The sound of discipline echoed through the City of Blood.
Steel on stone. Shouts in unison. The crack of impact against bone-hard training dummies.
Kan had wasted no time.
The former officer stood at the heart of the outer courtyard—a platform beneath the red-lit sky of the underground dome—his voice sharp, commands brutal.
"Form ranks! Again! If you can't march, you can't live!"
The 600 were already changing. The ragged desperation that once filled their eyes had begun to smolder into something sharper. Focused. Dangerous.
Clad in blood-woven gear forged from the city's strange forges, they moved like soldiers now. Each hour spent drilling. Running. Striking.
Some fell.
But more stood up again.
And Kiro watched it all from above—from the Throne of Bone and Memory, carved into the bloodstone wall overlooking the drills. His mind was half in the present… and half still haunted.
He hadn't spoken since Adim faded.
Hadn't slept.
He just listened to the heartbeat of the City.
And the moment it changed… he knew.
City of Blood – Deep Relay Catacombs
The Blood System pulsed.
A single tendril reached down from the throne and slithered into the ancient relay node buried deep beneath the city. Kiro followed it—his consciousness diving into the blood-laced neural web.
And what he saw chilled him.
Not orbiting dreadforms.
Not corrupted Arion hulls.
Something worse.
Dream Beasts.
Entities of thought and shadow, monsters born from fractured consciousness. They did not knock. They simply entered—drifting through cracks in sanity, devouring identity, soul, and silence.
The Void itself was coughing them up now.
BLOOD SYSTEM WARNING:DREAM-INFESTED BEASTS BREACHING LOWER BARRIERS.HOSTILE. MULTIDIMENSIONAL.
Kiro felt it in the marrow of the city. Screams in the night. Sleepwalkers staring into corners. Men seeing mothers long dead, whispering come closer.
They were here.
And the Void was cracking.
Blood Council Chamber
Kan stood at the foot of the throne, blood on his knuckles from sparring another man into obedience.
"We're shaping them. Still need weeks, but they're listening. They believe."
"They'll need to," Kiro murmured. "Because it's not Arion this time."
Kan frowned. "Then what—?"
Kiro looked up, face pale, eyes glowing faintly red.
"Dream Beasts. And worse. The Void is bleeding, and they're the infection."
Kan didn't flinch. "Then we fight them. Or die loud."
But Kiro shook his head.
"No… there is another way."
The Blood System pulsed.
ESCAPE VECTOR LOCATEDTHROUGH THE BODY OF THE DEAD GOD.A BLOOD GATE CAN BE FORGED.COORDINATES LOCKED: THE GOD'S CORPSE FLOATS IN VOIDSPACE.PASSAGE POSSIBLE.
Kiro's jaw tightened.
The corpse of the Blood God—his ancestor, his origin—still drifted in the heart of the Void. A decaying god-body fused with ancient runes and crimson core veins. Adim had spoken of it once, in whispers and riddles.
"Then we go through him," Kiro said.
"Through what?" Kan asked.
"Through our beginning."
Outer Walls – Hours Later
The Dream Beasts came like a fog—formless, screaming, laughing with stolen mouths. They slipped past every wall. Every barricade. Every bloodline.
And the soldiers fell.
Some froze, struck down by the illusions of their worst regrets. Others attacked each other, mistaking friends for foes. All were hunted by shadows wearing the faces of loved ones.
Kiro stood in the center of it all, cloak torn, blade soaked.
He had one command left.
"Fall back to the inner sanctum! To the Gate!"
Kan shouted, "Where will it take us?!"
Kiro didn't answer.
He knew the truth: through the Blood God's rotting heart lay a corridor of screaming memory and soul-bound flame. But beyond it… Realspace. Survival. Maybe a future.
Maybe not.
The Blood Gate – Sanctum Core
The vault had cracked open.
A living gate pulsed at its heart—veins like lightning, flesh like stone, ringed with teeth that once belonged to gods. The air stank of incense and decay.
The Gate pulsed. Hungry.
The 600 lined up, some limping, others bleeding. No questions. Just belief.
Kiro looked once more at the City of Blood—their refuge, their rebirth.
Then he stepped aside.
"Enter. Through the blood of gods, we are born again."
They obeyed.
And as the last soldier passed through the writhing gate, the Dream Beasts screamed. The city's ceiling cracked like glass. Madness poured in.
Kiro turned his back to it all.
And walked through.