"This isn't magic... it's something older."
---
That night, the sky over Velden boiled black.
Storms brewed above the spires, and lightning coiled like serpents between the cloud layers, never quite touching the city. Elric sat alone in the ruins of a collapsed bell tower—his current hiding place—sheltered under broken stone arches and rotting beams.
The Demon Art Codex lay open before him, pulsing gently in the dark. Not glowing. Not sparkling. Pulsing—like a heart that shouldn't beat.
It hadn't left his side since the Ashbind incident. Not even when he tried to throw it away earlier that afternoon.
He'd hurled it into the river from the old stone bridge. With both hands. As hard as he could.
It was waiting for him when he got back.
Dry. Untouched.
It sat on his pile of rags like it had always been there.
He didn't sleep after that.
---
Now, hours later, his hands trembled as he flipped to the second page.
The symbols were different now. They rearranged themselves every time he blinked, almost like the Codex knew how fast he could read. He ran his fingers over the etchings. Smooth like glass, but cold as a corpse's breath.
Then the pain came.
A searing flash behind his ribs.
He gasped—and the Codex struck.
A black spiral flared across his chest, just beneath his collarbone, expanding outward like ink spilled underwater. It burned like liquid fire.
He screamed. But no one came. The slums didn't listen to screams.
Veins of shadow spread down his arms, then faded as quickly as they'd come.
His chest smoked faintly. When he looked down, he saw it:
A mark.
Not like the noble crests—those perfect, symmetrical things crafted from heritage and mana threads.
No. This was alive.
A jagged, shifting sigil of thorns and flame. Pulsing with every heartbeat.
> "Bloodbound."
The word echoed in his skull like thunder.
Not spoken aloud. But imprinted.
---
Elric lay still for minutes, chest heaving, mind spinning.
He knew what crests were. Everyone did. Passed from parent to child, encoded into bloodlines by the Crestweavers and sanctified by the Arcane Order. They activated naturally when a child reached the age of seven—if the bloodline was pure enough.
No one had ever earned a crest.
Let alone survived one being forcibly carved.
Yet… here it was.
Not a brand.
Not ink.
A living sigil, made from his own blood.
His thoughts spiraled—was it real? Had he finally snapped? Had the hunger driven him mad?
He needed proof.
---
Just past midnight, under a moon choked by storm clouds, Elric crept through the ruined back lanes of the Ash Ring until he reached a place no one dared stay after dark.
Blackgate Square.
Not named for its color—but for the Black Gate, an ancient arch buried in the ground. A relic from an old age, sealed by mages long before the Arcane Order ruled. No one used it anymore.
But above it hung a dormant citywide shield anchor—one of the magical pylons connected to the defensive barriers that surrounded Velden. Even a spark of unstable magic near it was enough to trigger detection.
> "If this power is real… I'll know here."
He opened the Codex again.
Pages fluttered until a spell emerged:
> "Ember Vein: Call the fire in your bones. Burn the lie. Feed the gate."
He whispered the name.
No circle.
No chant.
Just will.
And the fire came.
It wasn't orange like hearthlight. Or blue like magefire.
It was red-black. A flame that cast no light but screamed without sound.
The sigil on his chest blazed to life. The Codex trembled. Air around him thickened. Dust lifted in a windless spiral. Nearby stones cracked.
And above—high above—the ancient shield anchor twitched.
For a brief moment, across the city, the Barrier of Velden—the massive, transparent dome that protected the capital from external threats—flickered.
Just once.
Then stabilized.
But the ripple had been seen.
Elric staggered backward, stunned.
"What the hell…?"
He'd cast spells before.
Small ones.
Illusions from black market scrolls. Cracked light-wands. Bootleg charms.
But this…
He hadn't conjured an element. He hadn't woven energy into form.
He'd called something.
And it had answered.
> "This isn't magic…"
He looked at his hands. They were still smoking faintly, like iron pulled from a forge.
"…It's something older."
---
Far above, in the floating bastion of Velden's Mage Order, a crystal altar cracked.
High Mage Sorane, blind and draped in silver robes, opened his eyes from meditation. For the first time in seventeen years, his scrying pool rippled without command.
> "The Black Sigil burns again."
The wardens around him stiffened.
---
Back in the Ash Ring, Elric collapsed against the gate stone.
The mark on his chest still glowed faintly. He was drenched in sweat, fingers twitching uncontrollably.
The Codex pulsed beside him, its next page open already.
No title. No instructions. Just a message:
> You are awakening, Ashborn. There is no going back.
---
He should have been terrified.
He should have run, thrown the book into a furnace, and begged the gods to forget him.
But in that moment—beneath a crumbling city, bleeding power no crest should ever grant—Elric smiled.
Not because he was brave.
But because, for the first time in his life, the world looked fragile.
And he was the one holding the hammer.
---