Lightning split the sky above a crumbling fortress carved into the bones of a dying mountain. The wind howled across jagged cliffs like a beast mourning its mate, and rain hammered down in cold, unrelenting sheets. Each drop hissed as it struck the stone, a world that knew only pain and didn't pretend otherwise.
Within the Ironblood Citadel, screams echoed.
A woman lay on a blood-soaked table of black iron, sweat streaming down her face. Her eyes were hollow with exhaustion, lips bitten raw. Beside her, flame-jars flickered with low, sulfuric light, casting the room in a murky red glow. A clan healer stood over her, arms slick with blood.
"Push, Lady Kaien," he growled through gritted teeth. "Push, damn you!"
She didn't scream.
She roared.
Lightning flared outside, briefly illuminating the family sigil etched into the stone walls, a broken gauntlet wrapped in chains. The symbol of a clan long past its prime. The Ironbloods. Warriors who forged strength not from qi pills or serene meditation, but through pain, scars, and steel.
A final cry tore through the storm.
Then silence.
And then…
A sharp, strong cry pierced the hall.
The healer stared at the child in his hands, stunned.
He was… radiant.
The boy didn't look like a newborn.
He was long-limbed and heavy, his back already taut with muscle. His skin gleamed like burnished bronze, a coppery hue that shimmered under the flickering forge-light. Tiny welts crossed his shoulders, as if the world had tried to leave its mark on him as he came into it.
His hair was silver, not the white of age or the gray of weakness, but polished steel. It fell in wild wisps across his brow, damp with birth blood and rain. His eyes opened instantly, sharp and golden like a molten coin, and they didn't blink. They watched.
The healer staggered back.
"The boy…" he whispered, voice hoarse. "He… he has the blood."
[Forgeheart System: Initialization Sequence Beginning…]
[Welcome, Host. Pain accepted. Flesh forged. Name retained.]
[Earth Identity: Marcus Zhao]
[Soul Integration: 91%… 96%… 100% Complete]
[You have been reborn into the shattered bloodline of the Ironblood Clan.]
[Prepare for suffering. Strength will come.]
Elsewhere in the Citadel…
The Ironblood elders gathered in the inner sanctum, their bodies lined with old wounds and battle-hardened skin. Each man and woman in the room bore scars that told stories, stories of loss, war, and survival.
At the head sat Grand Warden Zhao Torgan, a giant of a man with one eye and an arm replaced by a crude blacksteel prosthetic. His voice was like thunder.
"A child born on the night of the Ninefold Storm," he said. "Silver hair. Golden eyes. And copper skin like the old bloodline."
He looked to the forge-priest at his side.
"Tell me what it means."
The priest hesitated. Then bowed deeply.
"The Prophecy of Ash and Iron… it said one would come. Born under steel lightning. With a body cast in copper and fire. A soul not of this world."
Torgan's eye narrowed.
"Then either the heavens favor us… or they've cursed us one last time."
Years Later — Age: 6
Pain.
Every day began with it. Ended with it. Lived in it.
Zhao Ren gasped as he crawled across a bed of broken obsidian. Each shard sliced into his forearms and knees, blood smearing the stone in bright red streaks.
He didn't stop.
Couldn't.
The other boys—the last remaining Ironblood initiates—watched from the edges. Some laughed. Most didn't. They all knew the drill. If he stopped, the overseer would beat him again.
"Get up, freak," muttered a pale boy with narrow eyes. "You're not special."
Zhao Ren did get up.
And he kept moving.
His copper-toned skin gleamed with sweat and blood. His silver hair was filthy, matted against his scalp, but it still shimmered. His golden eyes, too bright, too defiant glared ahead.
The overseer smirked from his high stone perch.
"Your mother was a traitor," he called down. "She gave birth to weakness. Let's see if you're her son."
Zhao Ren gritted his teeth.
"I'm not," he whispered.
[System Notification: Pain Threshold Reached : +3 Iron Will]
[Scar Tissue Forming : +1 Bone Density]
[You suffer. You grow.]
That Night, he sat alone beside the ember pit, knees pulled to his chest, Voidcleaver resting in the dirt beside him.
It wasn't a sword.
Not yet.
Just a slab of rusted metal too large to be useful. He'd found it buried in the forge two years ago. Everyone laughed. They said it was trash.
But when he'd touched it, it had hummed.
[Bond Accepted: Voidcleaver – Inert Stage]
[Compatible with Host's Bloodline Signature]
[Weapon Evolution Locked Behind Trials]
He stared at it now, fingers tracing the rough surface.
"I'm going to make you sharp," he said.
[You will make each other sharp.]
Trial of Chains – Age 8
Zhao Ren stood in the old pit, chains coiled around his arms and shoulders. Across from him two Ironblood brutes stood, older boys bulked by years of cultivation.
He had no qi. No techniques.
Just his fists.
And the chains.
When the bell rang, the boys charged. One aimed high, the other low.
Zhao sidestepped, letting the high strike glance off his collarbone, he heard it crack. Pain screamed through him. He turned with it, using momentum to slam an elbow into the second boy's throat.
The overseers didn't expect him to win.
He didn't win.
He endured.
By the end of the trial, both boys were unconscious.
Zhao Ren knelt in the center of the pit, blood running down his arms, bruises swelling across his face. His chains were broken; links shattered like glass. His chest heaved. One eye swelled shut.
But he smiled.
And then he laughed.
[System Notification: Pain Surge : +9 XP]
Clan Hall
The elders watched from above.
Zhao Torgan narrowed his eye again. "The boy refuses to break."
The forge-priest beside him spoke softly.
"No. He is tempering."