare stitched together from the chamber’s dead bones of ancient warriors fused with ash-wolf skeletons, armored plates grown over like tumors, mana twisting the whole mass into something that had forgotten what it once was. Ten feet tall at the shoulder, four mismatched arms ending in claws and broken blades, a skull split open to reveal a pulsing crimson core where a heart should be.It roared, and the sound was every death in the room crying out at once.Elias tightened his grip on Crimson Reaper. The greatsword hummed in his hand, eager, almost pulling him forward. His new aura flared instinctively a veil of red mist coiling around his body, sharpening the world to a razor’s edge. Sounds became clearer, movements slower. War God’s Instinct sang in his blood.Thorne floated to his flank, expression grim but alive with something dangerous. “Guardian’s bound to the trial. Kill the core, it dies. Everything else just slows i
Trial Of The Crimson Heart
The steps spiraled down into the earth, each one carved from stone that drank the faint crimson light bleeding from Elias’s veins. The air grew thick and warm, heavy with the scent of old iron and something deeper spilled blood long dried, battles long ended. Elias’s boots scraped against grit as he descended, Thorne’s translucent form gliding silently beside him.“Smell that?” Thorne said, voice low. “That’s history. Thousands of years of it. Your ancestors didn’t build pretty temples, boy. They built slaughterhouses disguised as sanctuaries.”Elias didn’t answer. His pulse thrummed in his ears, matching the low heartbeat rising from below. Every step fed the heat in his blood, stirring memories that weren’t his: the clash of armies, the wet crunch of bone under boot, the roar of a war god laughing in the face of divine thunder.They reached the bottom.The chamber was vast, circular, walls rising into shadow. In the center stood a raised dais of black stone veined with crimson, and
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