It started as a whisper —A flicker beneath the skin.Then came the screaming.
Aarav collapsed, hands digging into the stone beneath him. His breath caught in his throat as his chest burned, not from the outside — but from within. His veins had become battlegrounds. His bones, battlegrounds. His very soul, split.
The flame surged.
It demanded motion. Rage. Battle. Blood.
And the spiral answered — not with submission, but with resistance. Layers of calm order tried to restrain the inferno, weaving logic into chaos. But the more it tried to contain, the more violently it was pushed back.
Aarav's body convulsed.
He screamed.
His fingers tore grooves into the rock as arcs of energy lashed outward — one searing red, the other glacial blue. For a moment, his body glowed from the inside out. The two bloodlines — Vael'Zorath and Elarion Vein — were trying to devour each other for dominance.
He thrashed on the ground like a vessel caught between twin storms.
This isn't fusion, he realized.It's war.
A sudden seizure twisted through his spine, snapping his limbs into rigidity. His heartbeat doubled. Tripled. Then—
Stopped.
For a second, there was only silence.
Then — boom — it roared back to life, but it wasn't a single rhythm anymore.
Two heartbeats.
Two pulses.
Two cores.
He understood. His body wasn't rejecting the hybrid path. It was simply unprepared.
He hadn't earned control over their wills — hadn't reached Tier 7, where the bloodline mind and intent could be subdued, harmonized.
And so they fought.
And so he suffered.
Aarav didn't cry. He didn't whimper.
He bit down on the pain and focused.
Separate them.Give them space to breathe.Or they'll burn you from the inside out.
He dragged himself upright, sweat steaming off his skin, blood trickling from his ears. He sat cross-legged and forced his consciousness inward.
The internal world was in chaos.
One side glowed with spiraling runes — like a collapsing star wrapped in code.
The other pulsed with molten power — like a volcano beating like a heart.
He drew a line between them.
It took every ounce of his will to split his internal body into two cores, two soul spaces.
The process was agony.
One half of his chest burned. The other froze.
He screamed again, but the split happened.The chaos receded — slightly.
The energies no longer clashed freely. They simmered now, locked away into twin soul chambers, humming like caged storms.
But balance came at a cost.
Aarav collapsed again — skin pale, aura dim. He had survived the birth of his hybrid legacy…
…but for now, he could only access one bloodline at a time.
And switching between them?
Unbearably painful.
Every transition would be like tearing muscle from bone, as the active bloodline's dominance had to be revoked and the other awakened. He knew he'd have to train — not just physically, but spiritually — to adapt.
His body, mind, and soul would need to evolve to house both powers without collapse.
But he wasn't dead.
He was alive.
Barely — but alive.
And when he stood — trembling, steaming, vision blurred — Aarav realized:
This was just the beginning.