---
It was more heavy silence in the Hollow Stone Keep.
Kael stood before the shattered thrones, and he held his blade still unsheathed yet the Bloodspawn had long since departed.
The last words that they said had resounded more than they had ever existed.
> "Your blood is not yours alone."
He squeezed his hands into a fist.
Too much was unsaid, too many signals he did not get. Still one thing was clear.
There was some thing that lay underneath this spot that wanted him to die.
Or awakened.
---
He turned toward a broken stairwell that spiraled down into blackness.
The air grew colder the deeper he went. Not by temperature... by weight. As if the stone itself pressed against him.
His book flared softly.
> [Relic Signature Detected – Progenitor Tier]
▸ Status: Sealed
▸ Warning: Unverified Host Integrity
Kael smirked.
> "Yeah, well. No one verified me when I almost starved in a ditch either."
He stepped into the final chamber.
---
It wasn't a vault. It was a chamber of judgment.
Chains lined the walls, burned, melted, broken.
A throne of red stone stood in the center, jagged and half-formed, surrounded by a circle of old blood that never dried.
And above it floated a single orb of black crystal.
It pulsed once, sensing him.
Then again, harder.
Kael stepped closer.
> "What are you…?"
> [Relic Response Triggered – Initiating Blood-Bond Trial]
The orb shattered.
A thousand shards stabbed into Kael's chest before he could scream.
---
The room vanished.
His mind ignited in red.
He fell through memory. But not his own.
---
A battlefield… ancient.
A woman with eyes like galaxies screaming at gods.
A man bleeding from a hundred wounds, still laughing.
A child sealed inside a coffin of light.
A flame devouring an entire continent.
And then… a heartbeat.
His own.
But it wasn't beating alone.
---
Kael collapsed to the floor of the chamber, gasping.
His skin glowed faintly with red veins.
A new mark pulsed on his chest: a crimson fang encased in a circle of thorns.
> [Relic Bond Complete]
▸ Mutation Advanced: Crimson Core (Stage I)
▸ New Trait Unlocked: Bloodburn Overload
▸ New Stat Visible: Sovereign Will (Dormant)
Kael couldn't move.
His blood was burning, as it were….. literally too. It actually visibly and thrummingly reverberated below his skin, such as magma.
---
He staggered to his feet.
This wasn't power. Not yet.
It was permission.
A door had opened.
And something, deep beneath this world, now recognized him.
---
End of Chapter 18
---