House of Blood

The subterranean laboratory beneath Sector Three smelled of boiling vitriol, ionized silver, and stagnant marrow.

Green glass cylinders lined the damp basalt walls, glowing with the pale, sickly light of alchemical fires. Inside each vat, grotesque, half-formed constructs twitched in thick preservative fluid—bone fibers expanding, muscles reweaving, and artificial vessels pulsing with stolen life.

In the center of the chamber, the Mad Doctor worked with feverish, practiced precision.

His skeletal frame was wrapped in a heavy, stained leather apron, his face concealed behind a brass plague mask with glowing crimson glass lenses.

In his long, bony fingers, he held a silver bone drill, humming a soft, discordant melody as he bored microscopic channels into the ribcage of an unformed flayed construct.

Beside him, hovering inches above the cold stone floor, was Xul’Gorgoth—the Ninth Demon Lord.

The Ninth Lord’s form remained a dark, shifting silhouette beneath his tattered cloak of abyssal cloth.

Nine pale, bone-white fibers protruded from his neck, swaying gently in the air like blind serpents scenting the dark.

”Your work is immaculate, Doctor,” Xul’Gorgoth remarked softly, his voice echoing in a nine-layered chorus that carried neither warmth nor air.

”The heart of the Eighth Demon Lord sits within the vessel’s chest, bound by your silver seals. Yet you remain obsessed with a single ingredient.”

The Mad Doctor did not pause his drilling.

BRRRRR-CRACK.

A fine shower of white bone dust sprayed onto his leather apron.

”You speak of the Sanguis blood, My Lord,” the Doctor croaked, his voice rasping through the brass beak of his mask.

”I do,” Xul’Gorgoth replied, tilting his shrouded head.

”You have the flesh of third-year enforcers, the soul-core of an Arch-Warlock, and the spatial arrays harvested from the Sub-Basement Siphon. Why do you specifically require the blood of House Sanguis to complete this vessel?

”What makes their crimson mana so irreplaceable to your grand engine?”

The Mad Doctor stopped his bone drill.

The mechanical whir died down, leaving only the steady drip-drip-drip of green fluid from the central vat.

He let out a long, shuddering sigh, setting the silver drill down on a tray of black velvet.

He turned his brass mask slowly toward the dark entity hovering beside him.

”Tell me, Xul’Gorgoth...” the Doctor asked, his red glass lenses gleaming in the dim light.

”Do you know the true history of your current Demon King?”

Xul’Gorgoth’s dark form stiffened slightly.

Beneath his hood, two pale, void-like eyes flickered with genuine surprise.

”The Demon King?” Xul’Gorgoth rasped, a subtle edge of suspicion entering his multi-layered voice.

”He is the First Sovereign. A low demon who clawed his way out of the lowest pits of the Abyssal Ravine during the Era of Calamities.

”He grew in strength through pure, unadulterated conquest, as all Demon Lords do.

”We follow him because he is the strongest of our kind.”

The Mad Doctor let out a dry, rattling laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping over a tombstone.

”A low demon...” the Doctor wheezed, shaking his head.

”A comforting myth, isn’t it? A grand fairy tale invented by your warlord council so you wouldn’t have to face the terrifying truth of your own pantheon.”

”Mind your tongue, alchemist,” Xul’Gorgoth warned, the spatial air around his cloak compressing violently.

”You speak of the Sovereign.”

”I speak of history!” the Mad Doctor countered, his gloved hand slamming down onto the metal worktable.

He leaned closer to the Ninth Lord, his red lenses burning.

”Do you know that the Demon King... was once a human?”

Silence descended upon the laboratory—absolute, heavy, and suffocating.

Xul’Gorgoth did not strike.

He did not flare his spatial vacuum.

The sheer absurdity, the blasphemy of the statement, held him frozen in place.

To every demon born within the dark depths of the Ravine, the Demon King was the absolute embodiment of primordial demonic authority.

”A human?” Xul’Gorgoth whispered, the nine layers of his voice faltering into a flat, icy hiss.

”You lie.

”A human soul is frail, finite, and soft. It decays within a century.”

”A normal human soul, yes,” the Mad Doctor said softly, picking up a glass syringe filled with clear silver solvent.

”But during the Era of Calamities—eight hundred years ago—humanity did not fight with delicate spellcraft or refined academy fencing.

”They fought in the mud, in blood and rot.”

The Doctor turned back to the central brass cylinder, where the artificial vessel floated with the green heart of the Eighth Lord pulsing inside its chest.

”The Patriarch of the Sanguis bloodline back then had a sworn brother,” the Doctor murmured, his tone drifting into distant, bitter memories.

”A legendary general.

”The two of them fought side by side against the first wave of abyssal beasts.

”But during the Siege of the Red River, the general was brutally, fatally injured.

”His organs were pulverized by abyssal venom. His soul-core was cracking.”

The Doctor paused, his gloved fingers tracing the crimson Sanguis runes etched into the glass.

”In absolute desperation to save his brother-in-arms,” the Doctor continued, ”the Sanguis Patriarch performed an unholy, forbidden procedure.

”A direct, total blood transfusion using his own royal crimson mana.

”They thought it would knit his flesh.

”Instead... they made a terrible discovery.

”And humanity paid the price in mountain-high piles of corpses.”

”What discovery?” Xul’Gorgoth demanded, his curiosity finally devouring his anger.

”The blood of House Sanguis is not merely magic—it is a volatile, primeval catalyst,” the Mad Doctor explained, his voice dropping to a low, hollow rasp.

”If the recipient’s body is too weak, the blood burns their veins into ash within seconds.

”Death is instant.

”But if the recipient possesses an exceptionally powerful physical frame and an unyielding will... one of two things happens.”

The Doctor held up two long, bone-thin fingers.

”Either they mutate into an ungodly, mindless monster...

”Or they undergo an absolute, catastrophic evolution.

”An ascension beyond mortality.”

The Doctor turned his brass mask back toward Xul’Gorgoth.

”In the case of the Sanguis Patriarch’s best friend... both happened.”

Xul’Gorgoth’s dark silhouette swayed.

”He evolved... and lost his humanity.”

”He lost everything,” the Mad Doctor spat with quiet, bitter venom.

”The Sanguis blood purged his mortality, rewriting his spiritual DNA into something immortal, indestructible, and utterly malevolent.

”He shed his human name, raised the abyssal armies from the trench, and almost pushed the entire human race to complete extinction before the ancient heroes managed to seal him beneath the continental crust.”

The Doctor let out a heavy, solemn breath, wiping a smudge of black grease from his mask.

”It is a history that the Solarian Empire and House Sanguis buried very deep,” the Doctor whispered.

”They erased the records.

”They burned the tapestries.

”Because the irony... the terrible, poetic irony, Xul’Gorgoth... is that the monster you worship as your Demon King...

”was once the First Emperor of the Solarian Empire.”

Xul’Gorgoth stood in total, stunned silence for several seconds.

His abyssal cloak rippled as he processed the revelation.

The origin of the Demon King—the very source of the primordial power that governed the dark council—was an accidental byproduct of a Sanguis blood transfusion.

”So...” Xul’Gorgoth rasped slowly, his gaze shifting to the glowing green vessel in the brass cylinder.

”That is why you need their blood.

”To replicate the catalyst.

”To force this artificial vessel to undergo the same ascension.”

”Precisely,” the Mad Doctor grinned beneath his mask, his hands trembling with scientific euphoria.

”The Eighth Lord’s heart provides the raw power of a Demon Lord.

”But without the pure, royal Sanguis bloodline to act as the evolutionary bridge, the vessel will merely explode into green fire.

”With their blood... it will become a second Demon King.

”A vessel capable of walking through the Citadel’s ancient wards untouched.”

Xul’Gorgoth remained quiet, his void-like gaze shifting away from the vessel to fix entirely on the skeletal alchemist before him.

”A fascinating tale, Doctor,” Xul’Gorgoth murmured, his voice regaining its cold, dark composure.

He tilted his head slightly.

”Which brings me to another question...”

”Ask,” the Doctor replied, picking up his scalpels once more.

”When are you going to meet her?” Xul’Gorgoth asked softly.

”Your daughter, I mean.”

The Mad Doctor’s hands froze mid-air above the tray of scalpels.

The silver blades clattered softly against the velvet cloth.

”Representative Mirain Sec Sanguis,” Xul’Gorgoth continued, his multi-layered voice laced with subtle, dark amusement.

”She walks the upper corridors of Sector A, managing political fronts, hunting down underground disputes, completely unaware that the rogue alchemist building monsters in the dark beneath her feet... is her own father.

”It amazes me how you are willing to sacrifice her, or use her pure bloodline as a mere stepping stone for your creation.”

The laboratory grew deathly quiet.

The Mad Doctor did not turn around.

He stood motionless before his worktable, his head bowed slightly beneath his stained leather hood.

The bright red glow of his brass mask’s glass lenses dimmed into a dull, smoldering amber.

He let out a long, heavy sigh—a sound carrying the unbearable weight of a man who had abandoned his name, his nobility, and his humanity decades ago for a single, mad obsession.

”Mirain is a good girl,” the Doctor said softly, his voice losing its crazed, manic rasp, sounding for a brief, fragile moment like an exhausted, old noble father.

”She has her mother’s eyes.

”Her mother’s cold, unyielding pride.”

He picked up a silver scalpel, his gloved fingers tightening over the handle until the leather creaked.

”Once this is over...” the Doctor whispered into the quiet, steam-hissing darkness of the laboratory, ”once the vessel is complete and the lower vaults are broken... I’ll apologize to her.”

He raised his head, the red lenses of his mask flaring back into a harsh, radioactive crimson as he turned back to the floating flesh-construct.

”I’ll apologize to her for being an unfilial father.”

Xul’Gorgoth chuckled softly—a dry, dark sound that dissolved into the ambient shadows of the room.

”A touch of human sentiment,” the Ninth Demon Lord noted, his dark cloak swirling as he stepped back toward a newly opening spatial tear.

”How pathetic.

”Just ensure your sentiment does not stay your hand when she comes down here with her sword drawn.”

”My hand will not stay,” the Mad Doctor replied coldly, driving his scalpel deep into the construct’s shoulder.

”Prepare the harvesting traps in Sector Three, My Lord.

”My daughter... and her blind clerk... will be arriving soon.”

Xul’Gorgoth vanished into the dark rift, leaving the Mad Doctor alone in the green-lit laboratory, humming his discordant tune as the heart of the Eighth Demon Lord beat violently inside the brass cylinder—

waiting for the royal blood that would bring the new monster to life.