The moment the Blood Clan breached, every remaining fighter in the branch moved as one; sirens carved the air while crimson shadows poured in like a flood.
They rushed through hidden passageways from all sides—jaws Blade had set in the walls, waiting for the Blood to step in. Moon Owl would seal the mouths shut and cast them into cold, distant space.
Other channels, the ones Blade had “leaked” to the Blood Clan, drew more of them in. Those tunnels were painted like bait-bitten traps, a stage play for their eyes.
In truth, those were the only true doors into the branch. No teeth lay there, no net, just open bone.
To blunt any accident—like Moon Owl sealing a gate only for enemies to rip it back—Blade sent Lu Shi to roam the corridors like a swift wind.
As expected, someone in the Blood Clan tore open other routes. Their progeny spilled through, but their strength was thin as paper; Lu Shi cut them down with a single blade and a single breath.
Lu Shi cleared every intruder, one stroke after another. The Blood Prince felt his brood dying nearby, especially in those public channels Blade had announced; all who entered lost their signs of life.
“So it was a trap.”
He frowned, night pressing into his brow. He glanced at the four tunnels Qiu Sheng had flagged; the Blood within were unscathed, steady as ants moving grain. He chose to send the rest there.
Caris rose in protest, memory flickering like frost. She’d heard from Illusory Glass and others: a Magic Maiden here who commanded space. Her name was Moon Owl. Those channels could be snares as well—and Qiu Sheng beside the Prince was likely not enchanted.
All of it was a board laid by humans of the landbound world.
Caris warned the Blood Prince, but his faith bent inward like iron. He kept summoning progeny from the Abyss, so Caris had to step forward and ask to hunt the space-wielding Magic Maiden. If she could bind Moon Owl, the slaughter would thin.
Caris’s original task as a contracted beast was to sleep in the human world, then kill her host when the moon turned. With an Abyssal Aura to guide it, the Abyssal Rift would open on its own, letting the Blood stream into the landbound world.
Because of Illusionary Mist, the spirit and soul lurking in Caris’s mind detonated for Illusory Glass, severing their pact. She was captured alive by the Twelfth District branch.
With Caris’s mission broken, the Blood Prince had to split the Abyssal Rift himself, leading part of his brood to the human world. A forced tear drains power like frost biting bone.
Caris had failed twice. First, she burned most of the Prince’s strength to open the Rift, and he spent blood to knit her back to form. Second, she didn’t seize the two girls of the landbound world; one slipped, likely giving the branch time to brace.
The Blood Prince still prized Caris—she was of the fourth generation, a strong hand he’d named a lord—but failure dripped cold. He chose to move alone first, to test whether her warning rang true.
If these were traps, only a few hundred low-tier progeny would die—weak chaff, afraid of sunlight, silver, and even garlic. He saw them as mud. Making such brood is as simple as spilling ink.
Caris herself stood high; in this realm she had few equals. Their aim was to draw out the strongest hands on this soil.
Both Caris and the Blood Prince could become blood-mist stronger than common kin. Ordinary mist couldn’t cross solid walls; even a pinhole failed them. Caris and the Prince were different—give them the smallest seam, and they’d seep through like smoke.
That was why the Blood Prince didn’t need a space gate to reach the depths and pry Caris free—his grasp of mist was a river of skill and strength.
Caris slipped through layers of vents, a shadow threading lungs of steel, and entered the branch’s heart. As she readied a strike, the space around her shattered in rings; flying shards turned to hard knives, stabbing toward her like icy rain.
A cloaked silhouette hung in the void, eyes cold as winter glass, pinning Caris like a hawk over a hare.
“Caris, long time. Old debts, new wounds—let’s settle them here.”
One look at Moon Owl’s face, and dusted memories rose like smoke. She saw the grassland again, Moon Owl soaked in blood, another Magic Maiden at her side, both fleeing in panic. If Illusionary Mist hadn’t shaken Caris’s mind, neither would’ve escaped.
She remembered Moon Owl’s space, clumsy then, needing moments to tear the air. In a few short years, that blade had honed; even Caris felt pressure roll off her like storm heat.
“Been a while. Your strength hasn’t moved an inch. Then and now, you’re the same.”
The Blood Clan can’t grow stronger. Blood lineage fixes the ceiling. Caris’s blood was pure, but she was still fourth generation; once you step past the gate marked Chapter Three, progress is ash.
Caris gripped the Crimson Scythe. Moon Owl’s aura pressed like a mountain, but Caris still saw a path to win. Kill her, and the brood would pour in, taking the branch like a tide at night.
Before blades sang, Moon Owl offered a gift. She tapped a shard of space before Caris. Light bent on its skin and showed the far side of the fold—
Endless progeny surged through a narrow space tunnel. Those tunnels were strung together like beads on an infinite thread, never-ending.
Moon Owl flicked her hand. The main corridor tore open, revealing boundless void. Its savage currents sliced whatever entered as easily as paper.
With the ground gone, the brood were cut clean in two by the Void. The rest scattered in panic—some snapped out wings and fled; some became blood-mist and were blown away; some lifted corpses as shields and were carved to scraps all the same. In that corridor, without exception, the Void turned them to ruin.
Caris swallowed hard. She drew a deep breath; her fangs bit her lip until a bead of blood shone. A named lord of the Blood Clan, she least of all could bear her brood dying.
“You see it now, don’t you? This is what I felt back then—watching companions die under your pressure, crying inside, forcing myself to stand.”
“I know.”
Once, Caris killed Moon Owl’s invading party; Moon Owl escaped by chance. Now the Blood Clan invaded the Twelfth District, and Moon Owl killed with a raised hand. History circled, but the wind favored Moon Owl.
“I have to kill you here. Otherwise, you’ll kill me.”
Caris fell silent. Facing Moon Owl, her confidence was a hollow reed; space bent to Moon Owl’s will, and Moon Owl could still grow. Caris, tied to blood, could only tread water.
She lifted the Crimson Scythe and aimed at Moon Owl’s brow. Moon Owl shaped a dagger from the shards, clenched tight.
Moon Owl tried to crack Caris’s mind first, but the blow slid off. Moon Owl understood: Caris carried weight too, like she once did. Names for that weight were guardianship and hatred.
Guarding a species. Hating those who butchered her kin. In some mirrors, they were the same.
Caris moved first, a scythe’s arc cutting air. Bat wings thundered; her power trailed Moon Owl’s, so she seized the initiative, trying to level the field.
Moon Owl raised her hand; fragments swarmed to her palm. The dagger slit space, shot through the rift, and met Caris’s scythe mid-swing with a ringing crack.
Red light flashed in Caris’s eyes. She snapped the scythe back and braced it behind her like a spine.
One strike failed, so her bat wings whipped a gale. Her body became a blood-red streak lunging for Moon Owl, fast as lightning. The scythe carved the fold and left a shrill, piercing wail, as if heaven and earth were mourning.
Heat surged along the scythe, blood boiling on its edge. Death and ill omen wreathed the blade. That cut wasn’t simple; Moon Owl couldn’t take it head-on.
She tore a rift and slipped behind Caris. Caris’s body stuttered, surprised at Moon Owl’s fluency with space; before, rending the fold took time.
Space itself is trick-minded. Even if Caris watched Moon Owl’s every twitch, she could only guess at angles, never measure a straight line.
Caris opened the scythe; blood wrapped her wings like armor. The hard panels met Moon Owl’s dagger—no, they didn’t. The blade passed through space and slid into her body like a cold fishhook.
Blood geysered from the wound, sheathing Moon Owl’s dagger. It crawled through space and seeped into a corner of Moon Owl’s Magic Armor.
Moon Owl vanished into the Void again, but this time Caris spun fast. Blood inside her erupted into spikes, racing across the chamber, and caught Moon Owl’s ambush by brute force.
She didn’t know what trick Caris used, but Caris had begun to read her position. Tearing space to strike and weaken wouldn’t bite as cleanly now.
Moon Owl swept her arm, and the floor’s space split open. Caris flared her wings to steady herself, but Moon Owl—free to swim the Void—stabbed into the wings and drew blood.
Caris had to dive down along the space tunnel, but Moon Owl sealed the mouth ahead. Caris ran to the cliff edge. No path remained.
“The moment you stepped into my space, you lost.”
Moon Owl’s black cloak rippled in the Void wind. The space-forged dagger glimmered like a star in night water. She was a queen in the emptiness, looking down on Caris as if she were an ant.
