The Crimson Archives were not part of the main Academy library. They were a pocket dimension accessible only through a blood-locked portal in a forgotten sub-basement.
The room inside was vast, lit by floating orbs of captured hearth-light. The walls were not shelves, but arteries—pulsating, living tubes of preserved blood from a thousand species, including Corrupted tiers.
An old man sat at a stone desk, examining a vial of swirling black ichor. He looked human, but his eyes were the color of dried blood, and the veins on his hands stood out like ancient roots. This was Kassius.
"So," he said without looking up, his voice like grinding stones. "The new Sovereign. I sensed your awakening across dimensions. The blood sang of your birth."
"You can feel it?" Echo asked.
"All true Hemokinetics can. The blood is one great ocean, and we are the lighthouses." He finally looked at Echo, his gaze piercing. "You are an infant. You spilled your own vital fluid to command a beast. Pathetic."
Leyla bristled, but Echo placed a hand on her arm. "Teach me."
Kassius smiled, showing teeth stained rust-red. "First lesson: Sovereigns do not spend their own currency. We tax." He pointed to the wall of arterial tubes. "Every being here donated… willingly or not. Their blood is my reservoir. My strength. To command the blood of others, you must first learn to draw it without spilling a drop of your own."
He stood, approaching Echo. "Your anomaly nature is a crutch. Your bonds are a curiosity. But your blood… your blood is a dynasty. We will start with the dead."
He led them to a preserved Corrupted Hybrid, a Tier 4, floating in stasis. "Its ichor is dead, but the memory of flow remains. Command it to move."
Echo reached out with his blood sense. He felt the sluggish, cold fluid. He willed it to flow.
Nothing happened.
"You are asking," Kassius sneered. "A Sovereign does not ask. He decrees."
Echo focused again, pouring his will not as request, but as law. The power of his bloodline surged.
The black ichor in the Hybrid's veins twitched.
"Good," Kassius murmured. "Now, make its fist clench."
It was slow, laborious, like moving sludge with his mind. But after an hour, the dead Hybrid's hand slowly closed into a fist.
[ Bloodline: Sanguis Imperator – Progress: 1% ]
[ Ability Unlocked: Remote Pulse – Can sense and minimally influence dormant or sluggish foreign blood/ichor. ]
"A start," Kassius said. "You will come here every night. And you will not speak of these lessons to your Academy masters. They fear what we are. They use us, but they would cage us if they could."
Echo understood. He had stepped into a hidden world within the war. A world of blood and secrets.
And his mentor was its ancient, ruthless king.