I. 72 Hours of Darkness
For three days, Edenfall received no external transmissions.
Surveillance lines were shut down for no technical reason. The Tactical Resonance Tower was brought down without any signs of combat.
And at dawn on the fourth day… six resistance figures were found hanging, drained of blood, their nervous systems destroyed from within.
The bodies showed no signs of struggle. Only… a single word carved on their backs: "Kōzoku."
Riva, seeing them, murmured:
"This isn't murder.
It's a declaration of return."
II. Akihiko: Anger Awakens the Gesture
Akihiko had remained reflectively silent after his symbolic disappearance in the previous chapter.
But this brutal scene forced him to reemerge.
There was no speech.
There was no strategy.
He just grabbed his weapon and left the Refuge of the Incomplete. Velos followed him with a single sentence:
"If you move again…
I'll breathe again."
III. The Emerging Council
Naeya, Lirea, Riva, Velos, and Sael call an urgent session.
They detect ancient patterns in the murders: surgical techniques used by a mafia considered extinct for more than 70 years:
Kōzoku Meishin – The Imperial Family of the Hidden Blood.
Juno, from the Analysis Tower, confirms:
"The twelve symbolic seals that marked their territories… have reappeared at the same time."
And one by one…
they begin to activate.
IV. First Shock – The Neck Pavilion
Velos and Akihiko intercept a supply convoy that disappears mid-transit. Following the signal, they discover a new structure among the ruins of the Northwest Sector:
a pavilion lined with calcified bones and ritual ribbons with vivid inscriptions.
There awaits them the first of the Twelve Bloods: Gensei Tsukumo, the Cutter of the Glottic Wind.
— Ability: Can stop an opponent's breathing by direct eye contact. — Combat Style: Short, swift attacks, manipulating the muscles of the neck and larynx.
The fight begins with Gensei at an advantage:
Velos falls to the ground without oxygen after staring for too long a second.
But Akihiko, with surgical precision, closes his own eyelids with tactical tape , and fights without seeing, guided only by the sound of footsteps.
Gensei smiles.
"So you know how to fight without relying on your senses.
Let's see if you can fight without relying… on your memory."
Then he begins a second technique:
Internal Pulse Distortion.
And Akihiko starts to forget why he's fighting.
V. Riva and the Dead Nerve Trace
Meanwhile, Riva analyzes the victims' neural patterns.
All were killed without touching the heart or brain. The attack was… on the most invisible nerve: the certainty of pain.
And so he discovers a line encoded in the resonances:
"Memory is the only battlefield that cannot be healed."
The signature is clear: Shōen Rikudō has returned.
VI. Epilogue – The Throne Begins to Awaken
In an underground chamber sealed by living tissue,
twelve figures surround a circular structure. One of them, wearing a mask simulating a skinless human face, speaks motionlessly:
"The body has remembered its oldest language.
Punishment. And now… Edenfall will understand again what it means to have flesh."
Shōen Rikudō activates the first seal. And the city trembles.
END OF CHAPTER 191