House of Blood

The impact of Vespera’s landing shattered the courtyard stone, sending a shockwave of red aura surging through the collapsing ruins of Black-Iron Ridge.

Smoke and dust whirled violently around her six-foot-tall frame. Her heavy executioner’s broadsword rested on her shoulder, its dark edge humming with an unstable, lethal pressure.

Her crimson eyes, usually cold and unyielding, scanned the burning rubble with a wild, desperate hunger.

Behind her, Alexis hit the ground using a short-range levitation array, his gold-rimmed spectacles fogged by the sulfurous heat. He didn’t even bother wiping them clean; his eyes were glued to the entrance of the subterranean temple.

”Vespera, wait!” Alexis warned, his voice cracking slightly. ”The spatial residual is still collapsing—”

”Quiet, Alexis!” Vespera barked, her voice trembling. ”You felt it. The marrow-resonance... the Crimson Needle. There is no mistaking it!”

From the dark archway of the shattered temple, a silhouette emerged.

Valerian walked out slowly, stepping over the burning remnants of the fortress gates.

His wolf-fur cloak was scorched, his combat leathers stained with demon blood. His black faceless mask remained firmly attached, and the rune-carved frost-hide blindfold beneath it glowed with a faint, steady blue light.

In his right hand, he held only the six-foot splintered shaft of his shattered ironwood bo staff.

Vespera froze.

Her grip on her broadsword tightened until her knuckles turned stark white.

”You...” Vespera stepped forward, her voice dropping into a low, terrifying vibration that made the surrounding air hum. ”Where did you learn the Crimson Needle? Who taught you the posture of the Prim Sanguis main line?!”

Valerian stopped ten paces away.

Through his acoustic perception, he could feel the intense, overwhelming heat of Vespera’s blood-aura—a roaring furnace fueled by three years of unvented grief and rage.

Beside her, he could hear the rhythmic, rapid clicking of Alexis’s fingers against his spatial ledger, a nervous habit his brother only displayed when his mind was working at maximum capacity.

’They’re right in front of us, partner,’ Wren murmured softly inside his mind, her phantom ribbon form wrapping gently around his neck. ’Your executioner sister and your strategist brother. One word, and the act is over.’

’Not yet,’ Valerian thought, his chest aching under his cracked ribs. ’If the Eldritch Elders realize I am a Sanguis heir before I sever their continental roots, they will drag the entire family into open war with the Imperial Throne.’

Valerian slightly tilted his head, his pleasant, calm voice echoing through the burning courtyard.

”The Sanguis style is built on kinetic leverage and blood acceleration, Lady Vespera,” Valerian replied smoothly, showing no sign of weakness. ”It is not a secret to those who study the martial flows of the continent.”

”Lies!” Vespera roared, taking a violent step forward as her crimson aura exploded upward like a geyser.

”The Crimson Needle is a technique handed down verbally from patriarch to heir! You don’t ’study’ it from books! Who are you under that slate mask?!”

Alexis stepped beside his sister, holding up a hand to pause her aura.

His dark eyes fixed directly on the black faceless mask.

”You answered our Sec branch’s internal ciphers in the Northern Marches,” Alexis spoke, his voice remarkably calm despite his rapid breathing.

”You dismantled three cult cells using the exact tactical flaws I drafted in our confidential clan audits. And just now, you used non-aura compression to pierce a High Demon Lord’s obsidian hide.”

Alexis took off his gold-rimmed spectacles, looking at the masked boy with bare, unshielded emotion.

”A vagabond cannot do those things, Ghost,” Alexis whispered.

”My brother... Valerian... his body was never recovered from the Northern Crevasse.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

The crackle of burning timber and the distant rumble of the Vanguard war-barges were the only sounds in the night air.

Valerian stood motionless.

For a fraction of a second, his fingers twitched against the splintered wood of his broken staff.

”Your brother was ten years old,” Valerian said quietly, his voice carrying a tragic, distant weight.

”He was swallowed by the abyssal cold of the North. If you seek his ghost, Lord Alexis, look into the crevasse... not at the man standing before you.”

Vespera’s eyes widened, a sudden tear cutting through the soot on her cheek before it was instantly vaporized by her flaring aura.

”I don’t care what you say! Unmask yourself! If I have to strip that piece of slate off your face with my broadsword, I will!”

Vespera surged forward, her speed breaking the sound barrier as she swung the flat of her massive broadsword toward Valerian’s mask—meant to shatter the slate without killing him.

Valerian didn’t draw a weapon.

He didn’t activate aura.

BZZZZT!

Right before Vespera’s blade made contact, three silver spatial needles slammed into the stone between them.

A massive Hex-Spatial Distortion erupted, bending light and gravity into an absolute, blinding mirror.

”RETREAT VECTOR OMEGA!” Castor’s voice screamed from a spatial tear above. ”SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT IN 0.1 SECONDS!”

Vespera’s broadsword sliced through empty air as the spatial distortion collapsed.

When the dust cleared, the courtyard was silent.

The masked figure was gone.

Only a single object remained on the cracked stone floor where Valerian had been standing:

A small, perfectly carved wooden toy dragon—the exact same wooden carving Alexis had gifted to Valerian on his seventh birthday.

Alexis dropped to his knees, his trembling hands reaching out to pick up the wooden toy from the ash.

Vespera stood frozen, staring at the wooden dragon in her brother’s hands, her broadsword slipping from her fingers and clattering loudly against the stone.

”Valerian...” Vespera sobbed quietly into the night, her terrifying aura completely extinguishing as she fell to her knees beside Alexis.

”It’s him...”

Alexis clutched the wooden dragon to his chest, his eyes burning behind his spectacles as a cold, absolute resolve settled into his soul.

”He’s alive,” Alexis whispered, a dark, brilliant smile breaking across his face.

”He’s alive... and he’s hunting the Sun.”