The Dream of the Forbidden Clan
Kai did not fall asleep.
Sleep abandoned him first.
The night pressed heavily against the academy walls, thick and unmoving, as though the world itself had decided to hold its breath. His room was quiet—too quiet. No insects. No distant footsteps. Even the wind had stilled, as if afraid to disturb something unseen.
Kai lay on his bed, eyes half-lidded, chest rising slowly.
Then his heartbeat missed.
Not slowed.
Not raced.
It skipped, like the world had forgotten him for a fraction of a second.
And in that missing beat, something ancient noticed him back.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Not the gentle darkness of closed eyes, but a heavy, crushing void that erased direction, distance, and time. Kai tried to breathe, but the air felt thick—viscous—like he was inhaling through liquid.
Then came the sound.
A low chant, layered and overlapping, spoken in no single voice. It was neither loud nor soft; it simply existed, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.
He opened his eyes.
The ground beneath him was stone—black, cracked, and veined with dull crimson lines that pulsed faintly, like buried arteries. The air smelled of iron and ash. Far above, the sky was not a sky at all, but a vast, slow-moving darkness stitched together with faint, glowing symbols.
They were watching.
Kai pushed himself upright, heart pounding.
"This is a dream," he muttered.
The words felt weak here.
The stone beneath his feet responded—the crimson veins brightened, pulsing in time with his heart.
Thump.
The ground answered.
Thump.
The sky shuddered.Kai froze.
Slowly, he looked down at his hands.
They were clean.
Too clean this is absurd.
Then a thin red line appeared across his palm, as though drawn by an invisible blade. It did not hurt. It did not bleed.
It opened.
Blood welled up—not spilling, not dripping—but rising in delicate threads, hovering just above his skin like obedient strands of silk.
Kai staggered back. "What—what is this?"
The blood moved.
It twisted into shapes—curved lines, sharp angles, symbols that felt wrong to look at for too long. His mind screamed that he had never seen them before.
His soul whispered that he had.
"Blood recognizes blood."
The voice was not hostile.
That frightened him more.
Kai spun around, searching for its source.
The world shifted.
The black stone dissolved beneath his feet, reforming into a vast circular hall—colossal beyond reason. Pillars of bone and obsidian rose into the darkness above, each etched with glowing red sigils. Between them stood figures.
Hundreds.
No—thousands.
They knelt in silence.
Not slaves.
Not worshippers.
They knelt as equals acknowledging something greater.
Every figure wore dark robes marked with the same sigils now glowing faintly in Kai's blood. Their faces were obscured by shadow, yet Kai could feel their eyes on him—ancient, heavy, judging.
At the center of the hall stood a broken altar, its surface cracked and stained with dried crimson.
And carved into it was a name.
Not written.
Carved by force.
Kai's breath caught in his throat.
He didn't know the language.
But he understood the meaning.
The Forbidden Clan.
Memory struck him—not his own, but carried in his blood.
A clan erased from history.
A name deliberately removed from records, burned from libraries, forbidden even in whispers.
Not because they were defeated.
But because they were too absolute to be allowed to remain.
"We were not destroyed," the voice said softly.
"We were sealed away by fear."
The kneeling figures raised their heads.
The hall trembled.
Suddenly, the world collapsed forward.
Kai stood upon a vast plain littered with ruins.
Cities lay broken like discarded toys. Towers split cleanly in half. Walls flattened as though pressed down by an invisible hand. The sky above burned red, clouds frozen in twisted spirals.
In the distance, armies stood frozen mid-charge—swords raised, spells half-formed, faces locked in terror.
None of them moved.
Kai took a step forward.
The nearest soldier crumbled into dust.
Not from impact.
Not from force.
As though reality itself had decided he was no longer necessary.
Kai recoiled. "Stop! I didn't—"
The blood in his veins surged violently.
The symbols along his arms flared.
The armies collapsed in waves, erased without sound, without struggle.
"No!" Kai screamed, clutching his chest. "This isn't power—this is—this is wrong!"
The world paused.
Then the voice spoke again—closer now, layered with countless others beneath it.
"You mistake what you see."
The ruins shifted.
New scenes unfolded.
A mage king, crowned in light, kneeling with his forehead pressed to blood-soaked ground.
A divine beast, vast as a mountain, lowering its head in silent submission.
An entire pantheon fading into shadow, their names unraveling like thread.
Kai felt sick.
"This isn't strength," he whispered.
Strength required effort. Struggle. Resistance.
What he saw had none of that.
"This isn't magic," he continued, voice shaking.
Magic followed rules. Mana, spells, limits, exchanges.
What he felt ignored all of them.
"And it's not domination," he said, louder now, desperate to convince himself.
Domination required force. Will imposed upon another.
But this—
This was acknowledgment.
The world was not being forced.
It was agreeing.
Kai staggered back, shaking his head.
"So what does that make it?" he demanded. "A king? No—that's absurd. Kings die. Kings kneel. Kings fall."
The dream answered him with silence.
Then a question—gentle, almost curious—rose from his blood.
"If even kings bow… what stands above the throne?"
The sky split open.
Not torn.
Opened.
Beyond it lay a vast, endless darkness filled with countless watching eyes—each one glowing with the same crimson sigil.
The kneeling figures reappeared behind Kai.
They did not bow.
They waited.
"When the seal breaks," the voice whispered, now unmistakably plural,
"the bloodline awakens."
The altar cracked completely.
Chains—vast, glowing, inscribed with countless sealing runes—snapped one by one.
Kai screamed as the symbols burned into his chest.
"This isn't me!" he shouted. "I don't want this!"
The blood did not argue.
It simply remembered.
Kai jolted awake.
He sat upright, gasping, heart hammering so violently it hurt.
The room was dark. Silent.
Normal. does it mean by bloodline has been sealed all this time? He looked down at his hands. They trembled. i will have to check on the record if there's any case of bloodline been sealed or should i ask a teacher maybe leo.... no what am i doing i don't know him well enough i will have to inform grandpa on this but will have to do it personal or in a way i am safe to do.
Still in thoughts a faint crimson glow flickered beneath his skin—then vanished.
His sheets were damp.
Not with sweat.
With blood.
Already drying.
Already fading.
Outside his window, far beyond the academy walls, something ancient stirred.
And somewhere in the world, a forbidden name was remembered—for the first time in centuries.