House of Blood

The political board was tilted, but power in the Prim Sanguis clan was never settled with paper and seals. It was settled in marrow and bone.

I sat on the edge of my bed, nursing a lukewarm cup of bitter herbal tea.

Under the floorboards lay the Medeis ledger.

In my coat sat Lyra’s scrying stone and Princess Solene’s Imperial Sun Seal.

My siblings held the border gates; Rook controlled the shadow network; Aura stood at my door; and Wren’s ancient dragon soul purred in my core.

’We’re sitting pretty, kid,’ Wren murmured, her shadowy form coiling around my shoulders like a dark scarf. ’Between the little princess and the soul-carver girl, you’ve got half the continent wrapped around your finger.’

’It’s too smooth,’ I thought back, setting the teacup down.

’Garren isn’t an idiot. He survived four hundred years of clan purges. A wounded beast doesn’t lie down to bleed—it tears down the cave.’

My thought hadn’t even fully formed when the world shattered.

BOOM!

A shockwave of raw, terrifying pressure slammed into the eastern wing of the estate.

The heavy stained-glass windows of my bedchamber exploded inward, showering the hardwood floor in crystalline shrapnel.

” CRITICAL WARNING: ENEMY BLOOD-AURA MANIFESTED ”

” ENTITY: ELDER GARREN PRIM SANGUIS ”

” TECHNIQUE: SANGUIS ART - CRIMSON DEVOURING DOMAIN ”

” THREAT LEVEL: FATAL ”

The air instantly turned thick, metallic, and boiling hot.

It wasn’t the refined, quiet soul-magic of the Medeis family.

This was the raw, barbaric, oppressive might of the core Sanguis line—a domain of ancient, unadulterated blood-aura designed to crush lower-tier bloodlines into red paste.

”VALERIAN!”

Aura’s voice screamed from outside my door as she kicked it off its hinges, diving into the room.

Her face was flushed deep purple, blood leaking from her nose and ears under the crushing weight of the domain.

”Young Master—get down!”

Before she could reach me, the heavy stone wall of my bedchamber crumbled into dust under a massive, crimson-glowing palm strike.

Through the red haze stepped Elder Garren.

He didn’t look like a desperate conspirator hiding in the shadows.

He looked like an executioner.

His long grey hair whipped wildly in the artificial gale, his eyes glowing like burning coals, and his skin cracked with glowing crimson veins—the signature mark of Stage 3 Blood Vessel Overdrive.

Behind him stood six elite enforcers of the Sec branch, their faces covered in red bone masks.

”You thought you were clever, little worm?” Garren’s voice boomed, vibrating the very marrow in my spine.

It was a weight so immense that my ten-year-old knees buckled, cracking the floorboards beneath my boots.

I couldn’t breathe.

This wasn’t a level-one assassin or a trembling financial broker.

Garren was a Stage 4 Blood Archon—three full realms above me.

My dragon blood boiled in response, but against a direct, physical assault of this magnitude, my small vessel was nearly torn apart.

”Did you think collecting scraps from the black market would save you?” Garren sneered, stepping closer.

Every step he took crushed the floorboards into splintered toothpicks.

”Did you think Vespera’s protection or an imperial seal makes you untouchable within these walls?”

”Elder Garren,” Aura choked out, forcing herself up from the floor, her shortsword igniting with her bronze aura. ”You... you commit high treason against the core line!”

”Treason?”

Garren laughed—a bitter, jagged sound.

”The core line is weak! Resting on old laurels while sending duds into the Crucible!”

With a simple flick of his wrist, Garren unleashed a dense blade of solid, crystallized blood.

Sanguis Art: Crimson Scythe.

THWACK!

Aura brought her sword up to block, but the sheer difference in power was absolute.

Her blade shattered into a dozen fragments.

The crimson edge cleaved straight through her shoulder armor, sending her skidding across the room, slamming into the stone hearth with a sickening crunch.

”Aura!”

I called out, my voice straining under the immense pressure.

Garren didn’t even look at her.

His glowing red eyes locked onto me, and he raised his hand, his fingers curling like talons as a swirling vortex of blood-mana gathered in his palm.

Sanguis Art: Heart-Rending Extraction.

The signature execution technique of the Prim elders—a spell designed to forcibly pull the blood core straight through a victim’s chest.

”Let us see what ancient blood you unlocked in the Crucible, child,” Garren growled.

”I will tear it from your chest and feed it to my sons!”

The invisible grip slammed into my ribs.

Pain—blinding, white-hot pain—erupted in my chest.

My double-capacity dragon heart hammered against my ribcage, fighting frantically against the pull, but the gap in raw mana was too vast.

” WARNING: BLOOD CORE UNDER FORCED EXTRACTION ”

” VESSEL INTEGRITY: 42% AND DROPPING ”

” CRITICAL DAMAGE IMMINENT ”

’Kid, I can’t block a Stage 4 strike without exposing my true form!’ Wren roared in my mind, her shadowy fire flaring defensively around my soul.

’He’s going to rip your heart out!’

I gritted my teeth, blood trickling from under my black silk blindfold.

Garren hadn’t hesitated.

He hadn’t played politics.

He knew I had the ledger, he knew I was a threat, and he had chosen to strike with brutal, overwhelming force before my siblings could organize.

Just as my ribs began to fracture under the crushing grip—

BOOM!

The roof of the bedchamber was obliterated.

A massive, fifty-foot blade of pure, pitch-black death-aura cleaved down through the ceiling, splitting the stone structure in half and severing Garren’s extraction spell in a single stroke.

”GARREN!”

Vespera descended like an angry god of war, her black battle scythe swinging in a wide, lethal arc.

The air turned ice-cold as her Death-Mistress Domain slammed down, clashing against Garren’s crimson aura with the sound of grinding tectonic plates.

Behind her, Caelum slammed into the room like a runaway meteor, his fist coated in dense, spike-filled blood-armor.

Sanguis Art: Iron-Hide Overlord.

Caelum’s punch collided directly with Garren’s defensive blood-shield.

CRACK-BOOM!

The entire eastern wing of the estate collapsed into rubble.

The shockwave blew the Sec branch masked enforcers out into the courtyard like ragdolls.

Garren slid back fifty feet across the ruined floor, his boots digging deep grooves into the stone, his breath heavy, but his face twisted into a mad, victorious smile.

”Vespera! Caelum!” Garren roared over the settling dust, wiping a trail of blood from his chin.

”You arrive too late!”

From the dust, Alexis materialized beside me, his glasses cracked, his face dead solemn as he quickly placed two fingers on my pulse.

”His core is intact, but his chest cavity is heavily traumatized. He needs immediate healing.”

Rook appeared a second later, picking up the unconscious, bleeding form of Aura into his arms.

The old butler’s face was devoid of its usual mild warmth; his silver eyes burned with a quiet, terrifying rage.

Vespera stood at the edge of the crater, her battle scythe dripping with condensed dark mana, her gaze locked on Garren.

”You dare attack the core line in the heart of the manor? The Clan Council will have your head on a pike before sunset, Garren!”

”Let them try!”

Garren shouted, reaching into his robes and pulling out a strange, jet-black amulet etched with glowing, grotesque runes—runes that bled black, unnatural pus.

Wren recoiled violently inside my mind.

’That smell... star-rot! Abyssal contamination!’

Garren crushed the amulet in his fist.

Instantly, a void-black portal erupted behind him, spewing out thick, unnatural black fog that devoured the surrounding light.

”You have the ledger, little dud,” Garren’s distorted voice echoed from inside the dark fog as his body began to sink into the portal.

”You have your seals and your little friends. But the Sec branch no longer answers to the Clan Council.”

”The Great Hunt has begun, and your core family will drown in their own blood!”

”Stay here!”

Caelum roared, lunging forward with his arms transformed into massive, spiked blood-blades.

Sanguis Art: Crimson Executioner.

He cleaved the portal in half, but it was too late.

Garren and his surviving enforcers were gone, leaving behind only the stench of copper, rot, and burning stone.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Rain began to pour through the shattered roof, washing over the blood-stained rubble of my bedchamber.

My siblings gathered around me.

Caelum was breathing heavily, his fists still coated in hardening blood-armor.

Alexis was frantically scribbling orders on a scrying scroll to lock down the border territory, while Vespera knelt beside me, her trembling, blood-stained hand resting against my cheek.

”Valerian...” she whispered, her cold, lethal composure completely shattered.

”Forgive me... I was too slow.”

I sat in the rain, my body bruised, my ribs cracked, and my chest burning with the residual agony of Garren’s extraction spell.

I looked at Aura, who lay limp in Rook’s arms, her shoulder ruined.

I looked at my destroyed home, and at the black, foul residue left behind by the abyssal amulet on the stone.

’He didn’t care about the evidence,’ I realized, a cold, terrifying truth settling deep into my soul.

’Garren didn’t try to cover his tracks. He abandoned the clan entirely and aligned himself with the Abyssal Cult.’

I had accumulated power, intelligence, and powerful allies at a staggering pace.

But I had underestimated the desperation of a cornered predator.

Garren hadn’t played by the rules of noble politics—he had smashed the board to pieces.

I reached up, touching Vespera’s hand with my small, blood-stained fingers.

”He’s going to the Northern Marches,” I said softly, my voice cold, sharp, and stripped of all childhood innocence.

”He’s going to release the abyssal beasts from the northern seals.”

Vespera’s eyes widened slightly, looking at me—really looking at me for the first time.

She didn’t see a helpless, fragile child needing protection.

She saw a cold, calculating survivor of the Crucible.

”Then we hunt him,” Vespera whispered, her red eyes burning with absolute, lethal intent.

”To the ends of the earth.”

Beside us, Wren settled silently back into my shadows, her playful mood entirely gone.

The game of shadows was over.