House of Blood

Princess Solene’s ”ghost hunt” lasted three exhaustive months.

She quartered her Imperial Sun Guards in the upper valley, deploying scrying mages, high-tier trackers, and diviners across every inch of the Frost-Tooth territory.

Yet every lead dissolved into thin air—a shattered Sec branch outpost, a mountain troll pack cleanly felled by non-aura blunt strikes, or a mountain village freed from corrupt tax-collectors with a pouch of stolen gold left on the altar.

Eventually, High Investigator Vane presented his final report to the Princess inside her command tent.

”Your Highness, the residual mana signatures found at the skirmish sites do not match the Sanguis bloodline,” Vane stated, laying out a series of ruined tracking compasses.

”The individual uses pure physical leverage, tribal footwork, and unrefined mountain combat. Furthermore, our diviners confirm that Valerian Sanguis’s soul-lamp in the Prim Sanguis ancestral hall remains completely dark. The boy is dead.

”This ’Ghost’ is merely an opportunistic northern vigilante—an imposter using the dead child’s name to cause chaos.”

Solene stared at the blank map on her desk, her golden eyes narrowing slightly.

’An imposter...’ she thought, a faint, lingering doubt touching her mind.

’Did I misread the wax? Was it truly just a clever mountain rogue?’

Unable to justify spending imperial funds on a wild ghost chase, Solene reluctantly ordered the retinue to dismantle their camp and march back to the Capital.

Far above the valley, perched high on a frozen crag where the mountain wind howled like a dying beast, I sat cross-legged with my heavy ironwood staff resting across my knees.

Through the rune-carved frost-hide blindfold, my acoustic perception tracked the long, platinum line of the Imperial convoy as it slowly wound its way out of the northern passes.

’She gave up, partner,’ Wren cackled softly, floating beside my shoulder.

’The Princess thinks you’re a fake. You slipped right through her fingers.’

”Good,” I murmured, adjusting the leather band over my eyes.

”Let the world believe Valerian Sanguis died in the crevasse. An invisible child can move where gods cannot.”

---

The Shadow Behind the Curtain

The decision to remain hidden wasn’t just about survival—it was about investigative clarity.

During my weeks recovering in the Frost-Tooth caverns, I had carefully analyzed the events leading to my betrayal.

Elder Garren of the Sec branch was an arrogant, power-hungry man, but he was fundamentally a coward.

He lacked the sheer grand design, the forbidden abyssal knowledge, and the high-level soul-isolation arrays required to orchestrate a full-scale ambush against the Prim Sanguis main line without triggering the clan’s ancient protective wards.

Someone else was pulling Garren’s strings.

Garren was merely a pawn on a much larger board.

The Sec branch had been manipulated by external, far more sinister entities—forces linked to the deep Demon Lords of the lower planes and the forgotten Eldritch Elders sleeping beneath the continental shelf.

”If I return to the Prim Sanguis clan now as a ten-year-old child,” I reasoned aloud to the empty mountain air, ”I become a target again.

”But if I stay here, build my strength, and operate in the dark... I can dismantle their network piece by piece.”

---

Life Among the Frost-Tooth (Ages 10–12)

The years that followed were not spent in quiet hiding.

They were forged in blood, sweat, and bitter mountain snow.

The Frost-Tooth barbarians were fierce, proud, and deeply pragmatic. They didn’t care about southern nobility or bloodline prestige; they respected only strength, survival, and results.

I gave them what they needed most: strategy and refinement.

Using my past-life knowledge and deep understanding of structural geometry, I helped Chief Borka redesign the clan’s subterranean defenses.

I showed their smiths how to blend low-grade iron with volcanic sulfur slag to forge lighter, sharper weapons that didn’t crack in sub-zero blizzards.

I taught their scouts how to set silent, non-magical deadfall traps that could snap the legs of ice-drakes without alerting nearby beast packs.

In return, the Frost-Tooth gave me what the Prim Sanguis clan never could:

raw, unrefined survival.

” TRAINING PROGRESSION: FROST-TOOTH TRIBE ”

---

[+] TERRAIN READING: MASTERED (Blizzard Navigation, Acoustic Mapping)

[+] NON-AURA COMBAT: ADVANCED (Leverage, Structural Strike, Bo Staff Mastery)

[+] BEAST HUNTING: EXPANDED (Vital Point Exploitation, Pheromone Suppression)

[+] DRAGON CORE CONTROL: STABILIZED (85% Heat Conversion Efficiency)

I learned to hunt shadow-bears in complete whiteout blizzards, navigating purely by the temperature of the wind and the subtle vibration of the ice beneath my boots.

I learned how to sustain severe injuries—broken fingers, lacerated flesh, hypothermia—and keep fighting with lethal efficiency without relying on my dragon blood to instantly patch me up.

And through it all, Kaelen was right beside me.

Our sparring sessions in the central cavern became legendary among the tribe.

Where she had once relied purely on brute, barbarian strength, I taught her the fluid mechanics of internal mana redirection.

Where I was physically smaller, she taught me the brutal, unrelenting weight of mountain footwork.

”You’re stepping too light again, dragon-boy!” Kaelen barked one winter afternoon, sweeping her heavy bone bludgeon low across the icy stone floor.

I didn’t leap back.

Using my ironwood bo staff, I jammed the base directly into a crack in the stone, absorbing her blow through the staff’s leverage before pivoting off my heel to drive my elbow straight into her ribs.

THUD!

Kaelen caught my elbow with her bare palm, her golden eyes burning with fierce, exhilarated laughter as the shockwave blew the surrounding loose snow into a cloud.

”Better!” she grinned, her small tusks gleaming.

”Now do it while three mountain wolves are biting your ankles!”

---

The Danger in the Deep

Life in the North was never safe.

When I turned twelve, a sudden, unnatural warm spell hit the northern peaks—a sign of abyssal corruption leaking from the Frost-Grave Rift.

A horde of Frost-Rot Behemoths—monstrous, skeletal beasts infected with parasitic black moss—poured out of the deep crevasses, attacking the Frost-Tooth perimeter outposts.

Their blood was acidic, instantly corroding metal weapons and corrupting any warrior who inhaled their spore mist.

For three harrowing weeks, the Frost-Tooth fought a desperate war of attrition.

It was during this crisis that my synergy with Kaelen reached a terrifying level.

While Chief Borka and the elder warriors held the main barricades, Kaelen and I acted as a two-man hunting unit, taking down the massive Behemoths in the narrow canyon passes.

Kaelen would draw the beast’s raw aggression, using her massive bronze-reinforced tower shield to lock its jaw in place.

The moment the creature committed its weight forward, I would move in—a blindfolded blur wrapping around its flank.

Without using blood-aura, I used my ironwood staff to drive bone-chisel spikes directly into the beast’s spinal joints, using mechanical leverage to snap its massive neck before its acidic blood could ignite.

We were fluid, brutal, and utterly silent.

By the time the warm spell subsided and the last Behemoth collapsed into the slush, the warriors of the Frost-Tooth no longer called me ”dragon-boy” or ”southern guest.”

They called me The Iron Blindfold—a full brother of the mountain.

---

A Whispering Shadow from the South

By my thirteenth year, my physical stature had grown significantly.

I was taller, leaner, my shoulders broad from years of hauling ironwood staffs and heavy hunting kills through deep snowdrifts.

My dragon core had fully stabilized beneath the rune-carved leather blindfold, no longer leaking wild heat, but pulsing with a dense, quiet power that hummed like a sleeping volcano.

One evening, while examining a recovered Sec branch intelligence scroll inside Chief Borka’s private lodge, a scout delivered a strange, heavily sealed letter.

”This was brought by a shadow-pigeon from the southern border,” the scout reported, bowing low.

”It bears the secret mark of the Third Branch of the Sanguis Clan—the Terza Sanguis.”

I frowned slightly beneath my blindfold, breaking the black wax seal.

The Terza branch was the smallest, most reclusive faction within the Sanguis clan.

They were scholars, archivists, and quiet herbalists who rarely meddled in the lethal political games of the Prim and Sec branches.

Inside the scroll were two sets of handwriting—one neat and precise, the other chaotic and wildly energetic.

> ”To the Great Sovereign, the Unseen Master, the True Dragon Resting in the Snow:

We have pierced the veil of your fake death. We know you live, O Holy One.

The corrupt rats of the Sec branch are preparing a dark pact with the Eldritch Cult of the Deep Void. They believe the Prim main line is weak without you.

We, your humblest servants, offer our blood, our lives, and our secret arts to your divine cause.

Command us, O God of the Northern Frost, and we shall burn the world in your honor.”

I stared at the letter for three full minutes in absolute, stunned silence.

’...What in the hell is this?’ I thought, my eyebrow twitching violently behind my leather blindfold.

’Pfft—HAHAHAHA!’ Wren burst into hysterical, uncontrollable laughter inside my mind, rolling around in phantom tears.

’”O God of the Northern Frost!” Partner, you have fans! You have actual fanatical cultists!’

”Kaelen,” I said slowly, holding the parchment with two fingers as if it were contaminated with plague.

”Do you know anything about the Terza Sanguis family twins?”

Kaelen leaned over my shoulder, skimming the melodramatic text, before letting out a snort that almost sprayed her ale across the table.

”Oh, those two?” Kaelen chuckled, shaking her head.

”I heard rumors from the border traders. The Terza family has a pair of genius twins—Castor and Pollux.

”They’re brilliant array mages, but apparently... they’re completely unhinged.”

I closed my eyes behind my blindfold, rubbing the bridge of my nose as a massive headache began to form.

I needed allies inside the clan to investigate the Demon Lords and Eldritch Elders.

The Terza branch’s hidden talents and archivist access were perfect...

...but dealing with two fanatics who thought I was a literal deity was going to test my patience far more than any Frost-Rot Behemoth ever could.