When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't where I expected.
No walls. No stone ceiling. No sound of Effie cursing me awake or Kai humming off-key in the halls.
Just silence. A deep, suffocating, endless silence.
And above me — a bleeding moon.
It hung so close it looked as if it could fall at any moment, dripping fat crimson tears into the sea below. Except… that wasn't water. The liquid that rippled and breathed beneath me was blood. Thick and slow, reflecting the moonlight in oily ripples.
I stood — or rather, floated — in what felt like an endless ocean of it. Every step I took sent small waves of red outward. The air smelled of copper and rain. My boots stuck slightly as if the blood itself didn't want to let me go.
Then I saw them — flowers.
Fields of them, rising out of the blood like islands. Each was a perfect, unnatural crimson, their petals dripping fresh blood like tears. When the droplets hit the ground, the flowers shuddered, releasing faint sighs, almost human. It was… hauntingly beautiful.
And there, amidst the red garden, lay a skeleton.
It rested peacefully on its back, half-sunken into the garden of blood, staring up at the moon as if it were watching an old lover. Its bones were smooth and pristine, polished by time — white marble against the sea of red. Around it, the blood bubbled quietly, as if it were breathing with it.
Then the moon moved.
It pulsed once, twice — and split.
One by one, six new moons emerged around it, each smaller, orbiting the bleeding heart of the main one. Seven moons total, circling like vultures over a corpse. The blood dripping from them thickened, grew heavier, darker, until it poured in thin, continuous streams toward the skeleton.
When the first drop struck bone, it hissed.
The skeleton convulsed — once. Twice. Then the next drop fell, and another, until it was bathed completely.
The transformation was slow, grotesque, and mesmerizing.
The blood seeped into the bone, filling the cracks, pulsing as if veins were forming inside the skeleton itself. From the chest out, organs began to bloom like wet flowers — first the heart, swelling and twitching with every pulse of the moons above. Then the lungs, slick and glistening, sucking in that thick metallic air.
More blood spilled down, coating the ground, crawling up the figure's spine as veins began to web across it like red lightning. The veins twisted together, forming muscle, raw and dripping, fibers wrapping around bone in frantic rhythm.
The air itself trembled with the sound — the squelch and tear of new flesh forming, of tendons binding together, of ribs creaking back into life.
Then came the skin.
It poured over the new body like liquid porcelain — pale, perfect, almost transparent, the veins beneath glowing faintly red. For a heartbeat, it looked divine.
Until the hair began to grow.
First white — ghostly and weightless, cascading down the creature's shoulders and flowing all the way to its knees. Then, with the final drop of blood that fell from the bleeding moon, the color shifted. The pristine white ignited into crimson, blood crawling upward strand by strand until the entire mane shone like wet silk under the light of the seven moons.
The skeleton was gone. In its place stood a man — tall, otherworldly, and terrible in his beauty.
He exhaled. The breath came out red.
Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, robes formed — crimson, embroidered with patterns of living veins that pulsed faintly as they draped across his body. He flexed his fingers once, and the blood around him rose like a tide to greet him.
He moved with the grace of someone who had lived eternity in war.
The blood in front of him twisted into a spear, and with a single step, he began to dance.
Every motion was fluid yet violent — the spear slashing through the air, dissolving and reforming into new shapes. One swing became a sword stroke, the next a whip-crack of a chain, the next a flurry of arrows drawn from thin air.
Each transformation was seamless, as if the weapon itself were alive and eager to serve him.
When he finally stopped, he let the weapon dissolve, droplets hanging midair before falling back into the ocean. He stood there in perfect stillness.
Then… he turned.
And his eyes met mine.
I froze.
He was beautiful — painfully so. Red eyes brighter than the moons, skin paler than death, hair flowing like a river of blood. And in those eyes was an ancient knowing, a weight of eons that crushed thought itself.
He lifted a finger to his lips — a silent gesture. Hold your breath.
Before I could even question it, I obeyed. Instinct, or fear, I wasn't sure which.
And then, the ocean swallowed me.
One moment I stood there; the next, the blood beneath my feet rose, pulling me down like hands made of liquid iron. I was dragged under the surface, deeper and deeper, the world above fading into a smear of crimson light.
At first, it was almost peaceful — warm, quiet, endless.
Then my lungs began to burn.
The warmth turned to heat.
The pressure built.
I tried to breathe, but blood filled my mouth, thick and choking. I thrashed, arms flailing, but there was no direction, no up or down. Just the crushing embrace of the red sea. My heart hammered in my chest, and my thoughts began to scatter.
The world blurred, darkened, vanished.
Everything went black.
---
When I awoke, it was to the sound of voices. Muffled. Familiar.
My head pounded. My chest felt like I'd been set on fire and drowned at the same time.
"…swear to God, if you get knocked out again, I'm feeding you to a nightmare creature."
Effie's voice. Sharp, exasperated, too loud for the inside of my skull.
My vision cleared slowly. The first thing I saw was her face — dirt-streaked, messy hair, and that expression that was half worry and half fury.
I blinked, and the rest of the room came into view.
Aiko was standing near the foot of the bed, hands on her hips, smirking slightly. Kai was leaning against the wall, humming some tune under his breath, though he looked genuinely relieved.
And Seishan — she stood a few steps away, arms crossed, her cold eyes unreadable. But when our gazes met, her brow lifted just slightly, as if she'd been expecting me to wake.
Then, like a whisper in the back of my mind, something spoke.
A voice without a mouth. A tone that was neither male nor female, old nor young.
[You have received an Aspect Legacy.]