The extraction was no longer a clinical process; it was a slaughter. Captain Dravis stood over Blake's shackled, skeletal frame, his face illuminated by the flickering torchlight. With a final, brutal grunt, he shoved the black bone needle into the center of Blake's chest—the location of the heart-origin.
"The final layer," Dravis whispered. "The foundation of the flesh. Let's see what color your soul really is."
A sound like tearing parchment filled the cell. Blake's body arched in a silent, final agony as the last of his 1st-layer cultivation was ripped away. The vibrant life-force that had once made him a genius was gone, replaced by a hollow, freezing void. His heart gave a final, erratic flutter, then stopped.
"He's done," Dravis said, pulling the needle back. He looked at the pale, limp corpse of the boy who had once bested the Iron Son. "Trash to the end. Take him to the abandoned storage wing in the West Pavilion. We can't have a demon-corpse rotting in the high dungeons before the wedding."
The guards unchained the body. Blake's remains hit the stone floor with a sickening, heavy thud. They dragged him through the winding, damp corridors of the manor's underbelly, past the kitchens and the servant quarters, finally reaching a room that smelled of dust and forgotten history. It was a room where the Sterlings threw things they no longer had a use for—broken furniture, rusted armor, and now, the body of Blake Harrison.
They tossed him into the center of the room and slammed the heavy oak door, the iron bolt sliding home with a finality that echoed in the dark.
Blake felt... light.
He was no longer bound by the agony of his nerves or the weight of his shattered bones. He was floating in the center of the abandoned room, looking down at the mangled, blood-soaked heap that used to be his body. He wasn't breathing, yet he felt a strange, cold clarity.
So this is death, Blake thought. His voice didn't vibrate in his throat; it echoed within his own consciousness. Discarded like a broken chair. Jazmin... Silas... you took everything. You even took the blood my father tried to protect.
Beneath his floating spirit, his physical body began to pulse. It was a gruesome sight. Despite having no heartbeat, the holes left by the extraction needles were pouring out torrents of blood. It wasn't the bright crimson of a human, but a deep, viscous burgundy that seemed to glow with a faint, malevolent light. The blood pooled on the floor, spreading out in a perfect circle around the corpse.
[Initialization sequence beginning...]
The voice was cold, mechanical, and vibrated through Blake's spirit like a tuning fork. He spun around, his ghostly eyes searching the shadows.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
There was no answer, only a sudden, violent surge in the pool of blood below.
[Host status: Deceased. Internal Foundation: Destroyed.]
[Activating Blood System... Integrating Voidheart Pearl...]
[Rebirthing Host in 3... 2... 1...]
Suddenly, the pool of blood on the floor rose like a living wave, crashing over the corpse. Blake's spirit was violently yanked downward, sucked into the center of the red vortex.
Pain returned—not the dull ache of the dungeon, but a searing, transformative heat. He felt his heart-origin being reconstructed with threads of black and red light. He felt his bones being reinforced not by Marrow-Essence, but by something ancient and hungry.
Blake's eyes snapped open. He gasped, his lungs burning as they took in the dusty air of the storage room. He rolled onto his side, his hands trembling as he pushed himself up.
"I'm... I'm alive?"
He scrambled to his feet, his movements jerky. He immediately began checking his body, his fingers frantic. He touched his throat—the skin was smooth, the extraction scars gone. He checked his wrists where the Spirit-Iron had bitten into his bone; there was nothing but healthy, pale skin. He felt his chest, his fingers searching for the hole Dravis had made. His heart was beating with a terrifying, rhythmic power.
"How? I saw my own corpse..."
[Host has been successfully reborn.] The voice was no longer coming from the room; it was coming from the center of his mind. [The Blood System is now online. Current Level: 1st Layer Flesh Tempering (Reconstructed).]
"The Blood System?" Blake muttered. "Is this the 'Void-Seed' my father spoke of?"
[Negative. The System is the manifestation of the Voidheart Pearl and the Blood Dewdrop. You have been granted a new foundation. Host may check attributes.]
A translucent screen of blood-red light flickered into existence before his eyes.
Name: Blake Harrison
Realm: 1st Layer Flesh Tempering (Foundation: Void-Blood)
Attributes:
Strength: 15 (Average Human: 5)
Agility: 12
Resilience: 25 (Enhanced by Blood Dewdrop)
Soul Power: 50
Battle Spirit: None (Awaiting Awakening)
Blake stared at the screen. He recognized this format from the ancient scrolls of the "Mixed Sky" era. He felt an unlimited fighting spirit erupt in his heart. The Sterling family thought they had emptied him out, but they had only cleared the room for a monster to move in.
"Eleven years," Blake whispered, his voice rasping. "Eleven years of trying to be the perfect Sterling son. Mocked as a waste by the elders, treated like an ant by Silas... even the girl I loved saw me as a lie."
All those emotions—the betrayal, the grief for his father, the fury of being discarded—transformed into a cold, lethal motivation. He firmly guarded his mind, using his spiritual sense to perceive the most primal power within him. With the potent energy bestowed by the system, he felt that his efforts yielded twice the results with half the effort.
He sat cross-legged in the center of the dust and blood. His innate spiritual essence began to evolve. Blake's consciousness felt as if it had entered a vast, empty space—a cosmos filled with limitless stars.
He gazed at the infinite starry sky and felt a surge of power. His eyes seemed able to see through illusion, venturing into the infinite cosmos. In his mind, strange totems flickered and transformed. After an indeterminate amount of time, a door of stars seemed to slowly open, releasing a brilliant light that merged with his body.
The Star Gate reflected in his pupils, remodeling his meridians, bones, and blood vessels.
"Spiritual Door, open!" Blake roared.
A beam of light burst from his eyes. He felt his meridians become incredibly smooth, a gate opening within him that was boundless: his Spirit Gate.
"The Gate to my Kingdom has opened," Blake thought. "Now is the time to choose my own Battle Spirit!"
He guided his consciousness toward the Spirit Gate. Tens of millions of ethereal forms floated within—fierce tigers, violent apes, dragons, and swordsmen standing seven feet tall.
He saw a Red-level Gray Bear. Too weak.
An Orange-level Werewolf. Not enough.
A Yellow-level Swordsman. Considered a genius in this city, but I need more.
Blake pushed further. The spiritual pressure increased, but his Void-Blood allowed him to break through the layers. He passed the Green-level Fire-fairy—the level Jazmin had awakened.
"Is this the limit of a 'genius' like you, Jazmin?" Blake sneered. "Then look higher."
He gritted his teeth, his consciousness entering the Emerald Green-level area. Divine snakes and black dragons coiled in the light. In the center stood a giant figure covered in black with bloodshot eyes—a Bloody Reaper. It was enveloped in an aura of majesty mixed with dominion.
"Emerald Green-level Divine Reaper's Battle Spirit!"
Reapers were the nobility of death. This spirit possessed the ability to devour souls and energy, capable of swallowing everything in existence.
"The devourer attribute perfectly matches the Voidheart Pearl. This is it!"
Blake plunged his consciousness into the Reaper. He was enveloped in a terrifying aura. For four hours, he battled the spiritual pressure, refusing to back down. Finally, the fusion was complete.
An inexhaustible elemental power flowed through his meridians. A beam of red light erupted from Blake's body, piercing through the ceiling of the abandoned storage room and reaching high into the night sky of Thousand Blade City.
Behind him, the gigantic figure of the Pale Emerald Reaper manifested, its enormous scythe coiling around him. In its presence, all living beings would submit.
Outside the Sterling Manor, the citizens of the city looked up in awe.
"Look! Another high-level awakening! It's coming from the Sterling district!"
"Could it be Jazmin again? Or perhaps her sister?"
On an ancient peak outside the city walls, a figure stood proudly, his gaze piercing. "This phenomenon is even stronger than the Fire-fairy. The person I sought has finally appeared!" The figure flickered and vanished into the night.
Inside the abandoned room, the red light began to fade, but the aura remained. Blake stood up, his gaze cold and predatory. The door, once bolted shut, was now splintered from the pressure of his awakening.
Two guards, attracted by the light and the sound, came running down the corridor.
"Who's in there? The deacons said this room was—"
The guard stopped as Blake stepped out from the shadows. The boy looked human, but the air around him felt like a graveyard.
Blake let out a terrifying, deep laughter that echoed through the West Pavilion. The Reaper's monstrous aura roared, shattering what was left of the door.
"The Sterlings wanted to see my true blood," Blake whispered, his eyes glowing with an emerald light. "I think it's time I showed them."