The smell of ash and old blood tainted the wind. Kael crouched behind a collapsed wagon, eyes narrowing at the sight ahead, six brutish mercenaries encircling a ragged caravan.
The survivors, no more than a dozen, were bound, bloodied, and silent. A warlord with rust-colored armor paced among them, dragging a curved blade through the dirt.
Kael's fingers curled instinctively around the hilt of his blade. The bloodstone compass beat against his chest, pulsing stronger the longer he watched.
"They'll be executed by nightfall," came a low voice behind him.
Ralek had followed.
"I didn't ask you to come," Kael muttered.
"You didn't stop me either."
Kael gave no reply. He stood, eyes fixed on the warlord. "I'm done watching."
The fight was swift and brutal.
Kael surged forward with a blur, Blood Pulse Dash igniting with the rhythm of his heart. His blade sliced through the first mercenary before the man could scream. Ralek's crossbow took another through the throat.
The warlord roared, lunging with monstrous speed, blood tattoos glowing beneath his skin—but Kael met him head-on. Their weapons clashed in a shockwave of blood-charged energy.
"You're not one of the Twelve," the warlord hissed.
"No," Kael growled, "I'm worse."
The final strike cleaved through the warlord's corrupted heart, and the blood magic sizzled into silence.
Night fell. The rescued caravan gathered around a dwindling campfire, eyes wary and wide. A woman with a scholar's tattoos and ink-stained fingers approached Kael cautiously.
"I'm Sorella," she said. "You saved us… but who are you?"
Kael hesitated. "Someone trying not to become the enemy."
One of the older men leaned forward, his voice gravelly. "You wear the mark of the Crimson Heart."
"I didn't choose it," Kael replied.
"Neither did the Vyr," the man muttered, "and look what became of them."
Sorella unrolled a brittle scroll from her satchel, eyes darting to Kael.
"This was once part of a Vyr codex," she said, revealing symbols burned into the parchment. "It speaks of a ritual, the Binding of Veins. Said to grant kings the power of gods… but only if they sacrifice their name."
Another outcast, a former soldier missing his left hand, added:
"My father fought in the last rebellion. Said the Vyr didn't fall from outside force. Said they hollowed themselves out, chasing power they couldn't control."
The fire crackled.
Kael stared into the flames, the weight of legacy pressing against his shoulders.
Later, as the group slept, Kael stood watch. Ralek joined him, silent for a moment.
"You trust them?" Ralek asked.
"No," Kael said. "But they've seen things. They know things I don't."
"Or they'll sell you out the first chance they get."
Kael looked out at the sleeping caravan. "Maybe. But if the past is broken, we can't fix it alone."
Ralek snorted. "You sound like a would-be hero."
Kael didn't smile. "I sound like someone who's tired of being hunted."
And deep in the folds of his cloak, the bloodstone compass pulsed again, no longer just guiding his steps, but humming faintly… as if listening.
**********
The wind howled low across the Outskirts, carrying dust, grief, and memory. The fire crackled in the center of the caravan's makeshift camp, casting flickering shadows that danced like specters on the cracked earth.
Kael sat slightly apart from the others, his back against a stone, the bloodstone compass pulsing faintly beneath his tunic. But it wasn't the compass that stirred him tonight.
It was his Blood Core.
It throbbed like a second heart. And then, without warning, it opened.
Kael's eyes glazed over. The fire turned crimson in his vision, and then,
He stood in a different time. Not Kael, but someone else. Someone ancient.
He was kneeling in a vast cathedral of bone and gold. Above him towered obsidian statues of the Vyr Kings, blood flowing from their eyes like eternal tears.
A voice thundered:
"Name your sacrifice, and be reborn."
The figure raised a dagger, his own name carved along the blade's edge. He plunged it into his chest without hesitation.
Blood sprayed across the altar, and the Heart at the center of the cathedral began to beat.
Kael gasped as the vision snapped back. His hand clutched his chest, his Core burning with hunger.
"Another vision?" Sorella asked, sitting beside him. She held a piece of dried root in her hand but hadn't eaten it.
Kael nodded, voice hoarse. "They're getting stronger."
An old man, Tarren, the grizzled elder who had survived three warbands and a fever that killed dozens, shifted closer. His breath smelled of firewood and decay.
"You saw the altar, didn't you?" he asked quietly.
Kael looked at him sharply.
Tarren nodded. "You're not the first the Blood calls to. And you won't be the last."
Sorella leaned in. "You know what it means, don't you?"
Tarren's eyes glinted with a mix of awe and fear. "The Crimson Heart was shattered after the Vyr fell. Pieces of it… shards… were scattered throughout Red Hollow, hidden in trials, rituals, tombs no sane man would enter."
"Why?" Kael asked.
"Because together, they make you a god. And a monster."
Later that night, Kael wandered from the firelight, hand pressed against a tree, chest heaving.
Inside him, the Blood Core pulsed louder. Not just pain—craving.
He clenched his fists. Visions of sacrifice danced before his eyes. He saw Ralek's face. Sorella's. The outcasts'.
Blood strengthens blood, the whisper said.
Kill. Feed. Ascend.
"No," Kael hissed, shaking.
The bloodstone compass flickered with violent crimson for a moment, then faded back to a steady glow, as if helping him steady himself.
Kael fell to his knees. Sweat poured from him like rain.
He was afraid. Not of death, not of the warlords who hunted him.
He was afraid of what he could become.
Back at the fire, Tarren watched him from afar.
"He fights it," Sorella said softly.
"For now," Tarren murmured. "But no one walks the path of the Crimson Heart unchanged. The Old World sees to that."
And far in the distance, something stirred, drawn to Kael's awakening.