"Freedom is not given, it is stolen in blood. And in the halls of shadow, even knowledge is a weapon sharpened to kill."
### **Part I – Vasephra in the Coliseum**
The chains bit into Vasephra's wrists, cold biting metal against bone. He was dragged down into the pit like an animal, feet plowing trenches in sand watered over centuries of blood. Above, the crowd devoured like a thousand wolves consuming the world, shouting his name with venom in their mouths.
"Break him! Tear him! Bleed him!"
He spat onto the ground. *Fuck them all.*
The Coliseum was no glory place. It was a slaughter platform, a cruelty theater. Bodies were piled in the far distance, torn apart by beasts unleashed for spectacle. Rot and iron reek choked the air.
Across from him, Zyina knelt, chains yanking her shoulders down. Her eyes burned — not with magic, but with madness that always trailed behind her. She talked, voice shattered, words broken into senseless slivers.
"They're in the walls. They're in the walls. Do you hear them—?"
"Zyina!" Vasephra snarled. He yanked his chains towards her, iron biting deeper. "Don't fucking break here. Not now."
The gates shrieked open.
The monsters emerged.
A Wyrm-Spider, eight legs beset with barbs, dripping venom that hissed as it kissed the sand. Behind it writhed a Cinder-Serpent, scales glowing like hot coals, jaws so wide a man could enter whole. The crowd shrieked all the louder, stamping so hard the ground shook.
Vasephra inhaled. Whispers lashed his skull, as always. *Use it. Use the Weave. Tear them asunder.*
He closed his eyes.
And then he *sang*.
The Astral Weave tore out of his voice — not song, not melody, but jagged, rents-in-reality. Chains snapped like brittle reeds, dissolving into splinters that burned when they fell. His body ignited with threads of starlight, welts of power warping his flesh into something less.
The Wyrm-Spider sprang. Vasephra faced it, his voice splitting the monster in twain, steaming black ichor pouring from its guts onto the sand. Cinder-Serpent struck — jaws wide — but he roared, voice crashing with fire. The serpent's head turned to ash.
The bystanders were silent.
Vasephra reeled, gasping, mouth bleeding from exertion. He swung around, took Zyina by the chains, and brought her upright.
"Look at me. LOOK at me, Zyina." His voice trembled. "You are not shattering here. Not in front of these bastards. You hear me? You're still my fucking sister."
Her vision cleared for a moment, clarity piercing the haze. And for the very first time, she nodded.
Vasephra waved his bloodstained hand towards the crowd. "You desire monsters?" His voice thundered, charged with Astral fire. "Then suffocate on us!"
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### **Part II – The Academies of the Siblings**
#### **Kael – The Obsidian Blades Academy**
Kael's academy was a fortress carved out of the hulk of a dead mountain. Spires of dark metal jabbed into the sky like swords piercing the clouds. Walls within are seethed with darkness and the screams of pupils who failed in their tests.
Master Veythar, Iron Warden, broke his students with raw power. He made them fight until their bones were broken and forced them to keep fighting. "If you can't kill with a broken arm, you're already dead."
Mistress Serinya, Bloodsong, instructed them in fighting by rhythm — swords dancing like music, each strike a verse of death. Her discipline was hymns of suffering; she whipped the weak and turned their screams into lessons.
Kael was a prodigy. He sliced, bled, killed, and recuperated in a flash. Students murmured his name in respect, ranking him among the top prospects.
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#### **Zyina – The Academy of Shattered Veils**
Zyina walked through corridors that twisted reality. The mirrors of the academy distorted faces into terrors; classrooms unraveled into labyrinths in the middle of class.
Professor Vaelith possessed no face — only a porcelain mask that shifted depending on who gazed. He taught deceptions that drove enemies insane, lessons given in voices that were not his.
Madame Kryss, the Dream-Eater, put students to sleep and consumed their nightmares. Those that resisted woke up hollow, eyes forever vacant.
Zyina excelled in chaos. The academy called her unstable, dangerous, yet brilliant. "One mistake," Madame Kryss whispered, "and you'll shatter like glass. But shatter in the right way… and you'll cut worlds apart."
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#### **Isodoe – The Academy of Black Thorns**
The academy was a garden of nightmares. Poisonous vines strangled statues until they bled sap like veins. Flowers screamed when plucked, petals dripping venom.
The Thorn Matron poisoned her students daily, forcing their bodies to learn to survive or die. Sir Halveth the Rootbinder buried his students alive and forced them to dig themselves out or strangle.
Isodoe smiled as poison ran through her veins. She became stronger, her aura toxic, her beauty tainted with cruelty. "Flowers are most beautiful when they drink blood," she breathed.
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### **Part III – The Others**
Other siblings were tossed into regular schools — and they were treated like garbage. Teachers taunted, calling them damned bastards, monsters clothed in human skin. Students taunted them, spat upon them, kicked them whenever teachers were not around.
A sibling snapped and smashed a bully's head against a wall. They were chained, whipped, and paraded as a warning.
Another chose revolt. They skirted the miserable classrooms and matriculated into **Fangspire Academy of Beasts** — a school where students were set down in trenches with terrifying monsters and told to subdue them or die.
Wyrm-Spiders. Cinder-Beasts. Mind-Eater Larvae that burrowed into skulls and created puppets of the weak.
Beastmaster Rhogar snapped spines of failures before feeding them to their own beasts. Mistress Naeva, the Chainbinder, flogged her students with living serpents.
And still — one sibling befriended a Cinder-Beast cub, the beast favoring their injured hand. They were elevated to rank forthwith, a respect of their peers.
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### **Part IV – Whispered Oaths Under the Stars**
Night came.
Each sibling, spread out in their own worlds, looked up at the same endless sky. The stars shone cold, quiet, watching.
Kael clenched his fists. *If I ever beg before the gods again, I'll kill them myself.*
Zyina whispered, *If they're alive… if Vasephra's alive… let him bleed the world with me.*
Isodoe licked venom from her lips. *If my siblings suffer, I'll feed the gods to my garden.*
Others swore oaths in silence — vengeance, blood, rebellion. Each of them wondering: *Are they alive? Are they safe? Or are they already dead?*
And they all vowed to the stars:
*If there is a return — revenge will wait.*
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### **SYSTEM ALERT**
**[New Quest Unlocked: The Oaths of Blood]**
*Track: The ascension of the siblings in their Academies.*
*Reward: ???*
*Failure: Chains of eternity.*
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### **Author's Note**
Then tell me, dear readers:
Who do you fear more — the siblings, or the monsters teaching them to be gods of blood?
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