Axis of the Black Markets — "They are not nobles. They are breathing warnings."
In the lower markets of Rust City, there are stories that aren't sold. They are whispered. Feared.
They speak of beasts with names erased by time. Of bodies that were once kings of the vampiric lineage, but now barely remember the human tongue. Only the scent of ancient blood.
They call them "first generation." Not out of honor, but as a warning.
Creatures sold in cages reinforced with five seals. Chained not by iron, but by the combined will of seven black magi.
Once, one broke free. It didn't kill anyone. It drank from a young vampire. And then, it cried.
It cried because the taste was no longer enough. Because it no longer remembered who it had once been.
Axis of the Awakened Echo — "The cycle has called back the monsters that founded it."
Beneath the golden city, an ancestral seal collapsed.
It wasn't an explosion. It was a whisper that smelled like split flesh and evaporated blood.
One of the first rose.
It did not speak. It did not think. It only remembered.
Its body had wings, but no longer flew. Its teeth never retracted. Its thoughts were echoes of screams it had forgotten how to voice.
And among those echoes, a new name emerged—one that didn't belong to its time:
"Arisha."
The name hurt. Not because it recognized it. But because she was free.
And the free... were no longer part of the cycle.
Axis of Arisha — "To rewrite is also an act of inheritance."
In a secret passage beneath the ruins of the ceremony, Arisha walked alone.
In her hand, a fragment of the shattered altar. In her chest, the mark of the broken cycle still pulsing.
There, before a wall covered in names written in dried blood—where previous generations of Nevri had carved their vows—Arisha found an empty space.
Her mother had never written there. Neither had her grandmother.
She did not cry.
Dipping her fingers into a wound on her arm, she wrote in her own blood:
Arisha.Daughter of fire unclaimed.Nevri without chains.Legacy without permission.
And in that act, lineage ceased to be inheritance. It became choice.
Encounter with the Guardian — "Where blood recognizes, no words are empty."
Outside the inner walls, where stone began to crack under the weight of time and tension, Arisha stopped.
A figure stood waiting. No weapons. No visible shadow. But centuries weighed behind those eyes.
The Blue-Eyed Nevri.
He did not smile. He did not greet. He only looked at her.
"You're not the same girl," he said.
"Do you know me?"
"I know your blood," he replied.
She drew a deep breath. The mark on her chest lit up with every heartbeat.
"Are you the hunter?"
"No," his eyes hardened. "I am the Guardian of the Broken Cycle."
"And what do you do when the cycle bleeds?"
He answered without hesitation:
"I sever it… before it poisons what can still be saved."
He moved forward with silent steps until he stood before her. Very close. No threat in his stance, but no peace either.
Arisha held his gaze.
"Then tell me, Guardian. Am I already poisoned?"
Silence.
His ice-blue eyes drifted to the mark on her chest, then returned to her face.
"Not yet," he whispered. "But your next choice… will decide if you deserve to burn."
She did not flinch.
"Don't tell me what I deserve. Watch what I build."
The blue-eyed Nevri didn't reply. He merely inclined his head—barely noticeable. As if respecting what he did not yet fully understand.
Axis of the Final Awakening — "The past does not stay buried. It hunts."
A magical siren began to howl from the city's borders. Not for human enemies. Not for soldiers.
For an unregistered blood signature.
One of the first had crossed the barrier without breaking it.
And it didn't come for revenge.
It came for lineage. For flesh. For legacy.
Or for ruin.
And while nobles argued and slaves trembled…
In the depths of the black market, an empty cage began to drip.
Not with blood. With living memory.