Year 8 – Late Summer, Lunaris Academy
The academy bells tolled in uneven rhythm, echoing through the corridors like a heartbeat made of iron. In the high courtyard, beneath the open dome, students of the House of Sanguis assembled around crimson mirrors. Professor Veyric leaned on his cane, the glass lenses of his mask gleaming in the morning haze.
"Today," he said, "you will manifest will. Not spells, not tricks. You will give your Qi shape."
He struck the ground once. The blood-lit sigils around the circle ignited. One by one, students called forth fragments of their essence—sparks that became ravens, wolves, or spectral serpents.
When Ketsuraku stepped into the circle, the air thickened. He could feel two currents inside him, coiled and restless: Blood Qi and Void Qi, never still, never united.
Veyric frowned. "Choose one. The river doesn't favor greed."
Ketsuraku lowered his head. "Then I'll build two rivers."
The Blood Dragon
He split his consciousness. His astral projection lifted from his shoulders, eyes glowing red. In that reflection world, the ground beneath him became a river of molten blood.
He drew sigils into the air—spirals, ancient runes he'd seen in Hel's dreams. The blood around him boiled, rising into a whirlpool of flame and life. Scales formed from liquid light, wrapping the vortex in armor.
A dragon emerged—serpentine, magnificent, eyes burning like twin suns. It coiled through the air, its mane a storm of scarlet vapor. Wherever it passed, spider lilies bloomed.
"Blood that remembers," Ketsuraku whispered. "Come forth."
The dragon bowed its head. He felt its warmth flow into his veins, power that pulsed like memory.
The Nihility Dragon
His physical self sat motionless on the summoning floor. He closed his eyes and drew on the other current—the cold one, the one that hummed in silence.
Darkness rippled outward. The torches dimmed. Space folded like cloth.
From the stillness, a second dragon emerged—transparent, composed of fragments of shadow and fading light. Its scales shimmered with nonexistent color, its form always one breath from vanishing. It did not roar; its mouth opened and the world stopped making sound.
The students fell to their knees. Veyric could only whisper, "He's drawing breath from the void itself…"
When Time Stopped
Both dragons circled him, their auras colliding. One bled heat, the other frost. Their clash bent light, cracking the air like glass.
Then—everything froze.
The flames halted mid-wave. The blood droplets hung suspended. Even his dragons stopped moving.
Tap.
The sound echoed through stillness.
A crack of red light split the sky. Lines of code ran through the clouds like veins in shattered glass.
From that cut in the world stepped Ix—hat tilted, coat fluttering, cane tapping the air that shouldn't move. His grin was sharp enough to rewrite reality.
"Summoning two at once? Admirable. But predictable.""Let's improve the script."
He lifted his cane; it stretched and reshaped into a scythe forged of red code. Every swing tore symbols through space, glowing like molten data.
"Let's add something with teeth."
He slashed across reality.
The world screamed. From the rift poured the Red Code Dragon—a serpentine beast made of light and symbols, its body a living program. Its roar was a glitch in existence; walls flickered, and the academy's sky became lines of scrolling text.
Where it flew, stone melted into static, static into melody.
"A dragon that hacks reality," Ix said with a flourish. "You'll like this one. It rewrites what it devours."
The cane returned to his hand, and time twitched forward.
The Trinity
Ketsuraku stood beneath three dragons—the Blood Dragon burning crimson, the Nihility Dragon whispering black, the Code Dragon pulsing red lightning.
The dragons roared in unison, circling him until the courtyard blurred into a spiral of flame and darkness. His heart thudded once, twice—then all three streams of energy plunged into his chest.
Pain exploded through him, but beneath it came something else: understanding.
He saw how all things—life, death, and void—were written on the same page.
The sky cracked again, but this time the light came from inside him. Symbols appeared around his body like falling stars.
System Activation
[Blood River Cultivation Interface – System Update Detected]Name: Ketsuraku Van HelsingCultivation Realm: Blood Awakening (Mid Stage)Aura Types: Blood Qi / Void Qi / Code Qi (Synchronized)Astral Capacity: 2/7 (Dual Active Projections)Summons:
Blood Dragon – Hel's Breath (Life & Fire Elemental)
Void Dragon – Ix's Silence (Shadow & Deletion)
Code Dragon – Red Hacker (Reality Rewrite)Traits Updated:
Echo of Nihility — Can merge Astral and Physical forms.
Blood Core — Can channel life force to sustain multiple summons.
Trinity Protocol — "Life, Death, and Rewrite" may act as one command.Current Focus: "Stabilize the Dragons' Orbit."Warning: Instability > 72% – Loss of identity possible.
The Aftermath
Reality stitched itself back together. The students collapsed, unconscious. The dragons dissolved into light, leaving behind only red sigils spinning around Ketsuraku like lazy stars.
Veyric approached slowly, eyes wide behind the mask.
"You didn't just summon them. You bound them."
Ketsuraku steadied his breathing. "They were always here. I just remembered how to call them."
From the shadow of the dome, Ix's voice echoed one last time.
"Nicely done, little river. Now you've three mouths to feed."
Hel's whisper followed, soft as a sigh.
"And three worlds to balance."
Rosa stood on the balcony high above, eyes reflecting crimson and gold. "You're rewriting the world again," she murmured.
Ketsuraku looked up at her, the red sigils fading slowly into his skin.
"No," he said quietly. "Just correcting its grammar."
The Blood Moon rose behind him, and for a heartbeat, the entire academy glowed with red code.Then the light dimmed, leaving only silence—and the faint echo of dragons in the clouds.