Echoes of the Original Human
The great hall of the safehouse smelled of sweat and blood, heavy and airless. Its hard stone floor shone palely in the dim light, but the oppressive stillness in the air was broken by one harsh scream—raw, ragged, a primal shriek torn from the very bottom of pain. In the center, a man sprawled, his lungs afire as he screamed with all that remained to him.
Leon’s voice sliced the silence like a whip cracking on metal. His body jerked spastically, muscles shaking and tensing as if they would break under the excruciating tension. Next to him, a dark puddle of blood seeped outward slowly, the deep red beginning to dry, flaking into delicate shards that appeared on the point of crumbling into powder. His garments clung close, sodden and streaked; black locks glued against slick sweaty skin as though melted together into one. Sweat streamed from him in deluges, dropping from his chin, etching wild rivers down the angular planes of his frame before splattering softly onto stone.
His golden eyes, sharp and mischievous, now seethed with untroubled rage and agony, red-rimmed and cloudy as if they’d absorbed the blood lying in the pool under him. The change in bloodline was a merciless, unrelenting torture—obstinate and unforgiving.
Seven days of this nightmare.
Seven days of non-stop pain making every fractured bone, every wound suffered in battle feel like no more than a scratch. Each muscle fiber had been ripped asunder and agonizingly remade; each beat pounded like the merciless smith’s strike. Each nerve pleaded for release, screamed to yield, to drop and let the hell be over. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. This was the ultimate test—if he could just hang on a little longer, the agony would shatter.
He was aware of that. It was the only thing preventing him from breaking.
Abruptly, he slumped forward, choking wildly, and spat a copious mouthful of blood onto the chill floor.
The noise hardly disturbed the thick stillness, only a faint splash—then another, wet and heavy—blood on stone that sounded sickeningly wet. Black puddles spread slowly, their metallic smell suffocating the air, keen and merciless. He hawked, harsh and crusty, every rasp wrenching from deep within like talons gouging out his dying strength, leaving him panting, breaths unsteady and desperate to impose order on the turmoil.
When the shaking at last subsided, Leon fell to the ground, sweat etching silent rivers down his skin, warm and unrelenting. His entire body howled in agony, but he remained motionless, waiting, as the concealed blood orb seethed within. It oozed through his vacant veins like a sluggish tide, drawing life back into his broken form. The moment lengthened, taut and oppressive.
Then, a harsh chime shattered the stillness within his mind.
"Ding!" The harsh ring broke the dense silence.
["Host — your seventh day is complete. The blood orb has purified your body, strengthened each vein. Ready yourself for the last step of bloodline awakening. Prepare yourself."]
His breath caught, hoarse and raspy, scaring harshly down his throat like sandpaper. He could hardly whisper, the rough sound struggling to escape like a clawing animal. With raw, fierce effort, he forced his head up, each motion a struggle against the blaze eating at his throat. No words would pass his lips; instead, a harsh, rasping laugh burst out of him—immediately stifled by a savage cough that wracked his body. His shaking hands wiped the sweat and blood from his lips, and in his eyes, a rebellious fire lit—the fire of defiance brighter than agony.
Then it started. A strange warmth sprouted in the depths of his chest—not a mild heat, but an electric, stabbing pulse, wild and fierce, that fueled a tempest within his heart. It blazed once, then blazed out into a raging inferno, piercing through his body like a shaft of white-hot pain. His jaws locked so hard that they ached with pain; teeth locked together as he swallowed the scream that struggled to burst forth. The unrelenting pain spread ruthlessly, unforgiving and exposed—but under the agony, a delicate thread intertwined itself through: a thread of comfort, unmistakably present.
Blood pumped from his heart, dividing into five angry streams. Two rained downward, cold veins pounding all the way to his toes. Two deluged his arms, flying toward each fingertip. The last burst careened upward, burning like a wildfire careening toward his skull.
When that final pulse hit his head, his eyes erupted into searing white. Molten flames scorched every nerve, as if an ancient, hellish power had been dumped straight into his brain. Raw, ragged sound ripped from his throat, teeth clenched so tight they hurt, but before his mind could find purchase, things shifted and deformed.
From his skin, a dark red mist seeped out slowly, twisting up like smoke from a fading fire, slow and regal. It coiled and curled, forming elaborate patterns that wrapped tighter with every breath. The mist condensed at once, enveloping him in silken fibers that wrapped him in a smooth shroud of crimson.
The rest of the world grew dim—colors faded, senses muted. Whoever came into the hall would find only a weird figure, wrapped in blood-red silk, still as the overturned bottles, in the sweat-slickened room. The iron smell was heavy, mixed with something sweet and nauseating, hanging thickly over everything. The shiny floor below reflected dimly with wetness—not with healing balm, but with some long-forgotten thing, an execution or a curse.
His voice was lost under those folds, swallowed up whole by the heavy swathing. The body remained motionless—a ghastly red mausoleum.
Abruptly, the cocoon rose. Gradually, inch by inch—three meters, two, then one—until it hovered ten meters above the chill stone floor, held in perfect equipoise within the great, vacant hall.
Within, the fiery red throbbed more intensely, seeping through silk until the whole area was saturated with liquid firelight. It beat like a living heart, casting distorted shadows that leaped against walls and pillars.
An hour passed in that fiery stillness.
The initial fracture was weak, a brittle crack almost unheard—half imagined. But it didn’t abate. Cracks propagated rapidly, spreading in webs across the surface, edges glowing hot like dying embers. The cracking became louder, crisper, flooding the hall with anxious, precise sound.
And then—BOOM! The cocoon exploded wildly, fragments of scarlet mist flying everywhere like sharded glass in a tempest. A shockwave rocked outwards, making every stone in the room shudder, dispersing the blood-red haze into every darkened corner. The air hung dense and hot, alive with buzzing power scraping against the flesh.
When at last the mist began to clear, a shape coalesced in the midst of the room.