[Krugo – Two Hours After the Rift Closed]
The fires still burned, their angry tongues licking up the charred bones of Krugo's once-proud skyline. Smoke drifted like mourning veils across the broken plazas, and somewhere beneath the fallen spire, a soldier screamed for a medic while an engineer tried to coax a dead drone back to life by swearing at it.
Pablo sat slumped beside the shattered remains of a fountain, shirt torn, hair matted with ash, and a glazed look in his eyes that said he'd seen too much too fast. Around him, the Black Star Legion swept the ruined capital, their scanning equipment glowing cold blue as they searched for survivors, enemies, and anomalies.
It didn't take them long to find the biggest anomaly of all.
Lying in a crater where the monstrous Voidling Warlord Pox had fallen was Kiro—unmoving, blood-soaked, and strangely serene, as if he'd just taken a short nap in the middle of a battlefield carved by hellfire.
A soldier crouched, checked a scanner, and stiffened. "Target confirmed. Rebellion-class entity. Alive... barely."
Another voice buzzed through a helmet speaker. "Sir, his blood signature matches the unknown from the Gaeth breach and the El'Vertigo massacre."
Pablo stood before they could touch him, his voice cracking with urgency—and something dangerously close to loyalty. "He saved this city. You owe him."
The squad leader turned, visor flickering as it registered Pablo's face. "House El'Vertigo. You're coming with us. You've got answers to give."
Pablo hesitated. His eyes flicked to Kiro, still breathing, still burning faintly beneath the skin with something not quite human. He clenched his fists.
"…He needs time," he muttered. "And so do I."
[Later That Night – Beneath the Streets of Krugo]
Pablo had never considered himself the rebellious type. He enjoyed hot showers, political theater, and precisely-cut noble suits. But tonight, he was crawling through a sewage pipe with an unconscious demi-god strapped to a hover-cart, reeking of dried blood and Voidling ichor.
"Remind me to never volunteer for anything again," he mumbled to himself, nearly slipping on a patch of slime.
The hidden clinic was buried beneath an old bakery—long since abandoned, the smell of burnt sugar replaced by disinfectant and ozone. He banged on the metal hatch three times, then once more. A lock disengaged with a hiss, and a figure stepped out.
Short, scarred, and wearing a pair of cracked cybernetic goggles, Doctor Jiji looked like a junkyard goblin who moonlighted as a war surgeon.
"Pablo El'Vertigo. Last time I saw you, you couldn't even grow a beard. Now look at you—smuggling corpses through my backdoor."
"He's not dead," Pablo said. "Just... extremely tired. And maybe full of ancient alien blood magic."
Jiji squinted at the slumped form of Kiro. "Looks like a walking war crime. Or at least someone who used to walk."
"I need you to keep him hidden," Pablo said, dropping a satchel of credits heavy enough to make Jiji's eyebrows twitch. "They're looking for him. If the Empire finds him, he's gone."
Jiji crouched beside Kiro, placed a gloved hand on his chest. The faint thrum of heat pulsed beneath his ribs.
"…That's not normal," the doctor muttered. "That's Void-kissed, God-touched, back-alley sorcery all in one. I'll need to put him in stasis and rig a pulse-scrambler to mask his energy signature."
"Can you do it?"
Jiji snorted. "Boy, I once stitched up a rebel leader using dental floss and a cursed needle. This? This I can do."
[The El'Vertigo Estate – Two Days Later]
Pablo returned in silence.
The estate was a half-rebuilt shell, its towers scorched and gates still scarred from the battle. But the nobles had wasted no time reviving their courtly dances—cloaked in black, of course, as if grief was fashionable.
Kavo El'Vertigo welcomed his son with a nod, saying nothing at first. But Pablo's eyes didn't belong to a pampered heir anymore. They carried the weight of blood-soaked streets and broken truths.
"You look like someone who's been through ten lifetimes in two days," Kavo finally said.
"I saw war," Pablo answered. "I saw what power looks like when it's not wrapped in politics."
"And?"
"I saw him."
Kavo raised a brow. "The Bloodspawn?"
"No," Pablo said. "The one who didn't run. The one who fought the monsters while we hid in towers."
[Elsewhere – A Place Between Life and Death]
Kiro's body remained unmoving on a stasis bed surrounded by humming machines and low-frequency pulses designed to keep his soul tethered. But the blood in his veins moved with a will of its own.
He had slipped beyond the waking world.
[Within the Blood Domain – Spirit Layer]
Kiro's eyes opened to a sky the color of spilt wine.
He stood alone in a city that breathed and bled—its towers made of bone and iron, streets paved with pulsing arteries, and rivers of crimson snaking like living things. Above, the moon was a hollow eye, watching.
"You crossed over," said a voice.
Kiro turned to see a man who looked like his mirror reflection—but taller, older, dressed in regal blood-thread robes stitched with Void-silk. His eyes glowed with calm authority.
"I am Adim," the man said, smiling. "The shard of your soul that was carved out when you touched the Relic. I was given command of the Blood God System."
"…You're me?" Kiro asked.
"In a way," Adim replied. "I'm the part of you that was ready when you weren't."
The wind shifted. The buildings pulsed. The blood itself seemed to whisper.
"The Omega Core's burst fractured the realm-barrier. Now, this place—the City of Blood—is no longer sealed. But it is not yet free."
Kiro stepped forward. "Then open the door. Let me out."
Adim's smile faded. His voice turned cold.
"I didn't bring you here to set you free. I brought you here to test your right to rule."
From the alleyways, figures emerged—warriors made of bone, clotting blood, and old rage. Their weapons were jagged, screaming as they formed.
Adim lifted a hand.
"If you want command of the Blood God System, Kiro…"
His crimson eyes glowed like stars collapsing.
"Then earn it."