For a moment, everyone stood utterly still, paralyzed by fear. A look of pale dread was etched onto each one of their lifeless faces, illuminated by the eerie blue glow of the corridor torches. Just the mere interaction with the disembodied voice, booming from the unseen depths of the massive door, was enough to cause a sizzling migraine to assault their brains. Whatever they were talking to was no ordinary being. It was something normal humans should have had no interaction with whatsoever; it felt like speaking to a God.
Then, a piercing shriek ripped through the tension. "Ahhhh my head, it hurts, it hurts so much make it stop!"
In the side of the hallway, Yumiko, the self-proclaimed 'otaku queen,' had collapsed. She was grabbing onto her head violently, digging her stubby little fingers deeper and deeper into her scalp. Her dark hazel eyes, wide with unfathomable agony, were now accompanied by thin, dark streams of what looked like blood tears, tracing grotesque paths down her chubby cheeks.
"Yumiko, are you alright!" Ichigo, the black-haired teen who looked younger than his true age, cried out. His voice was filled with frantic worry, his green eyes darting between Yumiko and the horrifyingly indifferent door.
'No sh*t, Sherlock, she's perfectly fine, isn't she!' Blake thought out in a surge of internal panic. This situation, the sheer, sudden violence of it, was getting to him, as a valley of sweat slowly trickled down his frown-creased forehead.
"Please stop speaking. The voice, it hurts, it hurts.... arghhhhhhhhh!" Yumiko screamed, her voice gurgling as more blood wept from her eyes.
It was at that moment when the pain filled Yumiko stopped shouting. To be specific, she stopped speaking at all. Her desperate resistance to the unseen force clearly broke. The only thing left of her was her convulsing, twitching body, which carried the only visible sparks of her life left. Her limbs spasmed, her fingers clawed at the air, then her own scalp, leaving livid red marks. Even that eventually stopped as well, leaving only a silent corpse with a twisted facial expression lying there on the cruel, cold floor. Her eyes were still wide open, staring at nothing, a silent testament to the agony of her final moments.
"WTAF is going on!" Blake turned to see a panic-filled Ichigo staring at the lifeless corpse of the girl who had been standing with them only mere minutes ago. Ichigo's face was chalk white, his jaw hanging open in disbelief and terror. Even Gerald, the usually stoic black man, stood frozen, a flicker of raw fear in his eyes. Kushui, the 'lawyer' man, had already crumpled to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
Blake felt a pang of raw sorrow for the girl, a cold wave of dread washing over him. She was just like him, a powerless nobody looking for a break, and now she was gone. But even as the emotion flickered, a grim, self-preservation instinct roared to life within him. He knew he had to get his priorities straight. 'We have to get the token and then leave.' The only thoughts flowing through Blake's mind were getting the dragon token and getting out of this place. That was the only possible way he would survive. 'There will always be time for mourning later, but you can't mourn if you are dead.'
It was then, whilst everyone else was still standing in shock and silence, paralyzed by horror, that Blake, driven by a cold, desperate resolve, took a step forward. He entered the mysterious, cavernous room, the massive door towering behind him now completely open, revealing only impenetrable darkness within.
The chamber itself was Lifeless. If there was only one word in the whole world to describe the room, that would be it. There was something profoundly odd and unnatural to it, a place that seemed utterly alien, as if it didn't belong anywhere at all in the known world. To call it eerie, would be a sheer understatement. The room emitted a blood-curdling atmosphere that made Blake want to throw up the meager contents of his stomach. Everything about this place screamed wrong, wrong, wrong. 'What is this place?' he wondered, his mind barely able to process the true horror of it.
In the center of the vast, empty room, stood a colossal statue. It was the only form of decoration inside the otherwise barren area. The statue stood at around 7 meters tall, meticulously carved, representing what seemed to be a beautiful, seductive woman stretching her hands out towards the unseen ceiling. As soon as he saw the statue, Blake was mesmerized. Despite the terror of the situation, his eyes were drawn to its exquisite artistry. 'Surely if this woman was alive, she would be a true beauty,' he mused, a bizarre, almost inappropriate thought in the face of death.
"Hey Blake, you just going to stand there or are we going to get the bloody ring!" The gruffly voice of Gerald cut through Blake's morbid fascination. Turning, Blake saw the reassuring figure of Gerald, along with Ichigo, Kushui, Reina, and Kamodo, stumbling into the room. They were all holding their heads in pain, struggling to walk fully upright into the chamber, their faces etched with a mix of agony and dawning realization.
'I wonder if the pain differs from person to person,' Blake thought, a detached observation as he compared his own experience to theirs. While they were clearly in a fit of severe pain, with one person already dead and others struggling to stay on their feet, all he himself felt was a really bad headache. His own relatively mild reaction to the omnipotent voice was unsettling, a strange anomaly amidst their collective suffering.
"All have entered now, I guess the challenge can begin. One failure, before it even began. She couldn't handle that much and already died. Truly useless," spoke the mysterious, booming voice from above, its tone devoid of any empathy, merely cold calculation.
Hearing this, Reina, whose earlier calm had been shattered by Yumiko's demise, spoke out in an outburst of anger and impatience. "What do you mean, challenge? You're messing with us, aren't you? Can't you see someone has just died?" Her voice was tight with suppressed fury and disbelief.
"SILENCE!"
With just those few words, a crushing, cold pressure assaulted everyone. It was far more intense than before. Each syllable that was spoken out by the voice seemed to contain a sea full of killing intent, a raw, unfathomable power that brought them all to their knees. It was less a sound and more a force, a spiritual weight that sought to extinguish their very souls.
After experiencing this absurd pressure, Reina reeled in her detective-like questions. Her face, previously defiant, was now pale and trembling, her eyes wide with a newfound, stark terror. She decided to shut up. She had only just realized her true place, the utterly insignificant position she held before such a terrifying entity.
"You insolent humans. If I was still in this life plane, then I would have killed you all instantly. Anyway, I have no time to waste. The challenge, I must start the challenge." The voice boomed, impatient, its words echoing with ancient power.
With the finishing of those words, a bloody smell permeated the air, thick and metallic, filling Blake's nostrils. The room, which had been in oppressive darkness, began to shine a bright crimson red. The light pulsed, growing in intensity, radiating with a malevolent warmth.
[Blood System Ceremony Beginning, Participants 5, Survival rate 2%.... Initiating]
The now red room began shining even brighter than before, the radiation from the light heading directly towards the remaining members. As the intense, crimson light engulfed the bodies of the individuals, star-like rune patterns began etching themselves onto their skins. They glowed with the same hellish red, burning themselves onto flesh like parasites without a host.
The blood-like air, thick and viscous, surrounded everyone and began forcing its way into Blake's mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. It tasted of copper and fire, a truly repulsive sensation. "It hurts! It hurts!" Despite his best efforts not to, Blake couldn't help but yell. The pain was simply that unbearable, a searing agony that felt like his very essence was being torn apart.
Some individuals around him had already collapsed onto the floor, shaking in violent spasms. Today, it would mark the end of the journey for Billboard Boy, Kushui, his whimpering turning into gurgles, and his friend Reina, her brave demeanor dissolving into a silent, agonizing collapse. Their bodies contorted grotesquely, limbs flailing, then growing still, like broken puppets.
Every bone in Blake's body cracked and his flesh began to tear, stretching, reforming. It was a symphony of destruction and recreation within his own being. Whenever there was an opening in his skin, the bloody air would travel towards it, being absorbed by his body. The more he absorbed, the more pain he felt. It was as if his body was currently participating within a war, fighting off a foreign invader, even as it was being fundamentally rewritten.
'I can't stand this anymore, am I going to die? I don't want to die! But this pain!' Blake's thoughts fragmented, consumed by the overwhelming agony. His blueish hair began to fall out in clumps, leaving patches of raw scalp, before being rapidly replaced with a brownish-red color substitute, coarse and thick. His black, cold eyes, which had always been so average, transformed, turning a searingly bright red that seemed to represent a bloody ocean, a terrifying depth that had no end. His body increased in height by a few centimeters, his frame becoming subtly more slender, his skin growing paler, almost luminous.
For what felt like millennia but was only a few minutes, the excruciating process continued, eventually coming to an end. The crimson light faded, receding as quickly as it had appeared, plunging the chamber into a profound, chilling darkness.
[Blood System Ceremony complete. Survivor: 1, Holder of title - Blake Kamoto.][Fusing Ancient Vampire Queen Velentisha's soul fragment with the host... 10%...34%...67%...100%.][Process successful.][Host form transforming from Human >> Low Elderian Vampire {???}.][Binding Blood System... Acquiring Blood System.]
With that, a wave of profound exhaustion washed over Blake. His newly altered body felt impossibly heavy, his consciousness tenuous. He swayed, his legs giving out, and he collapsed onto the cold stone floor, plunging into a profound, dreamless slumber. The last thing he felt was a strange, subtle hum deep within his very being, a sensation of vast, ancient power now residing where only emptiness had been before.