House of Blood

The victory celebration in the central rotunda of Sector Zero was loud, bright, and suffocatingly crowded.

High Council dignitaries in trailing silk mantles drifted between cadet team captains, sipping spiced wine while silver-clad heralds announced the official Third-Tier Trial rankings.

Cell One’s top placing was painted in bold gold leaf across the rotunda’s main tally board.

Standing away from the victory dais, near a cluster of high-arched windows overlooking the subterranean waterfalls that fed the cisterns, Casper von Valerius leaned against a stone pillar.

He held a silver goblet of honeyed mead, but he wasn’t drinking.

His eyes were fixed on two figures who had just slipped quietly into the hall through the shadow of the eastern gallery.

They moved with identical, unsettling precision.

They wore dark-crimson leather doublets beneath high-collared black dusters, the stark silver embroidery of Sector Zero’s elite auxiliary units running down their sleeves.

Castor and Pollux Ter Sanguis—the Terza Twins—were fifteen years old, but they moved with the eerie, lethal grace of veteran executioners.

Castor, the elder twin by four minutes, carried a long-handled war mattock slung across his back.

Pollux, his sister, wore a pair of brutal, curved hook blades crosswise at her waist.

”Look at those two,” Casper muttered, taking a long draft from his goblet as Valerian stopped beside him.

”The Terza Twins. Auxiliary enforcers assigned directly from the High Council’s private guard. I heard they cleared a rogue mercenary cell in the Eastern Marches without calling for a single line of shield reinforcements.”

Valerian stood beside the pillar, his hands tucked loosely into his scuffed wool coat, his dark linen blindfold tied impeccably straight across his face.

Beneath his left sleeve, the dark-mithril suppressor guard remained cool and completely inactive, absorbing the ambient mana spikes of the crowded rotunda without a sound.

”Master...” Aurelix’s golden voice echoed softly within his spiritual realm, her phantom tails swaying gently over his soul-core.

”The twins carry the Ter Sanguis blood-seal. Their paired spiritual conduits are keyed directly to your original sovereign core’s harmonic frequency. Pollux’s soul resonance is spiking simply by standing within twenty paces of you.”

”She needs to control it,” Valerian replied silently, his inner voice flat and unyielding.

”If her blood-seal flares in public, the Secret Commission’s spatial sensors will pick up the Sovereign resonance within seconds.”

The twins stopped five paces away.

To the rest of the rotunda, they appeared merely as stern, aristocratic auxiliary guards delivering official deployment orders to Cell One.

But beneath that formal exterior, the dynamic between the two was razor-wire taut.

Pollux’s sharp amber eyes were locked onto Valerian.

Her fingers twitched near the hilt of her left hook blade, her chest heaving slightly as she fought to suppress the absolute, manic fervor rising in her chest.

She was a complete battle junkie—a blade-bound fanatic who lived for the blood of high-tier engagements and worshipped the ground the Red-Ink Executioner walked on.

Castor, however, stood half a step ahead of her, one hand firmly gripping the leather strap of his war mattock.

His face was a mask of cold, vigilant discipline.

He cast a sharp, warning glare sideways at his sister, his knuckles whitening around the strap.

Calm down.

Castor’s subtle shift in posture communicated the message without a word.

One wrong slip. One slip of your tongue, and you destroy his cover. Remember his direct order.

Pollux bit the inside of her cheek, forcing her eyes down to the scuffed leather shoes of the ”blind archivist.”

”Cell One,” Castor spoke, his voice quiet, clear, and perfectly flat, addressing Solene Sol as she walked over from the victory dais with her white cape trailing behind her.

”We carry the official deployment scroll from High Representative Mirain Sec Sanguis. Sector Zero’s auxiliary vanguard has been assigned to clear the upper perimeter of the Sunken Vaults before your next trial phase commences.”

”The Terza Twins,” Solene noted, her icy blue eyes scanning their dark-crimson tunics with cool, aristocratic scrutiny.

”I have read the deployment rosters. Your squad holds the highest casualty-to-kill ratio in Sector Six.”

”We do not leave survivors to write reports, Princess,” Pollux interjected.

Her voice was tight, dry, and vibrating with an unhinged, suppressed excitement that she barely managed to keep in check.

Her eyes flicked toward Valerian for a fraction of a second before Castor’s elbow subtly nudged her ribcage.

”We cut the threat, clear the path, and secure the objective.”

”Pollux,” Castor warned under his breath, his voice dropping an octave.

”Maintain protocol.”

Pollux swallowed hard, adjusting the collar of her black duster.

”Protocol maintained,” she muttered.

Her boots practically vibrated against the marble floor with unspent kinetic aggression.

Casper looked between the two twins, raising an eyebrow.

”You two look like you haven’t slept in three days. Are all the Ter Sanguis vanguard units this high-strung?”

”We sleep when the ledger is balanced, Lord Valerius,” Castor replied smoothly, handing the sealed deployment scroll directly to Solene.

As Solene broke the wax seal, Castor took half a step closer to Valerian.

To an outside observer, he was merely standing at attention while the team leader read her orders.

But as he leaned in, his voice dropped to an imperceptible whisper that only Valerian’s heightened spatial awareness could capture.

”The perimeter is prepped, Scribe Valen,” Castor whispered, his tone filled with absolute, unshakeable devotion, entirely hidden behind his stoic face.

”The Secret Commission agents who survived Vault Three have been quietly redirected into Sector Seven’s dead zones. No one knows you are here. No one knows the Sovereign has awakened.”

Valerian did not nod.

He did not alter his posture by a single millimeter.

”Ensure your sister keeps her blade in its sheath until instructed, Castor,” Valerian replied in a quiet, dry murmur that barely moved his lips.

”If she picks a fight with Solene’s frost guard out of sheer boredom, I will assign her to inventory the sewer conduits in Sector Nine for the next six months.”

Castor’s eyes widened slightly in pure, disciplined panic.

He immediately reached out, grabbing Pollux by her forearm and tugging her back two full steps.

”Understood,” Castor whispered sharply.

Pollux glared at her brother, ready to snap, but Castor leaned toward her ear and hissed a single sentence.

”He just threatened us with Sector Nine sewer duty.”

Pollux’s entire body went rigid.

The terrifying, battle-crazed smile vanished from her face instantly, replaced by a look of utter, mortified obedience.

She stood at rigid attention, staring straight ahead at the window frame, not daring to make eye contact with Valerian again.

”The orders are clear,” Solene declared, closing the parchment.

”The Sunken Vaults are flooded and volatile. We move to the lower staging area immediately.”

Twenty minutes later, the lower staging area beneath the High Archive was cold, pitch-black, and enveloped in a thick, sulfurous mist.

The Sunken Vaults were the flooded basements of the First Era Citadel—a massive network of submerged stone galleries, ancient drainage conduits, and ruined aqueducts that ran directly beneath the city’s foundations.

The black water was knee-deep, swirling with ancient ley-line salts that distorted standard spatial perception.

Cell One waded through the narrow, dark stone gallery.

Solene held the point, her ivory rapier emitting a faint, pale-blue frost light that illuminated the dripping basalt walls.

Lyra followed closely behind, her spatial staff locked into close-range protective loops, while Casper kept his twin arming swords drawn at his sides.

Ten paces behind them, Castor and Pollux glided through the black water like twin phantoms.

Pollux’s hands hovered inches from her hook blades.

Her breathing was short, eager, and restless.

She was practically itching for something to erupt from the dark water just so she could showcase her lethality before her true Master.

”Keep your eyes on the water, Pollux,” Castor growled in a low whisper, his long war mattock resting easily across his shoulder.

”This isn’t a training ring. The ley-line salt in this water suppresses spatial detection.”

”Good,” Pollux whispered back, a dark, bloodthirsty glint appearing in her eyes.

”Let them jump out. I’ll split their jaws before they hit the surface.”

”If you spray alchemical blood on Scribe Valen’s coat,” Castor snapped quietly, ”I will personally throw you into the drainage sluice.”

Before Pollux could retort, the black water fifteen yards ahead began to churn violently.

SPLASH!

Three massive flesh-constructed lurkers—eight-foot-long, eel-like monstrosities engineered with iron-hard head plates and triple rows of needle-sharp teeth—erupted from the dark water.

Glowing red alchemical fluid surged through their translucent skin as they lunged straight toward Solene’s exposed flank.

”Contact!” Casper yelled, lunging forward with a heavy horizontal strike that severed the snout of the lead creature.

”Glacial Line!”

Solene thrust her rapier into the water.

A sudden, violent wave of white frost shot across the surface, freezing the water into a solid sheet of ice that trapped two of the lurkers mid-surge.

However, from the high, shadow-draped ceiling above, a fourth lurker—far larger than the others, its skin plated with dark-mithril scales—dropped straight down toward Lyra.

”Lyra, look up!” Casper screamed.

Before Lyra could raise her spatial staff, Pollux let out a sharp, ecstatic laugh.

She didn’t wait for Solene’s command.

She didn’t check for formation safety.

Pollux kicked off the submerged stone ledge, her body cutting through the air like a launched ballista bolt.

Her twin hook blades flashed in the dim frost light, carving two brutal, blinding arcs through the dark mist.

SLASH-CRACK!

The dark-mithril lurker was bisected before it even reached the height of Lyra’s head.

Dark, foul alchemical blood erupted in a fountain.

Pollux executed a midair twist, using the flat of her blade to deflect the spraying blood away from the path where Valerian was walking.

She landed gracefully in the black water, her curved blades dripping with black gore, her face flushed with pure, unadulterated combat euphoria.

”Target eliminated!” Pollux declared, her voice ringing with chaotic pride.

She instinctively turned her head toward Valerian, waiting for a nod, a look, or any sign of approval from the blind archivist standing near the rear.

”Pollux, you idiot!” Castor roared, sprinting forward through the broken ice.

”Look at the floor!”

The sudden, violent shockwave of Pollux’s high-kinetic jump, combined with Solene’s rapid-freezing glacial spell, proved too much for the ancient, salt-corroded architecture beneath them.

CRACK—THUD.

A deep, deafening groan echoed through the stone floor.

The submerged gallery floor beneath Cell One and the twins suddenly fractured.

The black water drained violently into a massive, dark abyss below as the central stone arches caved in.

”The structural supports are gone!” Lyra shouted, her spatial ribbons flailing as she lost her footing.

”Hold the ledge!” Solene ordered, her boots sliding over the disintegrating stone.

Castor lunged forward, grabbing Pollux by her leather duster as the stone beneath her feet completely collapsed into the roaring dark abyss.

But the sudden momentum of the falling water pulled them both toward the edge.

Pollux’s hook blade slipped from her grip, clattering down into the dark chasm.

Her eyes widened in sudden, sharp panic as she realized her reckless battle lust had just compromised the entire unit.

”Castor! Pollux!” Casper shouted, reaching out.

But the rushing torrent was too fast.

Valerian moved.

He didn’t draw a weapon.

He didn’t unleash a dramatic flare of dragonic core mana.

He simply executed a single, perfectly calculated step forward onto the crumbling edge of the basalt ledge.

His scuffed leather shoes found the precise center of gravity on the remaining stone block.

He reached out with his left hand.

The dark-mithril suppressor guard beneath his wool sleeve absorbed the immense kinetic drag of the rushing water as he grabbed Castor by the collar of his black duster with an iron, unyielding grip.

With his right hand, he drew his iron stylus and slammed its blunt end into the emergency manual release valve built into the side arch wall.

CLICK—CLANK!

A massive First Era iron sluice gate dropped from the upper ceiling arch with a heavy, echoing THUD, slamming into the stone groove and completely blocking the torrent of rushing water.

The roaring abyss was instantly sealed off.

The violent rushing water died down into quiet, dripping puddles.

Valerian stood calmly on the narrow ledge, holding both Castor and Pollux upright with incredible, effortless leverage before setting them firmly back onto solid ground.

Silence descended over the gallery.

Solene stood knee-deep in the remaining water, her rapier held low, her eyes wide as she looked at the blind clerk who had just anchored two elite vanguard fighters and halted a structural collapse with a single iron stylus.

Castor clutched his chest, his breathing ragged as he immediately bowed his head toward the floor.

”Forgive us... Scribe Valen. The fault lies with us.”

Pollux stood shivering in her damp black duster.

The wild, battle-addicted fire in her eyes had been completely extinguished, replaced by profound, trembling embarrassment.

She looked down at her bare hands, unable to meet the blindfold across Valerian’s face.

Valerian calmly slid his iron stylus back into his coat pocket, smoothing down the scuffed wool of his sleeves without a single trace of exertion.

”Lady Pollux,” Valerian spoke softly, his voice carrying a quiet, bone-chilling weight that made both twins shiver.

”A true weapon does not swing itself simply because it sees blood.”

He paused.

”A true weapon strikes only when the ledger demands it.”

Pollux swallowed hard, dropping to one knee in the shallow water, her head bowed in absolute submission.

”I... I panicked for the engagement, Master Scribe. I lost control.”

”You will retrieve your hook blade from the lower drainage strainer when the trial concludes,” Valerian said smoothly, turning his blindfolded head back toward Solene and Casper.

”And until then, you will walk behind Casper and maintain standard auxiliary rear-guard formation.”

”Yes, Scribe Valen,” Pollux whispered.

Her voice was entirely stripped of its previous arrogance, filled only with absolute, reverent compliance.

Casper blinked, looking between the terrifying Terza Twins and his blind archivist, completely bewildered.

”Valen... how in the Seven Hells did you get the most dangerous auxiliary guard in Sector Zero to obey you like a disappointed father?”

Solene sheathed her rapier with a soft click, a subtle, knowing smile playing at the corner of her lips.

”Because, Casper,” Solene said quietly, stepping past the humbled twins into the newly opened corridor, ”a bad soldier respects strength.”

She glanced back.

”But an elite soldier knows when they are standing in the presence of the master who wrote the manual.”

Valerian tucked his leather ledger firmly under his arm and stepped into the dark, newly opened path ahead.

”Order maintains efficiency, Princess.”

He continued forward.

”Let us finish the trial.”