House of Blood

In the southern heartland of the Sanguis Clan, three hundred leagues from the freezing winds of the Northern Marches, the Prim Sanguis ancestral estate bled red.

Inside the obsidian war room of the central spire, Alexis Prim Sanguis—the Fourth Young Master, known across the continent as The Strategist—adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles with a pale, trembling finger.

On the long marble table before him were dozens of financial ledgers, troop movement manifests, and soul-lamp ledgers.

Behind him, standing by the tall bay window overlooking the blood-rose gardens, was a towering figure wrapped in heavy black plate armor, a massive executioner’s broadsword strapped to her back.

Vespera Prim Sanguis.

The First Child.

The Death Mistress.

”Three more Sec branch sanctuaries were razed last night, Sister,” Alexis spoke smoothly, his voice cold and dry like rustling parchment. ”Elder Garren’s loyalists in the central provinces have had their bank vaults frozen, their supply lines severed, and their noble allies exposed for high treason.”

Vespera did not turn around.

Her dark, blood-red aura pulsed thick enough to crack the glass panes of the window.

”Is Garren dead?”

Vespera’s voice echoed like grinding iron plates.

”Not yet,” Alexis replied, turning a page. ”He fled into the abyssal crevasses near the Frost-Grave Rift. But our scouts report that someone in the North has been systematically dismantling Garren’s secondary outposts. The mercenaries he hired were subverted using a forged Imperial seal.”

Vespera turned slowly, her deep crimson eyes burning with unholy, terrifying grief.

”I do not care about Garren’s mercenaries, Alexis. I care about Valerian.”

Alexis went silent.

His hand clenched tightly around his quill, snapping the feather in half.

”His soul-lamp remains dark, Vespera,” Alexis whispered, his voice cracking slightly behind his composed demeanor. ”The crevasse collapse... there was no trace of his body.”

”Then we burn every traitor in the Sanguis lineage until his grave is paved in their skulls,” Vespera growled, her hand gripping the hilt of her broadsword until the stone floor beneath her boots cracked.

”Mobilize the Vanguard. If the Imperial Court tries to intervene, cut them down too.”

”Understood,” Alexis said softly, adjusting his spectacles. ”I will handle the financial stranglehold. You handle the execution.”

The Border of Silver-Larch Pass

Four weeks after the Grey-Stone purge, the scent of burning mana heavy in the autumn air reached a ancient stone monastery tucked inside the Silver-Larch Pass.

Officially, the monastery belonged to an isolated sect of mountain herbalists.

In reality, it had become an underground gathering node for the Eldritch Sun Sanctum.

Outside the monastery’s courtyard, a fierce battle was underway.

”Multi-Cast Array: Glacial Cascade!”

A sharp, authoritative female voice cut through the clash of steel and dark magic.

Standing in the center of the muddy courtyard was a girl of twelve, her long, midnight-blue hair tied back in a high ponytail.

She wore the rich, silver-embroidered battle robes of the Medeis Clan—the premier mage house of the continent.

This was Lady Lyra Medeis, second daughter of the Medeis main line.

Unlike ordinary mages who relied on external staves or lengthy verbal incantations, Lyra’s bare forearms glowed with intricate, glowing blue runes—Soul-Carved Magic Circles, the supreme secret art of the Medeis lineage.

By carving magic circles directly into her spiritual soul, she could cast three distinct high-tier spells simultaneously without a second of chant delay.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

Three massive spears of blue frost detonated simultaneously, impaling three abyssal cultists against the stone wall.

”Lady Lyra!” her chief bodyguard shouted, parrying a jagged bone blade from a cloaked cultist. ”The perimeter barrier has been inverted! They’re using a Void-Anchor Array—our mana regeneration is being suppressed!”

Lyra gritted her teeth, her sharp, sapphire eyes scanning the twenty cloaked cultists surrounding her lingering escort.

Her soul-carved circles pulsed hot against her arms, but the purple abyssal mist rolling off the altar in the center of the courtyard was slowly suffocating her spell matrices.

”Don’t fall back!” Lyra commanded fiercely, her soul-carved circles flaring again as three spinning discs of compressed wind materialized around her shoulders.

”They’re trying to capture us alive for their blood rituals! Destroy the altar!”

”How foolish, little princess of Medeis,” a raspy, dual-toned voice echoed from the shadowed archway of the monastery.

A senior cultist stepped forward, his eyes completely pitch-black, skin crawling with parasitic void-worms.

In his hand, he held a black iron totem leaking thick, tar-like abyssal corruption.

”Your soul-carved magic is impressive,” the cultist sneered, raising the totem. ”But before the power of the Void, all human spells are merely flickering candles in a gale—”

THUD.

The cultist’s speech was cut short not by a spell, but by a soundless, brutal kinetic impact.

A black, faceless mask—smooth, featureless slate-iron with only two narrow, unlit eye slits—appeared out of the sulfur mist directly beside the cultists’ lead enforcer.

Before anyone could react, a heavy, dark ironwood bo staff whipped through the air like a striking viper.

CRACK!

The blunt end of the staff struck the cultist’s wrist at a forty-five-degree angle, instantly shattering the radial bone and sending the black iron totem flying into the air.

In the same split second, the masked figure pivoted off his lead heel.

Using the staff’s momentum, he slammed the butt of the weapon directly into the cultist’s sternum with horrifying, mechanical leverage.

BOOM!

The senior cultist flew backward twenty feet, crashing through the monastery’s heavy oak doors before falling completely limp.

Silence descended upon the courtyard.

Lyra Medeis froze, her soul-carved wind discs hovering uselessly around her arms as she stared at the newcomer.

He was young—his posture lean, broad-shouldered, and draped in a rugged wolf-fur cloak over sleek black combat leathers.

His face was entirely hidden behind the smooth, featureless Black Faceless Mask.

Beneath the mask, wrapping around his eyes, was a thick leather band covered in glowing blue northern runes.

He held the heavy ironwood bo staff loosely in one hand, not a single drop of blood-aura or spell-mana radiating from his body.

”Who... who are you?” Lyra gasped, her sapphire eyes wide with shock.

The masked figure didn’t answer.

He didn’t even look at her.

”Castor. Clear the array,” a quiet, pleasant voice spoke from behind the mask.

CLICK.

A silver needle dropped from the roof tiles above.

The moment it pierced the dirt, the purple abyssal mist suppressing the courtyard instantly collapsed, dispersing into harmless white steam.

”Array suppression efficiency: 100%,” Castor’s voice echoed dryly from the shadows. ”Calculated time to clean up remaining biological vectors: 8.4 seconds.”

”FOR THE SOVEREIGN!” Pollux’s ecstatic, terrifying shriek echoed from the Monastery walls as she dropped down like a predatory hawk, her bone dagger already plunging into a cultist’s throat.

From the opposite side, Kaelen burst through the wooden fence, her twin bone bludgeons sweeping low to shatter the legs of three cultists in a single, thunderous arc.

Lyra Medeis stood paralyzed in the center of the courtyard, watching in absolute awe as the mysterious masked warrior moved through the remaining cultists.

It wasn’t a mage battle.

It wasn’t even a standard martial fight.

The masked figure moved like a ghost through a whiteout blizzard.

Every swing of his ironwood staff was pure geometry—deflecting bone blades with minimum effort, shattering joint clusters, and leveraging the enemies’ own forward momentum to break their necks against the stone floor.

He didn’t use aura.

He didn’t use spells.

He was pure, terrifying, unadulterated combat perfection.

Within seven seconds, the entire cult cell was annihilated.

The masked warrior turned, flicking a drop of black blood off the end of his ironwood staff before resting it across his shoulders.

He began to step toward the ruined monastery archway without offering a single word to the Medeis guards.

”Wait!” Lyra shouted, taking three quick steps forward, her heart pounding against her ribs in a way she had never felt before.

The masked figure paused, his faceless slate mask tilting slightly toward her.

”Who are you?” Lyra demanded, her cheeks flushing slightly beneath her dirt-streaked face. ”You saved the second daughter of the Medeis Clan. Name your reward! Gold, spell-scrolls, noble favor—”

”Keep your gold, Lady Medeis,” the smooth, pleasant voice replied from behind the faceless mask.

”Just tell your father... the Void has already entered his house.”

Before Lyra could ask another question, the masked warrior leaped backward, vanishing into the autumn mist along with the shadows around him.

Lyra stood alone in the quiet courtyard, her hand reaching out toward the empty fog, her pulse racing as she stared at the spot where the faceless savior had stood.

”Ghost...” she whispered softly to herself, her fingers tracing the glowing soul-carved circles on her arm.

”I will find out who you are.”